2006-12-12 - 9:08 p.m.
The Oregon Trail, Day Five: Tuesday, December 5th, 2006.
10:00 a.m. - Woken, showered, dressed, and fed, we head off to downtown Portland to a bookstore named Powell's that, taking up a whole city block, Nicole repeatedly claims "is the biggest bookstore in like, probably, the world." I am skeptical.
10:17 a.m. - On the street while Nicole is giving directions to a lost woman, another woman walks by Kelly and me, walking and knitting at the same time. She is dressed like Peace Corps Volunteer girl in Turkmenistan: flowery cotton print ankle-length dress, hair in a loose pony-tail, and generally not the cleanest in the world.
11:51 a.m. - In Powell's, Nicole holds up a copy of Goethe's "The Sorrows of Young Werther" and says, "Oh my gosh, I love this book. Guess who gave me a copy?" Kelly and I say simultaneously, "Joel?" our continously morose and depressed PCV friend. Our guess, however apt, is incorrect.
1:00 p.m. - "There's a restaurant over there! Wait...that says 'female impersonators.'" - Nicole.
2:30 p.m. - There is a woman sitting next to us who has cool 50s cat-eye glasses and beautiful curly hair but is wearing a very unfortunate emerald green Chinese print style jacket.
2:45 p.m. - Unfortunate Chinese Jacket Girl's boyfriend/something shows up, leans over, bends at waist next to her, and hugs her. She starts to cry a lot. He is bent over her for five minutes.
2:50 p.m. - I keep staring at Crying Chinese Jacket's (ex?)boyfriend not only because he is really beautiful but also because he looks familiar.
2:53 p.m. - I realize at the cash register that the guy looks like Matt from Real World: New Orleans. Neither Kelly nor Nicole can remember what Matt looks like.
2:56 p.m. - Nicole slightly recalls what Matt looks like and I pace back and forth past the window where he was seated pretending to be lost just so Nicole could see if it was him from the show.
7:43 p.m. - We go to dinner at The Kennedy School, a former school turned into a restaurant, a movie theater, and a hotel. It is really beautiful and highly recommended.
7:57 p.m. - I fall in love with our dulcet-voiced waitress. Kelly is amused by this.
