Day 4

Full day in Portland -- hurray!  I’m definitely in love with this city.  Well, maybe I’m not in love with it yet, but I definitely have a big old crush on it.  I can’t wait to find out if it feels the same!

This morning, Kiyoko and I went back to NE to take some yoga.  We were cooped up in the car the day before, and wanted to move around a bit!  We stopped in at Back to Eden Bakery (again) for some small vegan treats pre-yoga, and then went to The People’s Yoga for a noon flow.  It was nice to move around, and the studio space was very nice and open.  The whole thing felt VERY Portland.  Then we stopped into a couple of vintage stores and I got a couple of dresses.  Still, very Portland!  We headed Downtown for lunch/donuts, and stopped at this array of food trucks, all in one lot.  There were maybe...10-15 food trucks in this one spot, and many vegetarian options!  We settled on Sonny Bowl, a nice, healthy, simple bowl/salad, all-vegan truck.  We took our bowls/salads to Waterfront Park, which was, you guessed it, a park on the water.  Basically just grass and benches overlooking the river and the drawbridge.  There were lots of runners, bikers, dogs, people reading books -- you know, super cool stuff like that.  It felt like Chicago, or maybe like any city with a waterfront.  It was really freaking hot!  Like, 85 degrees!  In Portland!  Apparently, summer can be like that here.  It’s just strange after everyone being like, “OMG you wanna move to Portland?  You’ll drown in rain!!!!!”  

Anyway, then we went to Voodoo Donut -- my long-awaited stop for the past three years.  Only at Voodoo have I had a vegan donut that tasted like an actual donut, not a vegan cake-y thing.  We stood in line for about 15 minutes in the blazing sun, but I would dodge lightning bolts for these things, so it was just fine!  I got a CREAM-FILLED CHOCOLATE DONUT AND THEN I JIZZED IN MY PANTS.  Actually, no.  Not yet.  I controlled myself a half of a block while we walked to Stumptown, a famous coffee shop/distributer round these parts.  We got lattes from the cute barista, and I ate my donut whilst groaning inappropriately.  I mean...honestly.  I just. Can’t even....no words.

Then we tried to find Forest Park and failed.  There’s only one road leading into it, and we missed it.  Oh well.  We headed back to Beaverton to meet up with Hannah Jackson, my friend from New Zealand (who is really my friend from Portland, who I met in New Zealand).  Kiyoko and I went to Cedar Hills Crossing, a mall in the ‘burbs, and waited for Hannah at Powell’s Books (not to be confused with the even COOLER Powell’s City of Books, but still -- very cool!).  Hannah and I went to Panera to catch up (she ate, I didn’t).  Then Kiyoko and I headed back to Beaverton to shower and get ready for our wild night on the town!

So, we went to dinner at a pizza place with a vegan menu in SE called Sizzle Pie.  We got a pizza that had cilantro-pepitas pesto, red sauce, not-a-ricotta, artichokes, kalamatas, and mushrooms.  It was yummy.  Not THE best vegan pizza I’ve had, but still very good.  

Then we met up with Clark, his cousin, Molly, her boyfriend and friend at an all-vegan bar called The Sweet Hereafter, also in SE.  We didn’t eat anything because we had just eaten, but we DID drink.  My former co-worker from Farm Sanctuary, Zoe, showed up with her friend Cherie, and we had a barrel of fun.  Zoe and Cherie are both short-haired, vegan, bad-ass chicks.  Zoe is a bartender at a dog hotel (which sounds like something straight out of “Girls”), and Cherie is a bus driver.  Quirky-as!  We went to another bar called Dig a Pony and I drank a little more, and then we went home.  SE is definitely a little hipper, grittier, and full of cool hipster bars full of pretty people.  I felt like I was the right kind of person at the right kind of age here, unlike how I feel at a bar in SLO.  I think being single in this city would be VERY fun.  Dudes and shit.  And ladeeeez, too.  

Went home, went to sleep.  See you next week, Portland.  I’m totally smitten.