Portland Oregon Day Three: Voodoo Doughnuts, Aerial cabs, and Random stuff

I was alone. My cousin took me with her on the bus and I wandered around the city all day. It took a few minutes to get my bearings. The all day bus pass I bought worked on the street cars so that helped me cover a lot of ground. There was a lot of ground to cover. Portland is divided into quadrants, and each one has different stuff in it. For example,  Portland State University (PSU) takes up a lot of blocks or there will be a city block of boutiques or restaurants.  I found one of these selling items from Russia, which I was amazed by and I got to practice speaking Russian.  Be forewarned that there are few public restrooms because the homeless population is so large. I took a stroll by the Willamette River, which runs through the downtown and wished it had been less rainy, but the weather was pretty typical for this area of the country.


It was obvious to me that downtown Portland was the center for shopping. There were a couple of good size malls and many clothing stores. I browsed Nordstorm's Rack and Ross. I also found the Pioneer Court house. It is still a working court house, but it's very central in the city. You can check in at the front and they will search your bags, check your ID, then you can go to the top of the Cupola. It's a pretty good view and it's cheap entertainment. Also, there is a really cool old elevator. It only goes to the third floor, but it's beautiful.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=559335047412494&notif_t=like

I took the street car to the Ariel cab. I had scene it my first day and was intrigued. It looked like a giant enclosed ski lift. I don't like cable cars, sky cabs, or any large heavy object that is hanging by cables higher than 15 feet in the air.... So taking this by myself was really scary. I made a video to go along with this adventure as well and the link is attached to my Facebook page, it is public. The video was a lot of fun to make, not as much filming it. As the cable car descends back down it swings when it hits the towers. I think it's really pretty scary.





















I found a place called voodoo doughnuts. It had tons of different doughnuts. The one I got wasn't the tastiest doughnut I'd ever eaten, however it was pretty creative. The place looked like it had been there forever, and it had a really cool neon sign outside the building.

The final place I went I have no pictures for, it's a store named Powell Books. It's a place so big you need a map. Seriously. The whole store is divided up into colors and floors. It's a crazy hot mess unless you know what you want. But it's also a dream come true. I wandered around for at least an hour before picking up two books, one on writing in Russian and the other a novel, which I discovered upon opening it on the plane had been signed by the writer. I knew they sold used, but this book was in really good condition. I guess you never know what you'll find. I highly recommend going in if you are in the area, it's in the Pearl on 10th Street. The street car stops right in front.

Where I went:

http://voodoodoughnut.com/
http://gobytram.com/
http://www.powells.com/locations/powells-city-of-books/

Portland Oregon Day Two: Mad Hatters, Water Falls, and Food Carts

Multnomah Falls 

One of the Food Trucks 

On the second day Anna and I went to Multnomah Falls just outside Portland. It is a beautiful waterfall that is over 500 feet tall. We walked up to a lovely bridge. The sky was overcast and it was raining, but it was beautiful. There were a dozen other little waterfalls to see along the way as well! The weather was a balmy 37 degrees Fahrenheit and the mocha that I bought at the base of the falls warmed me up nicely. They had delicious fudge as well. The walk up to the bridge was worth it, despite the fact it was so chilly.


We went to the food trucks for lunch. We ordered from The New taste of India. It was amazing. The food truck are all lined up in various lots all over Portland and they serve any kind of food one wants. In order to make it out here you have to be good. People of Portland are very picky about food and even these random food trucks throughout the city serve a panorama of food. There were food trucks every where I went. The were lined up in lots, but there were also carts that traveled around the city that had food as well. Any kind of food you want is available on these carts, Gyros, Mexican, Lebanese, Italian, Thai, hot dogs,.... the list goes on and on and on. I was so amazed at the diversity of the food available I had a really hard time making a decision.

A line of Food trucks down town 

Anna Modeling a hat! 

The Hat Museum is located on Ladd and its a historic district. The curator running the museum was dressed as someone would in the Victorian Era. She told us all about the difference between Victorian- when Queen Victoria ruled, then Edwardian, when her son ruled. They had over 1300 hats on display and is probably the largest hat museum in the world. We saw original hats from over a hundred years ago and recreated hats.  The museum also makes it's own hats and showed us the studio. Alice (our tour guide) went through all the exhibits that have changed hats making them more or less popular throughout the years. At the end of the tour we go to try on hats in the gift shop and we even bought some!  To take a tour you have to book it in advance. It's only $15, but it's non-refundable, so if you make the reservation you should show up!

Hat Museum House 

Here's where we went!

http://youtu.be/szI3_m2B3vs  <------Video of Multnomah

http://www.newtasteofindia.net/

http://www.thehatmuseum.com/

http://www.oregon.com/attractions/multnomah_falls

Portland Oregon Day One: Wineries, Bagels, and Race for a Good Seat

The Pacific Northwest has always been a place that fascinated me. It's really far north, but it's not really cold. I think it's a jet stream or something. Anyway, this was the case when I visited this winter.  The temperature was in the mid forties, which to me was really warm because in Michigan I had just experienced -4 degree weather.  It was wet and overcast, but it felt clean and cozy. Portland is beautiful down town. There are bridges everywhere crossing the river  running through the city. My cousin Anna and her husband live in Portland so, I was lucky to have a nice place to stay.

Photo credit: Anna  

  

For breakfast my first morning we went to a place called Bowery Bagels. We had Truffle Salt bagels, which are bagels that have sea salt and truffle oil on them. Did I mention that Oregon is a great place to grow truffles? smelled amazing. They had a ton of different spreads, BOM.com (Bacon, Onion, Mushroom), Salmon, roasted vegetable, Kimchi, plain, and then they also have weekly specials.

We went to couple of different wineries after Breakfast. The Pacific NorthWest is an ideal place for growing grapes and therefore making wine, the time of year I visited the grapes were obviously not on the vine because it is winter. We went to the Sokol Blossor and Argyle Wineries in Dundee, which is a major part of wine country in Portland.  We taste tested many kinds of wines. There were bubbly ones, red, white, and rosé. They were sweet, dry, and had all sorts of tastes to them. Anna and Justin taught me how to smell them and taste them. It was a lot of fun, but I couldn't really pick out many distinctive smells. I can imagine how beautiful it probably looks in the summer when the grapes are growing.  The Argyle Winery in Dundee is in an old house that is said to be haunted. It was a beautiful place. The Sokol Blossor was surrounded by the vineyards lined up in perfect rows all along.

After all the wineries we went to have happy hour at the Portland City Grill and it was interesting. It's on the 30th floor of the US Bankcorp Tower and from the booths you can see the entire city. There are not many booths so it is always a race to get to the top at 4pm. We got there early and waited in line to get a booth and we were lucky enough to get one over looking the entire city in all it's misty glory.  The view was worth the struggle to get in a booth. We ate Bruschetta, Sopressata spread, and steak frites.  The food was very tasty with our drinks. The first day in Portland was busy and full of exploration. 

http://youtu.be/Sx7Q8UKnKxA 

The video of us at the Portland City Grill is listed below, also listed are the other places we visited.

http://youtu.be/Sx7Q8UKnKxA
http://www.portlandcitygrill.com/menu.php
http://www.bowerybagels.com/
http://www.sokolblosser.com/
http://argylewinery.com/