Amy Goes to Portland

In order to go to the Write the Docs conference that I wrote about in my last post, you might suppose, correctly, that I had to go to Portland, Oregon. My last adventure was my trip to Japan in 2011, so I was ready to get away.

There are lots of ways to get from Toronto to Portland; I chose to go via Vancouver on Air Canada because I heard from Twitter that, while Air Canada is bad, the American airlines are worse. As usual, I didn't have any trouble with Air Canada and arrived in Vancouver only slightly cramped and squashed.

We flew into a storm on the way from Vancouver to Portland, and when we were almost there the plane got hit by lightning. I wasn't terribly happy about that; I couldn't think of a time I had heard about planes being hit by lightning and it ending well. The pilot didn't seem bothered, though, and apart from some turbulence and the people behind me panicking, we landed without a problem.

Portland was warm and moist and smelled wonderful. I got a ride to the Hotel deLuxe from an Internet friend, and we had a chance to gossip and talk to her little guy about Superman and the fact that he couldn't reach his bits of paper with "S" on them.

The Hotel deLuxe was built in 1912 and recently restored with a vintage movie theme. It's a luxurious old-timey hotel like a smaller King Eddy. My room had floor-to-ceiling velvet drapes, crystal deco-style light fixtures, and white subway tile in the bathroom. The bed was furnished with thick, heavy sheets and more pillows than I knew what to do with. (So, more than two.) There was also a pillow menu, so you could order an even better pillow than the umpteen already there, and a holy book menu so you could request any one of about twelve holy books. I approve of the breaking of the Gideon hegemony.

After I got settled in I decided to go for a walk to wind down after travelling all day. Powell's Book Store was nearby, labelled as an attraction on the hotel map, and open late, so that was my destination.

The area around the hotel was dead at that time of night; there are some offices, a church, a theatre with nothing going on. Obviously I wasn't familiar with the neighbourhood so I didn't know how nervous to be, but there were a few women walking around and biking alone, so I decided not to be nervous. After a couple of blocks I came to Burnside Street, which was a little livelier.

Powells is astonishing. It's a multi-storey used book store which covers an entire block; it's a shrine to books. I could have spent the whole weekend there, but I managed to escape after about an hour and a half with only a few books and a couple of gifts for the girls.

The next day was the conference, which I already talked about over here. I woke up early (still being on EST, three hours earlier than local time), worked out in the hotel's small-but-effective gym, then had a proper cooked breakfast in the hotel restaurant. (I don't know why, but hotel breakfasts are the height of luxury and self-indulgence to me.)

I walked to the conference site in plenty of time, so when I got there the doors weren't open yet. There was a short line of grumpy-looking people waiting to get in (and one person who looked pleased to be there). I was happy and well-rested so I didn't want to stand in a grumpy line, but I wasn't feeling outgoing enough to talk to the one happy person, so I went for a walk around the block instead.

By the time I got back the doors to the Mission Theater were open. It's another old building (Portland doesn't seem to have Toronto's love of knocking old buildings down): a theatre with a balcony and a bar.

As I said in the other post, the conference was great. We were served lunch and there was an open bar (!). The line for lunch was really long, so to pass the time I had a beer; the first day I asked for something "not too bitter" (because I know Americans love really bitter ales); the drink the bartender served me was delicious and indeed not too bitter, so I asked what it was: a Nebraska Bitter. Good thing I let him choose.

I took a break from the conference and walked down a few blocks to get a coffee from Barista — some of the people at the conference suggested it as the best local coffee place. (It was delicious and, after three days I'm officially spoiled for non-awesome coffee.) I also stumbled on Oblation Papers, a paper and print shop with beautiful, quirky handmade cards. Like so many places in Portland, the store is just the front desk for a tiny factory — they actually make the paper right on site. There's also a budgie.

I really like Portland. I don't really understand how the economy of Portland works because there seem to be lots of businesses which employ people to make things by hand, and sell the things for reasonable price. You can get vegan food everywhere, and wherever you can buy coffee, you can also buy beer.

Monday night the conference organizers had some events planned; a night at a video game arcade (with infinite quarters), and a couple of informal gatherings nearby, at a beer place and a coffee place. The video game arcade had dozens, if not hundreds, of video games and pinball games, but nothing that appealed to me (unsurprisingly — I have never liked video games). They had DDR but no-one was playing. I ended up going around the corner to the coffee place — not only coffee, but beer and computers you could rent time on — but there was no-one from the conference there. I was tired and hungry anyway, so I had a plate of nachos, read Twitter and went back to the hotel.

On Tuesday I tried World Cup Coffee, which was better than Starbucks but not as good as good Portland coffee (told you I'm spoiled). They were experiencing a small fire in one of their coffee roaster, but they managed to make me a coffee anyway.

Wednesday morning I woke up even earlier, packed, and had another fancy hotel breakfast. Then I caught the Max train (just around the corner from the hotel) and rode all the way to the airport without a single transfer. So awesome! I wish I lived in a non-world-class city that had decent transit to the airport.

I entirely failed to get any good gifts for my cat-sitters, so I hoped I would be able to get something at the airport. I was lucky; turns out the Portland airport has awesome retail, including a store called Made in Oregon which has a great selection of interesting, actually-local food and gifts. I got hazelnuts, tea, chocolate and saltwater taffy for the folks back home.