Portland Day 2

So the advantage of being woken up early is that we got to get going running nice and early so we had the rest of the day as our plans for each day really were jammed full.

Forest Park is immense. One of the largest city parks and we ended up running there three times.

The colours were soooo green. It was like a Bob Ross painting, if you remember that tv programme with the bearded artist that did those tree pictures?

The one big noticeable difference was the humidity. The weather was a little cooler to begin with each day but most days we got up to around 20°C but there was a gentle breeze and pretty much no humidity compared to the sweltering stuff we've been getting in New York. Much more like Scottish scenery and weather. Plus I'd forgotten what it's like to run on proper trails. Great!

Made bringing all those different types of trainers worthwhile, ha ha.

There are some amazing houses up in the West Hills. Mega money and so clean and all different.

I'd have loved to have tried biking around Portland, the hills are amazing. Think San Francisco or up around the back of Inverness Castle from the river, so many vertical streets.

There were some mega trucks on the go too. The truck in front of us was big enough, then we were passed by this other one which was bigger still!

Back at Heather's brothers place, the kids were taking to me, must have been after we gave them their presents we got. So Uncle Chris got to read them a bedtime story, ha ha.
I think they loved hearing the words pronounced differently. They seemed to be in love with the way I pronounce the word "carrots" I wonder why :-)

Portland Day 1

So Portland is pretty cool. Not what I expected in terms of layout and a real taste of a different side of America compared to what I've experienced in New York City.

We stayed at the house of one of Heather's friends and it was my first time in a proper American house in a typical leafy suburban street, just like you see on tv, ha ha. Front porch and all.

Went of exploring on a 40min run while Heather went to an exercise class with her friend.

Thank god for the iPhone. I was able to map a run on the go, up Mount Tabor which was a 10min run form their house and round a reservoir and back.

So Portland is pretty spread out. We hired a car the next morning and drove back and forth between there and Heather's brothers place where her parents were also staying.

There were so many low level mall type stores on the roads outside of the city centre. Think drive thru Burger King and multiply that by a thousand for every type of store. Not used to seeing that, difficult to explain.

Heather's friends, Sheryl & Tom, have two young kids so as we were staying in their converted basement we got welcomed every morning before 8am as they came down the stairs for breakfast.

Heather saved me one morning as one of them wanted to come down the stairs dressed in his robot costume so I could sleep on, ha ha.

It's been a while since I was around young kids for long periods.

Tom is a fireman so on day one we got a tour of the firehouse (woo-hoo) and a couple of gifts for Heather's niece and nephew who were at her brothers place and that was funny (more later).

Oh, I also met Heather's mum and dad for the first time! It certainly helped that we had skyped at Christmas time and along with Heather's brother and wife and their kids I felt right at home, like one of my own family get togethers.

To the West

Wednesday night we jetted off to Portland from JFK.

The relatively new Terminal 5 for Jet Blue was amazing... in terms of food. Everything you could think off, electronic terminals for choosing the food, free refills on drinks.

And a random luxury vending machine:

The flight was quicker than expected at a little over 5 hours. It also featured live tv so I was able to watch the NBA playoffs. I used their little tv reminder service on the Jet Blue app just to see if it worked!

Shuttle Enterprise

The Space Shuttle Enterprise was taken from JFK to New Jersey at the weekend and this morning it was loaded onto a barge and taken on a trip up the Hudson towards the USS Intrepid at pier 86 (46th street) where it will stay as part of their space museum exhibit. I went down to the river to take a couple of pictures. Was only there five minutes but pretty cool.

It was followed by the giant crane (capable of lifting 500 tonnes) that will load it onto the deck.

Then I headed back to Brooklyn to get my final injection at a health clinic so my paperwork should be good to go once we get back from Portland. Leaving in 5 hours!

The weekend

A sunny weekend before the temperature dropped and the rain came on Monday.

Again I was reminded how time flies when you head out the door and how tiring it is having no car. We went off on Saturday around 11.30am with no plans other than a run in Central Park. After running for an hour, freshening up in the mall toilet and grabbing an Orange Dream Machine from Jamba Juice (yum, it has sherbert, ha ha) we came across a street fair on our way back to the subway.

A detour for some groceries in Brooklyn and to redeem a Google offer at a Mexican food place and we didn't get home until nearly 8pm!

There's always something going on. Sunday in Manhattan had a Filipino Day parade while Central Park had the Celebrate Israel 4M run!

But instead, we met Heather's visiting friend and our downstairs neighbours drove us into Williamsburg to visit the Brooklyn Brewery for a pretty underwhelming beer/food festival. Only two out of the five of us drinking beer doesn't help, ha ha, but it was more some of the advertised accompanying food not being there. The brewery was cool though.

Some duck fat fried chips on a nearby rooftop bar and then we drove home where our neighbours cooked us a BBQ. We need to buy a little one to use on our fire escape just outside our kitchen window. I'd forgotten how good BBQ'd food tasted!

Then we nipped up on our roof to show them the view....

One topless woman and thirty schoolkids

So one story that has been in the news, mainly online, over the last couple of years is that New York has an old law that enables women to legally go topless around the city. Something to do with sexual equality. I think the police can ask you to cover up but legally they can't force you to.

So we were walking down 23rd street in Manhattan just in front of a group of about thirty schoolkids aged about 10 or 11 all in their red t-shirts with a couple of teachers.

Then we happen to notice a (or THE, I'm not sure) topless woman on her phone in front of Home Depot. Had a little chuckle in a kind of celebrity spotter way but then just as we passed her all we hear are the kids screaming with laughter.

Such a funny sound. All the people further up the street were turning round to see what was going on.

No picture, sorry. They weren't that great.

If you have a lot of spare cable-ties then here's an inspirational picture of some local "artwork".

We had another of Heather's friends visiting so we met her one day and as she was on a bit of a food hunt visit we went to Lombardi's. It's supposed to be one of the best pizza joints in the city and it is really tasty although at the end of the day, I guess it depends how you like your pizza?

We deserved it, as any visitor trip means a tonne of city walking. We had just taken her on a walk along the High Line which is always a good spot to go on a sunny day. Although technically any accompanying photo should be of the plants and not an advertising board and car park. But it was another "I don't know what they're advertising" pic.

Parklife

Another run in Central Park and we happened to stop and notice this guy just lurking in the undergrowth. We started running again as he started moving closer to us. He looked hungry!