PORTLAND!

I got to go stay with Stacy!! I seriously looked forward to this weekend for weeks. =) I was a little bit nervous about FINDING her place but she gives absolutely awesome directions and I had no trouble whatsoever (same for the return trip). When we stepped onto her floor it smelled SO good because she was making curry for dinner! I had never had it before and I'm making it for my family tomorrow.

After dinner we walked several blocks up the street to a place called Bartini. They had a menu of over 100 martinis and it was amazing! It was a tiny, dark little place with soft lighting and we decided that we would give it a good review. Here's Stacy sipping on my Peach Bliss while holding her Mint Mojitotini.

Cheers!
Friday night we went to bed at a somewhat decent time and then talked for a good hour, which we haven't done in YEARS. We got up in the morning and took the street car down to the Pearl and walked and walked and walked and took pictures and then more pictures. (I think we found out it was 88 that day but it sure seemed hotter!)

This is in front of a cool park we went to with billions of kids playing in the water/fountain.

I took this picture because I think Shoefly is just a really cool name for a shoe store.

We took lots of pictures of this old loading dock because it was so artsy! As we walked around I seriously kept thinking, "Wow, Jonathan and Carrie would LOVE to take pictures here!"


Another old building we admired


And what's a trip to downtown Portland without a visit to Powell's?


I always end up in the children's section and bought 2 books for Jordan and one for myself (not in the children's section).

We stopped at a secondhand store and I bought a super cute skirt and Stacy could NOT resist trying on these boots. Madre would have been proud.

Walking through Old Town

And through China Town!

Saturday Market! This guy was really good at playing the buckets. I could have sat and listened to him for quite some time (if there had been shade).

These bicycle cart things were all over. This guy in particular reminded me of a friend of ours. Even the hat.



This group was really cool! They were singing "Walking on Broken Glass" when we walked up and they had choreographed a whole dance to go along with it. The girl in the white skirt was the lead singer and the girl on the far right in the purple was beatboxing.

Then we walked in to the beer garden area and these people were playing. I could have sat and listened to them for a long time. Heck, I would have spent all DAY at the Saturday Market if I could have!



I was hoping to see a person pretending to be a statue but we never did. Instead, we took a picture with this lovely pirate.

By that point we were hungry and HOT so we stopped at Mio Gelato and had DELICIOUS gelato for lunch. (When I got home the vote for dinner was banana splits.)

Yum!
There were so many times that I laughed out loud at random things I saw. This was one of them.
I can't wait to go again! I had such a great time with Stacy and I was thrilled to finally get to walk around downtown Portland and look at everything. There are so many sights and smells and sounds... I would love to spend several days there and I still wouldn't see everything I wanted to.