PORTLANDIA…Can you tell us about the chicken? Well, his name was Kevin…

“The chicken is a Heritage Breed, woodland-raised chicken that’s been fed a diet of sheep’s milk, soy and hazelnuts,”  But is it local?

Ahh Portland trendy, hipster and old hippy: and home to the original food truck movement. But it is 72.2% white which makes it one of the whitest cities in USA with some entrenched racism. Oregon had supported Trump, but Portand was fairly left leaning. that was a bit of a surprise.

We stayed at a great Airbnb near The Arts District of Alberta St which was full of wonderful restaurants and cafes. The highlight was the Proud Mary Australian owned cafe which has all the Australians drooling over their fabulous coffee- it was so popular we had to queue–their code for a hot coffee in the computer,  as the waiter told us,,is ‘Fucking Hot’- a bit of ozzie humour. American coffee tastes like burnt dish water.

Everywhere there are beer and  cider boutique breweries. I am not a big fan but found myself enjoying a few flights.

We stumbled across a fabulous Italian Restaurant next door to the airbnb and it was superb as well-is there any bad food in Portland? We really enjoyed Italian homestyle food, with very snappy young hipster service…OMG get them to The Bay.

The markets bought out the alternatives but I pleased to say I kept my own , with hipsters admiring my outfit and often my glasses.  ..what can I say..what superb taste. We also had great food at the food carts and managed a bit of retail therapy at one of the biggest book stores in America…POWELLS: they had everything on everything. You needed a GPS to navigate it.

The flight back to Tech City-San Fran turned into a comedy of errors on Alaska Airlines. After I queued for at least 30 minutes at security, they made us all march out in a huge circle( do not ask questions ma’m) and march past a security dog- I felt like a medical experiment.  Finally got on the plane and the pilot came on with the same crazy story that I have heard many times  before..’We are waiting on some paper work and then the catering.”. Can’t they think of a better line…eg. I think we have really stuffed up. Finally after about an hour they asked if they could have 3 volunteers to give up their seats-and it turned out that 3 seats were broken..but it got weirder. They then made us get off the plane because San Fran was supposedly covered in fog. After another hour we were allowed back on the plane- I did feel a bit apprehensive about who was flying this aircraft, but it appeared that they had just missed their slot for landing because of their ineptitude. Glad to get off that flight.

However after night in Mountain View in Silicon Valley I was sitting in the business class lounge sipping champers-and had a superb flight back to OZ with AIRNZ. Woo Hoo and then a long drive up the NSW coast to Cabarita Beach. There was a slight incident where I crashed the front of my car into a stationary truck due to jet lag…ahhh.

 

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