Marathon Lar: Three Things Thursday - Portland Girls Weekend Edition

I have to admit, I wasn't really feeling the Christmas Spirit yet this year...until I took a trip to Portland and saw all the wonderful Christmas happenings down there!

My fellow blog/ragnar/mustache dash friend, Becky, and I headed down to Portland last weekend for a girls weekend with tax free Christmas shopping fun.

Becky is one of those girls that can crack you up in one minute and then wow you with her super smartness in another minute. I don't think we ever had a minute when we weren't chatting it up about something. Here are three of my highlights from the trip!

1. Portland Saturday Market - I've been to Portland many many times but had never visited this amazing event. I would argue it has some of the best people watching in the world here and we saw everything from a giant group of Santas to a man on a unicycle playing the bagpipe.

That is ALOT of Santas, they were going on a pub crawl

2. Pioneer Square Christmas Celebration - Pioneer Square is right in the middle of downtown and the whole square was ready for Christmas. One giant decorated tree, a house to visit Santa, and tons of entertainment. We walked by just in time to see a tuba Christmas performance which was basically hundreds of tubas playing Christmas music. It was kind of somber sounding but still pretty magical.

3. Food and Relaxin - We got a great deal on a hotel just blocks from Pioneer Square. Hotel Fifty was recently renovated and it was pretty nice. It is right on the Portland riverfront and I was kicking myself for not bringing some running shoes to enjoy it a little more. We even ate at the hotel restaurant, H5O, before heading to our train on Sunday and it was pretty delicious. Other deliciousness included dinner at Oba and treats at Saint Cupcake - I would HIGHLY recommend both.

The allure of having multiple channels to watch on TV (we both don't have cable) brought us back to our room early Saturday night and I enjoyed a nice leisurely Sunday morning with coffee in bed. Becky doesn't share my affinity for coffee and had to open all the windows to make the "bad" smell go away...she might literally be the only person I know who doesn't love the smell of fresh coffee!

Ahhh!!

Of course there was also LOTS of shopping and I may have bought more for myself than others...oopsie! I introduced Becky to the wonder that is Powell Books and the ease and fun of taking the train to Portland. I really love Portland and I've already planned my next trip down in January.