ORWA

For the last few months I’ve been traveling, traveling, traveling: Ireland, London, LA, Denver, Paris, Amsterdam, Germany…and then this past weekend, Portland and Seattle. Mike and I only overlapped at home for a few days in between my European sojourn and his West Coast tour with Face Tat, so I popped up north to be a groupie for a few days.

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This wasn’t my usual research-all-the-food-and-drink trip, but I still got to hit up some great spots, and see friends and family.

Portland:

Baerlic Brewing, near Ladd’s Addition (and our Airbnb) had a great range of tasty brews and a nice chill vibe. Natty was in town for work (and to support the band), and we got squired around by my friend Lianna and her husband. They took us on a beautiful stroll through the neighborhood’s rose gardens to a barbecue dinner at Lardo.

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Seattle:

We were staying with friends in Ballard, which called for a lunch outing to Un Bien, the offshoot of the famous (at least in my circles) Caribbean sandwich joint Paseo. Delicious, and band approved.

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It was a working trip for me, but we made time to check out the Experience Music Project, which was…fine. Better, in my book, was walking to Elysian Brewing for a night of good beer and tasty food.

On Saturday morning I made a breakfast run (great bread and pastries at Tall Grass Bakery) and stopped by the Ballard Locks which are, as friends swore, a tourist attraction. When I was little we would visit family in Ireland and then take a boat up the River Shannon for a week. The locks were always a big brouhaha that took me away from whatever book I was nosed into the time – there was the queuing up, the tying up, the rising up in the lock, and then the puttering out the other side. Nostalgia.

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And then: home. For a little while at least.

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