I Love Portland!

Everyone always said I would love Portland, but I never knew exactly why, or to what extent. For those who know me well, you know how much I love San Francisco. I always assumed when we decided to call it a trip and pick a place to live, it would be there. However, after three weeks (and counting) in Portland, it seems all too clear to both Sam and I that this is where we belong. Where to start...

Portland is laid out in four… ahem, FIVE quadrants. What’s interesting is that in Seattle, I looked up where the cool neighborhood was (Capitol Hill), and that’s mostly where we hung out. In Portland, I just looked up cool places – restaurants, bars, parks, etc. – and slowly discovered that we were most in love with the southeast. Upon discussing this with our new friends, we found out that yes, of course, the southeast is the best. What’s odd about that is that it isn’t downtown. I desperately want to live in a loft, but all of the lofts are in the Pearl district, which for those reading in Dallas, is like Uptown. I’m definitely a city girl, but the coolest parts of Portland are the NE and SE neighborhoods. Actually, to be honest, I haven’t found an area that isn’t cool. It’s almost an entire city of relatively professional young people, and every street, whether it’s particularly cool or not, has at least one awesome restaurant or coffee shop or bar or vintage store or something. Not just in a couple neighborhoods, IN THE WHOLE CITY. I have yet to find a ghetto, only awesomeness!

The skyline here, at night, looks less like a cluster of buildings, and more like a skyline of trees littered with the tiny lights of the city. There is a city park about every four blocks. Which means wherever you live, there are three or four parks within easy walking distance, and most of them are completely awesome! I spent the other day reading near an almost secluded duck pond in the middle of the city. We went hiking last weekend in a forest that was maybe 15 minutes outside of town. The nature here is just incredible.

The food situation is fantastic as well. SO MANY VEGETARIAN RESTAURANTS! And the ones that aren’t veg have plenty of options that are. The food here is so good, but it’s all mostly affordable, rather than just amazing fine dining (although they do have as that well). Whatever kind of food you want in whatever price range, you will not be disappointed! They have an enormous farmers market every Saturday, as well as a smaller one somewhere in the city every day. You can easily buy eggs laid or blackberries picked just the day before, any day of the week! There are also plenty of community gardens, not to mention most people having back yards, so growing you're own food is a legitimate option as well. Everybody truly cares about local, organic, sustainable food, and it's so easy to find!

Getting around town is a breeze as well. We haven’t actually tried the public transportation, because we’re staying about ten minutes north of the city, and the parking situation is so fantastic we haven’t had to use it. It’s all parallel parking, but it’s always easy to find, and we rarely have to pay. The city is also completely bike friendly, with bike lanes on most streets, and a car population that is sensitive to the massive quantities of bike patrons. When we move here, between the public system and our bikes, getting around will just not be a problem.

The other most exciting thing is how they deal with their trash in Portland. Anytime you want to throw something away, you’re confronted with a decision: compost, recycle or trash. And let me tell you, whatever you’re disposing of is almost never “trash,” given the alternatives. The entire city is set up for composting and recycling, and it’s kind of expected that you’re going to participate. I’ve talked to several people that never knew that it’s not that way everywhere. You don’t even have to care about the environment – just put your trash in the right bin. The other day I saw a solar-paneled trash compactor on the street, so they don’t have to use as many man hours collecting trash. That is what I’m talking about!

Besides all these things that are super amazing about Portland, from a more personal perspective, this is where our friends are. We’ve made lots of friends in our travels, but not like this. It feels like everyone around us is super friendly, and wants to talk and meet us and stay friends. We’ve made so many friends here that we continue to see on a regular basis. In three weeks, it already feels like we have a life here, and I’m not going to lie, I really, REALLY don’t want to leave! We’ve pretty much decided that this is where we’ll live next, and all of you will have a place to stay if you ever want to visit Portland!

We’ve been here about three and a half weeks, which is almost twice as long as anywhere else, so believe you me there will be some review blogs ahead!

Vancouver and the San Juan Islands

As usual, I am way behind. I was all excited to sit down and finally blog about Portland, when I realized I never talked about Vancouver, B.C. and the San Juan Islands. So, here we are.   

Vancouver was alright. After having just come from Seattle, it was a little disappointing. To be fair, Sam and I were both crazy busy with work, and completely spaced on the fact that our mobile hotspot was going to incur roaming charges, so we got up super early every day and went hopping from hotspot to hotspot all over the city. And we couldn’t use our phones unless we had wifi. No problem when truly vacationing in another country… less cool when you’re working. We ultimately decided we would have to come back another time, when we have more time to go exploring and aren’t working the whole time.

That being said, real Canadian poutine is a revelation! Don’t trust these American restaurants slapping mozzarella on some fries and calling it poutine. Fries + dark, brown gravy (frequently made mostly from meat drippings) + CHEESE CURDS. For those of you who are unfamiliar with cheese curds, as I was, they are big glops of this white, stringy cheese that go perfectly with the flavor intensity of the gravy. We ate it every day we were there.

I found the differences in Border Patrol to be amusing. Getting into Canada, there was maybe a 15-20 minute wait, and the woman was super friendly until finally getting serious and making sure we didn’t have any guns. “It’s a very serious offense in Canada, guys, if you’re packing and a cop pulls you over, you will go to prison for a federal offense.” Still friendly, but Canada’s main thing was guns. To get back into America, we waited a hour, hour and a half, there were very scary looking guards with drug dogs running around (think Hank from Breaking Bad), and yet when we got to the booth with the angry looking American man, we were grilled on whether we were carrying any produce. I do understand the produce issue, but still. No questions about guns, or drugs, or stow-aways, just… vegetables. Priorities, guys, priorities. :)

At the suggestion of some friends in Seattle, we cut our Vancouver trip short and spent the weekend on the San Juan Islands. Unfortunately, we totally spaced on the fact that it was Labor Day weekend, and almost didn’t get a place to camp, but luckily came across a state park that had a few first-come-first-served camping spots, and it was a Thursday. We had a cozy little spot tucked in the woods next to a lake, so no complaints here! It would have cost $200 to ferry Voltron to the islands, so we camped on the mainland and took the ferry out each day.


The first day we went to Orcas Island, which was much less crowded and generally less inhabited. We took a shuttle around to the small town, which had a farmers/craft market going on, and eventually ended up going for a beautiful hike. The second day, we stopped by a fantastic lavender farm (that my friend Chris would have loved), and then went kayaking for the very first time! It was bay/straight kayaking, so less maneuvering through white water, and more relaxing and beautiful, despite having to paddle the whole time. We got to see seals, tons of jelly fish and a bald eagle! It was awesome! We ended the evening with a drive to the west side of the island to watch the sunset. Just beautiful.

So then we headed to Portland, where we are now, and I can’t wait to tell you about it! Stay tuned!

Seattle, WA

After Beloved, Sam and I, plus Deondra and Danica all loaded up in Voltron and made a day trip of getting to Seattle, where my sister was most interested in visiting. The vibe of the city is a little more generic than I thought it would be, but the longer we were there, the more we found awesome places to hang out. We ended up spending the vast majority of our time in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, and also really enjoyed Belltown.

Restaurants

Our first day there, the girls and I ate at Steelhead Diner, which was to die for… they served shrimp and crab tater tots that were ridiculous. We had amazing little French canapés at Café Kanape, and fantastic sushi at Momiji. List was probably the best happy hour we had – small plates of Chilean sea bass and truffle gnocchi with patio seating. The Saint, which boasted Mexican/South American cuisine, also had an awesome happy hour with small plates of various enchiladas and tacos and ceviche that was all unique and delicious, and some really interesting tequila cocktails. Our last day there, as always, we met an awesome couple (hi, Paul and Kiki!) who took us to the Alibi Room for some pizza and Spicy Mac and Cheese!

Coffeeshops

My favorite coffeeshop was definitely Joe Bar, which in addition to coffee had a fantastic selection of Belgian beer, perfect for when I have to work but my friends want to drink. On an unrelated note, this is where we first met Kelly, Sam’s friend from turntable.fm, who is one cool chick! Bedlam Coffee was very cool, although it took some time to get used to the alt-country station they had going on all the time. I did get used to it, though, and the drinks and ambiance brought me there more than once. Our other favorite was the Artisan Café in Belltown, which played catchy French music and had a heck of a tuna melt.

Bars

I wish I had a better section on bars, but for no lack of trying, there were just not many we liked. Liberty was the only one I feel a strong urge to mention… we went there with Deondra when we were looking for sushi, and found it to be more of a cocktail lounge, so we left. Later that week, when a lounge is what we were going for, we went back and settled in for some great drinks, music, and… get ready for this… AMAZING LATE NIGHT SUSHI! I did not see that coming. Rock Box was also pretty cool – a karaoke bar where you could rent out rooms for groups, Japanese style (lots of bachelorette parties), or you could sing in the main bar, where microphones were passed around the crowd. It was awesome at first, until it got crowded and loud, inebriated girls wanted to sing along with Deondra in the second mic, which I had to steal and hide so I could properly admire my friend. That’s about when we left. I should also mention Joe Bar in this section. Cheap, Belgian beer. For real.

In addition to your standard eating and drinking, we also did some of the classic and not-so-classic Seattle things – Pike Place Market, Seattle Art Museum and the Sculpture Garden. Took a ferry over to Bainbridge Island to watch Shakespeare in the Park’s Taming of the Shrew with a picnic feast of wines and cheeses and berries and breads and chocolates. Went blues dancing. Watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail at an outdoor movie theater. Overall, definitely made the list for top five cities in the states, and I'm so glad Deondra and Danica got to be there for it!

(Sorry I didn’t take any pictures…)

Eugene, OR and Beloved

I am completely overwhelmed by the vast amount of stuff we’ve been up to in the six weeks since my last blog, including being super busy at work, which is my excuse for not writing in so long. In the interest of catching up without also overwhelming you, I’m mostly just going to hit the highlights, and break it up into a few chunks.

After FaerieWorlds we stayed in Eugene for about a week. The main thing we’re finding is that regardless of how awesome we hear a small town is, it’s just always still too small for us. Eugene was no exception. We did get to spend some time with Sam’s cousins, which was fun, and got to spend a day at a pretty killer block party with tons of bands and booths and food and such. Other highlights were a bar called Sam Bond’s Garage, a restaurant called Izakaya Meiji that had a great patio and delicious cocktails, and a wonderful vegetarian restaurant called Laughing Planet.

Shortly thereafter, we went to Portland for a few days to pick up Danica (sister) and Deondra (best friend) who flew in to go to the Beloved festival and hang out in Seattle for a week. I almost do not have words to describe the awesomeness that was Beloved, but since this is a blog made out of words, I will try. You may recall me talking about Lightning in a Bottle at the beginning of our festival season… it consisted of two main elements. Up the hill was the Temple of Consciousness, which played host to a yoga tent with classes going all day, a meditation temple (which was a huge, climbable wooden art), speakers all day discussing a wide range of spiritual things, and world music. Down the hill were a handful of stages with some of the best electronic music out there right now. Beloved was as if someone made an entire festival out of the Temple of Consciousness. Every person we met was real and interesting and in love with everything, same as us. The dance floor was covered in foam mats and no shoes were allowed, which somehow created a very cozy, connected kind of experience. I was so excited to get to share the experience with Danica and Deondra! 

Next up: Seattle!

FaerieWorlds!

Wow, where do I start?! FaerieWorlds was possibly the best festival we’ve been to, rivaled only by Lightning in a Bottle. I was completely in my element! I spent the last two weeks furiously crafting for the event, which resulted in three of my finest costumes to date. Of course, that’s tacked on to however many years of collecting faerie clothes, but whatever, the outcome was fantastic! Voltron immediately became one giant costume bin. :) Our camp was super easy to set up - drive in, park, get out the shade structure. No lugging all of our camping gear around and standing in shuttle lines. We've been slowly adding to our camp and it's becoming quite awesome - we got the shade structure in San Francisco for a steal, and at this festival we bought the Ohm tapestry. Sam also dug out my wind chimes and faerie house for this one!
 

So my three faeries are as such: Tree Faerie, Moon Faerie and… purple faerie. Or City Faerie. I’m open to suggestions. Tree faerie is the oldest costume, nothing new about that one, although I did make the wings for FaerieCon years ago. For the Moon Faerie, I made the wings before I left Dallas, and the wrap pants were finished up the night before the festival! The purple faerie was almost entirely handmade – the wings were from FaerieCon as well, and the week before I made the tutu, dolled up the hat and altered a t-shirt to be strapless with flowey ribbons instead of straps. The dreads were a FaerieWorlds purchase, and I’m SO EXCITED ABOUT THEM! For those who are just now discovering this about me, yes, I love to dress up, particularly like faeries. Let’s all accept it and move on. ;)

Sam was sporting his red and black – an awesome vest from TRF a few years ago, and matching wrap pants that I made him. He just happened to have the jester hat, which I think looks awesome with it! His sock poi matches, too! He bought a hood that this girl made out of old sweaters, a really amazing jacket and this furry hood!

FaerieWorlds was pretty much what I imagined, which was something like the Texas Renaissance Festival, but in the middle of a forest and where everyone’s a faerie. It didn’t seem super huge, but we ended up spending our days trying to get through the massive collection of booths, each selling something I could barely keep myself from purchasing. There were artists, one of which was Amy Brown, my very favorite artist ever, by whom my tattoo and my Moon Faerie costume were inspired!

Other vendors included every type of amazing clothes you can imagine, there were girls who made wings and tiny dragons made out of clay, people selling wands and leather books and shoes. There were two stages of continuous music, most of which I didn’t care too much about, but it provided a nice folksy background to the event. The one stand-out was a violinist named Lindsey Sterling – she was incredible, and I strongly suggest looking her up on youtube. The food court contained at least ten different options, all of which had vegetarian choices. Despite that, I definitely ate buffalo corn dogs with blue corn breading on two separate occasions. :) Another stand-out was the soda booth, which had six barrels containing home-brewed sodas which were being carbonated by dry ice on the spot. They were TO DIE FOR! We tried dark vanilla, root beer and ginger beer, and I could just not get enough! So last but not least there were the taverns, which existed due to the family-friendliness of the event. As silly as it sounds to go to a bar while at a festival, we ended up there every evening drinking mead with a rowdy bunch of faeries and pirates and the like. After the last show of the evening, when all the day-timers had to go home, there was an electronic tent set up, where we would play with our glow poi and sticks and staves until the wee hours of the morning. We ate, drank, danced, made new friends… it was truly the perfect weekend! 

I don’t say this very often on the internet, because I think it can jinx things, but I seriously have an amazing boyfriend. I can’t imagine having a better partner to experience my life with… I don’t know how I got so lucky. Love you so much, Sam!

P.S. Don't judge me on the spacing of this particular post. I do know how to format. Blogspot is being a weener.

Napa and the Redwood Forest

Napa was beautiful, and I drank more than my fair share of wine in the three days we were there! The first day, I bought this Downtown Wine Tasting Card (which I highly recommend) that gets you free samples at twelve different tasting rooms, and spent the day reading and tasting wine at three of the tasting rooms (Uncorked, Taste and Mason Cellars). That evening was the Chef’s Market, a weekly block party with music, food, drinks, booths of stuff for sale and chef demonstrations. I was pretty excited about the latter of those, but the “chef demonstration” was literally a guy making hummus in a food processor. I was less than thrilled. :( Had an AMAZING chile releno at Bistro Sabor with Sam’s uncle Bill and his wife, Lauren, and when Sam finally could break away from work, we checked off another wine tasting at 1313 Main.

The next day we had lunch and possibly the best sangria I’ve ever had at Pica Pica, which was one of the restaurants in the much smaller Napa version of San Francisco’s Ferry Building. I found out that celebrity chef Morimoto had a restaurant in town, and decided that the cheapest way to try it out was to dine at happy hour, and I could not have enjoyed it more! We had a “pizza” which was literally covered solid in raw tuna, anchovy aioli, baby cilantro and jalapenos, a “Mori Cristo,” which was a yellowtail sandwich fried in tempura batter, and Hamachi Tacos, which were encased in tempura “taco shells.” It was IN. SANE. I have not freaked out that much since eating at Abacus in Dallas. Or at possibly since the last time I was in New Orleans! 

We crossed a few more tastings off the list at Ca’ Momi, Silo’s and the Vintage Sweet Shoppe, where I bought this amazing lemon chocolate. We finished off the day watching Shakespeare in the Park’s Twelfth Night, which, and this will only be appreciated by my good friend Lindsey, I was able to understand mostly from watching She’s the Man so many times. Yes, I admitted it on the internet, do your worst.

On Saturday, Sam finally had the day off so we were able to hop in the car, drive down the beautiful valley and do some wine tastings at the actual vineyards. It was awesome! Our favorite wine was at the Chimney Rock Winery, their 2008 Terlato Galaxy, which was $85/bottle. Maybe one day! After three vineyards, we decided we’d had enough of paying for expensive tastings and headed back downtown to finish off our Tasting Card for the trip at Bounty Hunter, Stonehedge and Napa General Store, which in addition to our free tasting of two wines, we cashed in a FourSquare deal for two for one tastings, and tried 10 more! We came back (a little tipsy) to a delicious dinner under the stars on Bill and Lauren’s patio, as we had gotten to do several times on this visit. They are such awesome people!

From there we headed to Redwood country, where we’ve been parked in front of a river for a few days, Sam working, me crafting, and counting down to actually getting to hike around in the forest. (Bears and mountain lions live in these woods, so they recommend hiking with friends, so I didn’t feel comfortable going in until Sam was able to come with me.) Let me just say… it’s amazing how many different kinds of beautiful things there are out there! The Redwoods are so incredible… it’s like a jungle, right here in the states. The state has managed to keep the trails pristine while leaving everything around the trail virtually undisturbed. And the trees, of course… we couldn’t help but dream of the epic tree houses such enormity could contain! These pictures don’t do it justice, but I’ll put them on here anyway. If you look closely at the first picture, you can see the tiny people!

We’re heading to Eugene today to finish up final details of our (my) costumes and head to FaerieWorlds tomorrow! I can’t wait!! Here is a preview of my two latest craft projects, and I'm almost done with a new pair of Moon Faerie wrap pants, which I can finish up as soon as I buy a new sewing machine.