First Day In Portland

I'm not sure yet how I want to do this. I want to blog about Portland but there is so much to
talk about. Maybe I'll break it up into a couple posts. Yay, for pictures!

For anyone wondering what it was like to see Tom for the first time in four months, it's hard to explain. Unless you've done the long distance thing. It was emotional, it was surreal, it was amazing. And then we went right back into

being... us. We set off into Portland on our rental bikes and spent some time trying to get to know

our new home.

Tom's flight didn't get in until around 8 30 pm on Sunday so we chilled in the hotel that night and

started exploring Monday morning. We got a couple cups of coffee and bagels at Tiny's and then went to pick up bikes to use for the next three days. Since we've been told everything is closer together in Portland than it is in Atlanta we figured bikes would be fine for riding around looking for "For Rent" signs. Lets just say we both worked off a good amount of the calories from the

beer and food we had this week. Portland is not... flat. But the weather was perfect and it felt

great to be exercising while getting to know the city.

The first day was a little disheartening. I live in Midtown in a neighborhood that is littered with "For Rent" signs. It is so easy to find a place to live in Atlanta, there are so many choices. But we found quickly that the neighborhoods we liked

were mostly inhabited by home owners. No renters. We went back to the hotel that night

with no leads. But at least we learned where

NOT to look for a place to live.

We went up and down the grid in Hawthorne, Mississippi, Laurelhurst, Northwest, and everywhere in between. Even though we didn't find any places to rent, I loved seeing all of the beautiful, unique homes, and beautiful gardens. People love to garden in Portland. There were sunflowers or roses in every other yard, we saw corn stalks in front yards, pumpkins and tomatoes. Amazing. We also ate some great food. We stopped at Prost! for a late lunch and a couple beers while we were in the Mississippi district. It was a really cool vibe, they only serve German beer! Which was delicious. We split their popular pretzel sandwich with potato salad.

For dinner that night we ate at Le Pigeon. One of the best meals I've had along with McCrady's and Husk in Charleston. And the other two dinners in Portland, haha. After discussing the menu with the server he recommended that we do a tasting and share several courses. Perfect. The first course was octopus, second quail, third rabbit, fourth sweetbreads, and sixth beef cheeks and pork (check out the website for the menu). We had a cheese plate for dessert. Every dish was

great. I wish I had taken pictures of every course, I would be able to remember all of the details better. But as you can see there are a lot of dishes I would have to describe anyways.

Point is, if you are ever in Portland, you need to eat here. It is a tiny spot, looked like it might seat forty people max. One big communal table that seats 12ish, a couple smaller tables, and the bar. The bar comes up to the kitchen, it's open so you can see the guys in their t-shirts and bandannas doing their thing.

After dinner we considered going out but crashed instead. We are getting boring. The experience at Le Pigeon was all we needed for the night, though. I'll try to post about the rest of the trip later!