Portland; part one

Three days in on my Portland trip, but by day two I could already tell that this was the city for me.

The first day was rough; we traveled for hours and hours, from Nashville to Dallas to Portland. We moved uncertainly, excitedly through the airports. The woman behind us at the security check in Nashville was going somewhere to bury her mother and cried when she told the supervisor about it. I bought water and a raisin and almond packet for seven dollars and boarded the plane. I almost threw up after reading part of Chuck P.'s guide to Portland--not because it was terrible, but because I get motion sickness if I am hunched over reading material and away from the window. I corrected this problem and didn't feel sick again.

The Dallas airport was amazing. It was very high tech and laid out well. The transit system was easily the cleanest I'd ever been on. We boarded our plane after Laura grabbed a wrapped turkey sandwich from a Friday's, and I ate the bread, lettuce, and tomato from that in addition to quite a lot of nuts. The plane ride from Dallas to Portland took forever--about four hours. It was interesting to see the changes in the people from flight to flight. The Dallas airport had a much larger obvious gay population than Nashville. The people going on the flight with us to Portland were hippie-laid back. The woman in front of us when we were loading on the plane was listing all of the animals that she and her toddler daughter were returning to see, among them a chicken.

After the plane ride that lasted approximately forever, we landed in a much smaller, much less crowded airport and settled down on the MAX train. It had a raised seating area in the back, which is different from MARTA. It was slower than MARTA, too, but the thing I like best about the Portland public transit system is that normal people take it. The most annoying person was a young man who wished for the entire train to hear his rap music and to sample his own voice quietly rapping along. I wanted to tell him, "What are you trying to prove? Turn down your damn music. Don't try to prove how 'hood you are in fucking Portland. I'm from Memphis, where the actual ghettos are." But I did not say this to him and that was probably a good thing. He got off two stops later.

Finding our bus, 14, the bus we have come to love during this trip, was really hard because I am severely directionally challenged. Severely. I have tried to overcome this defect and have mostly succeeded in the are of driving. I have yet to master it in the area of walking. Laura found our bus for us. We dragged our suitcases on the train, entering with a bunch of dreaded people about our age carrying a box of potted plants. I got off way too early, terrified we were going to pass our hostel. After walking a few blocks, we reboarded the bus, where a nice man told us he would tell us when to get off. We finally found it and put our stuff in a room full of girls our age. Two were from Iowa, a plump girl with hair she had dyed blonde in the past and had been growing out her natural brown for quite some time. Her friend was a skinny senior from the University of Iowa. She wore glasses and got up as early as I did the next morning, and I liked her. There was another girl who was apparently born to travel. She had spent a year as a preschcol teacher and was getting ready to start a farm with her partner, her boyfriend of three weeks. She left the hostel the next day, not sure where she was going to sleep the next night, money running out, and all of her stuff, including her dog, with her boyfriend in his trailer. She told me that when things look rocky, something always comes up to save you. She had a job starting Thursday and nowhere to live. She didn't come back to the hostel, so I presume something good happened to her.

Another girl, Nicole, is really groovy, particularly because she's letting me use her computer to type all of this out. We're going with Laura and the last girl, Qting, to get facials and other girlie stuff at Aveda tomorrow. Or at least I hope we are, since we didn't make appointments. An older lady joined us last night, but she pretty much spends all of her time on her laptop in the kitchen. Laura wants to shoot her because she snores.

I took a shower the first night we were here, after we went to Hot Lips and I ate a wonderful vegan pizza (they just MAKE them here, you don't have to explain to them why you don't want cheese--no, seriously, no cheese). Then we both took showers and felt better and fell asleep way too early, on Eastern time.

The next day, it was misting as we headed out in search of the famous Paradox Cafe for brunch. I had been awake and up since seven PST, feeling around in the dark and going upstairs to brush my teeth and straighten my fro. I woke Laura up and we headed out around eight. The neighborhood was quiet. We cut through a residential area that was gorgeous; modest-sized homes with amazing greenery and gardens, painted pale yellow and purple and a million other colors. One house had an iron fence with beautiful color patches on it. It was like being in a different world. No one owned an SUV bigger than a Honda Element, all the cars told us to share the road or recycle or keep Portland weird, and every house had bright city-issued bins for recycling and compost. COMPOST. I had found my neighborhood, sans the job for buying my way into it. I have never seen so many bikes in my life. We saw a woman with a two seater, her tiny daughter on a smaller attached bike.

The Paradox Cafe was beautiful and I have never been so in awe of French toast in my life. I had butter, too, and tofu that was delicious and veggie sausage. I was ridiculously full and in awe of a city that was not only well aware of what a vegan ate, they came stocked in preparation for it.

Next post: our trip to the vegan mall, rain, and what the hell a Plaid Pantry is. The beginning of my hope to find a Target.