Air tickets are so expensive this year that we decided to hop in the car and drive to Portland for Nick & Emil’s birthdays. We left on Thursday morning and I had the honour to drive for 2 hours in the chaos of South - East Bay Traffic. Thank God there was only 1 accident and this time our car wasn’t involved. A couple of miles before Hwy 5 I surrendered the car to Petar, who found this to an excellent excuse not to conjugate German verbs anymore, directing his whole attention to the road in front of him 
Soon afterwards we decided to listen to the audio book I rented from the library and the road on Hwy 5 was not that boring at the end. Audio books make wonders on such long trips! I must say that the traffic in Oregon is really busy and it’s going to be great if they designated carpool lanes on the highways. Anyways, it felt the same or even worse than the Bay Area traffic and this is not a good thing.
Portland was soooo nice - it’s beautiful this time of the year. It’s warm/hot but the sun doesn’t burn your skin like it does if you walk around here. And usually there’s a little breeze, so it’s really nice outside. We spent a lot of time outside and we enjoyed the nice
weather. If you haven’t been to Oregon, you should plan a trip - the nature is gorgeous! And there is no comparison with Portland during the winter - no pouring rain, no gray sky, no depression …
Otherwise, we had fun and like in the fairy-tales we drank, ate and celebrated for 3 days We had a nice dinner in an Italian place on Thursday. On the morning we went and saw Rumi’s new apartment and the place is gourgeous - brand new, high ceilings, huge balcony, fireplace, garage, lots of storage space and plenty of light coming in. This same evening we went to a Morrocan restaurant - Marrakesh, which was pretty exciting experience. Afterwards we went dancing in H2O. We realized how much we have forgotten and we should start going to salsa lessons again!!! But the crowd there danced amazingly - we admire them all quietly! And the cocktails were goood!
On Saturday morning Darren and Christie had us over for breakfast and the food was amazing - I’ll post some pictures soon. Then we went for a walk to the park and we even heard some coyotes complaining about something loudly. We could only guess what was bothering them - the food, the life, the Universe or all the rest Then we visited Ivo, Maria and their little boy Alexander. He is a big boy and he walks already! Children grow so fast and time flies even faster …
I love Portland downtown - it’s a real city - normal streets with sidewalks, nice stores, people, coffee places etc. I miss this feeling here in San Jose - it is so spread out, it’s like a giant village even though it’s the 10th biggest city in the country!
In conclusion, we had a great time and we should do it more often! Thanks everyone for making it a pleasure!