Reddit's Fantastical Voyage Pt. Eleven

12:30am - Arrive in Portland

1:00am - Nightcap at the Bye & Bye

2:00am - Smallworld

3:30am - Sweet, sweet sleep

8:00am - Wake up, coffe and chai

9:00am - Ethiopian no go. Gravy.

10:30am - McMenamins Kennedy School

12:00pm - Voodoo Donuts

1:00pm - Powell's

2:00pm - Food carts

3:00pm - Vietnamese card game

4:00pm - Happy hour fail

4:30pm - Belmont Station

6:30pm - Hopstar's house

7:30pm - Arrive at Ground Kontrol

8:00pm - Switch to Backspace to accommodate under 21s

9:00pm - Back to Ground Kontrol

10:00pm - Meet the Narwhals

11:00pm - New bar, new people

12:30am - Bike for home, sleep by 1:00am

5:00am - Get up, head for airport

7:00am - Depart for L.A.

With out flight confusion in Boston and having to cross the United States again, we did not get in to Portland until after midnight local time. We were picked up by our gracious hosts, good friends of Stranger2Love who were recent transplants from Wisconsin. They took us out for a drink before we went back to there house and distracted us from sleep with a rousing game of Smallworld.

We got up the next morning and went off in search of food to fuel our day long biking tour of Portland. After trying a few places, including a promising looking but never open Ethiopian breakfast spot we ended up at a restaurant named Gravy. They specialized in gravy. I had biscuits and gravy. Properly stuffed and ready to go we then set off on borrowed bikes with our two hosts to check out the sights of Portland.

We tried to go to a bar at 11am, but they were closed, the bastards. Instead we trekked off to the famed Voodoo Donuts where we ended up buying an entire bucket of day-olds for six bucks. Tom and I also bought a bacon-maple bar fresh to try. After this we were basically looking for interesting ways to kill time until we could meet fellow Redditor Hopstar at his place of business and imbibe some free booze. We checked out Powell's, a huge local bookstore where I made some inappropriate comments in the children's section, and hit up a block full of food carts. Here Tom tried the "I Can Has Cheeseburger" Cheeseburger, a cheeseburger with Texas toast grilled cheese sandwiches as buns. We took a break for a while and were taught a fun Vietnamese card game (with a little research I found that it is called Tein Len). By the time we finished this we went to try and begin happy hour in a restaurant with a great view of the city, but our timing was terrible so we headed off to HopStar's place of business a little early to avail ourselves of its fine selection of beers.

We got to the Belmont Station just as HopStar was finishing up for the day and had a few pints while enjoying the drizzling rain. We were supposed to be at the meet up by about 7:00pm, but we ended up being late as usual after HopStar invited us back to his house to try some particularly good beer he had been saving. Then on the Ground Kontrol, a fairly large arcade with an impressive number of pinball machines. We were not there long before we discovered it was 21+ after 5pm, which was rather funny as it was picked for us by under 21 Redditors as a good place to congregate. We switched over to a coffee house for a bit where we tried to pack as many people as possible into their photo booth. Bidding farewell to the young 'uns, we then headed back over to the arcade for some drinkin' and some gamin'. I immersed myself in Bubble Bobble and DDR while Tom formed up a group for the Rock Band competition. Ladies and gentlemen... I am proud to introduce to you for the very first time - the Narwhals!

A new bar was in order after everyone had their fill of gaming for the moment, but my recollection becomes pretty terrible at this point. Biking all day, lack of sleep, and booze consumption had gotten to me. I was barely awake for the next bar and then we biked it back to our cozy beds before another early flight.

Next stop: Los Angeles