Trip to Portland
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I won't bore you with a completely linear account. If you want pictures, email me or sign the guestbook and I'll give ya the link. :)
The night we arrived in Portland, we dropped off our stuff at the hostel and went out to McMennamin's Blue Moon for a late dinner. Nice place, but their salsa's not as good as our Mexican place back home. :)
The next day we knew we had to eventually go to Seattle, but we packed a lot of exploring into one day. Lessee... we wandered all around.. from the Marquam/Steel/Hawthorne/Freemont Bridge(??)near Riverfront Park all the way down to Newport Bay restaurant. We had consulted our Chuck Palaniuk notes, and went to the Hatfield Federal Building where we knew there was a secret rooftop garden - very cool. :)
We then consulted the fabulous GPS - THESE ARE THE MOST MARVELOUS DEVICES WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE!! And we found some cool vegetarian food stands for lunch. :)
Eventually we made our way over to the car rental place and nabbed our vehicle. Let me just say that without the GPS, I would have cried... driving in Portland is NOT FUN! I grew up in NY, and Portland was a whole new experience. Why? Two things:
1) Crazy bridges.
I've discovered I REALLY hate highway bridges that are not only suspended way above the ground, but are also BANKED. Imagine a race track that's elevated about 4 or 5 stories off the ground. Now throw some water and other highways underneath it. Do you have a phobia yet?
2) Stupid bus-only roads. WTF is up with that? And can we mark these better, please?
3) Okay, THREE. Can we have some consistency with where the stoplights are? Either above or on the corners, but let's pick one.
Before heading out of town, we drove through the Hawthorne District and grabbed some groceries at Food Fight, a vegan grocery store. A VEGAN GROCERY STORE! I love Portland for that.
Anyway, we eventually made our way to Seattle that night. Wandered around Seattle the next afternoon/evening, and had an AWESOME meal at a very good but very affordable Thai place near Pike Place Market. James also showed me "Lark in the Morning", a little music store with every musical instument imaginable. :)
We came back to Portland on Saturday, the 13th, but took the very scenic way back past MOUNT SAINT HELENS. It was a very foggy, rainy day (well, at sea level it was rainy)... we drove as high as we could, but our little rental car didn't want to deal wtih snow, so we had to turn back. Still, we got to see a gorgeous lake that was surrounded by mountains... It really seemed to be somehing out of Fellowship of the Rings, or perhaps Mists of Avalon. (Ask for my picture link.) And this was probably not more than 80 minutes or so from Portland!
We drove through Amboy and Battle Ground on the way back, and saw a butchered cow carcass on the side of the road. Very creepy... I had James take a picture, and he wisely chose only to take a picture of the skeleton and not the other "remains." Why would someone kill a cow by the side of a road and butcher it? I can only guess it was roadkill...
Other than that, there is definitely some pretty farm land in that area, not at all far from Portland. We stopped in Vancouver and looked for a place to grab dinner before crossing back over the I-5 bridge to Portland.
Vancouver, Washington (NOT the same was Vancouver, BC) wasn't as cute as I had hoped it would be. It reminded me of Wilmington, NC (or what Wilmington wants to be.) It was dead quiet early in the evening, and we only saw a few restaurants. It didn't seem like a very interesting place to live. I didn't see any pubs or cool coffee houses, but perhaps we were in the wrong area. We drove past Officer's Row, but it was surrounded by a strange industrial area, and it just wasn't as quaint as I had hoped it would be. Ah well.
We held on to the rental car, and the next day drove out along the historic highway towards Multnomah Falls. I can't do this trip justice in words - it requires photos. :) Beautiful falls, but it was damn cold. YUMMY lunch at Multnomah Lodge... I was again amazed at how we could be less than an hour from Portland and yet feel as though we were isolated in a wilderness lodge.
We made our way back to Portland, knowing that the Santas were going to be at Saturday market at 2 PM... but we didn't make it in time for that. Instead, we met up with them later that evening after they serenaded people at Schnitzer Hall with bawdy carols. We met up with them at the Virginia Cafe, and then all 200 of us (drunken) Santas made our way to Meier & Frank. . . .
Alll the way up all nine escalators... we quietly sneaked past happy shoppers and arrived in SANTALAND! :)
I'll cut this short... we also went to - oh my god - Mary's strip club, a yuppie bar ("just ice water and martini olives for all of us, please") and the Jefferson Theater... A PORN theater... oh my god... more on that some other time.
And more on Marrakesh.. Awesome Morrocan restaurant. They washed our hands in Jasmine water. :-)
The Indian food was great, too... and we stopped by "In her own words," a feminist bookshop in the Hawthorne District which is open 24 hours and is non-profit. How cool is that?
If I lived within city limits, I'd definitely go for the Hawthorne District... just wish the MAX wasn't such a hike from everything there.
We hiked through Washington Park the next day, and also walked all around Orenco Station (out in Hillsboro on the Red line, I think.) That seems like a cool place to live, too... houses, unfortunately, were pricey ($300k minimum, it seemed)but apartments were affordable.
That's the quick version!
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