Portland

The trip has officially reached the point at which I don't know what day of the week anything is any more. My lofty goal of keeping a daily diary has also, as usual, fallen by the wayside so I really couldn't tell you quite which day each of these things happened, but here they are in order. Portland fun:

Fun at Lindsay's house:


Justin got us all excited to do science experiments, here is the result of mixing bicarb soda and vinegar. A local hobo wandering by planted himself on the porch, shared a lot of opinions about how we could do our experiments better and also informed us that he is the king of blues. He offered to demonstrate but luckily no one had a guitar on hand.


After the science the best 6 person dance party ever.


For the whole month of September little birds called swifts migrate through Portland and nest in a chimney at a local primary school. Locals gather on a nearby hill to watch thousands of them gather in the evening and then, just as the sun sets, they start to spiral into the chimney in a black cloud. Myself, Justin and Josh took a picnic and watched, but forgot the camera. It was amazing to see them just keep spiraling in until they were getting pushed out and a hundred of them had to fly off to some other location.

We spent a day biking around and went to visit Josh at the University on top of a very steep hill. We took a wrong turn on the way to the cable car station and ended up carrying our bikes up a long-forgotten trail and popping out at the hospital entrance.
A view from one of Portland's bridges:


As a reward, after several visits to Portland we finally made it to Voodoo Donuts, famous for their crappy decor, crazy donuts and performing wedding ceremonies in the store.

Mine had cocoa puffs on it, sugar overload:

Mel and Lindsay came over to 'our house' and got to experience the joys of Astro's interior lighting one night: