Parade in Portland

Today (Saturday) I packed my bag and went to pick up Laura cause we were going to Portland, Oregon together!
She has a friend down there and since I've never been there, we decided a couple of weeks ago, to visit.
Portland is a city located about 3,5 h south from Seattle and it's almost just on the border between Washington state and Oregon state.
The road was good, just a few working areas where it was a bit slow, but we came to Vancouver (which is not in Canada in this case ;)) around 12:30. There we met Martin, Francesca and Martin's girlfriend (who I don't remember the name of ;)) and had a jummy ice cream. It wasn't so much going on in the small village so we went to Portland instead. But now I can say that I've been to both Vancouver ;)
We went to Washington park that was located on a hill so we had a really nice view over the city and Columbia river. It was hard to find a parking spot cause the weather was sunny and warm so there were a lot of people.
We walked to a rose garden where they had so many different kind of roses that it was crazy. Portland is also called "The city of the roses" and I could really tell why. But it was nice and there were a lot of beautiful ones.
We drove to a mansion further up on the hill and from there we also had a good view and the old house was really cool.
At this point I was starving since I hadn't had anything since breakfast, so we went to downtown to try to find sth to eat. First we stopped at a HUGE bookstore that apparently was one thing Portland was famous for, I had never heard of it ;) But it was cool and there were so many books, both new and used books that U could buy for a good price. One other cool thing was that on the big sign outside the shop, they advertised Stieg Larsson ;) Go Sweden! Now is the movie "The girl with a dragon tattoo" (Män som hatar kvinnor) showing and it's pretty cool cause they are talking Swedish in it. I think he's pretty big here, our Stieg ;)
After some walking we finally found a Subway where me and Laura shared a footlong sandwich ;) I could feel my blood sugar level rise ;)
There should be a parade at 8:30 to celebrate the roses or sth. They had this every year and was popular. There were like a "Rose fest" with a funfair and a lot of food stand and all over town was a carnival feeling. People already started to get their spot for the parade at like 4, when it was like 5 hours until it would start. Crazy!
We went to the water front and watched some guys dance hip hop and there we also saw how they rose one part of the bridge when a boat came.
When it was time, we found a good spot where we could see the parade and first there were runners cause it was also some kind of race. Some people had dressed out in many funny ways. There were four guys who had swimsuits on and did synchronized swimming and then there were some LEGO men and a big caterpillar ;) Hilarious. I asked a guy who stood next to me if he knew how long the race was but he didn't knew. Instead I learned about his family history and got to know that they were from Holland ;) People are so social here in America, as soon as they hear us speak they ask us where we are from and when U tell them that U are from Europe, they always has a relative there or have been there. There is always a subject to talk about ;) Too bad he wasn't a hot 20 year old instead ;)
The parade was so cool and American! There were all these high school marching bands with cheerleaders, there were big, colourful wagons (or what they are called) with different organisations, the Rose queen and sailors that wanted to entertain us. It was really fun and it was like in a movie. The marching bands were really good and there were one organisation that had Star Wars theme and the costumes were so good and realistic.
It was over 100 different pieces in the parade and it took like 2 hours to see it all so the clock was like 11 when we walked to the car. Of course we had parked in a garage where the parade passed by so it took maybe an hour to get out of there.
We had car pooled from the park so Martin drove us back up there but when we came the park was closed so a big gate was blocking the way. With a big sight, we walked in and hoped that the other side would be open, and that the car would still be there in one piece. It was and the way was open so it was just to drive out. We drove to Francesca's place where me and Laura slept and Martin and his girlfriend slept at his place.
Martin and Francesca are here for three months with their school. In Germany, they are studying sth about the heart and they are studying for three months, and then work three months and this goes on for 5 years. So now, they had the opportunity to do a work period here, for the same company. Sounds really cool!
We were tired after the long day so we went to sleep pretty soon. Well, Laura and Francesca were talking but in German so I went to sleep.

Miss U all!
Love Sandra.