City of sports, food carts and beer

Portland has many nicknames: the "City of Roses", of beer, of sports, of Benson bubblers - the iconic bronze drinking fountains (photo below, on right), which were donated by a businessman to reduce consumption of alcohol. 52 "true" Benson Bubblers can be found throughout downtown.

 

Our Moxy Hotel (pics below), conveniently located in the middle of downtown, was very nice, hip and unique, and though the rooms - we got a nice corner room with lots of windows - are rather small, they are cleverly furnished, show a nice color scheme and funny decoration! Good price-value ratio, too.

 

We had explored downtown and The Pearl still on the evening of our arrival day, and, of course, had to visit Powell's - the probably largest and one of the best assorted used & new book stores in the U.S.A. - or the world?

Out to the Division and Hawthorne Districts in the Southeast of town (photos below) on Sunday morning by bus - Portland also has a great streetcar system (pic above) - for a food cart tour. 

Hawthorne is known for its old store fronts and vintage stores (photos above), thrift shops, little bookstores and unique cafés and mom&pop places, as well as murals. Adjecent Division neighborhood, along Southeast Division Street is also one of Portland’s dynamic neighborhoods.

I think, nobody can really keep track about the real number of food carts in Portland, several hundreds. A large number of them are parked permanently - other than in many other US cities, where food trucks are constantly moving around. This is called "food cart pods" in Portland and you'll find them at every corner, smaller or larger.

 

Portland’s food cart scene is legendary and sort of started the whole thing. We had a tour with "Around Portland Tours" - the owner and guide Sarah on photo above - and enjoyed several delicious, partly award-winning bites at different pods. Started out at Stumptown Coffee, a legendary - and one of the first - single origin coffee roasters in Portland and ended with a color-wise frightening, but good-tasting green drink/smoothie. All herbs and veggies and fruit,,,

 

 Weather wasn't really appealing, had a bit of sun in the morning, then hail, rain showers and it cooled down when we took the bus and streetcar for our tour at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum and a quick walk along Division and Hawthorne Streets to check out a couple of vintage stores.

The Portland Winterhawks are part of the Western Hockey League, which consists of 22 member Clubs with 17 based in Western Canada and 5 in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. The game of these young guys was much more fun than a professional NHL game, fast, agile, but also energetic. Fists were in action, too! Winterhawks won 9:1.

 

Ended a long day with a beer at Backwoods Brewing on the way back home to the hotel,,,