Portland....put a bird on it.

 I got into Oregon two Saturdays ago.  I really liked Portland, although the people there are trying WAY too hard to be hipster, which makes them really unlikeable and pretentious...and ironically makes them not hipster.  Other than that, it's a rather lovely little town on the west coast.

Special thanks to Andrew for letting me stay with him while I was there!  He showed me all kinds of great restaurants and took me all over the city and showed me all the cool things to do in Portland.  

 A little after showing me around the city, Andrew took me to Multnomah Falls, a really beautiful waterfall and scenic reserve.  It was pretty much amazing.

...really cold though...

 This is the look-out point at the top of a ridge close to Multnomah Falls.  It has all kinds of really great points to look out onto the Columbia River.  It's built like a tiny castle, too, which made me feel like a viking or something.

 The funny thing about it was the Native American head sculptures at the top of the pillars inside.  Apparently they were the guides that helped guide Whitey and the Crackers to the Falls.  So they honored them by taking their land and putting their heads on pillars.  Cordial? Or racist?  You judge.

 One of the coolest historic facts about Portland is it's human trafficking past.  I took an underground tour about the Shanghai-ing of able-bodied men in the 1800's.  They would kidnap young, drunk guys who came to Portland to party and get their whoring on and then sell them as slaves to ship captains heading to Shanghai (hence the term "to Shanghai").  Basically a good portion of the city is built on these underground tunnels.

Pretty cool piece of American history if you ask me.

This is an old opium den.

They would take the prisoners shoes before selling them.

Oh! And this is where they would keep kidnapped young girls to break their spirit before selling them into prostitution.  Isn't that nice?

Only in Oregon...

  Portland is known as "The City of Roses" or something like that.  It's because of this really big rose garden they have that's been around since forever.  Unfortunately, when Andrew took me to see it, none of the rose bushes had bloomed yet except for one.  But it was a really pretty garden if you can imagine the bushes with actual bloomed roses on them.

Rose-less rose bushes.

The one bush that had roses on it.

So then we went to the Oregon Zoo which is conveniently located right next to the rose garden! :)
 

These are Polar Bears.  They're completely black everywhere on their bodies except for their fur.

This sea lion was missing it's right eye and had cataracts in its left.  It was real janky.

Baby elephant!!!

These are hippos...one of the most dangerous animals in all of Africa...look how terrifying they are!!

Fruit bats!!

The rare and unusual bat-a-keet!