Stop and Smell the Tamales: Portland #2

As we sit here in a beach-side motel in white trash infested Seaside, OR (more on this tomorrow), we reflect on our time in Portland. The donuts, the hotel with a porn shop, the crazy people. We loved every minute of it. Portland is as great as you'd expect. Rough around the edges, but throughly interesting and filled with stuff to do.

Here's Emma with the captions.

The Tegan and Sara show was at the Bagdad Theater, a few blocks from our dear Apizza Scholls. You-- or rather, I-- have to love a show that ends before 10 o'clock.

After playing their new record in its entirety, the rather simian-looking twins invited the crowd to get closer. We were sitting in the balcony, and thereby avoided being crushed by the amorous lesbians. Again, thank you to Rodrigo for hooking us up with tickets.

After a lovely post-show dinner at Tabla (no pictures-- we were being tasteful), we high-tailed it over to Powell's for the Harry Potter block party.

Don't we all love Harry, really? Another Portland teenager was wearing a t-shirt that said, "Voldemort can't stop the rock." They are awfully crafty up here.

Waiting on line was not really an option-- it was already past our bedtime. We went back in the morning.

Kristina took us to the farmer's market. It was raining a little, but that didn't stop us. We are tough.
Like most things in Portland, the artichokes were big and green and gorgeous.

The longest line was at the tamale stand, so I knew where I had to be.
We were good tourists and went to the park to look at roses.

There were lots of things to look at, as you can see.

For example, Portland's Best Rose.

Sometimes even captions do not suffice-- imagine walking into a perfume bottle. In a good way. Although Portland seemed a little, ahem, grimy, we left thinking that it smelled like roses. The Pacific Northwest really has the rest of the country beat in terms of natural beauty. Even though the city itself was more rough and tumble than I generally like, in spots it was just lovely. Many thanks to Kristina for forcing us to think outside the donuts, and to smell the flowers.

Next stop, Goonie territory.

love
E + M