J'adore Portland

Our adventure starts on a Thursday evening, after I get off from work, race to school to turn in my homework to my teachers dropbox (because I was missing class to go to Portland) and head to the airport. My roommate Mike took John and I too the airport and we bolted right to the security line (we were already checked in and we had no bags to check thank goodness). We see our good friend Allan who works at the airport and take him through the line with us. Once through the drones of people we make our way to the counter and--guess what, our flight's delayed. Crap. That's like the worst thing, well, not THE worst, but you get where I'm going. We happen to notice on a neighboring reader-board there is another flight to Portland that takes off in about 30-minutes (compared the the 2-hours we'd probably have to wait for OUR flight). We ask the lady at the ticketing counter if we can get on (we didn't check luggage remember) and she said, "You'd have to pay the difference in fair to change airplanes... but since your flight is delayed, I'm going to just put you on." Oh thank goodness! Oh crap. Thank Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth for shining down upon Terminal 1 of San Diego International.

Okay, so we get on the plane, fly in, great, good for us, land, meet one of my best friends, Mattgraves (it's really "Matt (space) Graves" but you say it like one word--for no reason at all, it's just fun). So we meet Mattgraves and head to a place called Doug Fir. It's this super-cute, hipster, modern bar that looks like a funky, futuristic log cabin type thing. There we meet up with some friends, on of whom is Celess. Celess and I met in French class (hence the "j'adore") and we've stuck ever since. She was leaving over the weekend and could only see us on this evening, so we made it work. After jovial rekindling We went downtown to a gay bar with a cocktail or two in our bellies, had another drink there and went home (Mattgraves had to work the next day). While we were downtown at the bar though, I see a familiar drunken homo, wedged in the corner of the room, slouched on a piece of furniture. I order Mattgraves to swiftly inspect. To our surprise it was Dan Quiearcuigrocia! He's another super-great friend of mine whom I was very excited to see. Yay! Okay so we drank, laughed, I spit an ice cube in Mattgraves' mouth by accident (but it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen/done) and we went home and crashed.

The next morning (Friday) John and I woke up and hustled out the door to take a walking adventure of downtown Portland. Since it was Friday, everyone was working, which was great because we got to spend the day to ourselves. Our first stop was a restaurant called Southpark. It's one of my favorites places in Portland. I took my mom their a couple times when she visited me. It's just a super cute restaurant with fantastic ambiance and delicious cuisine. It's just lovely. It's like high-end but their lunch menus are actually quite affordable. Anyway, okay, after lunch we walked down to the "U District" where Portland State University is, then down along Broadway and down to the waterfront. It was very pleasant walking around a city where you don't live yet being completely familiar with your surroundings. Anyway... at the waterfront we caught the MAX (the public transit lightrail--which is free in downtown) and went back to the middle of downtown to meet up with my former boss, Susanne, for a cocktail. Consumed said cocktails, visited a couple other stores then headed back to Mattgraves' house.

Mattgraves decided to have a little BBQ at his place and we invited a few friends over and had a mary ol' time. We drank, ate and conversed. After the BBQ commenced Mattgraves convinced us to go to this club called Halocene; they were having some event called "Gaycation." (The gays think they are so clever with their play on words). I've been to this club before actually, but it was in a fashion show for Portland Fashion week a couple years ago and was runway model (you better work...). Anyway, this night it was so far from a gaycation it was a gaytastrophe. It was purGAYtory. Let me explain: it was NOT a bunch of cute gays running around in muscle shirts and tank tops, drinking blended drinks--no--it was a bunch of gnarly lesbians and their b.o. and attidutes and craziness, making out with each other or cutting in line and just being rude. We begged Mattgraves for departure and he finally caves (why he was enjoying himself is still a mattgraves mystery). We go BACK downtown to the same gay bar we were at the night before and play video poker (well, Mattgraves played video poker) and drank and shortly after went home. Phew!

Continue Story onto Weekend Number 15.