Portland

Hello people,

Not long now till Simone and I will be home safe and sound. Our next stop in the US was Portland, it a nice place but not too much to do. When we arrived at the hostel in Hawthorne a trendy suburb just outside of the centre (downtown), we sorted our room out and checked out the activities in the area. The hostel we stayed at was really nice, very homely and friendly staff. Not to mention free bagels and other baked goods all day everyday – oh yes. The afternoon in this new town we spent the time leisurely taking our time around the quirky little shops around Hawthorne. It was nice to see some independent stores rather than just visiting the chain stores that have plagued us around the whole of the US. The small shops don’t seem to have a chance here, its just maximum profit or bust. So the big stores use economies of scale and just screw the little guys over. This is something I really hope the UK doesn’t change to – that would be killer. We visited the dollar scholar (pound store equivalent), the cat’s meow (anything to do with cats – only), jewellery shops and clothes shops. Bought a few nice things to take home with us then made our way back to the hostel. That evening we spent the time cooking/eating some dinner (our classic chili concoction – including anything you could put into a chilli and more) and then later on everyone in the hostel was going out for some pool and beers at a local bar. I went out with 5 others from the hostel. The bar/pool & snooker room we went to was very cool indeed. The ceiling must have been a good 40feet high, so high, maybe the highest pool hall in the world – not sure, but it was very high. On the end wall they have had a painting which covers the majority of the wall (very detailed) then on the adjacent wall behind the bar they have a painting which was of the Taj Mahal and it was painted on to cloth (this also covering the most part of the wall) – both amazing. The guy who took us there paid for the table so long as I would teach him how to play snooker. So we played and I taught – and both had fun (1 game won apiece at the end). I had some very fine beers and ales in Portland. Portland has the most micro-breweries (independent small breweries) per square mile in the whole of the US, so plenty of choice of many fine beers to try – yum yum.

The next morning we spent a lot of time messing around with wondering what we would be doing that day and didn’t end up leaving the hostel till late, leaving us not much time to fit much in. So we just went into town and went to the cinema to watch a film. We watched grindhouse the new Tarentino/Rodriguez double bill blockbuster. Full of all the usual gore, great filmatography and originality you would expect from these two directing masterminds. After the cinema we decided to just take the bus back to the hostel dropping off in Safeways on the way. There we bought some beautiful steak, pepper sauce and veggies for our evening meal. Oh yes –that’s the good stuff!

The morning after we traveled on the excellent public transport system up to Washington Park for a hike around the park; catching lovely views of the city, relaxing, visiting the rose garden (where there were no flowers in bloom at all) and eye-ing up the unbelievable size of the redwood trees – crazy tall!! After spending some time walking around the mighty park we headed back to town to check out a book store that was one block wide by one block long (huge), didn’t find anything to buy so we left for some food. We picked up a slice of pizza (again huge – as everything is in the US) and one of those fine micro brewery beers. Back at the hostel we decided to go to the pool hall again for some pool and yep you guessed it some of that fine beer.

Forgot to mention above that earlier that morning we had been to see the smallest park in the world and the photo is here it is to prove it!

The next day was spent sorting ourselves out and staying dry (due to heavy rain all day). That afternoon we left and headed out to Seattle for our next stop in our tremendous journey...