Week Off: Part Two

Washington and Portland

(or, The Entire West Coast in a Day)

After spending Thursday and Friday night in LA, Emily drove me to LAX at 6am on Saturday morning..

...and about three hours later I landed in Portland, then took a taxi cab to Union Station to take a train...

..to Olympia to see Ariana! I hadn't seen this lovely face since we looked something like this:

Or maybe it was more like this:

The train ride from Oregon to Washington was gorgeous, despite the fact that I was exhausted and freezing my ass off and my train was delayed by an hour and I was starting to feel like Steve Martin in Planes, Trains and Automobiles:

I got to Olympia around 7:30pm, by which time I was a zombie and Ariana's friend Jesse was nice enough to pick me up and give me a ride back to their apartment. Ariana got home from work around 9ish and we went out for beer and pizza with Matt and it was an awesome end to the longest day ever!

The next day Ariana and I went downtown and had coffee and pastries at The Bread Peddler..

..then went down to the waterfront..

..and finally ended up at a pub for Irish coffees, beer and fish 'n' chips:

That night a few of Ariana and Matt's friends came over and we all hung out and "watched" Pineapple Express. Then the next morning I jumped back on a train to Portland, still pretty exhausted and still dragging all of my luggage but very happy to have visited Ariana. By the time I rolled into Union Station my entire week's experience could be summed up by this:

I was so ready to get off the train and stop traveling that when the train porter opened the doors to let the passengers off I pretty much kicked my suitcase off the train and onto the platform. My subletter, Jason, wasn't able to meet me at the station until 5pm, and since it was only 3 I settled into yet another cup of coffee and The Secret Diaries of Adrian Mole. We got back to his house around 5:30 where I made a cup of tea and finally, finally relaxed for a few moments before I realised that I was back to work at 10am the next morning. Welcome to Portland!

 - K