Portland

While my travels to the Midwest were fun, the highlight of my August on airplanes was heading to Portland, OR to see my very dear friend. It's where she landed after leaving Cambridge this spring and I've missed her dearly. So I was nearly beside myself to get out there. Of course, the entire northeast corridor airspace was really busy the Friday night I left so I got in two hours late. My seat mates were a lovely hippie Mom and her little blond two year old. Normally I would not be thrilled to sit next to a toddler for a cross country flight, but she was a doll and fell asleep soon into the flight. As we were getting into Portland I could hear this little voice calling my name. She was up and wanted to tell me about her book. I could not wait to get off the plane and see my friend. The suspense was just killing me and it seemed to take a billion years to get my luggage.

Portland was a blast! It was slightly odd because while her place is totally different than her Cambridge place, it felt really familiar seeing all her stuff. We had the best time laughing, chatting, giggling, losing wallets, drinking coffee, drinking beer, buying earrings and hiking. I had one of the best meals in Portland. The rabbit was out of this world. It also was the evening of the most lame attempt at a pick up. The man at the table diagonal to us smoothly came over as we got our cauliflower appetizer to tell it was really good. Not two seconds later he blows it by saying "what is that" and pointing at the appetizer he just told us was really good. Smooth.