Born in the USA

9.21.13
'Marshing like a mallow'


Procrastination. Leads to a beautiful evening with some incredible people.
I'm supposed to be writing a performance evaulation of the show I saw last night today. Instead I walked to Safeway (ON THE HUNT FOR ICELANDIC SKYR YOGHURT!!! YES STEPH THEY HAVE SKYR HERE!!!!! Although I was bitterly disappointed that my particular safeway doesn't stock it) and floofed the day away until meeting up with some of the lush transfer students for dinner. With Bailey, Alex, Morgan, Grace, Erika and I all squished into Bailey's car (again) all totally legit ofcourse, we headed to ole ole - my first Mexican restaurant (unless you count chips at Chicos back in B-Town which, you definitely can't). Mexican food in the US, especially in the Texas and on the West Coast is a huge deal. It's kind of like our Indian take outs at home (which are pretty fewand far between here!). I've been in a fair few conversations about the intricacies bewtween fake Tex-Mex and authentic Mexican, so I was pretty stoked to try it for myself. Asking the guys what I should go for, a veggie chile releno burrito, I tucked in. It was pretty tasty but didn't blow me away or anything. Slightly disappointed. But as Bailey agreed, it wasn't the best Portland had to offer for sure, so I'm remaining cautiously optimistic. Piling back in the car (a little less room considering the size of all our portions) we moved on for pudding. Back to the lovely lovely land of Salt and Straw. With my hands clasped around a strawberry honey balsamic and black pepper waffle cone and with Jose Gonzalez, Heartbeats, playing in the background, we had a pretty hilarious time exchange accents and phrases - it's hilarious how many variants Californians have for Weed - the sticky icky is perhaps my favourite aha. On a slightly side note, I really am turning into the size of a house. It's quite alarming. And also kind of great.

9.20.13
'Lining up your ducks'
(new Americanisms I'm picking up. Ta, Morgan and the South for this ^ little nugget)
  
Oh Lordie what a friday! After excitedly discovering a Tea Chai Te on Hawthorne during O Week but not having enough time to return (remember the glorious salt and straw/brunch day? Yeah it was then), I've been dying to get back. But in the car with some of the other Performance Studies people last week, I heard a rumor that one of the three Tea Chai Te cafes  (Portland cafes tend to have their own mini chains just in and around the different neighborhoods) was in a converted train caboose!!!!! Well, a little googling later (mainly of what the duck a train caboose was) and holy guacamole were they right. FINALLY, I found time today to hop on the bus (it would have been a half hour walk tops, but America's made me lazy like that) and  be transported to ABSOLUTE TEA HEAVEN.  Row upon row upon row of EVERY TEA IMAGINABLE, including Portland's own specialtea blends!! M.a.g.i.c. I never thought in a million years that America could out-tea us, but oh yes, have I been proved wrong. Saying that this: http://www.bbcamerica.com/mind-the-gap/2013/01/08/how-to-do-tea-in-the-usa/ (oh how I miss the bbc) is a pretty good guide at elucidating the suffering I go through most of the time I try to buy tea off-campus.

 
  
Anyway, after discovering it would take us a while to decide on a tea we nested down to hungrily devour the menu. Settling on a rose vanilla chai and some little gorgeous biscuits, we had a few minutes brewing time to gaze out to the little waterfall pond in the courtyard and at the rather divine looking customers (ok, so maybe it's just me but a guy with a bowel of tea in front of him and a Gertrude Stein-esque book in his hand has suddenly entered a new realm of ohhelloness no?) before delving into tea induced euphoria. Oh my. Not only was the tea pretty special but gorgeous little chinese style teapot and cups had my mouth equally watering! Well done America. Well done.


Getting in some seriously productive work down, (this week's performance studies ridiculously difficult reading did keep me amused with phrases, I kid you not, such as 'and here I must let some of my cats on the table' or, 'we can insincerely promise to give a donkey a carrot', and my personal favourite, 'the procedure of baptizing is inappropriate when applied to penguins' (what is my degree!?!?)), time at Tea chai te inevitable came to a close and after a little wander around Selllwood, picking out future houses to live in and checking out a cute little arts supply shop where I bought yes, another American map, we headed to Nectar - a froyo place thoroughly recommended by Anais. AND OH MAN DID MY DAY SOMEHOW MANGE TO GET EVEN BETTER. Two words. Nutella. Froyo. The holy grail of all edible foods. So a froyo cafe works very much like I image heaven would. You take teeny little cups, as many as you'd like, and try out as much of as many of the flavours. for free. for. free. I'll let that sink in. Once you've had your fill and finally settled on the best (but let's face it there really was no comparison), you vend yourself a cup full and then head to the buffet cart of magical delight - fruit, granola, hot fudge sauce, sweets, brownie pieces, butterscotch drops, popping candy - you name it, it was there, to sprinkle on top. And once this whole shebang is done it turns out that all your cup has set you back is the grand sum of $2.50. Enough said I think. Floating back to Reed in gorgeous tea/nutella joy, we ran into Jen - a theatre senior - driving a golf buggy around campus. "fancy a lift back to your dorm?" erm... duh. hehehe. After a quick spruce up in my dorm I was out again to see my final TBA show of the season, jumping into Kate, my theatre professor's car we headed off to experience the incredible Itai Erdal, How to dissappear. Getting back (and locked out of my dorm... oops, all of the nutella and tea had evidently blissed out my mind so it wouldn't think stright) I finished up my night with The Crew/L'Equipe, seeing in Rich's 21st birthday with a celebratory rite of passage - the walk to 7/11 where legal alcohol buying could commence. Yeah I feel like this day was all made up too.









9.19.13
The awkward moment when british kids can't hold their caffeine

http://instagram.com/iloveberrygood
(I forgot my camera again)

I love berrygood and so should you. They're so so cheap. Their fruit is so so good. They're local. The guys are really friendly. And their little stall is just across the road from Campus by 28 West. Enough said. I realized that they deserved a mention seeing as I wander down at least once a week :) Today I got a pear. It cost me $0.36.

Typical Tuesday with nothing much to report. Modernism was much better (waheyy) and Performance Studies was great as per. Spent the evening hanging in the quad. Rich and I had a cup of coffee each. The resulting caffeine crazed high was ridiculous. We think the coffee in commons is spiked.