Day Five in Portland

Monday

Having been to the beach the day before, we decided to do another shopping day. We had budgeted enough cash to allow for it, so we were eager to spend the money in stores we didn't have locally.

Our first stop was...Powell's City of Books again. Yeah, we sort of love this place. Hard to beat all the books. We wandered the aisles, looking for missed titles from previous days. Ended up picking up more books, of course. When we exited, I noticed another record shop down the road, so we walked down to Everyday Music and did some more record shopping. This place was definitely bigger and the previous shop and everyone found a record or two, including Bille, who picked up a Harry Styles record. Of course she did.

After record hunting, Lola hit up Anthropologie while Billie and I went into a Starbucks. Billie grabbed a Peter Rabbit snack (sort of a pureed strawberry squeeze thing) and I got an iced coffee. We could have been in El Paso, honestly. Indoor seating was still closed, so we went outside and sat at a table around the corner. Billie got cold so we kept getting up and finding spots of sunlight to stand in so she could warm up. After she finished her snack, we crossed the street to find Lola in the store. 

When Lola finished shopping, we began looking for a place to eat and chose Elephant Delicatessen, a local place with high ratings on Yelp. The cafeteria style ordering was a charming approach to picking your meal and allowed a real understanding of the menu and what was offered. I ordered a Pastrami on Rye, something I had never had, but felt like the right kind of order in a deli. I was not disappointed. Great sandwich, will definitely order again. Never thought I'd like sauerkraut on a sandwich - I stand corrected.

When we finished eating, Lola ok'ed a trip to Far Post, a local soccer shop Josh had encouraged me to visit. We drove past Providence Park, where the Timber play, on the way there. The shop was small and didn't have a lot of options in 2X, but the staff were super helpful. I picked up a Timbers kit from last season at 55% off. We discussed kits with the staff, who were thrilled with my 2014 USMNT sash kit I was wearing. They recommended visiting Laundry PDX in Chinatown.

We swung over to Laundry PDX and were a little underwhelmed. The store had a lot of vintage clothes, but didn't have a lot of soccer options. I had spotted another similar spot next door, so we walked over to Produce to see what it had to offer. The shop definitely had a lot of NBA jerseys, but only a small number of soccer kits. However, they did have a USMNT 1995 in white in XL. I decided to buy it anyway (it was only $50, so no harm, no foul). When I tried it on later, I was thrilled to realize I could wear it! That year was super baggy, honestly. The rest of Chinatown didn't have a lot of shops we were interested in, so we decided to call it a day and head back to our Airbnb.


Before crashing for the evening, I made a quick solo run to Rose City Coffee, which was just around the corner. I was a little underwhelmed by the amount of available merch. There was plenty of nicknacks, but very little branded items, which sucks because their branding was really hip. I picked up a bag of coffee for Kyle (the guy watching our dogs) and headed back to the spot.


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