When in Portland - Day 1 & 2

portland downtown square

This past weekend, mom and I hightailed it out of Lexington and made it out all the way to Oregon. We impulsively hopped on a plane to Portland to visit Lewis and Clark College, and naturally for some much deserved mother-daughter bonding time. And if you've kept up with me, you'll know that mom and I like to come up with excuses for "mother-daughter bonding time."

We left way too early on Thursday morning and arrived in Portland some time in the afternoon. On Thursday we didn't have much time to explore because we had to be at the school after lunch. There we went on a tour, we sat in on an information session, and then mom and I separated and I state for an overnight visit.  

Friday morning we reunited via train, and we quickly learned that you can't go anywhere without an umbrella. And I mean that. It rained on us at least nine different times in the span of a couple of hours, and at one point the sun was out everything looked great but we look down at the end of the street and we can literally see the sheet of rain making its way towards us. Needless to say we had to make a pitstop and buy an umbrella. But to be honest, I kind of liked the rain. 

During the day we definitely had plenty of time to meander downtown. I was pretty wiped from having stayed up late the night before, and then getting up early for a morning class. So before we hit the town hard we decided that lunch in a small French bistro was a must.

The rest of the day consisted of walking around aimlessly, stumbling across local gems like that portland organic honey (delicious!), and splashing through rain puddles. We went into a couple of boutiques, of course we had to pick up some souvenirs, and had dinner at a little hole in the wall middle eastern restaurant that had the best service and the best tabouleh. At one point mom wanted to take a picture of me, much to my chagrin you can imagine, and our waiter walked up and to mom said something along the lines of, "no no no! no phones on the table, you're here to eat!" and it was hysterical -- mom's face was priceless! 

However I will say that at one point the two us got really cranky. And I'm not exaggerating that one bit haha. It was probably a combination of the weather and getting lost, but we got so snappy that we had to take a break from each other so we popped into a movie. We saw the new flick The Other Woman and after not speaking to each other for two hours, we were back to normal. Great movie! But right before that movie, oh boy it was dark times I tell you. That's what we get for being the same zodiac sign...

After walking to our hearts content, we retired back to our hotel and proceeded to crash. I don't know if it was the bed, or the general lack of rest, but we slept like we'd never slept before.

We left today (Saturday), but not before we ventured to the other side of the city.

We saw Chinatown (but didn't have time to go in) but that was only a the opening act before we got to the main act, which was....

VooDoo Doughnuts!! I'd heard about this place from a friend who had visited Portland last year and posted pictures of her donut adventures on Facebook. Based in Portland, they specialize in ~creative~ doughnuts, to say the least. The whole place itself is funky and I absolutely loved it! 

Mom and I shared a blueberry glaze and a cinnamon crueler, and saved the interesting ones to take back home. 

I'll say this, that huge pink box was my carry-on on the flight back home and I have absolutely no shame. In fact, as soon as I set foot in the airplane, everyone became my best friend;) 

Being me, I made mom stop at Powell's bookstore, but not just for the books but for the history too! Powell's is the world's largest independently owned bookstore and I tell ya, I walked in and almost started having heart palpitations. I was on Cloud 9! 

Lastly, we stopped by the famous Saturday Market full of local crafts. We had some fair trade coffee, walked around the river, and took in a rare patch of sunlight. There's this blogger I follow who lives in Portland and everywhere we went I kept an eye out for her. But alas, I did not run into her. I guess I'll catch her next time;) 

And on that note, our incredibly successful Portland adventure came to a close and being back home in Lexington, I'm already ready to go back!