Advertisement
Published: November 6th 2007
Edit Blog Post
A typical image of Portland...
it was the most leafest place I have been to so far. Portland!!!!!!!!!!!
In the green state of Oregon. Once again another long greyhound ride to get here, though got there without incident. This place was cold!!!!!!!!! I had to put my jumper on for this place, first time in a couple of months lol.
I trek my way up to the hostel, on long straight road uphill which I eventually found and checked in. I was informed when I arrived though that a party high school students were checking in that day and would be in my room and using the facilites in the area my dorm was in, I take a rest and these high schoolers show up....they are german!!!!! So I got me and a bunch of german guys in my dorm. Fun.....not. Anyway, I don't realy do much that day but run into a guy in the lobby that I recognised from LA and San Fran, so we hung out, chatted to people, had some drink and then at 9pm the hostel gets free pizza if some goes and gets it. So we did that, also met an aussie guy who came with. We get back and have our free pizza and talk to some british
View of the city 1
Quieta view of the city girls and as we are talking I tell them about a guy in San Fran who was staying at another hostel but kept coming to my hostel and even got a free meal or 2, as I said that a guy walked past - much older, long hair, combat trousers and said "did you just say the F word?", me and this girl both say at the same time 'free food?", he bumbles off muttering about reporting me. This hostel was very interesting, I met some cool people here, normal people and then there was the odd people you saw there. That guy for one, another guy with a distended stomach, some strange woman, a guy I found out claimed he was a sex addict and some other guy that stole someone's shoes (although they latter found the shoes but he still did a runner when confronted, he did it they caught him on cctv).
Next day I explored the town, pretty easy to walk to actually and walk around, tho I wasconfused by the map at points. I went to a super large bookstore they have there, 11 million titles supposedly before trying to find pioneer square...which was
View of the city 2
Another sweet view. a big let down, no fountain and was really just an area of bricks. So bored of the town I took a free tram to the Mall (shopping centre) they have and wandered around there, not that big or grand but got some stuff for home and had a lengthy chat with the woman running the shop. Headed back to town and walked to the hostel, had another chat along the way, had my free pizza at night and went out for a couple of drinks with the aussie guy I had met the night before.
My last day I got up later, had food at Mc Donalds and then headed back to the hostel so the aussie guy wcould extend his stay. Ran into the 2 british girls who was leaving, saw them off and then we went for a walk to the rose gardens and park. Its a fiar old walk and we got lost, ahd tro ask for directions form some local older woman who was very friendly. We checked out the park and rose gardens, the other stuff there you had to pay for and I had already seen a tea garden so headed back
A different view of the city...
Yup thats a moutain right there, high has mount kilmanjaro or something apprently. lat afternoon. I then went out that night with the aussie guy, looking for this karoke bar he had been told about - he was big into karoke so I said I'd come along. We went into another place along the way - a bar/arcade/live music venue. It was pretty coold, they had old arcade games and pinball with some live music. We coudln't find the karoke bar so stayed there all night. Saw a really cool aussie band called Pussycatdolls and Dingos, they had some great songs like "i wanna be your slut" and 'you drive like a c*nt". I should have bought their CD really, only a 2 piece but played well.
That was pretty much it for Portland. Its a very, very pretty place. Lots of green but tis pretty small and quiet. The downtown at night was surprisingly dodgy though. What I did love about Portland though was no taxes!!!!!!!! One of the biggest banes of the trip has been txes added on at the till, but here there is 0% extra tax so the price you see is the price you pay. The dollar menu at Mc Donald's was actually a dollar menu and
then even more incredible they had some sorta promotion I guess, where you got a 42 oz drink for 89 cents.......89 cents!!!! Thats 44p for a HUGE drink. I was lovin' it :-)
So thats it for Portland, next stop is Seattle!!!!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.086s; Tpl: 0.022s; cc: 8; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0471s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb