Who made it to Portland and how far did you come? What where your thoughts? What was you experience like? And most importantly, what was your favorite beer? I am over here in Kuwait, so I couldn't make it, but would love to hear about the rest of ya.
Flew in from Coolidge, Kansas for the game. Was there from Thursday morning through Monday morning. I've been to Portland before for the All-Star weekend and had a blast at the Gala. Some random thoughts: * Met some cool BS'ers there. * Great stadium with great fans. * Was horribly hungover on Sunday morning. * My credit cards hate me. * Kell's Irish Pub is cool. * Didn't get to go to the Bitter End or that other pub near PGE. * Great weather on Thursday and Sunday. Can't say the same for Saturday afternoon at the University of Portland. Damn!!! * Oregon and Portland have GREAT soccer stadiums!
I'd love to hear everyone's stories from Portland. However, let's keep them in the Venues and Travel subforum.
I made it to Portland, up from San Jose. Went up on Wed. and stayed until Monday, so I could get both sets of second round games. Good town, and the best town so far for soccer that I have been to in the past weeks (Washington, Philly, New York, and my San Jose included). It was the first town I went to where the games on Sunday were the talk of the town, just about everyone knew them, and everyone had an opinion. Spent time and money in Powell's Books, and also spent time and money in Rogue Brewery and the Bitter End. I guess favorite beer was Lowelwood at Bitter End, also had the Extra Special Bitters at Rogue which was pretty good, but there were so many, many beers. Probably 30 local beers on tap at Rogue alone. Ran into Timber's Army people at Bitter End, good to see such fans for a local team. Soccer fans were the best, although the Washington USA v. Sweden games was a close second. But these were a level above anyother game I went to.
Portland... I made it over to Portland via Boston. I have been to all the games from the quarter-finals on. I live in So. Cal., and get to host friends from both coasts for the Finals. I don't have a lot of time to write this, but I just want to say that I LOVE Portland!! I have done a fair amount of traveling for various soccer events, and it is by far the best soccer town in the country. The local newscasts start out with Soccer stories, the radio stations talk about the Games, and the newspapers featured WWC stories on their front pages. The day after the US Team arrived, the front page had a BIG picture of Mackie on the front page. Awesome Soccer Town!! I am giving serious consideration to moving there. Housing is affordable, the people are loose, liberal and very social. I have come to the decision that all the sunny weather in the world doesn't make up for having to tolerate materialistic conservatives. We'll see........