Still, I'm a bit torn on Portland. The place obviously has some very cool things going on including a fantastic food scene, great live music, craft and vintage shops to die for, gorgeous residential architecture, however, I found the highly visible poverty and homelessness extremely challenging. I don't know if it's there because people in tough situations come to Portland because it has compassion on them, or whether it shows that under a veneer of social justice, actually nobody cares. I like to think the former.
That's all a bit drab and depressing, isn't it! Here's the touristy stuff we did in Portland...
Powell's Bookshop (if you don't like books, turn away now)

Food Vans
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Will eventually went with Polish (oh pierogis, how I love you), I had something called F***ing Amazing Chicken Noodle Soup |
Knit Purl
I looked up knitting shops in the Portland area and this one kept coming up. It certainly wasn't the cheapest but I was looking forward to seeing (and feeling) all the yarns that I read about in my American knitting magazines in the flesh. It was beautiful. And there was a place Will could sit and go on Facebook while I went briefly mad, so it was perfect. Non-knitters will not understand the sensory joys of a knitting shop. Knitters will need no explanations. This store was filled with beautiful, soft yarns and gorgeous shop assistants for whom no question seemed too silly, and who knew what I was talking about when I enthused about Jared Flood or Cecily Glowik Macdonald. I left with the wool, needles and pattern for a lace cowl that is ridiculously complicated for travel knitting but it is giving me something to do on those long flights (they're very little, bamboo needles, but I do ask every time at check in whether they're okay to go on board before they take my big bag away).Voodoo Doughnut
I saw Voodoo Doughnut featured on a food/travel show years ago, before I’d even heard of Portland. As soon as I saw the maple bacon doughnut, it was seared into my memory. It is a very small shop front with no internal seating and just a few picnic tables out the front. The shop inside is very obviously set up for queues, but given we were there in the middle of a weekday in winter we didn’t have to wait long. There were a lot of donuts I wouldn’t be too keen on, since they were covered in sugary American cereal, but there were enough tempting choices that I was (momentarily) unsure. In the end I went for the maple bacon doughnut that started it all, and I was not sorry. That sucker was delicious. I don’t think my heart could stand me eating too many, but I think one in a lifetime isn’t going to do too much damage.
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There's the maple, there's the bacon, there's the doughnut (but not for long) |
Hawthorne
I wanted to search out a particular vintage shop that I had read about online (which turned out to be way expensive but had gorgeous cocktail dresses) and we decided to walk, even though it was quite far. I’m very glad we did because we ended up going through this section of town. It’s a residential area set out on a grid of squares connected by intersecting crosses and it is clearly the ‘nice part of town’. The architecture is too good. I can’t tell you with any reliability the era or the style, but to say that I loved it is an understatement. I took so many photos of peoples’ houses I’m pretty sure the FBI has started a file on me.
Doug Fir
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Common, Dear in action |
All in all a lovely time in Portland. I haven’t written in here about the coffee shop that Will found online and that we walked a million miles to go to, because they literally only sold coffee and I don’t drink coffee, so you’ll have to ask Will about that one (he did mention them in the coffee post, and I think he said it was the best coffee he found in the US, but would it kill them to serve a pot of tea??) We also went to the most ridiculous pub on the first night for dinner that must have had hundreds of different beers you could try - that was a recommendation from our AirBnB hosts since it was their ‘local'. Too much good stuff anyway. If you happen to be driving past, I recommend a visit.
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