Rain and Samantha's Excellent Adventure: Portland! Ocean! Endor!

Samantha: We finally made it to Portland for the weekend! My long lost cousin Chan and his boyfriend Adam welcomed us warmly into their city. Adam, being a sweetheart, let us take over his cute studio apartment. We even hauled our bikes up there (being that we still hadn’t bought a lock to secure them to the car…we’re from Vermont, afterall). Chan then brought us to one of their favorite restaurants, Circa 33, for some savory happy hour burgers (local meat, housemade ketchup), and delicious beer. I had a Migration IPA, it was a good decision. We learned that Portland has quite the micro-brewery scene, though we were a little tight on time and money to sample much of it. Adam joined us for dinner later on, and we all had a fabulous time getting to know each other. Chan has been to SO MANY countries! He works for AFS, and so he gets to travel the world – some perk! I’m very grateful I finally got to meet him.

After dinner, we went for a walk around the park in the Belmont area. There was a showing of the movie Hugo in the park, apparently a signature treat of Portland. There were whole families arriving on bike for the movie in the park! I was pretty thrilled about this. It looked like such a charming outing. From there we went to an extensive candy store (open until 10 pm!), and then to the historic Avalon theater for some 5 cent arcade games.

The next day, Rain and I explored Hawthorne Blvd on foot. This street is loaded with nifty boutiques, including Mag-Big, a shop that features clothing, jewelry, and other crafts made exclusively by local artists. We scouted out the Red Light clothing exchange for a bit, but spent a good chunk of time in an antique store that went on room after room after room. I was impressed by how much stuff they could squeeze into every nook and cranny, a feat perfected by antique collectors and dealers. This shop was a masterpiece. We also popped into a student-run Tibetan store, and grabbed a savory lunch from a Mexican meal cart…sooo good.

Later on, we rested and caught up via Skype with family and friends, then went out for a late dinner at the India Grill. The samosas and chutneys were scrumptious. On our way back to Adam’s place, we stopped in a bar called the Blue Monk, the allure of free funk music much stronger than that of sleep. I didn’t catch the name of the first group who played, though they definitely moved my bones. The second band up introduced themselves as the Planet Jackers, and they too, were fanfunkingtastic. Free funk on the walk home from dinner? Portland, I love you (don’t worry Cleveland, your late night street reggae has a tight hold on my heart).

The next day, we went the UU service in downtown Portland, bought bread, talked to friendly fellow Unitarians, and then met Chan and Adam for Chan’s birthday brunch at Zell’s. Light, warm scones with homemade raspberry jam, a little too much coffee, and fresh, mouthwatering baked salmon in hollandaise sauce with sweet roasted veggies and rice, mmm-mmm!
Downtown Portland was pretty nifty, I would like to go back eventually and check out the nightlife more, as well as the shops and all the art. Overall, I'm a fan of Portland. I feel normal there, and I have to work to be weird - it's a new experience. In any case, I will be back to see Chan! He and Adam were terrific hosts.

On a introspective note, I’m loving all the extended family I’m getting to know on this trip, and valuing every minute of it. It seems that for me this adventure has become, on its own, a mission to meet all these kind, creative, generous, and, most remarkably, loving members of my family for the first time. It feels incredible to know that they've all been there, and now I'm developing this new life, creating this new experience, and they are all a part of it now.

Rain: I have to say, Portland has been the place where I've felt the most at home so far. Ten minutes of driving into the city and there was already something about it that was definitely making me dig it. The East side was full of little neighborhoods that reminded me of some Burlington places- a bunch of funky houses with garden and artwork and peace-flags, right near cafes and neat little shops. I think that different cities have different personalities, and some I just have an instinctive liking of more than others. I've always adored New York City, but was never very excited by Boston. I liked Cleveland a lot, but Chicago left me thinking "this place is cool, but I don't have a burning desire to live here". Portland seemed like a kindred spirit city. Like Sam said, it's a place where you would have to work to be weird. I like that- goodness knows I've had my share of funky phases, looks-wise. There were an enviable amount of women sporting varying shades of sea-green hair, which I found quite fetching. Perhaps future pictures of the trip will show me with a different hairdo....

Anyway, I had a blast while we were there. I would love to live on the West Coast at some point, and I could definitely see Portland being one of those places. We passed by the local Hostel, which I got all excited by. They have incorporated rainwater filtration and bio-remediation into their building design, and it was beautiful. I've heard people talk about doing stuff like that in urban areas but this was the first time I'd seen it just there and being put to proper use, and it excited me to no end. I'd love to know more about systems like those and how to implement them.

Going to the local UU church on Sunday was good, and centering. UU's are a small community in relation to everyone else, but it has been this wonderful experience for me to go all over the country and find pockets of them in different places, all showing the same warmth and open-heartedness. The church was much bigger than the ones in Vermont- the sanctuary had a second level of seats around the outside, and the order of service said that they held two sermons on Sundays during the regular church year. A far cry from the tiny congregation of the St. J church up here, but still the same spirit!

Anyway... we went on a few fun excursions while we stayed there, one of which I'll write more about below (a tiny hint: I was pretty excited about it). Another- we drove out of the city and went to a place called Sauvie Island. It's in the middle of a nearby river, and at 17.5x6 miles around, is apparently the largest in-river freshwater island in the Northern Hemisphere. It was all flat and filled with agricultural land and had beaches at the far end, so Samantha and I went for about a 20 mile round trip bike ride to Collins beach and back, complete with a picnic by the water and a stop to eat some wild blackberries on the way back.

And instantly, Samantha was home.

So many awesome things to do!

The wonderful restaurant Chan and Adam took us to.

Circa seating

one of many murals around Belmont

the green-roofed hostel!

a green wall for rainwater filtration

their little garden out front

one of several food carts around Hawthorne St. Portland has a bazillion of these.

Ooohkay.

A beautifully hand-made corset dress crafted by a local artist.

Rain: And our other excursion: The ocean!! (I really love doing new things- any time that I get to do something really awesome that I've never ever done before, I get super nerdy excited about it. Like, my brains just keeps going "Hey, this is NEW!" And then I'm happy). So, this was my first time touching the Pacific Ocean, and it was a big deal for me. It's the moment I've been looking forward to since the beginning of this trip, and I finally got it! And not only did we get to go to the ocean finally, we went right by where they filmed pieces of The Goonies, and Star Wars. That's right, I can say I've been on the forest moon of Endor. It was pretty cool. Also, we completely forgot to check the weather before we went because we got used to it being sunny everywhere... nope. As soon as we got near the coast it was super windy and rainy all over the place. Luckily I was a good hitchhiker and had brought my towel with me, so all was well.