Opera, Food and Books in the Pacific Northwest
Mid-morning flights are ok - enough time to faff around with last-minute emails, packing etc, and still make it to the airport with heaps of time to spare. Better than mid- or late-afternoon flights where I'm always tempted to do a few hours of work after an early check-in: those are normally unbelievably rushy, catastrophic days.
One of the nice things about travelling as often as I do, is being able to use the first class check in desks even when travelling (as I mostly do) on deepest darkest economy fares. And normally the people who work at these counters are relaxed, happy and focused on the customer. I had a lovely chat to my check in agent about not knowing postcodes any more because no-one seems to post things any more, and she visibly checked to see if I was on the upgrade list. Of course, being deepest darkest economy, I'm not on those lists, and got a sweet apology about it. No matter, I was planning on sleeping across the Atlantic anyway.
Got to the endless security interview queue and was one of the last to board and was pulled aside at the gate. And got an upgrade anyway. Yay! United Airlines has a much improved business class on their 767s now, although reverse facing seats are a novelty for me. Inflight entertainment is no longer DAT tapes, but something fairly modern (though Windows-based) and with very high compression rates (visible in films with lots of black, like Moon, which I very much enjoyed other than the artifacting). I also saw an episode of 30 Rock, which I'd never heard about, and which was really absurdistly funny, leading to loud guffaws. Ugly Betty was surprisingly sweet and yet quite sharp and with a bizarre oversaturated picture. Long haul travel is great if like me, you don't have a TV and seldom get to the movies. I ate well - really really nice steak (!) - and drank some pretty good Californian wines, and got about 6 hours sleep too, and had a wonderful chat with a very very cool, smart and stylish cabin attendant who'd worked for the airline for 18 years and had a marvellous mid-Atlantic yet oddly European accent in English and spoke wonderfully classy Dutch and German.
I was also pushed to Economy Plus from Chicago and chatted with two older gents about life in Portland. Everyone on the plane was pretty chatty. I was developing a good feeling about Portland.
When I arrived, I was not surprised at not having luggage. The last couple of times through Chicago this has happened too. But the luggage people already had the missing luggage slip filled out when I popped into their office which was pretty cool. They said that my bag would be delivered to the hotel later in the evening.
So I hopped on the local light rail (USD2.30, all those airports which have ridiculously high public transport charges for their segment of the journey, like Sydney, should take note) into town. Clean, quick, and full of chatty friendly people with edgy urban fashion, tattoos, and random piercings. Had a couple of conversations on the way in. Walked the three blocks to the hotel and marvelled at how little the blocks were, how charming the autumn leaves were, and how clean and neat the city is.
Arrived at the Ace Hotel, and was taken aback at the laid-back hipness. The concierge, who I had assumed was a hipster drinking coffee with his mates in the lounge area, wandered up and asked if he could help. Checkin was very casual and cool and when I asked about where I could get a coffee, he pointed me at the branch of Stumptown Coffee off the lobby (also painfully cool, filled with pierced cyclists).
My room has a wall plastered in pages from a very old illustrated dictionary. The bedhead is covered in East German army tarpaulin. The blankets are retro-30's institutional brown and grey. The bathroom is a temple to the clawfooted bath that sits proudly in the middle of the tiled expanse. And it's cheap - some of the rooms are "European-style" too which means shared bathrooms, which must be even cheaper. Loads of people with Apple laptops sitting drinking espresso-based drinks and lugging sound or video equipment with them.
Off to the busy restaurant on the other side of the lobby, Clyde Common, and immediately seated at a common table. Service was swift and friendly. All the staff wear flannel, and almost all the (making assumptions here) guys had beards. Food simple but sharp and elegant. Great flavour balances, lots of local wines and beers on the drinks list. I started listening to the people next to me talk about Cocteau. Eventually they dragged me (kicking and screaming) into their conversation and it turned out that they'd just been to the premiere of an alternative opera I'd been thinking about seeing the next night. Long story short I got instructed to tag along for the evening and I met an interesting cross-section of Portland including people from the Portland Opera who're staging an interesting Philip Glass piece, Orphée. It was fun if a little boozy and late for me.
Took an epicurian walking tour of Portland with a gentle hangover and some tiredness the next day, really really interesting, especially the microbreweries. Went to Powell's (oh my God, why did no one tell me about that bookshop? Vast, diverse, shambolic and very very good) and must now buy more luggage.
The Beggar's Opera performance was excellent: quite exciting, oddly anachronistic while being very contemporary, and with great singing, music and stage presence. As far as I can tell, Opera Theatre Oregon is a semi-professional group which makes the achievement even more impressive. I met the creative director, as she thought she knew me (I must have a doppelgänger here because it's happened a couple of times now).
Had dinner at Higgins and was disappointed - provincial fine dining from the 1980's - it's all very well and good to source locally etc, but not at the price of an unimaginative menu, dishes that were ho-hum etc. My waitron was good, professional, competent, but most of the rest of the people walked around as if in their sleep - perhaps a good metaphor for the restaurant overall.
Today was breakfast at Mother's - overrated but nice - a stroll to the farmer's market at the University, which was really earnestly local, green and tasty. Loads of mushrooms, fantastic local fruit and vegetables, and aggressively authentic bread. Ate a new vegetable for the first time, a tasty, citrussy salad green called Ficoide glaciale. Brilliant.
I've got a day and a half left and still want to catch some films at the Living Room, a cinema complex which is agressively anti-Hollywood (lots of digital short film), head out to the Fine Art museum which is running a Chinese contemporary art show, and perhaps the Oregon Historical Society to learn about Native American culture and colonialisation.
All up, awesome. I should have packed some flannel, and perhaps some cool. But otherwise it's been great and sometimes even dry.
One of the nice things about travelling as often as I do, is being able to use the first class check in desks even when travelling (as I mostly do) on deepest darkest economy fares. And normally the people who work at these counters are relaxed, happy and focused on the customer. I had a lovely chat to my check in agent about not knowing postcodes any more because no-one seems to post things any more, and she visibly checked to see if I was on the upgrade list. Of course, being deepest darkest economy, I'm not on those lists, and got a sweet apology about it. No matter, I was planning on sleeping across the Atlantic anyway.
Got to the endless security interview queue and was one of the last to board and was pulled aside at the gate. And got an upgrade anyway. Yay! United Airlines has a much improved business class on their 767s now, although reverse facing seats are a novelty for me. Inflight entertainment is no longer DAT tapes, but something fairly modern (though Windows-based) and with very high compression rates (visible in films with lots of black, like Moon, which I very much enjoyed other than the artifacting). I also saw an episode of 30 Rock, which I'd never heard about, and which was really absurdistly funny, leading to loud guffaws. Ugly Betty was surprisingly sweet and yet quite sharp and with a bizarre oversaturated picture. Long haul travel is great if like me, you don't have a TV and seldom get to the movies. I ate well - really really nice steak (!) - and drank some pretty good Californian wines, and got about 6 hours sleep too, and had a wonderful chat with a very very cool, smart and stylish cabin attendant who'd worked for the airline for 18 years and had a marvellous mid-Atlantic yet oddly European accent in English and spoke wonderfully classy Dutch and German.
I was also pushed to Economy Plus from Chicago and chatted with two older gents about life in Portland. Everyone on the plane was pretty chatty. I was developing a good feeling about Portland.
When I arrived, I was not surprised at not having luggage. The last couple of times through Chicago this has happened too. But the luggage people already had the missing luggage slip filled out when I popped into their office which was pretty cool. They said that my bag would be delivered to the hotel later in the evening.
So I hopped on the local light rail (USD2.30, all those airports which have ridiculously high public transport charges for their segment of the journey, like Sydney, should take note) into town. Clean, quick, and full of chatty friendly people with edgy urban fashion, tattoos, and random piercings. Had a couple of conversations on the way in. Walked the three blocks to the hotel and marvelled at how little the blocks were, how charming the autumn leaves were, and how clean and neat the city is.
Arrived at the Ace Hotel, and was taken aback at the laid-back hipness. The concierge, who I had assumed was a hipster drinking coffee with his mates in the lounge area, wandered up and asked if he could help. Checkin was very casual and cool and when I asked about where I could get a coffee, he pointed me at the branch of Stumptown Coffee off the lobby (also painfully cool, filled with pierced cyclists).
My room has a wall plastered in pages from a very old illustrated dictionary. The bedhead is covered in East German army tarpaulin. The blankets are retro-30's institutional brown and grey. The bathroom is a temple to the clawfooted bath that sits proudly in the middle of the tiled expanse. And it's cheap - some of the rooms are "European-style" too which means shared bathrooms, which must be even cheaper. Loads of people with Apple laptops sitting drinking espresso-based drinks and lugging sound or video equipment with them.
Off to the busy restaurant on the other side of the lobby, Clyde Common, and immediately seated at a common table. Service was swift and friendly. All the staff wear flannel, and almost all the (making assumptions here) guys had beards. Food simple but sharp and elegant. Great flavour balances, lots of local wines and beers on the drinks list. I started listening to the people next to me talk about Cocteau. Eventually they dragged me (kicking and screaming) into their conversation and it turned out that they'd just been to the premiere of an alternative opera I'd been thinking about seeing the next night. Long story short I got instructed to tag along for the evening and I met an interesting cross-section of Portland including people from the Portland Opera who're staging an interesting Philip Glass piece, Orphée. It was fun if a little boozy and late for me.
Took an epicurian walking tour of Portland with a gentle hangover and some tiredness the next day, really really interesting, especially the microbreweries. Went to Powell's (oh my God, why did no one tell me about that bookshop? Vast, diverse, shambolic and very very good) and must now buy more luggage.
The Beggar's Opera performance was excellent: quite exciting, oddly anachronistic while being very contemporary, and with great singing, music and stage presence. As far as I can tell, Opera Theatre Oregon is a semi-professional group which makes the achievement even more impressive. I met the creative director, as she thought she knew me (I must have a doppelgänger here because it's happened a couple of times now).
Had dinner at Higgins and was disappointed - provincial fine dining from the 1980's - it's all very well and good to source locally etc, but not at the price of an unimaginative menu, dishes that were ho-hum etc. My waitron was good, professional, competent, but most of the rest of the people walked around as if in their sleep - perhaps a good metaphor for the restaurant overall.
Today was breakfast at Mother's - overrated but nice - a stroll to the farmer's market at the University, which was really earnestly local, green and tasty. Loads of mushrooms, fantastic local fruit and vegetables, and aggressively authentic bread. Ate a new vegetable for the first time, a tasty, citrussy salad green called Ficoide glaciale. Brilliant.
I've got a day and a half left and still want to catch some films at the Living Room, a cinema complex which is agressively anti-Hollywood (lots of digital short film), head out to the Fine Art museum which is running a Chinese contemporary art show, and perhaps the Oregon Historical Society to learn about Native American culture and colonialisation.
All up, awesome. I should have packed some flannel, and perhaps some cool. But otherwise it's been great and sometimes even dry.