lulu!

my sister-in-law, lulu, is here this weekend. she's my first real visitor since i've been in portland. (well, my mom came a month after i moved, but i hardly knew which end was up at that point. now i feel like i know this place well enough to show someone around.)

she arrived friday afternoon, and we had a quick lunch at grand central bakery (home to one of the best cherry pies in town), then we walked up to the radio station so i could show her where i worked. after we walked back home, we hopped in the car and headed east to vista house, which offers amazing panoramic views of the columbia river.


from there, we decided to continue up the old columbia river highway and take in as many waterfalls as we could. i had never done this before, and to say i was overwhelmed by the beauty leaves little room for describing how lulu was affected by the sights. it is just unspeakably gorgeous up there.


on the way out of the gorge we were stopped by a traffic flagger and passed what i thought looked like a movie crew. i asked the flagger what was going on, and she said the film "the road" was being shot right there. we were feet from viggo and charlize, and we didn't know it!

after a couple hours of hiking and waterfall mist, we headed back home for a dinner at collosso, which has great cocktails and yummy tapas. when we got back to the apartment we pretty much collapsed.

saturday morning we woke up and headed to the downtown farmer's market, where salvador molly's booth offered us irresistable tamales and bread pudding for breakfast. we grocery-shopped the market, then i took lulu on a driving tour of the downtown area... we drove through nob hill, the alphabet district and the pearl before descending on voodoo donut... which was closed! the sign on the door said, "due to the overwhelming love and demand for voodoo donuts, we are sold out until 3:30pm". it was 2:45. we decided to take a walk on the waterfront. it was a little cool & breezy, so we quickly hopped in the car and headed back to my apartment.

from there we walked up to my local library so i could drop off my ballot (a ballot without a presidential race on it, alas), and pick up a book i had on hold. we stopped at a local cafe for a chai and scone, and walked down to irving park, where we sat and watched kids play on the playground.

we walked back home and then stephen joined us for dinner at dalo's ethiopian restaurant. this was far and away the best ethiopian restaurant i've been to in portland. the menu is small, but the food was great and the atmosphere was better than the other ethiopian joints i've been to. yay! we came back home, stuffed, but unable to resist a bounty of greek halva that i'd bought earlier in the week.

i think eating all of that food so late at night (we finished dinner at 10pm) messed with my sleep cycle a little. i woke up at 4am this morning, and figured i'd try to lull myself back to sleep with a little blogging. i'm not sure if it's working. i have been thinking about ways to spend the last day of lulu's visit. it's mother's day, so i'll definitely cook up some farmer's market bacon and eggs for breakfast. after that, maybe a trip to crafty wonderland, or a second attempt at voodoo donut.

i feel like i've been able to give lulu a pretty good overview of town, and we've been having a really, really lovely time!