{"id":1238,"date":"2019-10-07T17:50:28","date_gmt":"2019-10-07T21:50:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/?p=1238"},"modified":"2019-10-07T17:50:28","modified_gmt":"2019-10-07T21:50:28","slug":"a-day-in-portland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/a-day-in-portland\/","title":{"rendered":"A day in Portland"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wanted to see Portland for 2 main reasons, both of them unrelated to ice cream, believe it or not.<\/p>\n

I wanted to visit Chris (whom I met in Kenya) and meet his family.<\/p>\n

I wanted to visit the biggest book store in the world.<\/p>\n

But I knew 24 hours in Portland would be a very short time to explore such an interesting city…<\/p>\n

Chris picked me up in Bend. \u00a0The drive was amazing, and I was glad I didn’t have to ride up all these big, long hills this time. I stayed at Chris’ house, where I had the chance to meet most of his family: his wife Kristy, 4 of his 5 sons, and their little girl. I had a great time with them and good laughs as we watched a few episodes of “Kim”s Convenience”, a CBC series that I had never heard of. The next morning, Chris went out of his way to prepare a fabulous mediterranean breakfast that provided more than the calories necessary to ride to downtown. But just in case, he had also bought a cinnamon roll that I enjoyed on the way.<\/p>\n

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Chris and his wife Kristy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The ride was easy, mostly on one of the numerous bike paths that are all over Portland, one of the most bike-friendly city in the US. \u00a0I was told that one out of 16 people ride their bike to work in Portland. But I was shocked to see a lot of homeless people along the way.<\/p>\n

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Just as I left Chris’ house, I reached the 6,000 km mark<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tony and Kiki, my next Warmshowers hosts, welcomed me in their beautiful apartment, right downtown. \u00a0The location was unbeatable, and so were the hosts. After a cup of tea, we all went to the famous Saturday Market and then to the Farmer’s Market where we enjoyed a few free food and drink samples and other goodies.<\/p>\n

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Kiki and Tony in their beautiful apartment<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Great view of Portland from the rooftop<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Yeah, Oregon!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Famous doughnut shop. With a big line up to get in.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Local wine with an appropriate name<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Funky purse at the market<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Had to try the ‘elephant ear’, a local and filling delicacy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Must be my shop…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A small part of the Farmers’ Market<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then I went to the bookstore…<\/p>\n

And got lost.<\/p>\n

It is HUGE!<\/p>\n

I loved it.<\/p>\n

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Powell’s Book City, it takes the whole block<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Once I managed to get out of the bookstore, I went back to the apartment to have a fabulous dinner with Tony and Kiki: fresh cod with rice and kale, and I got to try one of the local wines. I was truly having a great time with them, they are such fun people, but unfortunately, I was a bit in a rush as I had bought tickets for the Dance Film Festival. While I was in a city, I thought I should do city stuff!<\/p>\n

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A Keen sandals distributor? You’ve got to be kidding…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Fall colours in a residential part of Portland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

As I expected, some films were weird, too weird. \u00a0But others were good and one was absolutely awesome. I left the auditorium very content and got back to the apartment just in time to watch a documentary with my hosts and their 3 cats. Yes, the cats were also watching, or at least 2 of them. I didn’t know cats liked TV.<\/p>\n

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Tony and Kiki bike toured with one of their cats!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Isn’t that cool?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There was a lot more to see and do in Portland, but I still have a long way to go so I left the next day after I stopped at REI to get a new hammock. I still carry my old one, I just don’t have the heart to throw it away yet… Oh, I can be weird sometimes!<\/p>\n

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Final words of the day<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wanted to see Portland for 2 main reasons, both of them unrelated to ice cream, believe it or not. I wanted to visit Chris (whom I met in Kenya) and meet his family. I wanted to visit the biggest book store in the world. But I knew 24 hours in Portland would be a very short time to explore such an interesting city… Chris picked me up in Bend. \u00a0The drive was amazing, and I was glad I didn’t…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1220,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,39,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-north-america","category-oregon","category-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1238"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1242,"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238\/revisions\/1242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathmandu.com\/catproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}