Thursday
Thursday morning I woke up at six and downed my coffee, got dressed in a comfortable outfit of jeans, t-shirt, a zip up polar fleece, and tennis shoes. Finished packing my last minute items like the phone charger and hairbrush and rubbed my fleece all over Radar so Woody could smell her. Headed off to Charlotte and watched the sunset come up as I headed north. I've only driven into the airport once, last year, and don't really remember the exit into the airport. By this point Mike called me back after I texted him at the gas station asking him to call since I figure he's the only person I know who would be up and not doing anything that could prevent him from chatting. He's more familiar with the CLT airport and tells me to just follow the signs. I do and end up in the long term parking and hopped on the shuttle to the airport. I felt slightly rushed of my own accord because it was closing in on the hour til departure mark and I was just walking into the main part of the airport. Security wasn't taking too terribly long, but I felt like an idiot trying to remember the protocol. Other than acting slightly idiotic and panicked when someone does something like trying to remove something from their suitcase, it went smoothly.
I arrived at my gate easily and boarded the plane with no problem other than right as I was about to cross from the apron to the plane, an airport person told me that my bag needed to be checked. I tried to ignore him and go on anyway, but he stopped me with a hand on my shoulder and I acted like I thought he was talking to the person behind me. They took my bag and told me it would be joining me in PDX. I was dubious about it but tried to look on the bright side of not having to heft it overheard or drag it behind me to my connecting flight in Chicago.
The flight from Charlotte to Chicago was amazing. I had a window seat and kept my face pressed to it the entire time, staring out at the landscape below me. The clouds were minimal so I got to see the Appalachians rising in the distance, and then slowly we came to be flying right over them. Seeing the ridges and patterns of the topography from overhead was enthralling. I don't think the plane flew as high as it would if we were going a longer distance, because I was able to make out roads and tiny dots of houses the entire way. Seeing the green patchwork of the Midwestern farmlands made me wonder how those perfectly straight lines got made every single time. It was like a crazy quilt made with thousands of shades and hues of green. Before I knew it we were circling Chicago, which stretched out so much farther than I imagined, all of the blocks arranged in perfect squares with parallel and perpendicular lines laid out with precision to create the grid that Chicago is known for.
This was the most effortless plane ride ever, and I deplaned in Chicago and hustled a little between Concourses B and C through this amazing light and music show with softly tinkering music and magical lights that blink in time with the music, probably to calm down harried travelers. With about an hour between flights, I grabbed a crappy and not filling at all salad and ate it in the twenty or so minutes I had prior to boarding. The flight across the country was much longer and more boring than the first flight of the day. We immediately ascended into clouds, leaving with me nothing else to look at but a blanket of whiteness underneath the plane. I talked to the older couple next to me on the plane a bit, they are from Portland and were very helpful especially as it got closer to landing time and I became nervous about how to get myself from the airport to the coffee shop where Kellie worked in the Pearl District.
I deplaned again, found my suitcase in the baggage claim area fairly easy and headed to the TriMet ticket buying area and bought one for two hours worth of transportation. The tickets work on the lightrail, buses, and streetcars. I asked the worker where I needed to get off for where I was wanting to go and sat on the train listening intently for my stop name. It was a little jostly and crowded but this was the only time it was like that the rest of the trip. I got off at the Galleria stop and tried to figure out what direction to walk to hop a bus to get to Kellie's work, but I could tell from my map that it was only maybe 10 blocks and decided to just walk. It was windy and a little cold to me since it was 70 degrees last time I was outside, earlier that morning in Charlotte!
I walked, and walked, dragging my roll on behind me and wishing that I had packed less books in my backpack. Finally I found the place and immediately dug into my carry on for my peacoat to help me warm up. The yay, there was Kellie! She got me some hot coffee that helped knock the chill off a little and I hung around until she was done with work. The salad I'd had in Chicago hours ago hadn't done me any favors in keeping me full so I was starving at this point. I left my luggage in the back room and we walked down to a little restaurant and bar called Oven and Shaker in the Pearl District, where we had beers and a winter squash pizza. That pizza was amazing. I scarfed down my half, though savoring it with each bite for sure.At $17 for a medium sized pie it wasn't cheap but I wasn't in the mood to pinch pennies at the time.
I was exhausted from the day of travel so we went back to her apartment via lightrail and a ten minute walk. I was standing on the rail this time as opposed to sitting and watching a train on the opposite track rush past outside of the window was making me woozy. But we finally got to her apartment, and I was so excited to see Woody!!!
I had rubbed my fleece on Radar before I left and I can tell he smelled her and was wondering why I was there without her! We rolled around and hung out for a bit before I decided that I was hungry yet again. We drove (thank God) to the Alberta Arts District for Thai and pie. The Thai came from Cha Ba Thai where we split the spring rolls and I got some kind of lemongrass tofu soup. The soup was okay. I just don't seem to love soups from Thai places, for some reason. Maybe the thought of all of the noodles, rice, and sauces that I love from Thai cuisine seem way more appealing. However, at the time all I wanted was hot liquid to radiate warmth throughout my whole body.
After the Thai we had some pie and autumnal drinks from Random Order Coffeehouse and Bakery. This was a hip little cafe that specialized in tasty pies, with at least six if not more options available. Kellie and I split an Oregon cherry pie and a pumpkin pie with a twist (what was the twist? I can't recall), and I also got a caramel apple cider. THIS was the best thing I'd ingested all day. It was tart, sweet, smooth, spiced, and warmly soothing all at once in every single sip. I look forward to re-creating a similar drink here at home. We caught up and read some of the alternative weekly paper here. It was nice to just stay still for a while here.
And that was Thursday in Portland. I think I managed to stay up til 11 p.m. local time (2 p.m. East Coast time).
Friday
Friday morning I woke up wondering what to do in the cool, misty rain that was lightly falling. It was easy to want to stay in the apartment and sleep or just pet Woody but I didn't fly across the country to just sit. The original plan was to take Kellie's car and drive to the coast to touch the Pacific Ocean but I couldn't bring myself to commit to the travel. So I leashed up Woody and we went to Multnomah Falls, which was only a 30 minute drive eastward. I had my phone GPS all geared up with the address and everything and headed out into the ever-present light mist.
The exit to take to get to MF reminded me a lot of driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. It just felt incredibly similar and comfortable, and of course, indescribably beautiful.Woody and I took a short walk from the parking lot to the lower level of the falls.
Then we walked up to the bridge crossing the falls and took a few photos, but didn't stay very long because the water was actually splashing onto the bridge a bit and I was not in the mood to get any soggier than I already was feeling. It was gorgeous there, but we did not stay very long. If it was less wet we might have hiked up another mile or so to the next viewing area.
While on the interstate I realized that Washington State was just on the other side of the river to the right (when heading back towards downtown Portland)! I figured I'd take the chance to go visit another state and took the Vancouver exit. But then I realized... I didn't know what in the world to do in Washington so I ended up filling up the car with gas and getting a Starbucks coffee in the state where Starbucks hails from. And that was my big Washington trip!
By that point I was ravenously hungry and drove to Alberta Street again since I knew there were multiple places to eat and that it was close enough to home. Woody hung out in the car with the windows cracked while I went to find something to nourish myself. At first I stopped in a French sandwich shop and bakery type place but they were being a little ridiculous about getting the five or so people standing around waiting for a table seated to I just left and walked farther down the street. A place called Halo Thai looked inviting though empty so I went in and got great service and the most amazing Thai food.
I ordered the Sweet Basil Lover with tofu and once again, dove into it with a ferocious hunger. It was red and green peppers, onions, and tofu bathed in the most aromatic and savory brown sauce I've ever had. Basil leaves sprinkled on the dish added a sweetly fragrant burst of freshness in most every bite as well. The tofu was fascinating, I've never had it like this before. It was cut into finger sized slices, and was crispy on the outside, even though it was covered in the sauce. I wanted to ask how they did it but figured I wouldn't have any luck. I would give anything to have another plate of this for lunch right now. A mound of rice on the side soaked up the brown sauce, serving as a vessel for more of it to make me go "MmmmMMMM" as I scarfed it up like a wild animal. I couldn't finish, unfortunately, but took a box with the rest to eat later.
I spent more of the afternoon just hanging out until it was time to go pick Kellie up from work. I feel like we had to have eaten something for dinner but can't remember what it was. Apparently I lost some time in there but I DO know that we went to a food truck (the only one I got to visit on this trip yet I can't remember the name or location of it), where we got a huge crepe called "Death by Chocolate" along with some little spongy cake things from the nice Asian lady running it. She gave us extra coconut because we were her last customers before she closed up for the weekend. This crepe traveled with us to Kellie's friend Kelly's house where we tried in vain to convince her to join us on our next adventure. She didn't want to come, so we went to a very industrial area in a part of town Kellie hadn't been to yet and drove up a hill to a place that looked like a cabin. We showed them our IDs and were given raffle tickets, as crazily dressed girls that worked there walked by, impervious to the cooler air that was blowing in from the outside. We were at Casa Diablo (NSFW), the world's only vegan strip club. We went for the novelty of it more than anything, but it was kind of like watching a sporting event. Most of those girls were very athletic and limber. It was pretty fun, and to top it off, Kellie won a dance with her raffle ticket. We stayed about an hour and a half and didn't feel skeeved out at any point. However, we agreed that if we didn't know it was vegan from the get-go, we never would have known otherwise. What makes it vegan is that the people who work there aren't allowed to wear leather or fur, and the menu is vegan. We did not try any of the food. But it was a fun experience, and makes for a hilarious story.
I knew I forgot something on Friday afternoon and that was dinner at Widmer Brothers Gasthaus! Widmer is one of the few craft beer breweries that I've tried lots of their stuff and was familiar with it before I even thought about going to Portland. Once I found out it was about four miles from Kellie's I was like THIS. WE ARE GOING HERE. We were about an hour too late to take a brewery tour but we had an incredibly velvety smooth beer cheese soup made from Drop Top Amber Ale and Oregon made Tillamook cheese from their factory on the coast that I wanted to tour (but didn't make it out to the coast). We also had a flight of six different beers: their Hefe which I'd had before, X Wheat, Oktoberfest, Drop Top, Brrr, and Drifter. Like pros, we arranged our beers from lightest to darkest (my list above may not reflect that, by the way) and enjoyed the atmosphere and buzz. THEN we went about the rest of our night...
SATURDAY
Saturday I woke up to an empty apartment except for Woody and pretty immediately put on my jacket and leashed up Woody for a quick drive up to the Whole Foods and the Starbucks on Fremont. I NEEDED coffee and breakfast to face the challenges that lay ahead of me: public transportation navigation, ALONE. Because it was raining a bit harder than the light mist that it had been the past two days, we came back to the apartment so I could map out my route and minimize getting lost. An hour later, I headed out to get on the bus at a stop a few blocks away on Broadway to head towards downtown. I got off fairly close to Kellie's work again and checked to see what time I needed to be back and then set off to find lunch. I walked east for some reason and decided to stop in and have lunch at a cute and empty little place called Gallo Nero.
It was still only 11 a.m. by this point so I got an item off the brunch menu, a vegetable risotto with roasted potatoes on the side and two poached eggs. Now this was excellent. It was plated so beautifully, and the flavors complemented one another so well. The risotto was very creamy, interspersed with bits of chopped asparagus, onions, fresh cherry tomatoes, and probably a few other veggies I can't recall anymore, and topped with thinly shaved Parmesan. The potatoes were roasted to a crisp on the outside, while being tender and delicately seasoned. As I am wont to do with my potatoes and eggs, I spooned the eggs on top of the potatoes and broke the yolks so that the yellow sunshine poured all over the tubers and added a rich protein filled layer of complexity to the dish.
After I took a few moments to digest this I asked the server where I should go to walk and look at shops and she suggested 23rd Street and gave me directions to the nearest streetcar. With my bus pass I was able to jump on the streetcar for no additional cost and really enjoyed this form of public transportation. It was very quiet, clean, and smooth. It stopped about every other block or so it seemed, and really covered a lot of ground. I got off on 23rd and started walking. At first it seemed underwhelming and I was like, "Why did they tell me to come here??" But then more shops started to appear. Some of these hip clothes are expensive, man! There were a lot of stores that were Anthropologie-like, but they were independent shops. I ended up not buying anything but I wanted to real hard.
Once again in an effort to not get lost and possibly walk farther to find public transportation I walked from 23rd to 12th street in a light, chilly mist with my scarf over my head again, babuska style. Then it was time for SOCCER! I will admit I was not excited about going to a soccer game in the rain when it was already chilly. We walked to Jeld-Wen stadium, and met up with Kellie's friend who had the tickets.
He gave us Timbers scarves, and a sheet of chants, two things that are very important during Timbers games, and I didn't yet know HOW important at the time, but once I experienced it, I was just as into it, minus the chanting. And some most of the chants are super not family friendly, but they were hilarious anyways. There were a lot of signs and flags too, including this one that I got a backwards shot of for Patrick:
We got plenty of Oregon brewed beers, the names I have forgotten already (ummm), and at some point I disappeared to take a break from the rain and went to the inner part of the stadium and ended up with this Timbers hat that really helped improve my spirits for the rest of the game.
The game ended in a tie (a tie! how do they even know who won? wait, they DON'T) and we walked and used public transportation to get back home. Then! Then we picked out outfits to wear to a Halloween party and headed over to Kelly's house to get extra props like wigs and stuff. I found a great costume and decided to go as an underemployed lawyer Kellie for Halloween!
I even introduced myself to the people hosting the party we went to as Kellie. So they thought that three girls named Kelly/ie came over all at once. I don't think any of them ended up realizing that I had a real name at all, I was terribly amused until I got incredibly tired. We stayed out until after midnight, which felt like 3 a.m. to me. I reaallllly felt it, but once we got home I was asleep pretty immediately. Which leads us into Sunday....