City of Roses

As I mentioned in my previous post, my favorite times of year are the times when I do not have to go to school.  It's fabulous and this past week was another one of those times.  My sister is a senior in high school so everything is about college currently.  We have toured several colleges in different states over the past few years.  However, this was the first tour that we were going on since she had applied and been accepted to college.  We traveled to Portland, Oregon - aka the City of Roses for those of you that didn't piece that together quite yet.

As the acceptances and scholarships came rolling in, she had seriously been considering where she wanted to spend the next four years of her life.  College costs the big-bucks and you want to go somewhere you'll like, so it was a big decision for her.

We went to Portland to visit one of her top contenders, the University of Portland. I had never been to Oregon before so I did not know what to expect.  I just knew that it rained a lot.

After we got off our plane, we drove over to UP to walk around.  It was one of the greenest campuses I've seen.  The campus overlooked the shipyard and the Willamette River below.  Claire's friend gave us a brief tour this day and on Monday we came back for the actual tour.

The Monday tour was LONG.  I believe we were there for six to seven hours!  It was presentation after presentation, but it was somewhat interesting.  The best part was that we got free food from their cafeteria for lunch.  They have some yummy options!  I also enjoyed seeing the dorms and different parts of the campus.  It was exciting for all of us, but my sister was pumped!

I was rudely cut out of this picture.  Photo Courtesy of: My Mom

While we spent a couple days around UP, we also explored the city.  Our first night there our friends from Park City also happened to be in Portland.  We got together with them for dinner in the evening.  After attempting to eat at multiple restaurants with no luck (all were booked because it was Saturday!) we happened upon a cute little restaurant.

We made it just in time to enjoy the happy hour menu (literally, they were ending it in five minutes) and ate like queens.  My family ate fondue, pizza, ravioli, and soup.  It was the best food of the whole trip.  And I also had a hibiscus cooler.  It sure sounds fancy and even had sugar around the rim.  I know, I'm classy.  But honestly, it didn't taste that great.

Excuse the way I look-I was much to excited about the ice cream.  Photo Courtesy of: Me

Afterward we went to this delicious ice cream parlor called Salt and Straw.  It was so fabulous. The first day I got honey lavender and olive oil.  The workers are incredibly friendly and let you try all the flavors you want.  On Sunday we waited in line for fifty-five minutes to get the ice cream!  That day I got cinnamon snickerdoodle and vanilla.  That was not as good, but still super yummy.  Definitely check this place out if you go to Portland!

On Sunday we had big plans.  And I mean BIG.  We have some connections and were able to get passes to the Nike company store.  This store is ginormous and we got 50% off with our passes.  Every person that shops there has to be an employee or family of an employee.  We were neither, but again, connections!

This was the biggest Nike store I have ever been in.  They had shopping carts for the shoppers, I thought grocery stores only did that.  Seriously though, it was crazy.  People were grabbing everything and had stacks of shoes in their carts.  I think I probably tried on over thirty items between my two stops in the dressing room.

Look at all those beautiful clothes.  Don't worry, I did not buy all of them.
Photo Courtesy of: Me

It was so worth it though.  Much of the clothing is exclusive to that store and won't be available elsewhere for a while, so gotta stock up!  I'm not kidding, I spent way too much money and now am broke and living in my mom's house.  Well, I already lived there, but still - I spent a lot of money and my current financial state somewhat depresses me.

Have you ever seen a shopping bag this big??
Photo Courtesy of: My Mom

After our Nike adventure, we wandered over to 23rd and did some more shopping.  The only thing I bought was a bath bomb.  Granted, it was a seven dollar bath bomb, but I love baths.  I think the bath bomb is avocado scented, but I am currently battling a sinus infection so I am taking Claire's word for it.  All I can say is that my bath better freakin' rock.

That's about all we did in Portland, touring the campus and shopping.  On Monday night I did take us on an adventure to find a restaurant.  We did not want to drive and walking around without a destination proved to be fruitless, so I found several restaurants on my phone to go to.  They were all extremely busy and had a long wait, so I found Thai restaurant nearby.  My family was convinced that we were heading toward a food truck and we almost turned around, but it ended up being the cutest and one of the yummiest restaurants we ate at this trip. 

After my success with the Thai restaurant, I led us on another adventure to a closed cupcake shop.  I then preceded to lie to my family and say that the website said it was open.  Oops.

Portland was a fantastic and beautiful city to explore.  We ate great food, enjoyed having no sales tax, were yelled at by a person that reminded me of Crazy Eyes from OITNB, and Claire decided where she is going to college! Yay!

Now back to school...

Ciao

Camille

Oh, did I mention that I got socks at Powell's that had cats on them!?!  They are the cutest things, actually all the socks were super hilarious, but many of them had cuss words on them and I didn't think my mom or Utah would appreciate that humor.