Portland is my boyfriend

This is my new favouritist city ever. I don’t even know where to begin. The moment I got there after an 18 hour train ride (which was surprisingly painless) it started to avail itself to me. The streets are so walkable and easily navigable, the hostel was amazingly helpful and Trader Joe’s is my new favourite supermarket (healthly AND cheap).


I was there for five days and managed to cram a lot in, I think. The days started with coffee and a planning session combing through the free newspapers looking for stuff to do. It wasn’t difficult, since Portland has so much art, music and random culture.

My activity for the first night was to see Frightened Rabbit, who were amazing. The gig was at Berbati’s Pan, a restaurant/venue with a wee pen at stage left for the under 21s. It was nearly sold out and second support band Maps & Atlases (http://www.myspace.com/mapsandatlases) were also great. Since the city is known for its music I headed to Doug Fir, the ‘hippest’ joint in town to catch some local acts. It was pretty disappointing: about 50 audience members, fierce air conditioning and two forgettable bands. The third band was great, though – Soft Tags http://www.myspace.com/softtags) – a lo-fi collective who alternate instruments and singing duties (Laura – I think you’d really like them).


There are a lot of great wee galleries and I was excited to find out about a Gus Van Sant exhibition mashing up stills from his films, but it turned out to be not very interesting. The same goes for ‘Hipsters of the Universe’, supposedly an exhibition of drawings clothing comic book characters in contemporary duds. I did get to check out the Portland Art Museum, though, which had a huge selection of Asian art. The best facet of the art scene is something called the 24 Hour Church of Elvis, which I was shown on an underground (metaphorically and literally) walking tour of the city. It almost defies description. You put money in and press buttons and it does stuff (I don’t even know what). It has exercising Barbies. You can apparently get married there.



But by far the most popular attraction I saw in the city (and a contender for my favourite as well) is Voodoo Doughnut. A tiny hole in the wall that is open for 21 hours a day and always has a queue, the range of doughnuts is staggering. Apparently they used to sell Pepto-Bismol and Nyquil doughnuts until the FDA pointed out that mixing medicines and fatty foods wasn’t a great idea. I got the signature Voodoo Doll and managed to keep it for four hours before eating it on the train to Seattle. Marvel at my restraint.

San Fran Fun

I’m way behind in these due to limited internet access and the fact that I’m now living in the desert for a week at a time, so I’ll try to catch up a bit. I’m now in Arizona but I’ll write about the other cities I visited first. Just pretend there’s a two week delay on the internet between here and the UK.


San Francisco looks the same as I left it eight years ago. It’s nice to get to a city and already have your bearings. I mostly just wandered around all day until the evening when I went to see The Ruse (http://www.myspace.com/theruse) and Honor by August (http://www.myspace.com/honorbyaugust) at the Hotel Utah Saloon.


It was a really weird venue with a tiny dance floor and a balcony the same size that ended practically on top of the stage, so the bands didn’t know whether to look up or down, and I ended up watching the top of their heads most of the time. Both bands were great, especially since they were having last night of tour fun.

By coincidence rather than planning on my part, the next day was Bay to Breakers, a fancy dress run through the city to Golden Gate Park. I wasn’t too bothered about watching a marathon but it turned out to be really fun. It was like a huge gay pride parade without the gay and lasted for at least six hours. I didn’t understand a lot of the costumes, but neon 80s sportswear seemed to be the default and, as seems to be mandatory with events like these, there was one wrinkly old guy who was stark bollock naked (sorry – I didn’t get a pic of him).

La la land

The stars came out for my one day in LA. I thought it was very considerate of the Los Angeles Tourist Board to arrange for Jake Gyllenhaal to be on my flight, especially when he also had to wait for ages at baggage claim. He looked exactly the way he does on film but with the addition of plane stubble and conspicuous rock star shades.

On the first morning I asked at the hostel for a good neighbourhood to walk around in and they sent me to The Grove. The cute name masks a corporate monstrosity, basically a retail park done up to look like a small town complete with a miniature railway, muzak emanating from the shrubbery and nothing to do except spend money. The Jonas Brothers were due to play a free concert there the day after I left.

I was struggling to think of obvious sights in the city so headed to Hollywood Boulevard and the Walk of Fame. It was pretty disappointing: the stars go on forever, most of them were obscure or baffling (Rugrats?) and they were quite dirty.

Luckily, I had plans to meet a friend. Well, I say friend but a few weeks ago she was this really cool woman I met at a party in Edinburgh who happens to be from LA and was kind enough to offer to meet me and show me around. Now she's my best friend in the city (apart from movie star Jake Gyllenhaal, of course). She took me to Mashti Malone's for Iranian ice cream then drove us to Griffith's Observatory, where the end of Rebel Without A Cause is set, to look at some stars of a very different kind.

Let the games commence

So, here's what's happening. Last week I had my last day at work and moved out of my flat. On Wednesday I'm off to the west coast of America for a holiday then to Arizona to do a national parks volunteering thing. Here's my plan:

Wednesday 12 May:
Sleeper train to London.

Thursday 13 May:
Fly to Los Angeles.


Friday 14 May:
Hang around in LA during the day (I don't have long here but will be back in July) then get an overnight bus to San Francisco.

Saturday 15 May:
Spend the day in San Fran, looking at all the places where I used to go when I spent the summer there (and hopefully getting Jamba Juice, which is the eighth wonder of the world).

Sunday 16 May:
More San Fran time then hop on an epic, overnight 18-hour train journey up the Californian coast to Portland, Oregon.

Monday 17 - Thursday 20 May:
Seeing Frightened Rabbit on the Monday and generally hoping that Portland is the relaxed, alt.mecca that everyone says it is. There will probably be a lot of coffee drinking, book reading and hopefully local music going on.

Friday 21 - Monday 24 May:
Greyhound again, this time to Seattle for more reminiscing about when I stayed here and to meet up with old friends. I'm staying in this amazing-looking art hostel - all the rooms are designed in different ways (City Hostel Seattle).


Tuesday 25 - Friday 28 May:
Back on a plane to fly to Las Vegas for a few nights. This is the city I have least inclination towards, but I still want to see it. Hopefully the spectacle will be enough to entertain me for a few days, seeing as I don't gamble, drink on my own or require the services of hookers.


Saturday 29 May - Saturday 24 July:
Time to get the bus to Flagstaff, Arizona for orientation and the start of my eight-week project doing conservationy stuff, camping and generally sweating my ass off. I get lots of days off in the eight weeks so am planning a few trips to Phoenix and anywhere else I can find a reason to go to, but they'll be last minute type things.


Sunday 25 - Tuesday 27 July:
Back to LA for a little more of the tourist thing and hopefully a day here.


Wednesday 28 July:
Home. And about 600 hours of sleep. And showing everyone the gazillions of photos I will have taken. Then the Edinburgh Festival!