The first place we went was to Powells bookstore. This is a huge multi level bookstore. We walked around there for a good hour. Eventually we found the Architecture books section. There were so many awesome books here we could have spent tons of money and time, but we had restraint and got out of there.
We left Powells and went exploring. We went to Pioneer Courthouse Square which is a large public square in the center of Portland. This square is used for various things from rally's, musical events, art shows, and general hanging out. They have these cool cast bronze chess boards attached to benches in various places around the square.
It was almost dinner time and it had been a long day so we decided to relax a little and get a brew. Portland is known for its numerous microbreweries and one of them being Rogue Brewery. Though this one is a Rogue Distillery, Rogue is headquartered in Ashland, Oregon. The distillery makes Rum and Gin and is also a restaurant and pub. They have the full list of Rogue Ales (which some are $30 in the local bar in Little Rock) so we decided we would try a couple out. After dinner we went exploring a little more. We took the streetcar line south to its end just to see where it went, then took it back toward the downtown and walked around Portland State University and went to another pub. At this point it had been a very long day so we found our way back to the Hostel.
The second day started with us walking around the city exploring some more. Portland is a very pedestrian friendly city with lots of fountains and statues and parks around. We found one very cool fountain (image below) called Ira's Fountain. It is similar to one we saw when our class went down to Fort Worth, just on a smaller scale.
After finding quite a few fountains we headed down to the river front. The Willamette River runs through Portland which has a water front park along the river. Tom McCall Waterfront Park runs the length of downtown Portland along the river. They have many festivals that take place here, one of the being Redbulls Flugtag (not held every year but it gives me an excuse to talk about this cool "sport"). Flugtag is a competition of completely man-powered flying apperati. They "fly" these contraptions off a platform into a lake or river and whoever makes it the farthest wins. The teams are judged not only on flight distance but creativity and sportsmanship. Check it out, the flying machines are pretty funny. Anyways, back to our trip.
Just off of the river front park, in the middle of the street is the smallest park in the world. Mill Ends Park is the smallest park in the world at 452 square inches. It is a little piece of land sitting where a light pole used to be. Click here to go read about it.
We left the river and made our way to the Portland Art Museum just to browse around a bit. We had not been to an art museum on our trip and figured we should since bigger cities normally have some good ones, this was not a disappointment. We left the museum and took the MAX Light Rail up to Washington Park and went to see the International Rose Test Garden and The Japanese Garden on the hill above. Portland is known as the City of Roses and the International Rose Test Garden is basically a huge tiered garden with tons of different varieties of roses. I'm not much of a flower guy but this was a pretty cool thing to see. Then we headed up to the Japanese Garden. I really wanted to see this because I like the mystic of Japanese gardens and I read that this was ranked first out of 300 of the best Japanese gardens outside of Japan. It was very cool, peaceful, and simple. A must see if you visit Portland.
We left Washington Park and went back into the city for dinner and to figure out what we were going to do that night. After dinner we found a bar with seating on the sidewalk to people watch and so I could take some long exposure pictures. We decided to go to a bar named Kells Irish Pub. When we got to the bar the door guy asked for our ID's and $5 bucks, typical, but when I showed him my ID, he was like "Mountain Home Bombers". I gave him a puzzled look, then he introduced himself and I recognized the name, he had graduated from Mountain Home a few years ahead of me and played soccer with many of my friends. Anyways, he was nice and let us in for free. I know it’s a cliché, but it’s a small world. We hung out there that night, listened to an Irish band (who was pretty good from what I can remember), met two girls and a guy who sat down with us (probably just because they wanted a table), and had a really good time.
The bar closed around 1 a.m. so we went walking around some more so I could take some long exposure pictures again. We stumbled (literally) across Pioneer Courthouse Square again and saw a Charlie Chaplin Statue. I went to take a picture of Mason and the statue and a cop came over and told us we had to leave, apparently the square is closed at night, I'm not sure why really. So we took this as a sign and headed back to our hostel.
Saturday was the last day of our trip and we started out kind of slow from the night before. But we got around and headed to the Saturday Public Market. This is pretty much a large flea market. Anything you could want was there (similar to Porta Portese in Rome, for those who know what I'm talking about). It was pretty cool, lots of interesting knick-knacks and such and the food smelled great. We walked around there for a while then headed to the Pearl District. This is the north end of downtown Portland. This area is more of the urban revitalization area with many old warehouses converted to lofts and new multi-story condo towers being built. There are tons of shops, brewpubs, and art galleries throughout. Some very cool block parks are in this area as well. Unknowingly it was Bastille Day that day. There was a massive group of people in this one park in the Pearl District. The park was Jamison Square, it had a fountain which had water flowing down shelves of rocks to act as waterfalls; when the water got high enough it stopped flowing and drained into the wall, then it started all over again. Very fun feature, especially for children, evident by the picture below. We stayed here for a while, people watched, watched some French guys play Pétanque (similar to Bocce Ball), and listened to a live band they had playing.
We eventually left and wandered around the condo area some more and then headed back to Powell's bookstore. We did not really have a ton of time to venture too much else so we decided to play a few games of chess before we headed back to the hostel to get our bags and leave town. We got to the airport about 9 p.m.; our flight was to leave at 12:30 a.m. We had some time and fortunately for us there was a Rogue Pub in the airport, so we indulged in another brew to put us in the right mood for a plane ride. We landed in Little Rock sometime the next morning.
It was a really fun trip but boy was I ready to be back. I'd like to go back at some point and I'd venture to say I could probably live in Seattle or Portland, though it would be rough getting over the gloomy weather they have up there. So I finally finished my blogs about our trip, hope everyone enjoyed hearing about it. Thanks Mason for the idea of heading up there, it was a ton of fun, and now what’s next year’s trip?
Troeger
Well, I finally got my Portland photo's on flickr, go check them out.
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