yesterday in Newport, that Rogue has many satellite breweries which they own but do not control. Meaning that each brewery is independent and brews its own unique beer. We also learned that one of these was located near Portland's Hawthorne neighborhood and was called the Green Dragon. Now, I am sure for many of you that the name "Green Dragon" triggers a light bulb to go off in your head. It is, of course, the name of the neighborhood pub which Frodo and Sam frequent early in the Lord of the Rings, not that you needed reminding. I prompted Katie with the quote, "There's only one dragon in Bywater, and that's Green!" but it was lost on her, even though she read LOTR less than a year ago. Anyway, taking advantage of our rainy situation, I offered this place up as a suitable lunchtime venue. We arrived at the Green Dragon and the place was utterly empty, not even a bartender to greet us. After a moment a guy
magically appeared in front of us and told us to take any seat we wanted. We only had a snack not wanting to eat much since we had planned on eating some fair food at the market. Minutes after our arrival, people began to come in and the place was cheerfully busy within minutes. We both attributed its early emptiness to the fact that there were no TV's in the place and it was a college football weekend. We agreed that the place was a great find and though we only got to experience the Green Dragon as it woke from its slumber, we knew we could easily spend many hours there if we lived in the area. Upon leaving, much to our dismay, the rain had not stopped, but rather continued in its steady downpour. We decided that there was nothing for it and headed downtown to the Saturday Market anyway. When we got off the train, even though it was raining, there were still hundreds of people out in the street as well has hundreds of
vendors lined up in their usual Saturday spots. It was basically a giant craft show, one that repeated itself week after week. The first section of booths that we visited were all much the same, offering different variations of hats or hippie jewelry. Katie thought that this was the only section of the market and began to get frustrated with what the Saturday Market had apparently turned out to be. Moments later however, we discovered that we were only at the tip of the iceberg. We walked across the street into a giant permanent structure which was obviously built to house the best and brightest the market had to offer. We walked up and down the many rows, Katie stopping and nearly every booth to express some sort of interest in each one. She looked like a child that had been dropped into a giant playhouse and had no idea what to do first. After exploring the market, we decided on some Himalayan cuisine for lunch because not only did it
look good, but neither of us had had anything like it before. We chowed down a combo platter which had everything the place offered and though I cannot pronounce or describe anything that we ate, I assure you it was all spectacular. Afterwards we wandered back over to the section of the market which we started at and Katie found a long sought after treasure; wool gloves. I'm not going to go into detail about them, but if you want to know more about them just ask Katie. She has been telling everyone she talks to about them and frequently puts them on in the car during the hottest part of the day, just to tell me how cute they are. I must admit that they were pretty cheap and cool and I did walk away with a pair of my own. Satisfied with our trip to the market, Katie and I pondered what to do for the rest of the day. It was still early but we didn't really plan anything else in Portland to explore. For the most part, we had visited everything on our first trip here. Dustin had once told us that Portland is a magical place and that if you just walk around downtown for a bit you will end up just where you want to be. We took his advice and began to wander, seeing where the day would take us. Soon we came up on a corner bar bearing a big U of M flag and a sign underneath which told us that it was an Alumni event. Ironically, during our lunch with Josh, he had talked about meeting up with the MSU Alumni group in San Francisco to watch last weeks game. I peered into the window to see if the game was still on and who they were playing. To my surprise they were not only playing MSU, but MSU was also up! It was already late in the 3rd quarter, so Katie and I slipped into the bar and quietly watched as everyone in the bar starred at the screen watching MSU seal the victory. It was quite a magical experience, seeing as how I had no clue that MSU was even playing at that time, let alone against U of M, and that they would win! Once the game was over, we left again leaving our destination back up to fate. However soon we began to recognize the area; we were back near Voodoo Doughnuts! Katie was of the mind to stop in and get another dozen or so to go, but as we neared Voodoo, we noticed a long line around the corner. Remembering what Dustin had said about having to wait an average of an hour on Saturday's to get a doughnut, we decided to pass. We got back on the train and headed back to the Hawthorne neighborhood to explore another area of the city. Earlier in the day, I had consented to Katie that since Portland was one of the only places that she had her heart set on visiting during this trip, I would follow her around where ever she wanted to go for the day, even if that meant shopping. So of course, when we got to the Hawthorne neighborhood, we immediately we did nothing but shop... for hours. We went up and down the block going into store after store, most of them having some sort of Asian or Indian theme to them and many
offering the same trinkets at various prices. We walked around for at least 2 hours before getting our 3rd snack of the day at the Waffle Window! Sarah had recommended that we make a stop at this location telling us how excellent and unique the waffles were. Since we weren't entirely sure where it was located we hadn't planned on making it a stop during our day, but again we magically stumbled upon it and couldn't pass up the opportunity. The place lived up to Sarah's boasts, it was way more than either of us expected it to be. I ordered a waffle called The 3 B's, Sarah's favorite, and Katie got the Pumpkin Pie waffle. Hers literally had a giant slice of pumpkin pie thrown on top of a waffle while mine was first covered in a layer of brie cheese, then 4 slices of
bacon, and topped with basil. Both were amazing and if you ever happen to come across it while wandering the streets of Portland, make a point to stop in. We ate our waffles outside under an awning then continued on down the street shopping. Our next notable stop, at least in my mind was to Bridgeport Brewing Co. This was reward for suffering through an entire day devoted to shopping around Portland. Bridgeport was apparently the first craft brewery in Portland so we had to pay our respects to the founders of this trend. We split an appetizer to continue our day full of snacking then headed down the road to the Space Room, a bar that Katie had found in her research which apparently had a space theme. The space theme turned out to be some white christmas lights on the ceiling and a few paintings of aliens on the moon. It was a local bar and would have been fun to go with a group of people to, but for us it didn't have much appeal. We stayed for a little though before heading back to Dustin and Alyssa's where we again spent our night talking with them about our day in the city.
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