Happy New Year Portland!

What a year! Last year for New Year's Eve I stayed home with my parents and went to bed around 11pm.  That sounds terrible, but I really didn't mind.  Also around this time last year had been living in NY for about 6 months, and had just met this guy, J and wasn't sure how any of it was going to work out.  

And then this year, J was with me, and we were running around Portland together.  So strange, but so fun!  We were only there 2 nights, and 1 full day, so it seems like we did more eating and drinking than anything else but who's complaining? 

After spending New Year's Eve morning at Powell's Bookstore (the nation's largest independent bookstore)...you can take the professor out of the classroom...or something like that.  It was enormous.  We could have spent so much more time there, and money, but we decided to get out while our basket was still manageable.  

Then we hit up Rogue for a delicious lunch and a tasting...

Some of the beers were better than others, but overall delicious.  They had their bathrooms listed as Hops and Barley with no idication of which was men & women.  When we asked the waitress she answered as if it was a dumb question, "Barley is women because they make women sweet, Hops is men because they make beer bitter." Duh (we added the duh in our heads because she really was quite nice).

Then we walked to the Japanese Gardens which were much further than we thought, and everyone who heard we walked remarked that we really were New Yorkers. lol

We continued the Japanese theme into dinner and stopped at this amazing Japanese place.  We both ended up getting something other than sushi on a whim, and then the table next to us ordered a bunch of sushi and thoroughly out ordered us.  The restaurant even had chopstick cases hung on the wall for VIP customers. We may have split a bottle of saki, too.

After a couple of hours at the hotel we got all fancied up and went to a Speakeasy party at Red Star Tavern in downtown Portland.  They have this private room behind a hidden bookshelf door that they have special events in.  I have no idea how they made money on the event because it was an open bar (with high quality alcohol), and was only $40 a person! I think there was max 100 people, but probably closer to 70.  They had a live jazz band, a tiny crowded dance floor and we danced and drank all night! It was the best New Year's Eve I've had in a long time.  It was so much fun, I only took 3 pictures...a selfie, a picture of the 2015 ice sculpture, and a picture of empties (they weren't all ours). 

Unfortunately New Year's Day was a little rough.  Thanks to the aforementioned copious drinking I did, I was sick sick sick, and J and I may have checked off another relationship milestone...the one where he has to pull the car over on the highway and rub my back while I vomit.

Can you believe it's 2015?! I hope you all had a happy and safe New Year's Eve and that it is the start of the best year yet!