portland

Portland surprised us with its awesomeness. Heather devoted her entire Sunday to showing us around, which included: brunch at the Cricket Cafe, QT with the cutest (fattest) cats ever, a thorough Powell's tour, beer and pizza at one of the city's many $3 theaters, dinner at a Japanese restaurant, and a free show of exactly the kind of local indie-rock we wanted to hear. We caught the tail end of a heat wave, meaning that it felt insanely hot to us, but everyone else seemed to be greeting the slightest breeze with ecstatic relief.

We treated ourselves to a couple nights at a hipster hotel called The Ace. The paint-dripping text on the walls was kinda, um, No Doubt, but everything else about the place was great.


Especially the Leonard Cohen lyrics on the lobby wall.


Portland is filled with people on permanent concentration-vacations: they work a few days at a coffee shop, which earns them enough to pay their minuscule living expenses, and they spend the rest of their time making art. Heather pointed out that this aspect of the city has a few drawbacks, mainly the overwhelming amount of not-great art. But still, it made us a bit SF-resentful. Heather's gorgeous and spacious one-bedroom apartment is eight hundred flippin' dollars a month. Plus they get actual summers!