Friday: Arrival; and "The Fellowship of the Paggi" is Forged

Tony, one of the four of us whose birthdays were being celebrated (four!) arrived around noon on Friday, rented a car, and explored the city because he couldn't yet check into his hotel. Our good friend Audrey, a young lady and old friend of Corrie's from Austin, had arrived the previous night and had spent the day exploring some of the things we were going to be looking into in our time.

Coordinating many people across many hotels spread over a city is, to understate it massively, difficult. We persisted nonetheless.

Anyway, Tony picked us up at the airport, spirited us off to our (fancy) hotel just south of the Pearl District on the west side of town, and then we set off for a bite to eat and some libations.

We met up with Audrey while at one of the least likely places we might have eaten otherwise--had it been earlier in the night, had we been able to find the pizza-by-the-slice place around the corner, we never would have chosen to eat at this place. We only ordered appetizers, and they were things like quail and pork terrine and chicory with smoked sable fish.

The food was good, but not exactly what we were looking for at that moment.

The night ended late (with the lights being turned up) at an underground placed called Blitz, but before we went to our respective beds to slumber, we decided to voyage---with Tony driving his car---east along I-84 into the Columbia River Gorge area and take a look. It sounded like a good way to spend the better part of the first day before the big dinner.

Side Note: Like in Seattle, Corrie found us a fancy and post-modern style hotel. The room was small, but the fixtures and furniture were all "cool" and edgy. Corrie has a hate-on for the floral-print bedspreads, and attempts to search for hotels that have their own character. Part of a cross-country driving trip makes places with that kind of bedspread nearly impossible to miss, but on these inner-city, few day stays, she outdoes herself. In Portland we stayed at the Hotel Lucia, if anyone's interested.