Finally....Portland

I am almost ashamed of myself for letting my blog writing get so far behind. Almost. I am not ashamed, but I could be doing better. I returned from my trip to Portland over a week ago and am just now doing a follow up post about the trip.

Black Chinese?

As stated in earlier posts, Kirsten and I went to attend the wedding of my cousin. Since we arrived five days before the wedding, we had time to take in the city. The first thing we noticed were the people.

Portland has been called the hipster capital of the world and it didn't take long to see why. The residents of Portland definitely have their own style. We saw a child toddler walking between his parents that appeared to be in a pirate costume, although, I don't think it was a costume. They just really liked the vest over all those ruffles.

There was a much higher percentage of tattoos and facial piercings as compared to what I have seen in other cities across the country. On average, one in every three women had a hoop nose ring and some restaurants would not allow entry without some ink showing.

I did the best I could to capture some of these people, but do not have the ninja camera skills of Misty at Misty's Laws. These are the best I could get without being noticed.

Those pants look like they were made
from one of my grandmother's quilts.

Besides the clothes,why the washboard?

Bicycle-riding crime fighter?

Was that intentional?
How does this happen?

We decided to pass on this one.

Being so far from home, we had no choice but to eat out for every meal. We searched the internet and scoured the streets for the best places to eat.

Here at home, there are the typical choices of various fast food restaurants and a few ethnic food places (Mexican/Chinese), but there is not a lot of variety. When we found the food cart area of downtown Portland, we were overwhelmed at the number of options available to us.

There were the expected Chinese, Italian, and Mexican places, but we wanted something we couldn't get back home. I love trying new foods and checked out every cart before making my choice. We could have gyros, tacos, hot dogs, shish-ka-bobs, noodles, soups or egg rolls. There was Ethiopian, Greek, Cajun, Belgian, Nicaraguan, Thai, Vietnamese, Australian and even Kosher Egyptian. After carefully considering all our options (and, trust me, it wasn't easy), we finally made our choice.

Yes! We flew all the way to Portland
and ate grilled cheese sandwiches.

After looking at all the vendors, we went with the grilled cheese. Now, I make a mean grilled cheese sandwich, but these guys really know what they are doing. Plus, they make about a dozen different varieties. I ordered one with bacon and tomato on sourdough bread. It was incredible.

Besides the food, there was plenty to see. While walking down Alberta Street one night, we came across a vaudeville type side show.

The show hadn't actually started yet. They were either practicing or trying to show people how to do what they were doing. A small crowd had gathered to watch or learn. If this happened in my town, there would have been a large crowd gathered. This goes to show how common place this type of stuff must be. Most people just walked by without giving it any recognition.

Here is a short unedited video of what they were doing.

After watching for a few minutes a deciding we had seen all they had to show, we journeyed further down the street. A few blocks down, a couple of guys were setting up a speaker on the sidewalk and soon, this happened.

The people of Portland seem to like to take their talents to the street. They other guy in the video had the talent of setting up the sound system. He did take the mike later to try his hand at rapping, but it was very short lived. I don't know if that guy would even have the rhythm to clap a consistent beat, much less try to rap.

Due to the lack of parking spaces,
all bikes must be chained to this pole
in order to shop on this block.

Portland, being the metropolis that it is, has many similar problems to other big cities. One of those problems is often what I find to be most frustrating when I am in large cities: trying to figure out where to park. There are thousands of people on the streets and cars driving everywhere, but there are only seven parking spaces that must be shared by the entire city. It gets pretty complicated and frustrating.

One of the times I used a parking garage, the attendant gave me a ticket with a parking time of two hours before I had gotten there. Of course, I didn't notice this until an hour after I had walked away from my car. When I returned to my car later and pointed out the problem, he said I would have to pay the full amount. That was going to cost me an extra $15. I refused and showed him the time stamped on the receipt of the vendor across town that I had visited right before coming to his garage. He wasn't having it and insisted upon the full amount. When I started screaming "RAPE!!!" he threw me my keys and told me to leave. That works every time.

We went outside the city one day to get out and see the landscape of Oregon. We crossed over into Washington and drove out to the ocean. Despite the beautiful scenery and the incredible views of the mountains, I couldn't help but notice that the people of the Northwest must take these majestic views for granted. I base this on the names they give the local attractions. With names like CAPE DISAPPOINTMENT and DISMAL NITCH, they don't appear to be as impressed with the scenery as we were.

Yes, that is Jen from "Jen" e sais quoi

On Saturday night, I contacted the Portlandia Mom "Jen"  of  "Jen" e sais quoi for her to recommend a church to us. She graciously invited us to her church which just happened to be having its Independence Day Weekend All-American Veteran Freedom Festival Barbecue. I really don't remember what it was called. It was something like that.

I know I have only seen this church one time, but I loved it. It seems to be an awesome church and Jen praised it several times. She loves that church and I could see why.

After the service, we went outside to get plates of food and come back inside to enjoy a full orchestra playing Americana music.

Before each song, one member would explain the significance of the song and why it was chosen. One of the songs by John Phillip Souza was written to commemorate the return of the Liberty Bell to Philadelphia after touring the country. It was called the Liberty Bell March. As soon as the song started, I recognized it.

It was the theme song to Monty Python's Flying Circus. I couldn't help but visualize the big foot to coming down to squish the orchestra. After the song, I had to wonder why patriotic Americans chose the theme from a British sketch comedy show to represent a piece of American history.

We had a great time that morning listening to the orchestra and visiting with Jen. I can assure you that she is as funny and friendly in person as she is on her blog. Plus, a few days before she introduced me to the Office Skank (her readers will understand), so I feel that I have seen all there is to see in Portland. Thank you, Jen.

In all, I consider this to have been a great trip. I saw everything I wanted to see. I don't know if I will ever find my way to Portland again, but we had a great time for the week that we were there.

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Following are a few of the pictures I wanted to show, but did not fit into the above words.

I found where I want to go next year.
Kirsten did not agree.

Note that this was at a high school.

Sign stapled to a pole. I've stared at it for hours.
I still don't get it.

Kirsten seeing if she had what it took to be Malcom X.
She didn't.

In front of the vaudeville sideshow.
Facts about funnel cakes.
Click to enlarge.