As I'm sure you've noticed, except not because no one reads this blog, I have not posted anything in a while. I haven't had anything that I really wanted to blog about and also I'm lazy. However, I did something fun yesterday, and since I'm procrastinating, I'm going to write about it. So here it is. Now. Go.
My Very, Very, Very Brief Trip to Portland, Oregon. (Seriously. It lasted like three hours.)
My school has this cool thing called the Linfield Activities Board, or LAB, who organizes events and trips and they're always either free or really cheap. For example, they have movie nights in the auditorium and they book comedians and they have like...parties or something. Maybe. But sometimes they organize kayaking or hiking trips, or trips to places like Portland where you go to Hot Lips Pizza and Voodoo Doughnut and you only have to pay four dollars and it's really great.
So yeah that's pretty much it. Bye.
Just kidding. Since when have I kept anything down to a sentence? Never.
There were twelve of us on the trip, including the organizer/driver. Everyone, except me and two other people, was Asian. They were all exchange students who did not speak English that well. This was totally fine with me because I didn't expect to interact with anyone on the trip anyway. I just wanted to go to Voodoo. But once we were in the van, two girls introduced themselves to me and told me how much they LOVED my name and asked me if I've seen (500) Days of Summer. This conversation lasted about five minutes and the rest of the hour long trip I spent looking out the window at the Oregon countryside.
Eventually we made our way into familiar territory, aka the freeway because that is the only part of Portland with which I am familiar. We got off the freeway and made our way downtown and already I loved it, which seems pretty premature, I know, but I know what kinds of places, especially cities, I like, so I know what to look for.
We parked outside of Hot Lips Pizza and it was just the right kind of chilly outside and there were the kind of people walking around that I had forgotten existed because there are NO interesting people inhabiting McMinnville, Oregon. There were people who were wearing things BESIDES tank tops and shorts and flip flops. There was VARIETY! We'd been there all of five minutes and already I never wanted to leave.
This feeling got worse upon entering Hot Lips Pizza. Upon looking at the selections I see that they have a vegan pizza. VEGAN PIZZA. I had completely forgotten that there are places where this is a normal thing to have. McMinnville doesn't do vegan. It BARELY does vegetarian, and even then you have to fight for it. (Let us recall the No-Chicken-On-My-Salad incident at Shari's. Still not over it.) Of course I ordered a slice of this magnificence, and I had forgotten that it's possible for things to taste this good. I was in heaven. I never wanted to leave.
Except I did because our next stop was non other than the world famous Voodoo Doughnut! Anyone who even barely knows anything about me knows that I FREAKING LOVE DOUGHNUTS. They are one of my all-time favorite foods, up there with Coffee and Peanut Butter and Pancakes and Waffles. I have been wanting to go to Voodoo Doughnut since about this time last year, when I was living in Seattle and knew a lot of people from Portland and Portland is really close to Seattle and it's just one of those things that people talk about when they talk about Portland you know? And after my discovery of Top Pot and after falling in love with doughnuts and wanting to try them all and wanting to go to the Best Doughnut Places, Voodoo was a place that needed to be visited by me. I longed to try every single one of their off the wall and interesting doughnuts, except their maple bacon bar because...bacon. I HAD to go to Voodoo. Just. It was my quest for Camelot, okay?
Finally, finally, FINALLY, after driving all of five minutes, and driving PAST Powells, which basically broke my heart because it is Mecca and I have yet to make my pilgrimage, we made it to Voodoo. There was the hot pink, neon sign. Across the street from the parking lot with that building that says "Keep Portland Weird." I get out of the van and run across the street to get in the line that wasn't actually long at all. The organizer of the event (whose name is Nicole and we actually talked a bit and I liked her a lot) said that she was just going to get a Voodoo Dozen and we would share. But being the Coffee/Doughnut connoisseur that I am, I had to get a cup of coffee as well. Famous Stumptown coffee to go with my famous Voodoo doughnut. An 8 oz cup of coffee was only a dollar and it may have been the most delicious cup of coffee I have ever had in my whole life. Better than Top Pot, even. Which I really, really did not think was possible. But it happened. The doughnut I had was this one:
Captain Crunch Magic Deliciousness. In all seriousness, I cannot tell you how amazing this doughnut was. I wish I could have bought a Voodoo Dozen, but they only take cash and I had none. Tragedy, I tell you.
But I finally had my Voodoo doughnut.
As soon as I can figure it out, I am getting myself to Portland and spending an entire day there. I'm going to go back to Voodoo, I'm going to go to Powells, and I may return to Hot Lips Pizza, but I'd like to see what other kinds of amazing food they have in the city. I want to go back and I want to go often. I would really, really, really love to live there someday, if only for a little while. I just think it's so great.
And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping to accidentally run into Adam Ellis, my favorite blogger who just so happens to live in Portland.
I did not run into him.
This time.
Some terrible photographs I took on my phone because it takes better pictures than my digital camera:
Awesome sauce
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