Okay then, Portland
Well, after missing my flight on friday evening (traffic on the 880N was sooooooooo slow because of an accident), I managed to get a seat on the next flight out at no extra charge. It was only 3 hours too, so after a quick txt to Nix and Stella apologising, I sat down and played my PSP 'til the batteries ran out, then read my book.
Flight was ok (slept for most of it), and my checked in bag thankfully did *not* get lost, as I had a sneaking suspicion it might do. Caught the train with Nix and Stella back to the middle of the city, and after dropping my bags in their room, we wandered around Portland for a while in search of Pizza. Highly amusing too; we managed to cover the same piece of street about 5 times, and after we *did* find a Dominos, it was boarded up. So we got in a car and went to a pizza place called Old Chicagos (open 'til 2am!). Where they sold Theakston's Old Peculiar. I almost cried, I was so happy. Food was pretty good, too. After food, it was back in the car, back to Downtown Portland, and back to the Room of Doom (it wasn't a particularly Doomy Roomy, but Room of Doom has such a good ring. Nix, Stella, I hearby officially dub your room the Room of Doom).
Saturday morning, Nix, Dagan and Dagan's girlfriend and I wandered around a Farmer's Market that was close by... soooo awesome. It reminded me of the Farmers Markets we have back in Romsey. So great. Also realised that I had given my credit card to Brianne the previous night and hadn't gotten it back. Ooops. After that, Nix and I went for a walk around the Downtown area, which was awesome. There were really strange fountain thingies called Bubblers, I think Nix called them. Could be wrong. Walked along by the river too, and there were some *fantastic* photo ops along the river. And the mountain in the distance was sooooo awesome. I may have also spun a story about poisonous ducks with red heads that chase people.
After that, I went to the AIESEC Oregon EB/GPM meetings, which took most of the afternoon, but which were interesting to sit in on. After that, a few of us went off to a Thai restuarant for food (after walking everywhere else first :P), and I got some excellent sushi. I'd never had sushi before coming here to the US, but I'm loving it :9
After that, went to Powell's Book City (the most amazing place *ever*), where I was *supposed* to meet some wotmaniacs, but due to my phone playing up, didn't. Ah well, next time.
Headed back to the Room of Doom via safeways to pick up pizza, and then headed over to Brian's house for a party around 7pm, minus a Nix. The party was awesome, with muchos drink, and re-meeting people from ROKS, and meeting new people, and generally having a good time. Brian got oh *so* drunk, which was highly amusing. I seem to remember ducttaping his mouth too, but I think that was earlier on. Stella got really rather drunk too. Got back to the Room of Doom about 2am, chatted for a while, and then failed to sleep for a few hours... Nix got back around 4am, and I think I drifted off shortly after that.
Sunday dawned nice and bright, and I woke up absurdly early, so read some more of my book until the girls woke up. Then we headed into Portland to the Saturday Market (yes, on a Sunday) where Stella and I found a place that sold donner kebabs. Proper donner kebabs. That completely made my weekend. I then also continued to spend money buying funky things including a pendant, a new ring, an awesome photo of an oregon coast sunset on a funky frame, some peppermint & tealeaf soap (smells *amazing*) and some scented candles (also amazing). There was also a spoonman.com stall, which fellow wotmaniacs will find as funny as I did.
After that, we met up with Marcus, Stella's... friend, for lack of a better word, and went for some vegan food. 'Cept the vgan-food place was shut, so went to get some pizza. 'Cept the pizza place was shut so we went to get some coffee. 'Cept I got a hot chocolate, because I don't like coffee. Then we went to a burrito place for a while, and just kinda chilled, which was cool.
Back to the Room of Doom then, and a quick stop at a Pot Luck lunch that was being held in the corridor (*delicious* food) before heading back down and out to go back to the airport. After a brief panic that I'd lost my passport *again* (I'd actually put it in the back pocket of my jeans not 30 seconds earlier), I got through and onto the plane with plenty of time to spare.
Except that it turns out that the flightcrew who were supposed to be flying our plane were lost, and that they were flying a new crew up form San Fransisco to fly us back down to Oakland. A 3 hour wait. After chatting with the person on the desk, I got a $6 food voucher and a ticket giving me a free taxi ride back to hotel when I landed. Managed to get back to Oakland around 0030 in the end (San Fransisco and Oakland from the air at night, with the whole Bay Area lit up, is possibly one of the most incredible things. It was just so pretty, with all the millions of tiny lights spread out like sparkling jewels on black velvet), and after zipping through the baggage check, was out and back in my hotel by 0100, where I promptly collapsed into bed.
In summary, Portland was amazing. I really love the city (which reminds me of Cardiff so, so much), and I really want to go back and spend more time there with people. It's strange how somethings just seem.. right, even if you can't express it. I wish I had a way with words.
The End.
And now I'm off to New York for 5 days tonight on a Red Eye flight. I leave San Jose at 2200, and arrive in New York at 0630... except that's 0630 New York time, and about 0330 my time. I'm going to need some extra sleep somewhere, methinks.
Flight was ok (slept for most of it), and my checked in bag thankfully did *not* get lost, as I had a sneaking suspicion it might do. Caught the train with Nix and Stella back to the middle of the city, and after dropping my bags in their room, we wandered around Portland for a while in search of Pizza. Highly amusing too; we managed to cover the same piece of street about 5 times, and after we *did* find a Dominos, it was boarded up. So we got in a car and went to a pizza place called Old Chicagos (open 'til 2am!). Where they sold Theakston's Old Peculiar. I almost cried, I was so happy. Food was pretty good, too. After food, it was back in the car, back to Downtown Portland, and back to the Room of Doom (it wasn't a particularly Doomy Roomy, but Room of Doom has such a good ring. Nix, Stella, I hearby officially dub your room the Room of Doom).
Saturday morning, Nix, Dagan and Dagan's girlfriend and I wandered around a Farmer's Market that was close by... soooo awesome. It reminded me of the Farmers Markets we have back in Romsey. So great. Also realised that I had given my credit card to Brianne the previous night and hadn't gotten it back. Ooops. After that, Nix and I went for a walk around the Downtown area, which was awesome. There were really strange fountain thingies called Bubblers, I think Nix called them. Could be wrong. Walked along by the river too, and there were some *fantastic* photo ops along the river. And the mountain in the distance was sooooo awesome. I may have also spun a story about poisonous ducks with red heads that chase people.
After that, I went to the AIESEC Oregon EB/GPM meetings, which took most of the afternoon, but which were interesting to sit in on. After that, a few of us went off to a Thai restuarant for food (after walking everywhere else first :P), and I got some excellent sushi. I'd never had sushi before coming here to the US, but I'm loving it :9
After that, went to Powell's Book City (the most amazing place *ever*), where I was *supposed* to meet some wotmaniacs, but due to my phone playing up, didn't. Ah well, next time.
Headed back to the Room of Doom via safeways to pick up pizza, and then headed over to Brian's house for a party around 7pm, minus a Nix. The party was awesome, with muchos drink, and re-meeting people from ROKS, and meeting new people, and generally having a good time. Brian got oh *so* drunk, which was highly amusing. I seem to remember ducttaping his mouth too, but I think that was earlier on. Stella got really rather drunk too. Got back to the Room of Doom about 2am, chatted for a while, and then failed to sleep for a few hours... Nix got back around 4am, and I think I drifted off shortly after that.
Sunday dawned nice and bright, and I woke up absurdly early, so read some more of my book until the girls woke up. Then we headed into Portland to the Saturday Market (yes, on a Sunday) where Stella and I found a place that sold donner kebabs. Proper donner kebabs. That completely made my weekend. I then also continued to spend money buying funky things including a pendant, a new ring, an awesome photo of an oregon coast sunset on a funky frame, some peppermint & tealeaf soap (smells *amazing*) and some scented candles (also amazing). There was also a spoonman.com stall, which fellow wotmaniacs will find as funny as I did.
After that, we met up with Marcus, Stella's... friend, for lack of a better word, and went for some vegan food. 'Cept the vgan-food place was shut, so went to get some pizza. 'Cept the pizza place was shut so we went to get some coffee. 'Cept I got a hot chocolate, because I don't like coffee. Then we went to a burrito place for a while, and just kinda chilled, which was cool.
Back to the Room of Doom then, and a quick stop at a Pot Luck lunch that was being held in the corridor (*delicious* food) before heading back down and out to go back to the airport. After a brief panic that I'd lost my passport *again* (I'd actually put it in the back pocket of my jeans not 30 seconds earlier), I got through and onto the plane with plenty of time to spare.
Except that it turns out that the flightcrew who were supposed to be flying our plane were lost, and that they were flying a new crew up form San Fransisco to fly us back down to Oakland. A 3 hour wait. After chatting with the person on the desk, I got a $6 food voucher and a ticket giving me a free taxi ride back to hotel when I landed. Managed to get back to Oakland around 0030 in the end (San Fransisco and Oakland from the air at night, with the whole Bay Area lit up, is possibly one of the most incredible things. It was just so pretty, with all the millions of tiny lights spread out like sparkling jewels on black velvet), and after zipping through the baggage check, was out and back in my hotel by 0100, where I promptly collapsed into bed.
In summary, Portland was amazing. I really love the city (which reminds me of Cardiff so, so much), and I really want to go back and spend more time there with people. It's strange how somethings just seem.. right, even if you can't express it. I wish I had a way with words.
The End.
And now I'm off to New York for 5 days tonight on a Red Eye flight. I leave San Jose at 2200, and arrive in New York at 0630... except that's 0630 New York time, and about 0330 my time. I'm going to need some extra sleep somewhere, methinks.
posted by Nebhead at
22:46
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home