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.

I Haven't Gotten into Too Much Trouble

I love my family.

Last night, Kirsten and I went to the welcome dinner for my cousin Andy's wedding. This is the first time I have seen him in 12 years. His brother Chip I haven't seen since my wedding 17 years ago. We got to see several others that I've seen more recently, but it was nice to get to catch up and hear what everyone has been up to.

The wedding is this afternoon. After running non-stop for three days, Kirsten and I have decided to take it easy for today. We are hanging out in the hotel room and only leaving to get food. Since we walked all over Downtown Portland yesterday, spent 8 hours in the car driving along the coast the day before, and checking out all the little shops on our first day, we are tired and out feet are sore. We will hit the town again tomorrow.

Here are some of the interesting things I have found:

Like Illinois, there are smoking laws here. People are not permitted to smoke within 10 feet of the entrance to a business.

These signs are beside every entrance to the hotel and are accompanied by an ashtray. However, they are right next to the door. Smoking is not allowed with 10 feet, but you have to walk up to the door that you are not permitted to approach in order to use the ashtray. Is it just me or does this seem like entrapment?

I could never be a street performer.
I don't have the wardrobe for it.

Despite the repeated warnings, Kirsten got too close
to one of the carnivorous trees. I almost lost her.
Don't tell her mother.

I never even learned her name.

After preventing a man from tripping and tumbling off the side of the mountain he gave me his wife. It took me less than thirty minutes to discover why he was so eager to get rid of her. I later traded her to a Japanese family to repay them for knocking their lunch and youngest child off the ledge.

They were not satisfied initially, but I explained that it was the law in America. Since I had replaced the lost child with another person they could not prosecute. I then bought them all corn dogs despite the fact that I had only cost them one lunch. I'm generous like that.

I'm looking for my contact lens.

Gotta love Oregon!

Busy in Portland

I have been in Portland for three days now. I had intended to write a post each day about some of the things Kirsten and I did that day, but it just hasn't worked out that way. There are several reasons for this.

1. The Wi-Fi connection in the hotel sucks.
2. We get in late every night. We like to party. What can I say?
3. I am exhausted when I get back.
4. My room smells like cinnamon. I don't know how that keeps me from writing, but it is peculiar.

I don't know how many posts will get written before we return home on July 3, but there will be stories to tell. Whether, they are told before or after I return home still remains to be seen.

Here are a few highlights. These are without details since I am sitting in a McDonald's taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi and trying to ignore the angry Korean staring at me to vacate his favorite table.

 
Apparently, you can get anywhere in the world from Portland. This is different than my home town. Where I am from, when someone asks me for directions, I usually tell them, "Sorry, you can't get there from here. Try the other side of town."

We climbed to the top of Multnomah Falls. Six hundred eleven feet to the top. The trail is over a mile long to get there and Kirsten decided to leave her shoes in the car so she could play in the water at the bottom. Halfway up the rough asphalt trail, she came to regret that decision.

I got in a fight with a parking attendant, met Jen of "Jen" e sais quoi, ate a lot of vegan food, had a sea salt ice cream cone, fed some hipsters, saw the Pacific Ocean, saw several celebrity look-a-likes, ventured into Washington state and got hopelessly lost near the port in Portland. We were close to killing a vagrant for food, but we found our way out.

Sorry for the brief post, but I will make up for it later with more details.