As I posted about before, I took a brief trip down to Portland to meet up with my mommy who was partaking of some training there. For the lazies who don't want to read my whole post about my Portland trip, the Reader's Digest version is that Portland was fun.
First of all, I took the Amtrak train. I like to say Amtrak train as it's vaguely reminiscent of the phrase "crack cocaine," so deal with it. Anyway, I took the Amtrak train and I highly recommend the experience, especially if you have the extra hour it regularly takes Amtrak to get from Seattle to Portland. I'm being completely serious. Even with the delays and the extremely loud, never once shut up during 4 hours of a train ride, child in the seat in front of me, the Amtrak train was a great way to travel. I mean, who doesn't like getting up and walking over to the cute "bistro" to get a beer or four when traffic gets slowed down to a standstill or if the kid in front of you doesn't feel like shutting the hell up? Anyone? Yeah, I didn't think so. Plus, it wasn't cheap old Bud Light or some such nonsense, hello? Mirror Pond. Yum. Double plus, the view was magnificent. The track is about 5 feet from the water a lot of the way.
So after my mother picked me up from the station, after waiting an hour for me! My poor mother! she told me about her - and have I ever mentioned that I get my extreme clumsiness aka propensity to constantly fall down and skin my damn knees from my mother? - fall in the local mall. I guess she had to get a phone charger and ended up with a cane and a new phone instead. Long story short, we wouldn't be doing our planned walking tour of the Tastes of Portland on Saturday. Which was fine because after perusing all, and I mean, all, the pamphlets in the lobby I came up with some other cool things to do.
Starting with The Grotto! I love, love, loved the Grotto. What's the Grotto, you ask? Well, guests, if you look out the left window you'll see a photo of one of the statues located in the National Sanctuary of our Sorrowful Mother, also known as The Grotto. It's a Catholic sanctuary that was built in 1924 by some priest who was fulfilling his promise to God that if his mother survived a bout of some disease that he would do something great for the Church. (For a more accurate history, nit-pickers, go to their Website.) I have to say it was pretty damn cool. Replete with statues, meditation centers, monks, nuns, and all that Catholicly goodness, we just had to go and get us some pictures. Which, of course, we did. I walked my mother all around that place and came home with tons of great photos, some holy water and a cross (made of olive wood from Bethlehem!) for my atheist boyfriend as well as a sweet Virgin Mary fridge magnet. Evaluation? Sweat. Consider this: at one point, I actually witnessed a real live monk blessing a woman's candle. No, perve, a real candle.
Now before I end my rave of The Grotto, can I just say that I thought the holy water scam they've got going there was great business acumen? You just know they've just blessed some huge vat of tap water and filled a million of those little plastic containers guys. I gotta tell you, the ingenuity there was well worth my three bones. Plus, seeing Beard Boy decked out for a vampire hunt was pretty special.
The next day we visited the Portland Saturday (and Sunday!) Market. For some reason I thought this was going to be a farmers' market, but nope. It was a total hippie Arts and Crap market. It was great. Mom bought me a sweet ring (see -->). There was live music and plenty of eats (of which I did not avail myself of, due to upcoming train ride and my perpetual fear of plane, train and let's face it any outdoor potty).
Later we went to Powell's to witness the wonder of an independent bookstore thriving. Okay, I know we have Elliott Bay here in Seattle, but still...Anyway, I had it in my head that I was going to buy a book there just because, well, just because I am a freak sometimes. We got lost a lot, yes, inside the store, and I ended up not buying anything because my bag was packed to its gills already and I think I was a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices. I bet you I could live in that store and no one would notice. In fact, I may just do that. Except, I told myself that if I moved to Portland that I would apply for that Part-Time Wedding Coordinator job they have open at The Grotto...Oh Portland you are so amazing.
Later, I got back on the train and went home. To be fair, the Amtrak train was on-time returning to Seattle. There was some weird supercross thing going on at Qwest Field that night.
The end.
P.S. I'm going back. There's so much else to see!
P.P.S. Update! Photos have been uploaded to the "Road Trips" album there on the right.
Holy Crap! Is that the new Narrows bridge? Damn. It looks like it's almost done.
Glad you had a good time in the River City.
Posted by: PAgent | May 11, 2006 at 11:26 AM