Portland, Day 1

Tom, Dustin, Cara, and I just got back from a long weekend in Portland, Oregon. We had all heard wonderful things about Portland but had never been there, so we thought we would check it out for ourselves. As it turns out, we were there on the first "summery" weekend of the year (according to a number of people we met), so our first impression may not be representative, but we had a fabulous weekend. When Dustin and Cara picked us up from the airport (their flight got in a couple hours before ours), they said that they had already met a ridiculous number of friendly people. It was a theme that would follow us throughout the weekend - people going way out of their way to help us get where we needed to, or advise us on restaurants, or give us free samples of micro-brews.

On our first day (Saturday), we rolled out of bed and caught the MAX train from the hotel into downtown Portland. The public transport system in Portland was awesome - we used it all weekend to get everywhere we wanted to go. And the center of town is "fareless square", where all public transport is free! Our first order of business was to find some breakfast. We put our names down on the waiting list at Bijou (which had been recommended by Tom's friend Mei-Yen) and went looking for an activity to occupy about ten minutes. About a block away, we met a couple friendly local punk-rockers complete with 10-inch blue mohawks and lots of body piercings. They directed us into Voodoo donuts (below) for an unforgettable breakfast appetizer. We all split one that was slathered in peanut butter and then rolled in Oreo cookies.
Breakfast at Bijou was great - Tom had some french toast with local strawberries and marionberry syrup (they really like marionberries in Portland). I had a crimini mushroom hash with a bunch of Tabasco. Yum! We walked it off on the waterfront, and watched one of the city's drawbridges go up and down again. There are 8 bridges spanning the Willamette river in Portland, which seems entirely extravagent to us Bay Areaers who are used to having to drive 20 miles out of our way to get across the bay.
Next we hit up the Portland Saturday Market, which is basically a big artisan's market that operates every weekend under the Hawthorne bridge. Cara bought a velociraptor T-shirt, and I bought Banjo a big long flannel tug toy for three bucks. I should mention here that Portland is an amazingly dog friendly city. In fact, the only places we went all weekend that didn't allow dogs were the restaurants. And people seemed to be very responsible about their dogs for the most part - we didn't see any waste, and almost all were very well behaved (one exception for the street mutt who apparently doesn't like wheelchairs...). Life is good for Portland Dogs.
Next stop was Pioneer square. A local environmental group was sponsoring a wildflower sale to encourage Portlanders to have native plants that use less water in their gardens.
Pioneer square also sported this cool multi-directional sign, in case any confused travelers had taken a wrong turn somewhere on their way to Guadalajara.
Our next stop of the morning was the famous Powell's bookstore. It has books as far as the eyes can see - and we loved that used books were mixed right in with the new.
We then jumped back on the MAX to Washington Park, home of the Portland Zoo, Japanese Gardens, International Rose Test Garden, and many other delights. It reminded both of us of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Below, Tom and Dustin clowned around in "Dottie" the locomotive while we waited for a shuttle to the Japanese gardens.
We had a very friendly shuttle driver on the way to the Garden, who told us about some of the history of the park and environs. Inside the Garden, we spent a contemplative hour or so enjoying the elaborate landscaping and zen gardens.

The photo below is of Mt. Hood, an enormous volcano that always lingers in the backdrop behind Portland. According to Wikipedia, it is also the volcano in Oregon that is most likely to erupt, with a 3-7% chance of eruption within the next 30 years. But for now, it is silent, covered in snow, and beautiful. From the Japanese Garden, we walked to the world famous International Rose Test Garden, also in Washington Park. My parents had told us this was the one must-see attraction in Portland, and from the looks of things most of the other tourists there agreed with them. Every year Portland has a Rose Festival during the month of June, where rose enthusiasts world wide flock to the sights and smells of Portland. Although the festival was over by the time we got there, the roses were still beautiful and in full bloom. I spent a happy hour or so sniffing every flower I could get my nose on. After all flowers in reach had been sniffed, I declared an unassuming fire-and-ice shrublet "The Best Smelling Rose in the Garden".

The Rose Garden also had a nice little snack vendor who sold us a frozen banana, a strawberry popsicle, a strawberry-coconut shaved ice, and a bag of popcorn.
After Washington Park, we stopped by PGE Park, home of the Portland Beavers AAA baseball team. No games while we were there, but it was a very cute little ballpark right in downtown Portland. Next we spent a couple of hours at Bridgeport Brewery, one of a myriad of microbreweries that call Portland home. We shared a 9-beer sampler and enjoyed almost all of them.

We had dinner at Wildwood, a northwest-style bistro that has won several awards for its local, fresh, food. It lived up to its billing, and I, for one, had what was probably the best meal I have ever eaten. It was a bacon-wrapped Guinea Fowl, with roasted asparagus and baby beets. It was on top of a pea puree and was topped with a crushed pistachio sauce. The really fantasgreat part of it was the crust on the bird, which managed to be amazingly crispy, delicate, buttery, savory, and wonderful all at once. I took a picture of my meal halfway through, but by then the pea puree and beet mixture looked a little less than appetizing, so I'm just going to put in this one of Tom and Dustin in the restaurant instead.


As we were eating, we had a view directly into the kitchen, which was in front of the restaurant like a Sushi bar. At one point we overheard a funny conversation between the head chef (who seemed a little grumpy) and a waiter who put in an order for "well-done salmon". The chef said "Well Done?! That's not even salmon any more. Tell them to order the halibut." Heh.

Last stop of the night was a local gelato shop for a scoop of lime and apricot flavored gelato which we all shared. Busy day, eh?