Brews, Birds, and Bikes: The 48 Hour Portland Express, Part II

Some folks entertain themselves with dinner and a movie. Portlanders do things a little differently.  After all, why pay for Hollywood when you can see birds roosting for free!

Our next stop after the spectacle of the swifts was the Deschutes brewery.  I had already sampled a few Deschutes brews on Whidbey (and while bird-watching) and all had been excellent. Between the three of us, we ticked about 5 more off the menu. My favourite was the Conflux 2, which sounded like an operating system and tasted like a pine tree. The Wozenback with notes of sour cherry and bubble gum was also delicious.

Erik and Sasha getting married at the 24-hour Elvis wedding machine

It was around this time that I got drunk. Perhaps not a noteworthy event for some, but I'm a pretty sober girl these days, what with the biking down highways and all. Luckily I had excellent company, who were also rapidly losing their inhibitions. Inebriation loves company.

In my previous post, I listed some of the tempting eats Portland has to offer. But no culinary tour of the city would be complete without a food cart stop. When Erik first proposed this for dinner, I heard "food court" and was immediately overcome by a wave of bad mall memories.  He laughed, and I soon realized that this was an entirely different animal. Turns out Portland is teeming with chip-truck style food vendors which dish up everything from burgers to sushi and thai.  Now that's my kind of dining!

Sasha was really feeling the cage

Despite the fact that we'd already had beer for dinner, the boys and I stopped at the gyro stand (no Dad, I didn't join the dark side - I had falafel) for a little refreshment. Then began the club tour, during which Erik and Sasha showed me the city's top booty shaking establishments while I did my best to avoid consuming the various spirits Erik kept handing me, with mixed success (pun intended).  The rest of the evening was a blur, of which I will spare you the details, mostly because I can't remember them. I will only say that Erik may or may  not have gotten us kicked out of the gay bar for dancing three to a cage, and that he may or may not have been told off by a red-headed stripper.

 I slept until noon the next morning and woke up feeling great, thanks in large part to all the biking and the provolone grilled cheese Erik made us to top off the evening (we were, tragically, 10 minutes too late for the grilled cheese grill on Alberta). There's nothing like a healthy night of mayhem, topped with grease, to renew the spirit for those long miles ahead.

"Aw man! That fountain was wetter than I thought" -Erik

The heat was still in full force on Sunday, and I could have happily hunkered down with netflix for the afternoon, but time in a new city is precious and I was determined to explore. Besides, I would have felt pretty lazy next to my hosts had I spent the day watching TV. While Sara was studying for a nursing exam, Erik was spending long days renovating their basement, with the goals of making the entire house into a triplex rental unit.  This allowed Erik to put his training in custom furniture design to practical use, and cemented my future plan to move in permanently :)

Portland loves bikes!  On the way to the greyhound station there was actually bike commuter traffic.

   I decided to head downtown as I wanted to pick up a t-shirt and a new book. As soon as I said the world "book," Erik and Sara knew where to send me. Seems like Powell's books is something on an institution in Portland.  This new and used bookstore takes up an entire block, with several floors and rooms colour coded by genre. Now, those of you who know me know that I absolutely love bookstores -  I really am like a kid in a candy store amongst all those worlds of words. You can imagine how dazzled I was. Having to pick just one was a bit torturous, but I had a lot of fun browsing (and I'm sure my folks are glad that I wasn't able to add to my homeless library which they are currently storing).

After picking up a t-shirt at the thrift store across the street, I spent the rest of the afternoon walking randomly around downtown, mostly chasing food carts. When I got home, I caught the tail end of a BBQ hosted by Erik's neighbours and reluctantly began to prepare for an early departure the next morn. Sad though it was to leave my new friends (and soft bed!) I had the whole Oregon Coast ahead of me. A new chapter of adventure.

See you again soon, Portland. Save some mac n' cheese for me!




Dana