Headed off to Portland this morning. We are travelling to another state, Seattle is in Washington State and Portland is in Oregon. To give you some idea of the sizes of the American state, here is a comparison:
Washington State 184,827 sq km
Oregon 255,026 sq km
Queensland 1,852,642 sq km
New South Wales 808,444 sq km
The states here are much smaller but have a larger population per square kilometer.
It is interesting to note the speed and distance signs because since we crossed into the United States they are all in miles. Had to have a bit of a think when a signpost said the next town or whatever was 60, had to remember it was 60 miles and not 60 kms. The speedo in Karen and Ian's car was marked in both km/h and mph. The capacities are in gallons etc., and US gallons at that. They have a curious way of displaying the price per gallon. When we filled up with fuel the price displayed was 3.89 9/10, where we would display 3.899. It worked out to approx $1.12 per litre taking into account the conversion rate for A$ to US$. Diesel was a little dearer.
We arrived in Portland mid afternoon and went to our motel and dropped our luggage off. We then headed off to a mall where there was a skating rink inside.
We had a look at a number of shops here and then headed downtown to checkout more shoes for Ian and to get a keyboard for my iPad. I had checked them on the Apple website and they were $99.95 and sure enough they were $99.95 at the Apple Store.
Buying at the Apple Store was an experience. I walked in and there was a person with an iPad who asked me what I was looking for, I was then passed on to a sales person who took me directly to what I wanted. Once I had made the decision she got a device similar in shape and size to an iPhone which was used to scan the barcode. My credit card was then scanned by the device, debited and my receipt sent to me by email. The whole process took about 10 minutes all together. Everything was done electronically.
After we finished our shopping expedition we returned to the motel by light rail. The light rail system in both Seattle and Portland was a really good way to get around the cities. From what I could see the Portland system is much more extensive than the Seattle system. Takes me back to when trams ran in Brisbane.
After a bit of a rest we headed down to the Moda Center which is the stadium of the Portland Trail Blazers, the local basketball team. It was game 3 of the playoffs between the trail blazers and the San Antonio Spurs. The Moda Center (I have deliberately used the American spelling) has seating for 19,980. The tiers of seating seem to go on forever. We were two rows from the top and it seemed so high I thought we might need oxygen.
Before the game and during half time they were able to fly a blimp that advertised a certain brand of car.
Unfortunately Portland who I was told I was supporting lost by about 14 points. There was quite a few fancy moves and lots of movement. I wasn't too disappointed because there are two Australians on the San Antonio team.
I don't think there was a San Antonio supporter in the stadium. If there were they would have been out numbered and out shouted. The crowd made a tremendous amount of noise and when the opposing team was making shots from a foul they were encouraged to make noise. There was a baby there that actually had ear protection on.
When we got to our seat there was a red T shirt on it. So I can now safely say, been there, got the T shirt.
If you have a look closely at the picture there were some seats that had white T shirts on them. It spelt out to the right of picture "we are" and to the left "rip city" which is what is on the T shirts.
The only thing I have attended that has come close to the atmosphere of the game was a State of Origin match at Lang Park with quite a partisan Queensland crowd.
After the match we took a leisurely walk back to the motel which was about 300 metres away from the stadium.
Too much sport is not enough as they say.
Deb and Den
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