Oregon 2008: Day 3: to Eugene!
After a night of drinking, we hit Besaw's for breakfast. Supposedly a Portland classic, and it lived up to its reputation. French toast was a tad weak, but that's picking nits. I think I am just very picky about my french toast, too (wheras I am less picky about waffles, for example). Orange juice was ridiculously good, too.
Went to the Portland Saturday Market afterwards to browse around, check out local art, etc. It was surprisingly well run and quite friendly for browsing despite its size-- the usual farmers' markets here in Los Angeles are all much smaller (or smaller feeling) and not as interesting. Absurd prices for pearl tea caused me to skip that, and heck in general it wasn't cheap. I suppose that's the price (literally!) you pay for a more organized, nicely run market of this size.
We headed to Eugene afterwards, stopping at a Burgerville USA location for lunch. The strawberry smoothie was tasty at first. Don't ask how nasty it was an hour later. Burger and fries were so-so, but hey, now I can say I've eaten at Burgerville! The fact that they serve salads is kinda of like McDonalds serving salads-- worth a chuckle.
Eugene is less than 2 hours from Portland... and is definitely a small college town. The University of Oregon is fairly nice, but Eugene itself? Uhhhhhh. Small college town. Couple of nice blocks. Rest is, well, not much to speak of. And part of it is distinctly run down. Again, it's a small college town (even if UO is a pretty good sized schoool!), so it exactly fit expecations. Just like Erik's apartment, too. He specifically pointed out that he chose it for its ONE redeeming virtue: it was close to campus! *grins* Autzen Stadium also fit its billing-- loudy, rowdy, pretty damned nice, and small! Definitely an experience if you're in to college football, I would strongly recommend attending at least one game there.
Even if UCLA did lose (which surprised no one) and even if it was a good 5-10F colder than expected outside. Even the locals were bitching. The game itself had a few glitches-- UCLA's Terrence Austin took a hard hit, a fight broke out at the same time in the crowd and some guy fell off the bleachers into the field (wtf?? very bizarre), and the display screen for the stadium? Yeah, it broke.
Downtown Eugene's bar scene was a very typical college bar scene. Not quite sure why some people who shall remain unnamed love it so much, but that's just me. To be honest, dealing with college idiots instead of overly ostentatious douchebags was a nice change for me. hehehe. We peeked into Davis', John Henry's, I think Jameson's, and ended up at Starlight if memory serves. Not much to say, but the crowd was at least better than the ones in Portland. Starlight reminded me of about a step down from a typical bar I frequent in Los Angeles, or maybe a step or two up from a typical dive bar I'd frequent. Perhaps it's best said that it was once decently nice inside and is now showing a history of hard wear and tear, but it's at least holding up fairly well. It's certainly satisifactory enough for a modest college bar, all things considered. Outside for food, the (slow) quesdilla cart and the hotdog cart were really about the only options at midnight, but it's cold, people are hungry, and that's all that matters...
