"Betcha Didn't Know I'm a Kenyon Princess" : The Nathan Visit Pt. One

Well, this will be a two parter because I have a smidge of homework to do to cap out my school week, but I wanted to update!

So Nathan came in town to visit. It was a visit I was looking to greatly because, well, I just wanted to have a familiar face in town and someone to cut up the town with. Nathan arrived Wednesday night after the busiest week of the whole term. 2 essays, 2 large projects, plus mid-term studying, plus mid-terms.

I ride the MAX out to the Airport to get Nathan, we ride it back, drop his stuff at my apartment and then, both us of extremely famished, headed off to Ringler's downtown. I figured Nathan would like the place because it's pretty laid back, quiet on weekdays and serves amazing food and McMenamin's beers. We drank it up, ate a ton of food and caught up on what's what in Columbia. We ended up getting a few to-go bottles and heading back to the apartment. We had a longer night than expected, since we had to be up early the next day, but it was fun regardless.

Up early and back out to the Airport to pick up our rental car. We ended up with a Chevy Malibu that had an enormous white stain in the back seat. Yeah. I took the wheel and drove us down to Eugene so Nathan could meet with a professor there about possible PhD studies and the like at the University of Portland. Of my interest was the Roy Lichtenstein exhibit at the Museum. We headed there first and it was just incredible. It wasn't his immediately recognizable, most famous works, but seeing anything made by a personal hero was still just jaw-dropping. We milled out snapping pics on our camera phones and then headed down to the gift shop where they had some cheap prints and other Lichtenstein kitsch. Of course I bought a print.

Nathan heads to his appointment, I sat in the Malibu and read the paper, drove around a bit, Nathan finished up and we headed to this super old cemetery on the University of Oregon campus. More silly pictures and then we headed back to Portland. The drive there and back was really beautiful. A lot of farm land but also some really nice greenery. All in all it wasn't a bad trip. I don't think we got the full gist of the town, we stayed pretty west and only drove through a small part of the downtown there.

I knew that I would have to enforce some of Portland's great Thai food on Nathan while he was here. Wasting no time, I rushed him over to Thai Noon after getting home from the Eugene trip. Like always, this is the most exquisite Thai food ever! Peppered Garlic tofu. We finished up our meals and seeing as we were in the Alberta neighborhood, we headed over to the Kennedy School, another fine McMenamin's establishment. This place is an old high school that's been converted to a bar, a movie theater and hotel rooms. We managed to get a table in the courtyard and since it was cold enough for one, they had a fire roaring in the firepit outside. It was quite surreal, but awesome.

Driving in a somewhat foreign town can be pretty daunting. I had managed my way onto and off the highways and I raised the stakes by making it to Alberta without any problems. But add a few beers and I began to worry about making it back okay and without handcuffs. So we ended up at yet another McMenamin's place (after attempting to go to other places, we resigned there, these things are everywhere) closer to my apartment.

I'll wrap up part one there. I have some homework to finish. But stay tuned! More thrills to come including, the coast!, drinking!, a car accident! (not involving me), more drinking!, drunk driving!, a cock and balls donut?, and just how did we manage to get into the sold out second to last Sleater Kinney show? Plus pics! (once Nathan sends them to me).

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