But first… Portland

Once upon a time, my good friend Nathan and I donated some money to a Kickstarter campaign for a movie that one of our favourite comedians was making. We sprang for a little extra so that we could attend an exclusive screening in Portland, figuring that it would make for a nice excuse to go on a road trip at some point.

Turns out, 'some point' was about two years later.

Three days before I was scheduled to leave for Europe, to be exact. Which, combined with the weather, didn't exactly scream 'road trip' to me. But I had also just spent a good chunk of my bank account balance on said Europe trip and flights - particularly those of the last minute variety - aren't exactly cheap, so it wasn't exactly screaming 'air trip' to me either.

But, we had already spent money on the campaign, plus Portland is such a cool city and I've always wanted to check it out. Also… on an unrelated note, they may or may not have the most craft beer breweries of any city in the world. So, I put it to Nathan. If he still wanted to go, then I would as well. He did, so we did. I booked some flights, grabbed the cheapest hotel I could find and off we went. Or… that's how it should have gone.

You see, Nathan doesn't do much traveling. And his lack of traveling had lead to his lack of having a passport. Which, as you can imagine, can be a bit of an issue when traveling to Portland. But, we still had 14 days until the scheduled departure, and you can always put a rush on the process for a few extra dollars.  Which would have been fine, only he also had misplaced his birth certificate, which is another key ingredient in the whole 'getting a passport' equation.

I could bore you with the details, but let's just say, he picked up the shiny new passport with more then three hours to spare before our flight was set to take off, and we were on our way. No biggie.

Now, let's go back to the part earlier when I mentioned booking the 'cheapest motel' that I could find. Well, those motels aren't exactly in the nice part of town. A fact that was made abundantly clear to us as we enjoyed a scenic bus ride through the 'interesting' part of Portland, as the man across from us stopped spitting on the floor just long enough to go on a massive racial-laden tirade against the bus driver over a disagreement about the current heating conditions of the bus. It's definitely a little shocking to see one human being screaming N-Bombs at another human being in today's day and age. Especially considering both men were about as white as they come. But hey, when the heat is turned too high, you deal with it in your way, and the crazy drunk/high homeless guy deals with it in his.

The hotel ended up being fine. You know, for the type of place that is located between a strip club and a bowling alley. But the sheets were clean (at least that's what I kept telling myself…) and the shower was hot. Good enough. Plus it was located on a pretty direct bus route to downtown, which was where we would be spending most of our time anyways.

We caught a Blazers game, Nathan showed me a brand new, and very unique method of using chop sticks at a pretty stellar sushi restaurant. Oh, and we may have toured a brewery or two while we there as well (at last count, 44 different beers over the four days). We met up with my friend Dylan (who had moved down to Portland a few years back for school) for a tour of a pretty sweet old school arcade (with classic 90's machines like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat and a whole floor of pinball machines, all of which were only 25¢ to play) and of course, Voodoo Donuts.

And then there was the movie. The whole reason for the trip in the first place. Don't get me wrong, the movie itself was fine, but as far a 'special screening' exclusively for backers went, it definitely came up a little short. The theatre was opened up to the public, so really, anyone off the street could pay a few bucks to get in (far fewer bucks than we had paid, for sure) and Adam Carolla, the comedian that we had come to support and hopefully get a picture with, only did a very short preamble on stage before the movie and then took off, never to be seen again.

It was pretty disappointing. I mean, it was still a good excuse to come and tour the city and catch an NBA game, but when you consider that we had essentially flown all the way from Edmonton, and that normally for his regular live shows, he always stays and takes a picture with every fan, and that some people (not us, but some) had paid up to $250 for their tickets because of the billed 'exclusive meet and greet', it would be pretty hard to classify the evening anything but disappointing.

But, like I said, this was only a minor disappointment in the grand scheme of things. The trip as a whole was a really good time, and ended up being a great little prologue to this whole Europe endeavor.

Speaking of which… I got in at 2:30am this morning, was back on my way to the airport at 9am… and am now officially Europe bound. Stay tuned.