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The view out the window of our AirBnb room on George’s Quay, in central Dublin, right on the River Liffey.
Tara and I got up early and caught a city bus to the other side of downtown Dublin. On our second day Tara was feeling better so we could explore together, unlike yesterday. Our first brave thing on this trip had been taking the express bus from the airport and finding our way to the apartment without copping out and hiring a taxi. Our second brave thing was to take the city bus from the apartment to Kilmainham Gaol. We found out the bus we needed, and the stop, by using Google maps. But we didn’t know the fare. While we waited for our bus, we saw fares posted on the outside of a different bus, with a note to use exact change, which we didn’t have! So we hustled back to the main street, found a convenience store and asked for change for the bus, which the shopkeeper graciously complied with, no questions asked. Then we ran back to the bus stop just as our bus was arriving, and hopped on. We used the map on my phone to track our progress and hit the button to stop when we got close. As we thanked the driver, he pointed the direction we should walk for Kilmainham Gaol, and viola! We arrived on time, produced our tickets, and were ushered directly inside.
The Kilmainham Jail opened in 1796 and is important in Ireland for multiple reasons. First of all, it was the first jail to offer individual cells, men separated from women and children, and with a design of cells surrounding a central open area. Our guide explained that this was following the Panopticon design idea from Bentham, in which cells were arranged to make inmates more visible to the jailers.
The outside of Kilmainham Gaol
Walking the hallways inside.
Artwork done by famous inmate Grace Gifford Plunkett.
The open center of the jail – unlike any jail built before it.
Looking into the cells ringing the center.
Graffitti from inmate – likely on his last day there.
Kilmainham Gaol Museum is three stories high.
The jail is currently most famous for its association with imprisonment of political activists, and with the execution of 14 men following the Easter Uprising in 1916. Prior to the trip I had been trying to educate myself on Irish political history and learned about the drastic turn of Irish public sentiment from predominantly neutral on the question of Irish independence, to predominantly in favor. This was because British Troops came in and rounded anyone up that was vaguely associated with the rebellion, or that they simply felt threatened by. They held courts-martial in secret and condemned 90 people to death. Then they began executing them, a few each day, in Kilmainham Jail. One of the Irish Republican leaders, James Connolly, was so injured and sick that he could not hold himself up, and had to be tied to a chair in order to be executed. The public became more agitated each day as they heard about the murders, and finally a stop was put to the executions because elections were coming up and this was not going to help current leaders get re-elected. Our tour guide said that in her opinion, the fallout from the Easter Uprising was the event that changed the tide of Irish history.
And there we were, in the very place where it happened.
Courtyard within the jail complex.
This is the wall at which 13 men were executed in May 1916.
Except for the flag, this is what they saw before they died…if they were not blindfolded. Connolly, the 14th man, was executed down at that end, since it would have been too much trouble to drag him from that door (where he arrived in a stretcher from the hospital) all the way to this end.
We ended the tour in a wonderful museum inside the grounds, and finally went out into Dublin once more. We caught a different bus back to the room, quite comfortable with public transportation already. đ
Cathedral spire
I found it amusing to have a farm truck on the streets of Dublin.
Attractive bank building.
Temple Bar – don’t know why it’s famous, but lots of people were having their photos taken here.
We wandered the streets in the Temple Bar area, since that is the area around our room. We stumbled upon Dublin Castle, and passed on the tour, but happily explored the garden nearby.
Dublin Castle tucked out of sight between city blocks.
Tara in the garden behind Dublin Castle.
Dublin Castle from the garden.
While we were in the garden it began to rain pretty hard and we got wet and even colder. The temperature had been in the low 40s all day and we had about had enough. By the time we got back to the apartment, my fingers were so frozen I couldn’t feel them, and Tara had to get the key into the lock for me. We sat there and dried out a little while, then went back to Mulligan’s for a pint. This time we got to chatting with the bartender and enjoyed ourselves so much we stayed for a second. A patron gave me a hard time for not having a Guinness, and he said if I was going to have one anywhere in Ireland, I needed to have it there. I asked why, and the bartender explained (it has a lot to do with freshness, and exceptionally clean lines). We had earlier decided we weren’t hungry enough to have a Guinness because the beer is so heavy it makes us too full. But after the explanation, Tara and I were convinced.
Oh. I stand corrected. Guinness is a whole new thing if you have it from Mulligan’s. It’s a completely different drink. It’s not even beer, it’s so amazing. It’s a creamy, delicous liquid that’s in a whole separate category. It went down so easy. Yum. I can’t believe the stuff in the states can be called by the same name.
We ended the night playing around on Tara Street.
Do have a pint at Mulligan’s.
Tara at the Tara House, on Tara Street.
Entrance to the National Park.
Can you believe I got lucky enough to find a volcano during my trip to Chile? Of course you probably already thought of it, but I was delighted to face VolcĂĄn Villarrica all day today.
Our day started on the overnight sleeper bus. Our sleep was fitful. Margaret heard the bus hit something metal, and go over it, and began worrying about a crash. I just couldnât get comfortable. And ughâŠI hate trying to sleep on a moving vehicle. Some people are lulled to sleepâŠbut I am irritated into neverending wakefulness.
We got off the bus at the wrong stop at 6am and luckily the bus driver knew me well enough by then to correct the error. âThis is not Temuco,â he said, and wouldnât take my bag ticket. We laughed at ourselves and got back on the bus, to find that a hopeful woman had settled into our seats up front instead of her seat in the very back. Apologies all around and we settled in again for 20 more minutes of bus ride. We were met outside the bus station by a taxi driver who took us a very long way to the airport on a $46 cab ride. Wow! It was a half-hour ride, but I still think that was too much.
Margaret negotiates with the rental car employee.
We were the only people in the airport at 7:30am. We had to kill a lot of time before the car rental window opened up at 9:15. I find that picking up a rental is never a smooth process, and this time, though Margaret had purchased trip insurance, and the fee showed, the insurance wasn’t added to the account. The people at the counter didn’t want to release us without a purchase of some kind, so we went around and around for an hour before Margert finally paid an additional deposit, and we finally picked up our car and were able to get on our way.
There we were in Chile, Margaret re-learning to drive a stick shift and in a new country. It ended up being a very easy trip though, and with sunny skies and great roads we arrived at our hotel in no time. Too early for a room, but they held our bags and we went down to the lakefront to share a bottle of wine, apples, cheese and crackers. Once our room was ready, we showered and changed and headed into PucĂłn. It’s a lovely little tourist town that was setting up for a Friday night concert on the main street. We visited a tourist information office to get a map for hikes the next day.
Heading down route 199 in Chile.
Sights of the volcano along the entire trip.
Our fabulous hotel on the shores of Lake Villarica.
Every room in the hotel has views of Lago Villarrica.
Mt. Villarrica from PucĂłn
Lago Villarrica
We asked at the tourist office where to take a good photo of the mountain, and he suggested that we go to the lake.
There are a couple of flower stands in PucĂłn that sell these astounding, huge bouquets of flowers that are painted to look out of this world.
One of the things the man at the tourist office suggested was a drive to the base of Mt. Villarrica. So we left town and went 14 kilometers to see it. We didn’t go all the way (and it looks like there is a ski resort there), but we got close.
The road to the mountain was mostly paved, but included a few sketchy spots.
Near the base of the mountain.
The area is surrounded by high mountains that aren’t all volcanoes. But you know, it can’t be all volcanoes.
We kept seeing these clouds form and roll off the very top of the volcano. We found out a couple days later that it *is* steam from the still hot volano!
We left the volcano and drove back to PucĂłn. It’s a small town but large enough that we didn’t get a chance to see it all. We browsed the shops and found a place for dinner. Then we wandered back to the main street to watch musicians doing a sound check for the concert. We didn’t stay for the concert, but we did enjoy the few songs we heard as they got ready.
This place sold preserves, famous Chilean honey, and cheese. We are surprized to find that Chile sells a lot of good cheese.
The band was having a great time and people were already settled on both sides of the street to get good seats, even though the concert hadn’t really started yet.
The sound check ended and we wandered into a supermarcado and purchased a few items for lunch the next day and headed back to the hotel and called it a night.
{Update! Two days later in a different part of Chile, we were informed that a year and a half ago, two volcanoes became active again. The one further south erupted, and VolcĂĄn Villarrica began spewing dust and ash and steam. So all those times when we stood there looking at the top of the mountain, remarking that it seemed as though there was steam billowing from the crater…well…. that’s exactly what it was! ha ha! Even better. đ }
So far, I particularly enjoy the cool empty streets of morning.
Since we hit the markets Tuesday, today the plan was to lean toward culture. Our Air Bnb host told us how to find the area considered more cultural (i.e. less touristy), with lovely neighborhoods and museums. We struck out in that direction, and did not have to try very hard to admire everything we saw.
Churches are always beautiful to see.
The architecture is just wonderful.
We find a surprising amount of Tudor architecture here, and the same in Vina del Mar.
We notice police everywhere, los carabineros.
We walked through the beautiful neighborhoods of obviously wealthy families, on our way to Vega Central. It’s a huge market area, but we were not going to shop; we wanted to see it. We walked along the river, Rio Mapocho, which is a particularly ugly river for a downtown anywhere, and spotted our destination easily from a distance. Vega Central is worth the visit. There is a rather big flower market, next to a very big two-story market, with grocery on the ground floor and mostly clothes on the second floor. I am impressed with how mouth-watering the produce looks. Sometimes markets are just not that appetizing, even if they sell “fresh” food. Here, however, everything tempted me. We bought spiced peanuts and blueberries to munch while we walked.
Rio Mapocho, the one thing in Santiago that is not so beautiful.
The flower market.
Inside the grocery and clothes building of Vega Central
The groceries looked amazing at every single stall.
The fruits and veggies were mouthwatering. Check out these crazy multicolored potatoes!
…and black corn.
Outside, surrounding the grocery and stretching for a couple of blocks are street vendors selling vacuum cleaners, strollers, kitchenware, batteries, you name it. If anyone in Santiago needs anything, this is the part of town to get it. The markets are jammed though, with stalls almost in the streets, so you negotiate vendors and wares and traffic and other people, and the occasional stray dog, all while watching where you place your feet (just in case), and it gets overstimulating quickly.
We crossed the river again and came out by the fish market we saw on Tuesday. We had only explored one side of it the first time, today we explored the other side. We had a particular lunch in mind and tried to find a shop that would sell it. As we stood gazing at a menu for Tio Lucho, the proprietor came out to tell us what he thought was most important. He held a magazine of what to do in Santiago, then turned a few pages in and pointed out his establishment. The message being pretty obvious: his was the place to eat. So we tried to explain what we wanted. Empanadas…”oh yes!” he says. “But no,” we continue “empanadas with…” Margaret and I struggled to remember the word for crab. Centolla I thought, but that was the word to describe the King Crab we ate the day before. So M pulled out her phone translator and finally got the word: cangrejo. The proprietor knew right away what we wanted. “Con queso?” he asked. With cheese? So basically, yes, Margaret and I walked into a restaurant at a fish market in Santiago and ordered off menu. Spoiled Americans, anyone? The crab and cheese empanadas were outstanding, and came with two special sauces that the proprietor explained how to apply. As we left, our new Tio told us to consider the place our home.
Marget gets ready to enter the enormous fish market.
The fish looks very fresh.
We also found a meat market.
At the meat market we found tongues, hooves, and a pig head.
Waiting for our special meal with another Pisco Sour.
Our fabulous empanadas made with Chilean love.
After we ate, we walked back to the wealthy quiet streets and strolled through more vendors. These sold quality goods, i.e. jewlery, fine art prints, books. We aimed for the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. This building caught our eye earlier in the day, and was a perfect stop for the heat of the afternoon.
Inside we were allowed to take photos of the statuary in the main hall, but not allowed photos of the original oil paintings in the side rooms. The sculptures were of such high quality tht we found ourselves admiring knees and shoulders and feet as much as the whole image. Some of the paintings were outstanding; take my word for it. I fell immediately in love with a small one of a reclining woman smoking,  called La Fumadora.
The Magnificent Museo Nacional del Bellas Artes.
Detail from the front of the buillding.
A display of just the sails, but no ship.
How irresistable is she?
Columns holding up the roof.
The details of this one are perfection. When I spotted the expression on the face of the man behind and holding Jesus, it brought tears to my eyes.
This one made me think of Indians plaing stickball. The info card confirmed it’s an indigenous boy.
La Fumadora. 1900 by Vincenzo Irolli. Image by Jorge Olave Riveros.
After the museum, in the heat of the afternoon, we went back to the apartment â stopping first at the supermarcadero to pick up a bottle of Chilean wine. We were both tired enough to nap, and sadly, I have never been a person who can nap. I can lie down for an hour, but not sleep. If I lie down long enough to fall asleep, and have to wake up 20 minutes later, Iâll be a bear. Best not to go there! Instead I began a blog post because I didnât know when Iâd have access to Internet again. Margaret reclined, but also did not sleep, and instead carefully plotted out our evening travel.
Refreshed, we went back out into the streets, our third day in Santiago comfortable for us as we had learned so many shortcuts and landmarks. In one corner area, as we went from place to place reading menus and checking prices, we enjoyed a guitar player. He was so good that we stopped in the shade and listened for awhile. I would have been happy to sit there in the shade until he was done, and happy to pay for a personal concert. But it was time to eat.
We settled on a place specializing in coastal dishes from southern Peru and northern Chile. Margaret and I are such fans of the Pisco Sours that she ordered another and I ordered a flight of different Piscos in order to taste the liquor itself. We were told it is made from grapes, and I am surprised at the flavor being nothing like wine. The three I tasted were 40 and 42 proof. A liquor I canât compare to anything I have tried before. The lightest one most reminded me of tequila â isnât that interesting? The second had strong floral flavors and was Margaretâs favourite. I remarked âI taste plants!â The third, apparently very rare Pisco, was my favourite because of the complicated mineral flavors and creamy oakiness. I had enjoyed the ceviche so much the day before that I ordered another today. M had steak and mushrooms with polenta.
A lovely street corner in the evening.
A talented guitar player.
Next we went to the GAM (Centro Culturo Gabriela Mistral), a modern museum right next to our apartment. Itâs a huge building so we expected more art, but the space is dedicated mostly to conference rooms. We did find displays of contemporary artists using folk art styles such as metal work, clay, and baskets, with the older art mixed in. Soon we had seen all the displays and we wandered through a bustling book sale. The GAM seems more like a college campus to me than a museum, and kids were everywhere. I settled on a book to purchase as a gift for Tara, and the vendor asked if I wanted the author to autograph it. Until then I had not realized that the place was filled with people selling their own books. The author turned out to be fluent in English and autographed in both Spanish and English. What a treat!
We went back to the apartment and soon after, Angelo and Evelyn (his roommate) arrived. After an enjoyable chat over wine, Angelo saw us to the metro station. With kisses and hugs and many thanks, we separated over the gates and M and I hopped down the stairs to the subway. In moments we were at the bus station and there was only one hiccup of the evening. We asked which bus went to Temuco, and when bus 12 was pointed out, I took my roller bag there and had it loaded into the back. When we went to the front of the bus, the driver wouldnât let us on. It was a regular bus to Temuco and we had purchased a ride on a sleeper bus. A kind man took pity on us and took our reservation over to the Tourbus counter and got us assigned seats and boarding passes that told us to go to bus 20 instead. And thatâs fineâŠbut I needed to get my bag. I tried and tried to explain (in English of course, which was not helpful) to the man at bus 12 that I wanted to get my bag back. I held up the ticket and pointed to the bag storage. The man just shook his head, âNo.â Not that he refused to get my bag, but he refused to try to understand what I was saying. Margaret and I became more emphatic, pointing to where the bags were kept, and I kept holding up my bag claim tag. The man simply shook his head at us. The helpful man spotted us still at the wrong bus. âCome with me, bus 20 is over here,â he said in Spanish. âNo! We need our bag!â we protested. This man understood instantly. He began hollering at the first man, gesturing at him to come help us, and opening the luggage compartment without even asking. I reached in and got my bag. The first guy, though he hadnât helped with anything up to that point, stopped me and asked for my bag claim ticket to make sure the bag was mine. Hmpf. I guess you can go anywhere and find people like that.
We got my bag onto the proper bus and we boarded. The seats were huge and reclined way back and we settled in for a 400 mile journey to Temuco.
Margaret on bus 20
The view out the apartment window of Cerro San Cristobal.
I woke at 6:18 am refreshed after a great sleep. Soon Margaret was up too and we were out the door around 8:30 and headed for Cerro San CristĂłbal, or hill of St. Christopher. It would be quite a hike and we wanted to hike in the early morning coolness. And…can I say…after the heat of the day yesterday, it cooled down overnight and was deliciously pleasant sleeping weather. The morning was cool and breezy and perfect.
Street art on the way to the hill of St. Christopher.
Empty streets in the morning.
More art. I can’t help myself.
We walked a few blocks north, a few blocks west, and there we were at the bottom of the hill. Rather than go up, we backtracked a little through the tree-lined empty streets in search of coffee and sustenance. I am impressed by so much street art here, and stopped so often to remark and take photos that Margaret began to point murals out to me!
We found the perfect cafe, some sandwiches to go, and off we went on our trek uphill. It was a slog, but with plenty of shade, continuing morning breezes, and fabulous views of a hazy city, it was really no chore. At the top we found the beautiful white statue of the Virgin Mary. Surrounding it at the top of the hill were a lovely garden area with many benches in the shade, and a small and lovely stone church called the Motherhood of Mary Chapel. To save our feet, we rode the funicular (a….train?) back down.
The Virgin Mary, surrounded by admirers.
Holy water in Mary’s Church.
I am standing just below Mary, getting a sunbun as we speak.
Our car is passing another as we ride the funicular down the hillside.
View of Santiago from the funicular.
Bridge at the bottom of the hill covered in locks of love.
Lovers names inked onto them.
Our host Angelo had raved about Valparaiso and Viña del Mar (vineyard of the sea) the previous day, enough that we were convinced, and made on-the-spot plans to catch a bus there after our hike up the cerro. And that’s exactly what we did: back to the room, freshened up a bit, and headed for the metro. We took the metro to the bus station, and then we asked enough people in broken Spanish to express our need. (bless the patient Chileans) Tickets in hand, we jumped on a bus for the nearly 2 hour ride to Viña del Mar.
Views of the Andes from the bus.
We saw multiple wineries from the bus.
Our plan had been to explore both cities, but we stumbled serendipitously upon a Chilean-born Canadian, who was working for the Viña del Mar tourist office. She easily explained why we couldn’t do both cities – not enough time. And since we were walking, she quickly mapped out the best walking route through her fair city, so that we would return before the last bus of the evening.
We were so impressed we followed her suggestion exactly. First through the Parque Quinta Vergara, a lovely park but not especially remarkable. Margaret pointed out that the tourist lady was very proud of the place and eager to send us there, and for that reason, we were happy to go see it for her. There was renovation underway at the park, of the old Governor’s mansion. Restoration is something we have seen regularly here, and I think that’s a good sign of how well a city is doing.
A tree at the park. The fruit is bright orange/red as you can see, and dropping to the ground as it ripens.
There are fabulous houses in Viña del Mar.
I get happy in water.
We continued walking toward the beach, and enjoyed the small landscaped flower garden pointed out to us by the tourist guide. Almost as soon as we reached the sand, one of the many women selling things offered us something we actually wanted: a flaky sugary pastry and we scarfed it down, only after a very long discussion about how much it should cost. We began the conversation at something that sounded a lot like $5,000 pesos for a single pastry (close to $8). When it was clear that we were shocked and walking away, the women quickly explained that we didn’t understand. After much talking and confusion, many prices being discussed, always with the woman saying we weren’t understanding her. Finally we paid $1,000 pesos for two pastries, which is more like 75 cents each. Now THAT I can understand just fine. đ
We ate our pastries on the beach and I was not able to resist the water. I stripped off my shoes and socks and splashed in the sea. Imagine! Swimming in the ocean in December.
Lovely views of the seashore are found in Viña del Mar. Wulff Castle is in the center, on a rock outcrop in the sea.
Pelicans groomed themselves into awkward poses, though I begged them to raise their heads for a more flattering photo.
We find the cities in Chile to be tastefully lovely and very clean.
This tree has seen better days.
Castle Wulff
Pisco Sours
We were able to walk inside Castillo Wulff (you can barely make it out in the shore photo above). It was purchased in 1906 and transformed into a castle in 1916 by Gustavo Adolfo Wulff. Inside was empty but for an art show of local bird photography. We crossed the mouth of a river and continued on along the playa, past a splendid casino in a huge building with classic architecture. There were horses with carriages out front, but that was too touristy for our mood just then.
Finally, tummies rumbling, we went in search of a place to eat. Margaret has been pining for local seafood, possibly a Chilean seafood soup, so we walked past the Peruvian Thai restaurant (Er?), the many pizza places, the Italian restaurant. We skipped a few that looked promising because they were closed. Finally we stepped a place advertised as a pasta restaurant, because we spotted fish on the menu. The beach here is touristy, and thus the waiters brought us menus in English. Sure enough, seafood was on the menu, so I ordered Chilean Pot (mussels, squid, and shrimp sauteed in garlic butter) and Margaret ordered white fish ceviche. We sipped Chilean Pisco Sours, an alcoholic drink made of egg white, Pisco (a brandy made of grape wine), syrup, lemon juice and bitters, and found that our luck remained with us because the generously-sized dishes came out made to order and scrumptious.
We have been admiring so much of Chile’s architecture. The lovely folks at Castle Wulff had provided us a walking map of some of the more remarkable homes in the city, so after we ate we headed for the bus station via these homes. We spotted a couple, but even more fun was that in front of one such gorgeous mansions was an event of some kind. At Palacio Carrasco we stood with the crowd and watched schoolkids take the stage and sing songs – one song for each school – and watched the parents and grandparents cheering and smiling and holding up their phones to get videos.
Schoolkids singing
At the bus station.
Subway entertainment.
We left for the bus station and settled in for our 2-hour ride back. After that long long day, and after two days together, Margaret and I had finally exhausted our supply of things that needed to be talked about in order to catch each other up on our lives, and our trip home was somewhat more subdued than the one earlier. We caught the metro back to downtown Santiago and were surprised (shocked actually because of the deafening volume) when a man came up and played his boom box, then accompanied the song with his saxophone and pipe. He had a woman in tow, who was asking for money. Eventually they moved off. Soon they were replaced with two teenage boys who looked like they were having a blast earning their coins. They also played boom boxes, but brought mics and began rapping about the passengers on the subway. Smiles all around showed that their show was much more appreciated than the first one. But it was our stop and we hopped off and easily made our way in the dark to our apartment. It was about 11 pm as we sat down at the kitchen table with a glass of wine to get ready for bed (me to begin my blog post), and M figured we had spent $40 each today for all those adventures. Wonderful!
Today was a good day for me.
I’m still in training for my new position at my job. I completed training for the first position last week and moved into training for the next. We are getting ready for our official training, which will be in Baltimore for a few weeks. I leave Tuesday, and won’t get back till December 14th. By 2008, I’ll be a professional student for sure!
I was in such a good mood this evening I didn’t even bury my face in a book when I got to the bus stop. (Currently reading: Fugitives and Refugees, by Chuck Palaniuk who also wrote Fight Club and is/was a Portlander) An old Indian spotted my pink “B” cap (go Sox!) and said how much he liked it. Then he began sharing some old Indian wisdom with me. I love it when people just talk to me. It seems like I don’t find many Indians who want to talk. He commented on how so many people seem to be caught up in a fast world of consumerism.
Then the Indian told me that he was worried about all the people who are using computers, and technology in general. “They’re stealing,” he said, “and there will come a day when it has to balance out.” “Stealing?” I asked him. “They’re stealing electricity. Taking and taking, and not giving back. There must be a balance. Some day it will balance, and that will cause problems.” It gave me pause, and I believe I will now have to spend some time thinking about that.
There is a man who rides the morning bus with me (and sometimes we hit the same evening bus as well) who has a condition that causes his arms and legs and fingers to sort of go their own way. He’s handsome and friendly, and everyone wants to be his friend on the bus. It is so much fun to listen to friends on the bus. I am humbled by his grace for example, when he casually uses his right hand to pull his left arm back into his personal sphere, and when he hurries to cross the street, moving his limbs through a dance that is repetitive actions. It occurred to me that I walk the same way: repeated actions of limbs that get me moving forward.
We passed a man on the street who was grinning and holding his dog on a leash. From the height on the bus I could look down onto his bald head, completely tattooed.
Another dog – a pit bull puppy – was taking her owner for a walk. She pulled against her leash so hard she was airborne shortly at every bound. Each lunge was halted in mid air and she would hang and then drop, and then lunge again.
Across from Couch Park is a building with a completely round top. What is this building? I’ll have to go there and find out. A church of some kind? Reminds me of the mausoleum of Mevlana I walked through in Turkey.
In the park is a tease for children. It may be sculpture. It looks like a fat merry-go-round that spun so fast it went up into the air.
In the Pearl District at 6pm on a weekday, there are two groups of people: young fabulous hipsters heading into Red Light (that and Buffalo Exchange are my two fave clothing stores that sell previously owned threads). The other group is professionals with their shiny shoes and long coats and exaggerated highlights in their hair and too cool glasses.
And every where are the lovely, lovely Portland women with their tight jeans and scarves and funky hats. How is it that the women here are so beautiful?
Ahhhh…. I just love this city
