Oregon 2008: Day 2: Portland
Fortified with Erik present, we let Katie go to work while we snoozed, then we got up and went exploring. Kenny and Zuke's proved to be hideously packed so for lunch we went to Martinotti's, a quiet, quaint little Italian place with excellent deli meats. Powell's Bookstore proved to be as good as advertised; it's not impressive til you really start browsing, and you realize why traditional scholars like the smell of old books-- because you have to be huge to maintain a truly comprehensive collection, and Powell's is one of the few bookstores that simply is.
Further down the street, Everyday Music was less impressive, yet their collection was still pretty good. (Amoeba in Los Angeles, Berkeley, and other cities still gives them stiff competition, stiff enough that I wouldn't visit Portland just to visit them =P ). We did a lot more wandering of downtown, stopped at Boyd's Coffee and grabbed a somewhat stale Voodoo donut (missed them for breakfast) that I suspect was extremely tasty when it was fresh. A few hours old but with some fresh coffee, it still wasn't bad.
Had appetizers and drinks at Paragon, across from Katie's (now former) workplace. Paragon was distinctly average (if rather nice inside), but the conversation with Katie's coworkers and boss quickly lead to business things, so it was at least moderately intersting. We hit the shopping areas of downtown before it got too cold and dark, where we decided to showcase a few things on the Portland Street Car system (such as the useless grab-handles) and then wandered the Nike Store and a few other high-end outdoors apparel stores afterwards.
Dinner was at Hot Lips Pizza. Pizza was okay, atmosphere was fun, but while I love lamb and lamb on pizza actually works out well, there just wasn't enough lamb on this pizza to actually taste it... The other half we got tomato basil (I think?) and feta, which was much better executed. Unfortunately I ended up blowing off an Ars meet at Tanuki the same night, 'cause we ended up on the wrong end of town. That and we hit a few bars afterwards, which is decidedly sub-optimal activity to do with with a bunch of geeks. ;-)
I forget which bars we went to, but again, the atmosphere inside was unique-- and pretty relaxing, if crowded and noisy (like most bars). Not bad, although outside was definitely getting cold at this point... and unfortunately for me, the lack of cute Asian girls continued. The one remotely cute one there? Uhhhhh hell no... ... decided not not up to par... and one other odd thing-- you can't get a Red Bull and vodka. They don't serve Red Bull anywhere. Instead there's some Portland-based energy drink they all serve. Majed had one straight and he ended up bouncing off the walls all night. Yikes!
