Election night in Portland!!

Trip Start Oct 05, 2008
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of United States  , Oregon,
Thursday, November 6, 2008

Our next stop after Seattle was down in Portland, Oregon. We traveled down on November 1st on Amtrak (the 'Cascades' train) which was certainly more luxurious than the buses we had been on previously and to be honest something comparable with UK first class!! We were looking forwards to Portland as it was smaller than a lot of places we had been previously and despite a constant drizzle (and occassional downpour!) we really enjoyed our time in the city - its a very green and leafy place with a definite alternative vibe. The city is also a distincly libeal place and we wer lucky enough to be here on a very historic day - November 4th 2008...

During the day things had seemed pretty low key. We didn't have a TV anywhere in the hostel so felt a bit detached from it all as I guess election stuff must have been dominating the airwaves. We were keen to get ourselves to a bar for the election so after a bite to eat we headed up to a bar that had been recommened by a couple of guys who worked at the hostel. By this point we had some company and headed up with Karima from the Netherlands who was travelling over the US and Canada. We headed over to the bar which was on 23rd street to see the results come through - arriving about 6.30pm Pacific time (GMT - 8 hours) Due to this time difference we were able to watch the results come through from the east and central states and when we arrived Obama was already well up - so there was a very good mood in the place!!!

Obama continued to win key states and around 8pm Pacific time it was announced on CNN that he was going to be the next president of the United States! The bar absolutely erupted - it was such a surreal experience, something I can only really compare with watching an England game in a pub at home when things are going well!!! The whole bar hushed to hear John McCain conceding (again seemed very surreal!) and then continued partying until Obama gave his inspiring victory speech. Again, the whole place was silent for this, a very strange experience to be in such a busy, but silent bar!!

During the results we had got chatting to a couple of locals and Obama fans, Shawn and Ken, who were obviuosly thrilled with the results! They invited us to 'go dancing' to celebrate the occassion so Daisy, Karima and I headed over to the other side of town to go to a club called 'Holocene'. On the way we got 'Gestures 101' from Ken including the signs for 'I like it and want to stay', 'lets bounce' and the monkey scratch for 'i'm not too sure!!' We got to the club and the whole city was partying, driving along the street tooting horns etc. Again the only thing I can compare this too is if England win the world cup or something!! Unfortunately most of Portland also wanted to got to the Holocene so after some waiting in the queue (it looked awesome inside!) we decided to 'bounce' as it seemed to be one-in-one out! Shawn decided it would be cool to give us a driving tour of the city which was amazing as the whole place seemed to be one big party and we got to see loads of parts of Portland we couldn't have done on foot. Whilst touring round Ken gave us a brief (but very informative!) history of the USA before we headed to Portland's infamous 'Voodoo donoughts' for a midnight snack! Shawn was then kind enough to drop us at the hostel (they lived pretty locally to where we were staying) so we said goodbyes and headed back for some free pizza (a definite perk of the HI hostel in Portland!!)

The next day we were to embark on our 18 hour train ride down to sunny San Francisco.... - more soon!
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