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Spending a day off in Portland: a visual voyage.

A study in the red brick of Portland.
It has taken us a little while to get our footing here in Portland. In order to do grocery shopping we have found that there isn't an easy route to just go by a supermarket, but instead it becomes a meander around the peninsula and an exploration of the few small grocery stores. Regretfully these little shops are not all near one another and we have since devised a meandering route around town that begins in our area of large apartment complexes (a couple of large hotels converted to apartments). This town is full of restaurants, but since this town is based on tourism many of these restaurants aren't for the people who live here and less so for the pay that we make living here. After nine months we seem to have figured out a few holes in the walls of Portland though that go against this trend.
Omi's Coffee Shop. - Jessye reads from some Architectural Digests that were hiding under the table.
I think we have finally found our café in this town. On my many flâneries that I have taken since moving here I have walked by this one café only a few times as it is out of the way of almost everything, but since Jessye and I both had the day off we decided to go in and try it out. Since most of the cafés we have tried in this town (so far) have this strange hatred of Starbucks, but yet try their best to emulate it, the result is a chaotic mess of people not enjoying their drinks and treating the location as a college study hall. It is an eerie thing when coffee shops are full but silent because everyone is too busy with whatever they are doing on their laptop. Granted, there were people at Omi's too who were just on their laptops, but this place had so many nooks and crannies that there were also people having conversations. A house turned coffee shop. Not quite the PettiRosso in my heart, but there will only ever be one.
Abandoned building of historical significance next to the cruise ship docking area.
After our amazing start to the day we continued our intended errands. Jessye opened a bank account with a local credit union, and we briefly skirted around Old Port, trying not to get lost in shops for bourgeois tourists.
One of the small grocery stores we have found in Portland is an Italian market in the former Italian neighborhood. They have a small kitchen in the back where they make Sicilian slab pizza that they sell cheaply with free coffee. Which we have found to be great to snack on before we do some shopping. They have a very nice selection of random European foods. Mainly Italian things, but there are a few other European countries represented as well. One of our favorite new finds has been Italian ketchup which is spicier than the American counterpart.
Hidden parking garages and buffed graffiti.
Another of our favorite grocery stores is Hong Kong Market, which now that it is starting to get warmer again it is once again in a distance for us to be able to walk to.
Hong Kong Market.
It is a winding maze of items with maybe some broken English sticker added on top of the original ingredients. The first time I have found frog's legs.
Our latest surprise find from Hong Kong Market was a new plant which needs to not be in the sun (which is perfect for our apartment with its only couple hours of sun in the morning).
Our new plant hanging out on the entrance table to our apartment.

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