I had a very lovely weekend in Portland with some good friends. It was so fun to make the trip down there, imagining myself in just 5 weeks driving to Portland, stopping for a bit, and then driving on south to San Francisco! Adventure awaits, and close at hand!
I had some great coffee in Portland, first at Coffeehouse Northwest http://www.myspace.com/coffeehousenw (weird that they have a myspace) and then at a brand new cafe and roaster called Sterling http://www.oregonlive.com/dining/index.ssf/2010/02/sterling_coffee_roasters_to_op.html, which I guess was started by a barista from Coffeehouse Northwest. Small world, well, at least the coffee world is small.
In order to be very Portlandy Portland I also went to Powell's to sell some books. That place was craaaaazy! There was a line for everything and a million people everywhere. What makes crowded bookstores so much worse than, say, crowded restaurants is that everyone has to saunter around. Yeah, looking at books is a slow process and you want to stop and pick up a book that interests you, read a paragraph or so, put it back and move a step to the right and do it all over again. I'm the same way. But when there's a MILLION people around you it makes things kind of difficult! I kept trying to get from the Blue Room to the Green Room or the Pink Room to the Yellow Room and had to push my way past moms with fanny packs taking a thoughtful look through a Jan Karon novel and groups of college students looking for Can I Smoke This (no, guys, it isn't in the 'green' room but feel free to stand in a large clump right in front of the door). Jeez louise.
Overall Portland was great and catching up with friends and family was great too. I had happy hour with my brother and I'm sure we confused the bartender by being:
1. a man and a woman
2. close in age
3. at a bar together
4. on Valentine's day
5. related.
But we had a nice chat and watched some of the Olympics. Great times in Portland. Here's to jumping in to a full week!
Also, I can't get this song out of my head. Happy Presidents' Day, part 2:
duh. because it's awesome.
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