Portland, Technically a repost
Our first stop in Portland was the Paramount hotel. Why did we stop there? Because Kurt works there! It was awesome, Chris and I walked into the lobby and he went right up to Kurt and asked him some touristy question. Kurt kind of starred and scrunched up his eyes, for what must have been a good 5 seconds or so before his eyes lit up with genuine surprise.
I guess that my memory of Portland is either really hazy, or a lot has changed. We first went to Pioneer Square, where I remembered a packed square filled with live music and the works. When we got there, there was basically just an empty stage and a coffee shop in the corner. After not really finding anything of note other than a visitor center, we decided to head to the next place on our list of things to do.
We crossed the river at Burnside Bridge, trying to find Burnside Skatepark. It wasn’t all that hard, but it was a bit of a walk. In truth it was really disappointing because it seems like they had just painted over all of the cool graffiti. There were probably around 15 skaters there, and I felt kind of awkward just being a poser and watching from the side, so we spent about 2 minutes there if that. I was actually pretty sad because I had really wanted to see it again and show Chris, but now it looked kind of crappy and a total let down.
So yeah, at this point I was pretty bummed out, because nothing in Portland seemed to be the way I remember it, and I was kind of questioning the decision to stop here at all.
We looked around for a place to eat, and settled on a restaurant named Pizza Schmizza. Chris asked if they had any unique or signature dishes, and the girl told us that they had ‘Alligator Pie’ completely with alligator sausage so of course we had to order that. I can’t really say exactly what alligator tastes like, because it basically tastes like chewy spicy sausage. Still, it was a unique experience and pretty tasty.
As we were walking around the city looking for something to do, we passed by this cool looking bar called the Living Room. We walked further down the block, we noticed a bunch of movie posters for new indie movies on the walls, and realized that we were next to a movie theatre. Having some time to burn before Kurt got off work, we decided to see a movie. As it turns out, the bar and the theatre were one and the same. Even better, movies were only 5 dollars each, although this was balanced out with 10 dollar drinks. Inside was about 6 really intimate theatres, each with a good sized screen and about 20 very nice seats and tables. The waitress delivered our drinks directly to us in the theatre. I could totally imagine myself doing something like that on a regular basis. I felt like a total indie 20 something hipster, and it was great. We ended up seeing the movie Kabluey, which really reminds me about how much I like indie film.
After the movie, we milled around in some of Portlands urban green squares/parks and then we met up with Kurt. We went up to the bluff and hung out there sipiping champagne. As we sat on the bluff I started to get really nostalgic as I watched the same train tracks. The same tracks curved around the bluff at all the way around U of P, just a few miles north of where we were. Apparently Momoko is doing some pretty awesome things and biking all around the world which is totally cool. I’m definitely happy for her.
I’m really glad that we went to Portland. I felt a lot better about things, especially since the last time I had been there was on such a bad note. I think it was important for me to go especially since I just graduated from UCLA, so maybe in a way it helped to heal the wounds from that time.
Another thing that is worth noting that it seems that Portland has tons and tons of young people. Oh yeah, for a few hours military helicopters kept buzzing by the city at super low altitudes, and landing on certain buildings. This would happen at like 5 minute intervals. Apparently the military was practicing how to evacuate high rise buildings or some such.
I guess that my memory of Portland is either really hazy, or a lot has changed. We first went to Pioneer Square, where I remembered a packed square filled with live music and the works. When we got there, there was basically just an empty stage and a coffee shop in the corner. After not really finding anything of note other than a visitor center, we decided to head to the next place on our list of things to do.
We crossed the river at Burnside Bridge, trying to find Burnside Skatepark. It wasn’t all that hard, but it was a bit of a walk. In truth it was really disappointing because it seems like they had just painted over all of the cool graffiti. There were probably around 15 skaters there, and I felt kind of awkward just being a poser and watching from the side, so we spent about 2 minutes there if that. I was actually pretty sad because I had really wanted to see it again and show Chris, but now it looked kind of crappy and a total let down.
So yeah, at this point I was pretty bummed out, because nothing in Portland seemed to be the way I remember it, and I was kind of questioning the decision to stop here at all.
We looked around for a place to eat, and settled on a restaurant named Pizza Schmizza. Chris asked if they had any unique or signature dishes, and the girl told us that they had ‘Alligator Pie’ completely with alligator sausage so of course we had to order that. I can’t really say exactly what alligator tastes like, because it basically tastes like chewy spicy sausage. Still, it was a unique experience and pretty tasty.
As we were walking around the city looking for something to do, we passed by this cool looking bar called the Living Room. We walked further down the block, we noticed a bunch of movie posters for new indie movies on the walls, and realized that we were next to a movie theatre. Having some time to burn before Kurt got off work, we decided to see a movie. As it turns out, the bar and the theatre were one and the same. Even better, movies were only 5 dollars each, although this was balanced out with 10 dollar drinks. Inside was about 6 really intimate theatres, each with a good sized screen and about 20 very nice seats and tables. The waitress delivered our drinks directly to us in the theatre. I could totally imagine myself doing something like that on a regular basis. I felt like a total indie 20 something hipster, and it was great. We ended up seeing the movie Kabluey, which really reminds me about how much I like indie film.
After the movie, we milled around in some of Portlands urban green squares/parks and then we met up with Kurt. We went up to the bluff and hung out there sipiping champagne. As we sat on the bluff I started to get really nostalgic as I watched the same train tracks. The same tracks curved around the bluff at all the way around U of P, just a few miles north of where we were. Apparently Momoko is doing some pretty awesome things and biking all around the world which is totally cool. I’m definitely happy for her.
I’m really glad that we went to Portland. I felt a lot better about things, especially since the last time I had been there was on such a bad note. I think it was important for me to go especially since I just graduated from UCLA, so maybe in a way it helped to heal the wounds from that time.
Another thing that is worth noting that it seems that Portland has tons and tons of young people. Oh yeah, for a few hours military helicopters kept buzzing by the city at super low altitudes, and landing on certain buildings. This would happen at like 5 minute intervals. Apparently the military was practicing how to evacuate high rise buildings or some such.