Last week I finally had my well-deserved spring break. After two and a half months of constant studying and exams, I really needed some time off. Over break, I wanted to go somewhere I hadn't been before, but somewhere that wasn't too far away (I don't have that much cash to burn), so I settled on Portland. A few days before leaving, I constantly checked the forecast, so I would know what to pack. As usual I overpacked, but I made sure to leave enough room for anything that I could buy while I was there (no sales tax!).
My brother, Bella, and I headed up on an early flight an arrived in Portland at 9 am. Unfortunately, Bella was feeling a bit sick so the plane ride was not that great for her. Upon landing, I was ready to go. I had already picked all of the places that I wanted to eat, so after picking up the rental car, we headed over to Pine State Biscuits for breakfast. I ordered a Reggie Deluxe, which was a piece of fried chicken in between two biscuits with cheese, a fried egg, and sausage gravy on top. Overall, it was pretty good, though I wasn't a fan of the bacon, which was pretty thickly cut and not as crispy as I like it. Bella had some tasty blueberry cornmeal pancakes that I enjoyed as well. After breakfast, since we couldn't check into our apartment until 3 we decided to do something not too strenuous for Bella, so we headed over to the Pioneer Place Mall in the Pearl District. All of the stores were pretty typical, but I did manage to buy myself a t-shirt from J. Crew and some Nike Free 5.0 running shoes that I've been looking for in my size for a while. With a couple of hours left to kill we headed to Washington Park with the hope of seeing the rose garden. It was too bad that all of the flowers were gone. One the drive through the park I saw some railroad tracks within the trees so once we parked I went to go find them. I was able to snap some pictures and then we all headed to the apartment we rented to get settled in. We rented a place through AirBnB. This was our very first time using it, and it was pretty nice. Once we got there, Bella got into bed where she stayed for the rest of the day. For dinner, my brother and I went to Pok Pok, the most reviewed restaurant in Portland (according to Yelp!). My favorite dish was the Fish Sauce Chicken Wings. I got them spicy and they were delicious.
The next day Bella was feeling much better. We started the day with brunch at Tasty n' Sons. I was expecting a much longer wait, but we only waited for 30 minutes. We each got a chocolate potato doughnut, I got the Burmese red pork stew, Bella got Erin's Sweet Biscuits, and my brother got the Shakshuka red pepper and tomato stew. All of the dishes were so good! This was definitely my favorite restaurant that we ate at while we were there. I would totally go back again. After brunch, Bella and I had our day out. We spent most of it exploring the Pearl District, hitting up all the local boutiques, Stumptown Coffee, and Powell's City of Books (it was huge in there!). After walking around all day, we met up with my brother to go to Cathedral Park (to see St. John's Bridge) and then Forest Park (to take pictures for my photography class). Then Bella and I went out to dinner at Oba, which was also pretty good (my favorite dish was the bacon wrapped jalapeños). After dinner, we needed dessert, so we headed over to Salt & Straw Ice Cream and got a scoop of "Pots of Gold and Rainbows" which had Lucky Charms in it. We finished the night at the apartment by watching Blue Is The Warmest Color (really good film).
We slept in on Sunday and headed home. It was a super fun trip and I definitely want to come back for a longer amount of time to get more exploring in. That's all for now! Cheers!
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