Portlandia: Episode l

Hello! Is anyone still with me after that Miley Cyrus/kale/Greek yogurt rant in the last post? I don't know what got into me. I believe that is an illustration of what reverse culture shock would define as “the rejection stage.” My sincerest apologies for that. I will try not to let it happen again.

So, you might be wondering what Garrett and I have been up to/how we’ve been faring since we made the big move up to Portland in September. Well. We have yet to throw each other’s things out of the window in the middle of the night or surreptitiously change the locks at an advantageous moment... so I’d say we’re doing pretty well.

Our apartment is tiny. Like, so tiny that we have to carefully plan how to execute the maneuver of moving around each other when both of us are “in” the kitchen. Let's just say a lot of things are dropped in the process.

Portland is lovely. We can see a line of food trucks out of our apartment (potentially dangerous, although we’ve been pretty good about limiting ourselves due to the budgetary concerns). We are about ten minutes from most places we want to go downtown, and I am approximately a two minute walk from all of my classes, which is pretty much idyllic since I’m not the most astute person when it comes to keeping track of time (blame Cambodia).

Six days after we got to Portland, while we were deep in the throes of assembling/screaming at/throwing around our IKEA purchases, one of our very good friends from Peace Corps came through Portland on a cross-country road trip and stayed with us for a few days. We had hardly had a chance to discover anything of Portland for ourselves at this point, but we puffed up our chests and acted like we knew the best places to show BP, and in the process ended up stumbling across some awesome places and free events (a free, very eclectic concert by Pink Martini and the Van Trapp siblings). I guess I should probably rewind a bit though, because not writing about Garrett’s and my trip to Arizona would be doing a disservice to this lovely place he calls home.

I had never been to AZ before, and in my mind it was plain ol’ desert. Not one tree. Not one green thing. As it turns out there is quite a bit of green, along with much diverse wildlife/flora/fauna. Here are a few pics to illustrate:

Cacti along the way to Mt. Lemmon in Tucson

It rains in AZ! Who knew? Here is a monsoon we had a pretty unbelievable view of on our drive

I had no idea how mountainous it is.

Ok ok, I know this is not flora or fauna but this was seriously the most amazing pancake I’ve ever had in my life, so I need to share it with you if only to ease the burden of this incredible secret off of myself. The place is called “Bobo’s”- a little hole in the wall, slightly shady place you would never look twice at if you didn't already know about it- in Tucson. This pancake… It is a banana pancake with caramelized brown sugar and cinnamon on top… Basically heaven. They grill the bananas on a skillet first, then pour the batter over top, finally topping it with the cinnamon/brown sugar mixture. Go there. Seriously.

Also not flora or fauna, but just look at this adorable babyyyyy. This is Garrett’s cutie-pie niece, Britta, snuggling with her new bison, straight off the Konza prairie.

We took a day trip to Sedona with Garrett’s parents. (Some of these pics are from Instagram which is why there is a border).

Garrett’s lovely parents and us

Rock made of something I can't remember ("Red?" That sounds right)

At this point we are about out of AZ! Oh yeah, just ooooone more thing…

Hehe. So, after our visit in Arizona it was time to go. Time to start our new lives in Oregon!! We were really, really excited. So excited actually, that Garrett accidentally left my wallet at Einstein Bro. Bagels *lit'rally* before we even left Phoenix. Heh. (Remember that scene in Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion where the car keeps stalling? This was our that moment). His mom sent it to us by mail, however, and all was well with the world and Garrett was allowed to stop paying for all of our IKEA purchases (really, I didn't mind...)

The journey was long—23 hours in total—but we had a contact in San Francisco whose apartment we stayed at so we broke the trip up over the course of two days, lots of coffee, and so much sour cream apple crumble and chocolate bark (Thank you, Lorie).

We saw a bunch of wind turbines along the way

And there was this eerie, other-wordly view as we got in to San Fran

We went to the wharf for clam chowder, of course

Okay, so now we're finally entering Portlandia territory. We got to Portland and pretty much the first thing we did was go to IKEA to get started on furnishing our apartment.

As those of you who have been to IKEA know: it is overwhelming. Like... I am very surprised everyone isn't just hyperventilating and grabbing on to the walls at all times in there. We had already spent three hours in this store in Tucson, and I honestly don't even want to admit how many times we've been to the Portland IKEA. It's actually really embarrassing. Anyway, we got what we needed (eventually) and now our apartment is a spectacular model home for IKEA if they ever want to feature a 550 sq. ft. apartment in their advertisements. So there.

Our apartment did look like this for a long time, though.

Other things we have done in Portland (I'll try to keep it brief)- went to Voodoo donuts, a Portlandia establishment:

My recommendation is the classic yeast donut (complete with pretzel voodoo stick jutting out of it) or the chocolate peanut butter cake donut. There is also a maple bacon donut. That's all I'll say.

We smelled the roses at the International Rose Test Garden with our friend BP

It was raining so the roses were all dew-spotted and lush. Don't even think about picking them, though (which of course, I did)- plucking even one can result in a $500 dollar fine (glad I didn't go past thinking about it).

We became official Portlandians when I bought this awesome portable grocery carrier.

We took a day trip up to Mt. Hood and hiked around the lovely and scenic Trillium Lake

The day was crystal clear and the air was soooo crisp. Here we see an exemplary moment of when I am not homesick for Cambodia

This is only an hour's drive from us

Aaaaand that's all I've got! Sorry this post ended up being a lot longer than I meant it to be. I will try to be better about limiting myself in the future (although we've all seen how good I am at this over the course of my posting).

I'll also try to post a bit more regularly, if the evil dictator that is grad school allows (really though, I am liking my classes... ;)). For now, I hope this post finds you well and that you are all getting excited to pass out candy (or foot cream as Garrett once encountered= real thing that happened) to the young'ns on Halloween. Or just eat it all yourself if there are no young'ns to give it out to, like Garrett and I will probably do.

Sending you our love from the lovely state of Oregon,

Leah