My First Parking Ticket

I had a busy and fun last couple of weekends!! I'll start off with Sunday, May 24th. I decided to destination trip (as opposed to road trip!) with my boyfriend David, down to Portland, Oregon. I wanted to stop at a place called The Grotto, and I'd also been craving some Voodoo Doughnuts. David wanted to visit Powell's Bookstore, which apparently was as large as an entire city block.
David is the kind of person you read about on the internet.

Not even gonna lie, this was written about him.

So we stopped there first and I tried not to look bored. Okay, I failed at that. I then tried to find a seat at the coffee shop and when I failed at that too, I came back and stared at a wall of books until David was done enough to be pulled away.

Now don't get me wrong; I love to read, but I'm a kindle-chick through and through. I don't browse random books at a bookstore. I have a specific set of books in mind and I will do my browsing on Amazon. I'm just too picky and lazy to gaze over lines and lines of book spines.

After we were done with that, we went to check out the McMenamins that took over the old Kennedy School. I'm not much into history but that place was pretty neat.

First we stopped off at the gift shop and I bought a shot glass and learned that the Detention Bar serves tasting of the brandys that are made locally so I made plans to do that after we ate. We had lunch at their restaurant, and the food was pretty good. After that, I spent fifteen dollars to try 3 brandys. Now had I known they were going to charge me so much I wouldn't have done it. The gift shop had told me it would only be a couple dollars. Fifteen is not a couple. It's not even a few. That's insane. I could have bought 2 whole drinks with the brandys in it - and it would have tasted better!

Anyway... after lunch we needed to burn off some calories so we went to check out The Grotto. I knew it was a Catholic shrine thing, but since I'm not religious I didn't go for that reason. I wanted to see the cool cave in the side of the cliff, and visit the gardens up top and see the view of Portland. What I didn't realize was how... Catholic the whole thing was. Expecting to find a shot glass in their gift shop is now laughable after walking in and seeing crosses and statues of Saints everywhere. I paid $5 pp to ride the elevator to see the gardens up top, and discovered that we could have gotten in for free because the ticket-taker was nowhere to be found -_- . The gardens were pretty, but every few feet there was a statue of Jesus being crucified so it kind of took away from the whole experience. We didn't spend too long up there before we decided to go.

Is there a word for "too Jesus-y"? Cuz that's how I'd describe this.

After the Grotto was when I guess I decided I was too good for the city of Portland. See, I'd parked there before, last time I'd gotten doughnuts at Voodoo Doughnuts (they have this amazing ability to make milk-flavored glaze, and with a cereal topping I just can't resist!) 

I'd parked across the street and been fine. I hadn't seen a sign saying that I had to pay. So, after standing about an hour in line for our doughnuts (which was per usual for that place) I came back to a $44 parking ticket. Dammit. What a great way to top off the afternoon, huh?

At least I had doughnuts.