Yesterday we spent more time biking and walking around Portland, which we are really coming to enjoy the more of it we see. We pulled the bikes down from the car and made our way into the city where we locked up and walked around searching for a coffee shop. On our way down Congress street we stopped into the Maine College of Art's art supply store to check if they had any thick watercolor paper for more postcards (if you are still waiting on one they are all in the mail as of now and should be getting to you soon). After finding what we needed we continued on towards caffeine. Which we eventually found in a place called
Coffee by Design which had great espresso and poor, almost yeasty, medium blend. After hanging out there for a bit we tossed our bags back on and headed back into the streets.
We were both pretty hungry by this time so we stopped in at a place we had seen earlier called
Little Lads which had a 5 dollar Vegan buffet. Neither of us are vegan (I'm a
Pescetarian, but we are from the Midwest and love cheese way too much) so we weren't sure what to expect but the food was amazing and we ate entirely too much. The buffet included Southern Spoonbread, Eggplant Cacciatore, mixed veggies, baked beans, and an amazing Jamaican Black Bean and coconut soup. Apparently Little Lad's is a franchise with a couple locations on the east coast where they try to encourage people to eat healthy on the cheap. We found they were a bit contradictory with their message to help the Earth by eating Vegan, while using all non-reusable plates, cutlery, and styra-foam to-go boxes but all in all a good place to check out if you are hungry and looking for something inexpensive. After eating we were so full we had to sit down for a bit before walking around again so we decided to give our friend, Anna, a call since we hadn't talked with her since our camping trip near Duluth.
Once it was time to get started again, we headed towards an artist's studio which our friend Chris had recommended but on the way we got sidetracked by a business called Material Objects, which sells used clothing. Jena was able to get some cool things - sweaters and boots. (maybe the coolest boots ever) Afterwards we continued on towards Wolfe Editions only to discover it was closed for the day but at least we got to see more of this city. We then made our way back to our bikes and down to a little pub called the Thirsty Pig (thanks for the suggestion Laura) where we had some amazing beers and split a delicious lobster roll before relaxing in a movie theatre watching Johnny Depp's new movie "The Rum Diary", which was even better than we were expecting, before heading back to the car to sleep.
