The hours weren’t random, they occurred consecutively. It was within those 18 hours, however, that I encountered parking trouble, pie, soccer, suduk, an extinct volcano, a soapbox derby, and ramen noodles.
7:00 pm, Friday night. My apartment had become a kiln, absorbing the heat from the last week of temperatures in the 90s. I headed out on a quest for a restaurant with air conditioning. I was foiled with my first choice; there were no parking spots. This has happened to me once before in Portland. The first time I was completely thrown for a loop. How could there be no parking? It’s a frustration most of you are used to I am sure, but I’m not.
As a reminder, I don’t own a car, nor was I passenger in someone’s car. There were no spots to park a bike. Every rack, pole and post had a bike attached to it.
I actually welcome the problem. I’d always prefer to see people walking or biking rather than driving. In Portland, the business or neighborhood associations often work with the city to remove an on-street parking spot for a car and replace it with a series of bike racks (for a fee, whereas a single rack on the sidewalk can be installed at no charge to the business).
With no parking, I moved on to Plan B, where there were 27 bikes parked on just one block.
(I’m guessing before the bike racks were installed those 27 people didn’t arrive in one car.)
9:00 pm, Friday night. Luckily, I like to walk and bike, because I also like to eat. My mom makes the best pies and has a blue ribbon to prove it, but good luck finding a restaurant with pie on the dessert menu. (Although it’s probably because they don’t know how to make a proper crust, so I guess it’s best they don’t try.)
After dinner I was looking for a little something-something. That’s where Random Order Coffeehouse and Bakery comes in. Devoted to pie and open late.
I devoured the chocolate cream pie before it occurred to me to take a photo, so I went into my archives (or went back later in the weekend), hence the dramatic lighting on the lemon meringue pie that wouldn’t have been available at 9 pm.
7:00 am, Saturday morning. My interest in soccer started with the Portland Timbers last year, which led me to join the Netrippers FC, Portland’s LGTBQ soccer club, this past spring – playing soccer for the first time since walking off the pitch in the 5th grade. Now, it’s expanded to watching teams I don’t even root for.
Stella! and I got an early start to ride over to 4-4-2 Soccer Bar for the first games of the English Premier League’s new season. (4-4-2 is a soccer formation.) When I arrived, the bar was already full.
It’s a small place, but had three screens with three different games going on. The surprise though was the food. For breakfast there are plenty of egg dishes and even French toast, but it was the Bosnian items that intrigued me. I had a sandwich with kajmak and suduk. (Kajmak is a type of clotted cream and suduk is a type of beef salami.) The sandwich was made with lepina, a Bosnian bread. I never would have guessed that it would be in Oregon that I would try Bosnian food for the first time.
10 am, Saturday morning. After the games I decided to work off a bit of my breakfast with a bike ride to Mount Tabor, a park in southeast Portland that sits atop an extinct volcanic butte. I was just planning to get a bit of a workout riding to the top.
The only downside to the weeklong heat waving finally breaking was that a perfect view of downtown Portland was hidden by clouds.
My path to the top was also blocked by “caution” tape. The road was marked off for the 16th Annual PDX Adult Soapbox Derby.
As stated in the rules for entrants, “the car must be powered solely by gravity (no kinetics, no wind – no propulsion),” and “the car must have functional brakes (no Fred Flintstone brakes).” Although I think my favorite rules was the “each team must designate a driver or drivers who will remain sober until your car is no longer racing.”
1:00 pm, Saturday afternoon. Riding downhill from atop an extinct volcano to the river, probably didn’t burn off many calories, but that didn’t stop me from trying Boke Bowl for lunch. Their specialty is ramen. I’ve had periods in my life where I’ve lived off dollar packets of ramen noodles, so it seemed a little odd to go out to eat for ramen noodles. The name is perhaps the only thing Boke Bowl has in common with those grocery store packets. Boke Bowl serves handmade noodles and the pork was delectable shredded pork, not some pork flavoring.
It’s not always possible to plan a day like this, but next weekend is already looking full with a block party for a bookstore (Powell’s 41st anniversary), a birthday party for a theatre (the Mission Theatre turns 100), a derby (The Portland Timbers take on Vancouver), Sunday Parkways and the Hawthorne Street Fair.
Related links:
So impressed with all the bikes–bikes actually being used–in Portland. When you said there was no parking, I was so confused because I couldn’t imagine you renting or booking a car share to go eat, so I loved that it was full parking for two wheels that don’t require gas. Your “random” weekend is inspiring: I should try something like this for Denver and expand my appreciation of the city.
I hope one day to join you on one of your random weekends!
Ramen – I lived in Sapporo, a city in Japan that is famous for ramen. Oh, it is AMAZING! And, as you say, nothing like those Top Ramen packets you can find in grocery aisle #8 here in the U.S.