Interesting places visited

GeorgeO

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On a recent trip I got to spend two weekends at two locations which were interesting.

The first was Portland Oregon, and the second Mexico City. Mexico was fascinating, a huge city, one of the largest urban centres in the world and located at 2000 mts above sea level. The Mexicans are a laid back race, very friendly but alas mostly all are Spanish speaking which can be challenging for us,Prices for travel, food, etc are at affordable,India like levels. Many of them look similar to Indians though there are large numbers of European looking people of Spanish descent.The Anthropology Museum was the highlight of our trip-simply outstanding and needs a day or two to cover. We also visited the ruins of the Great Temple of the Aztecs as well as the impressive cathedral. The authentic Mexican cuisine is simply outstanding. Tacos, salads, barbecue, deserts,etc, though their Mezcal(local liquor) is a bit strong and not to everyone's taste.Their culture, creativity and civilization is worth seeing and goes back to 4000 years, and Mexico City is a World heritage site

Its a huge country with coasts on both Atlantic and Pacific oceans, definitely a place to add to one's bucket list.

More on Portlans in a later post.
 
Portland Oregon is about 45 mins flying time from SFO. It is a very low key, laid back place, where the local people are very big into environment,conservation, sustainability and the like.From the airport you can come into town by an interesting metro rail service. It starts out like a high speed link, and upon reaching the city limits slows down with multiple stops something like a municipal tram service. The fare for the ride is a princely $1 or $2..

The city itself is small, with a very large number of food trucks spread out all over, offering a huge variety of cuisine-Vietnamese,Chinese, Korean, Indian, Thai, Japanese, Georgian, other ethnic European, Mexican, Mediterranean,local, all at very affordable prices. Portland and the surrounding area has probably more microbreweries and brew pubs per capita than any other US city.

Very well know tourist spots that are a bit of a drive away are Mount Hood where skiing is possible all year round. It is about an hour,s drive, and then not far from there one can do the scenic drive along the Columbia River which is a really big river,flowing into the Pacific Ocean not too far away. There are many scenic spots all along the drive, some waterfalls, others are viewing points.

Had dinner an at outstanding sushi place, and also checked out one of the very popular doughnut places called Voodoo Doughnuts, which remains open 24/7.

Voodoo Doughnut - The Magic is in the Hole!!!

I ordered item number 18 on their list, which to my regret girl at the counter told me "I'm sorry we've just run out of it"!!

Voodoo Doughnut - The Magic is in the Hole!!!
 
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