Portland part 3

After the donut shop we realized that there was a third section to the Saturday Market under the bridge next to the park.

It was huge!

And the booths under there were MUCH nicer, with lots of space in between them. It's amazing the things we found under there, even though we had delayed so long that the market was closing by the time we had a look see.

I bought a bar of Lavender soap for Miki. But I put it in the shower, pretended to use it a few times and said she could too.....

It's gotten much smaller :)

On the sidewalk near the train stop I saw the weirdest thing...It will take me a bit to find the photo (I plan on posting a blog with just photos from this trip veeeery soon) of a man begging for money. He was rather...forceful about getting me to donate so that I could take a picture, but then he laughed it off like he was joking.

I rather doubt it.

But luckily I only had 45 cents in my pocket so I gave him all I had and took a few crappy photos, and then he hunted me down and let me take a better one in the light :) It said something about his kid being hunted by ninjas and needing karate lessons or something. I laughed SO hard!

Kody and Ai had to ride the Max in the same direction we did, so we got on altogether. The difference? I got distracted a stop or two from where we needed to go.

How did I manage that?

I saw a bookstore >.<

So we leaped off the train to our friends' shocked faces early and waved through the windows.

Poor guys :)

I did get some cool books, though. And I bought Avatar! That movie is amazing. I've watched it 5 times at least, by now.

Which meant we were cutting it a little close to get to the Greyhound station...Even though we had gotten bumped earlier in the day, Miki hadn't been able to get her tickets refunded since she had bought them online. So she was still booked for the 6:15 bus. I on the other hand had returned BOTH my tickets because, apparently, if you buy two tickets at once you can't return just one, you have to return both. Really, I should have bought a return ticket as soon as we reached Portland, but Miki was so worried about making it to the airport that I put it off.

After we left Borders we ran to the Max stop because there was a train there, but they wouldn't open the doors! So we had to wait 15 minutes for another one.

Luckily I had a book to read as I sat on the sidewalk....Miki stood.

When we got to the Greyhound station, life through me a curveball. Miki had been grumpy all day. Things had kept going wrong, or funky, or crappy (other than the amazing weather, 80 degrees at least) but nothing had been able to rid me of my amazing mood. Nothing. Well, someone was certainly trying.

Right outside the doors of the bus station, my flip flop broke. Like, literally. It fell to pieces.

Well, that was annoying.

And then we opened the doors to find that there was a cardboard sign screaming "6:15 bus overbooked!"

Crap.

So I shoved Miki towards the line, assured her I'd find my own way and took off.

With only one shoe on my foot.

Brilliant!

I got into the train station, and....it was empty. And when I say empty, I mean empty. They were pushing all of the benches against the walls and the counters and there were no clerks to buy tickets from, so I skittered around the ppl dusting the floors (man it's huge in there!) and bought the first ticket I could find on the electronic teller. I thought: if I can get there around the same time, Miki's ride can pick me up too, right?

One little flaw: I couldn't figure out whether it was a bus or a train, and I took so long finding someone to help that I missed it.

Because it left at 6:15 too.

So they shuffled me into a back lounge, a nice VIP place I had no idea existed. Weird.

Why was the station empty? Where was there a photo shoot being set up in the back?

Where was everyone?

As far as I could tell, I was the only passenger loitering around. It was super weird.

Until I was put into that nice, comfy, and warm lounge. There weren't a ton of people, but it was obvious that all the passengers were being moved into the back. I wondered why, because this didn't seem normal at a train station, you know?

Well, first thing first, I had to exchange my poor ticket >.<

So I got in line and while waiting attempted to communicate my problem to interested parties. I had a friend in Salem that was willing to get me home if I made it to Salem first, but then I had friends waaaay up in Astoria freaking out and wanting to drive down and get me. Especially when they found out that the train I would be taking would leave until 9:15. Apparently they could make it to me sooner than that.

Well, 9:15 was better than the only bus that Greyhound had offered me: 11:15.

WOWZA!

I wasn't gonna sit in the creepy Greyhound with one shoe in a breezeway for 5 hours for a bus!

So not gonna happen.

So I got my ticket (I was not so secretly pleased to ride a train again) and called off the Coast Guard and sat down for a wait.

Apparently I was a novelty. Because even though I'd been kicked off a bus, had to walk to the train, had to put up with a boyfriend (not mind) being indecisive for an hour in the airport, the crowds at the market, a broken flip flop, an overbooked bus, and missing another bus, I was still cheerful and excited to ride the train.

I had lots of people looking at me funny. But apparently they were suprised/glad I was in good cheer, because I had plenty of people willing to chat and tell me about their escapades!

For instance, the man in front of me booked his train ticket over a week ago, but when he went to get on the train they told him no he'd have to catch the next one.

He was going the same way I was.

Most people were, actually. And most wanted to ride the train.

I never realized how popular the train was! Apparently people like the comfort of it, a lot, and it's not that expensive.

Whereas I paid $18 that morning to ride it (although Miki had to pay $21 for some odd reason) for a night train...I only paid $12!

How cool is that?

So I sat down with my book (a good one at that) and tried to ignore the man across the room desperately trying to flirt with me. He was super excited for the bar car (the coffee he said) for some odd reason and was a little annoying. But I didn't mind too much. The excitement, at least.

The only problem was, I was facing the windows into the station, and the photo set was on the other side of the glass. I'm a photographer, the poofing lights don't bug me when I'm using them. I'm a model, and they don't bug me when I'm under them.

But seeing the light flash around the gauzy curtains just about made me claw up the walls. That and it gave me a lousy migraine.

So I drew myself up(in one flipflop) to see why the heck they were taking so many photos and why they were playing such crappy music (loudly) in the middle of a train station.

I peered around the door frame, and the first words out of my mouth to the tuxedoed chaperon standing next to me was "Why all the beautiful people?"

There were a lot of beautiful people. All the girls had long hair with those wavy curls (the blonder the better) in silky looking sheaths with no backs, tiny clutches, and heels that gave me palpitations even thinking about them.

He blinked at me, eying me a little warily, and told me it was a high school prom.

Prom?!

What the heck?

Who has that at Union Station, of all places?

Prom, who woulda thunk it?

I can honestly say that although not many people showed up, and no one wore such pretty dresses, and it was in a gym, Prom my senior year was much cooler.

Specially since my cousin arranged so much of it *hugz Samantha* she's so awesome!

Although, at my school it was really called "Junior Prom" because the juniors put it together for the Seniors, who were the ones a part of the royalty...or is that homecoming? Urgh >.< Who knows :)

Back to the VIP lounge.

An old lady showed up. She was cool. She came in, complained she was hungry, ditched her stuff with me, and bought me chips!

Which was awesome, because I didn't particularly wanna walk anywhere with my broken flipflop, and I was too tired to go explore Portland or anything even though I had plenty of time.

We had many interesting discussions. I was amazed how much she knew about linguistics, pretty much the only thing we had in common, because we read much different books. I've been hitting a lot of brick walls with people recently when I try to discuss literature...Possibly because I don't actually read literature >.<

Then the man went out to go out and buy coffee and came back drunker than he already was. Okay, so it was annoying that he was in the middle of a hangover. But he didn't smell of liquor, and other than stuttering and having a headache he wasn't acting drunk. But when he went out for coffee to "cure his headache" he definitely got booze instead.

The sucky part was that he had decided to sit closer to the lady and I and try to interrupt our conversations. I don't mind people joining in. I don't mind talking to strangers. But I do take offense to someone deliberately interrupting to only say inane things about wanting coffee.

I'm too polite to say much, but man that lady got vicious! I was actually a little glad, because otherwise I'm not sure he would've left me alone...

I think she talked to the conductor and made sure he was nowhere near us, because he definitely didn't ride in the same car as me.

The train was nice. A little dim, and I think I prefer riding it in daytime better, and this one wasn't quite as nice as the other one but it might've just been the light.

And then I saw someone I knew. Not too terribly well, just enough to know she's a party girl and thinks nothing of excluding losers from her parties....But for some odd reason she was excited to see me.

Uh oh.

I wracked my brain, and I could only think of one reason: She has a permit, and she thinks that I'm adult enough to be in the front seat for her.

Sure enough, she waltzed up the train and said "Moe-nica, you have a license, right?"

"Sorry Trinity, I'm 19. Tough luck. I'm not gonna be the adult in the car for you."

She pouted, and flounced off.

Wow I'm good.

But then she came back a few minutes later with her sob story about how she was riding the train from Seattle with a friend and when they were taken to the train station in Salem a friend had driven her companions car and now they had no way to get it back to Monmouth because she and her companion only had permits and would you please drive for us, Monica?

I didn't have to think on that long. Actually, I didn't have to think at all. I had a ride. I had a ride with a safe person. I had a surefire way home. Who in the world would give that up to play chauffeur for two girls that would probably end up "accidentally" steering me towards a kegger? In fact, I probably would have gotten my arm twisted so hard I would have ended up not driving at all. And I don't know about you, but I didn't want to be designated driver for two other minors OR suffer through permit driving.

Seriously.

So I didn't even think twice about saying no.

Nor did I feel guilty.

What a fun day, huh?

So I went home, and passed out, pretty much. Poor Miki was already out, and that was it!

Regards from Purgatory,
Monica