Another spontaneous decision was made in the morning. Hannah said, “lets go to Portland today”. Ok, lets. Plus, it was rainy and who wants to camp in the rain? After not showering again for a few days we were ok with calling the quits on camping and getting a hotel. We arrived in Eugene at 3:00am equipped with sore asses and double vision from our 11hours drive on HWY1 and the 5. We were fried. Allowing ourselves to sleep in till 9:00, we pushed on to Portland landing around 1:00. So stoked that we were going to be staying in a hotel again because it was super cold. Found a great deal right in the city and the hotel even had a kitchen. Thrifty girls we are, we cooked up a killer lunch and hit the town to see what it had to offer.
One of the first stops we came to was a chocolate shop that had amazing hot chocolate and we were given a proper tasting. Love all this food tasting. Hannah found a chocolate saffron body oil that smells amazing….don’t eat us we are not food. While there we were given some pointers on what areas in Portland we should see and some restaurants to go to. We wanted to see if there was any music in town that night and more small boutique crafty shop. One of the highlights was a paper store that was of a fine quality…everything was beautiful. From the stamps to the fonts everything was done to perfection. We could have both spent some time and or money in there for sure, but there was so much more to see.
Really like this city, very earthy and rich in color and history. A lot like Milwaukee (back home for me) I can totally get why people from my home city moved here. A hippy, yet urban city with lots of beardy men (a good thing, love a good beard), and everyone bikes. Walked past galleries and hip restaurants, over bridges and down alleys on a meander, as well as in search of a restaurant called the Barrel and Flask, which was written up and we were told, delicious. After some searching, we walked in and out after realizing that it was very much like any restaurant back in Venice. On the way we had past a hidden little dive bar called "The Slammer" that looked very promising. We sat down after being so cold from our walk and ordered a bottle of beer for $3.00….yes, please. After about 10 minutes of enjoying our beers a boisterous lady plops down on the seat next to us and asked us how we found the place. Lizzy, come to find out owns the place and has worked at the place for 35 years. What a character. They got a kick out of Hannah’s accent were asking a million questions about where she was from and how she got here. It was a blast. I love places where you make instant friends. Leaving before Lizzy got us thoroughly hammered, we walked back over the bridge and headed down whatever street to get to our hotel. To make it fun we were taking rights and lefts everywhere. Very cold and in need of something to warm our freezing body’s we saw some hipsters hanging out in front of a bar Valentines. The place was small with nice ambience and great art. Everyone was listening to the piano player as we walked in so it was silent with sound only of the slamming of keys and the occasional cough. Ordered a nice whiskey for the both of us and sat down and enjoyed the music and the people, a very eclectic crowd. Three bands played and they were all pianist and drums. It was pretty magical in there. Feeling like a fly on the wall I nestled into the bench to sit and observe.
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