Location: Portland, Oregon, USA

I woke up to the sun shining in through the bay window and Kat humming and getting ready for our first day exploring. We grabbed coffees down the street at Stumptown Coffee Co. and meandered through the neighbourhood. We hadn’t planned anything in particular as we wanted to just get our bearings and have a slow first day.

That being said I heard from a local I met this summer back home to go eat at Grand Central Bakery, so we stopped in for some monkey muffins and croissants. If you get the chance to eat a monkey muffin just do it. It’s caramel and walnuts on chunks of crispy croissant dough shaped like a muffin and has nothing to do with bananas as one would assume. Heavenly.

Ok so there’s a bookstore downtown called Powell’s City of Books. Intriguing name right?

Man.

This.

This is a sight.

Right off the bat you realize why they call it a city- it’s one entire square block and four stories tall jammed right to the ceiling with every single book you could ever want. And it smelled like paperbacks too. More heaven. Needless to say we spent quite a lot of time wandering through the stacks, climbing up little ladders and peering into reading rooms and back corners stuffed with books.

We hopped in the car and drove through Washington Park, stopping to stroll through the Rose Garden and well… smell the roses. Fitting eh? We drove up and around these winding roads right to the back of the park and into a residential area filled with beautiful old brick houses reminiscent of some expensive neighbourhoods in Victoria B.C. The streets here are all lined with huge ivy encased trees standing atop moss covered walls. I don’t know that I’ve ever been in such a green city before. Every house is covered in plants and shrubs and crazy twisty plants. Even some of the street art uses greenery.

We stopped at a taqueria and chatted while we filled out a crossword in the paper, puzzling the afternoon away and relaxing. We both really needed a day that was slow, after the crazy lead up to this trip I definitely just wanted to just breathe today. We stopped back at the apartment for a quick siesta and then it was off to dinner at Bollywood Theatre down the street for some authentic Indian food.

On our way home we grabbed an ice-cream flight (yes you read that right) at Salt and Straw and I can safely say I’ve never heard of weirder flavours in my entire life. Olive oil ice cream? Strawberry balsamic pepper? Surprisingly all the ones we tried were pretty tasty. I opted not to try the smoked salmon ice cream. That might be a bit much for even an ice-cream fiend like me.

I guess I’m beginning to understand why Portlanders have the phrase ‘Stay Weird’ plastered everywhere.

I can barely keep my eyes open and we’ve planned an early morning tomorrow that I am really excited for. BIG THINGS GUYS.

Sav