Portlandia

Chuck and I have been planning to visit Portland all summer and finally got to make it happen this past weekend! We found out several of the Sloanies/LGOs in Seattle had a trip planned so we made a last minute decision to join them, and headed out early Saturday morning.

Portland is only about a 2.5-3 hour drive from Seattle. We got in town just in time for our lunch reservations at Pok Pok, a very popular Portland spot that serves authentic Thai food. We ordered several dishes and did it up family style. It was tasty! 

After lunch, Chuck and I split from the group and met up with our friend Tacy, another LGO, who graciously offered her floor to us for the weekend.  She's living in Portland and doing her off-cycle internship for Nike. Tacy and her fiance lived on the same floor as us in Eastgate last summer and live one floor above us in the apartment building where we live in Cambridge now. We are housing buds, so it was only fitting that we stayed with her for the weekend! 

We found a parking spot for the car, dropped our stuff at her apartment, and headed out into downtown Portland to meet up with some her Nike friends to go to an International Beer Festival. 

We paid an entrance fee and for that we each received a small glass and 10 tickets. Once inside, you could walk up to any tent and hand over your ticket to taste whatever beer they were serving. I have no idea what beers we drank or where they were from but most of them were pretty good. 

Chuck liked them!

Then we asked a nice lady in line behind us to take our picture and totally got photobombed. But we loved it.

We actually thanked the guy for making our picture that much more awesome.

After the beer festival my phone died so unfortunately I have no pictures of the group we were with, the place we ate dinner, or anything after that. But I can pretty much sum up the evening with "more beer and a lot of pizza."

Which leads us to Sunday morning... when I wasn't feeling so well from the aforementioned beer festival.... So we had a little bit of a late start to the day but it turned out ok. Tacy drove us to see the Rose Garden which we loved. 

Rows and rows of just beautiful, huge roses of all different colors and shapes. It was so peaceful and pretty.

Then Tacy drove us to Nike Headquarters in Beaverton where she's working and drove us around. Chuck had seen a lot of the campus when they visited Nike back in January on Plant Trek but I obviously hadn't seen any of it before. Their campus is ginormous and amazing. There are huge buildings, courts and fields for pretty much every sport, walking trails, trees... It was really cool to see and hear about the work culture there from someone who's experiencing it firsthand.

From there we went shopping at the Nike Employee Store where employees can by brand new merchandise for 50% off. :):):):)

After our shopping spree we headed back to leave the car again and get lunch at a place called Lardo. Not an appetizing name for a restaurant but the food was delish. Then we drove to the place that EVERYONE says you HAVE to go when you're in Portland- Voo Doo Donuts.

But the line was REALLY long and the sun was REALLY hot, so we decided not to wait. We walked through the Saturday Market (which I questioned the name of, seeing as it was Sunday...) and then down the river. 

From there, we went to the Niketown Portland, as if we hadn't had enough Nike in our day already! But I wanted to see what their store is like in comparison to the one in Seattle and and Tacy wanted to see their current shoe selection. When we finished at Niketown, we walked back to Voo Doo Donuts and discovered the line was much shorter and half of it was now in the shade, so we decided to wait in the line and get some donuts for the road trip back to Seattle. We waited about 30 minutes but it was worth every second. 

I mean, who WOULDN'T wait in line for a donut that has Captain Crunch on top of it?!

And that was how we ended our trip! I think our Portland visit was pretty successful but my only regret is that I never got a good picture of Mt. Hood. Also, we never got a picture with Tacy in it! What were we thinking? The good news is, Tacy is planning to come up to Seattle this weekend so we will have another chance to get pictures then!

Kentucky Fun

 

Hello from Kentucky! Just a little update on what we've been up to for the past week.

 

Chuck and I got in to Louisville on the 4th of July around 6:30 pm after a FLAWLESS travel day. It was literally perfect which, if you've followed the blog for awhile, you know this NEVER happens to us and is a big deal. We picked up our rental car and drove straight to my Uncle Tony and Aunt Kelly's house in Oldham County where all of my family and some of our friends were having a rainy 4th of July party. There weren't many fireworks because of the weather, but that didn't stop the fun. Just look at the community drink table!

 



 

First thing Friday morning, Chuck and I drove down to Rough River Lake and spent the day with his dad and our lake friends. Before we moved out of Kentucky, Chuck and I went to the lake almost every single weekend in the summertime. This was our first time at the lake in 2 years, so it was really exciting. It was still kind of rainy though, so we only got to go out on the boat for about 3 hours. Again, that didn't stop the fun. We played cornhole tournaments, grilled steaks, and had some drinks.  

 

 

 

 

On Saturday, it was back to Louisville for a day of covered volleyball with friends, as it was STILL RAINING.

 

 

After volleyball, it was home to get cleaned up and then we met up with family and friends at The Silver Dollar, one of our new favorite restaurants in Louisville. Seriously, it's SO GOOD.

 

 

 







 

 Sunday we spent at church and at my parents' house where my parents cooked dinner for us and Chuckie's mom. Here is my dad, the grillmaster.

 

 My parents watch a lot of Food Network shows and it seriously pays off. Look at this pizza they made just last night.

 

Monday I spent at the pool with my best friend and cousin and Chuckie spent at the Amazon fulfillment center in Jeffersonville, IN. Tuesday Chuckie also spent there before he had to fly out and go back to Seattle for a few days. He's been there since Tuesday night and will come back to Louisville tomorrow morning! Then we'll have the weekend to have fun again before he has to go back to the fulfillment centers on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and then it's back to Seattle for both of us on Thursday.

So far our trip has been awesome, especially once it finally stopped raining! I love driving around the city without having to use the GPS on my phone. I love that there is enough parking everywhere I go. I love being with family and friends.

The only thing I don't love is the humidity.

 

 

Fish, Baseball, and Mountains

These last few days in Seattle have felt a lot like our life in Boston. Not only are there a few more LGOs in Seattle right now for internships, but there are also several of the Sloan students here for their summer internships. This means there are a lot more people making plans and meeting up. This is what Chuck and I have been missing about Boston, so it's been nice to reunite with some of our Boston friends!

Last Thursday, Amazon held a free night at the Seattle Aquarium for all of the MBA interns. 

The night included free admission to the aquarium, free food and drinks (one thing we REALLY miss about MIT- all the free food and drinks at events!) and a chance to meet and network with all of the interns currently in Seattle from schools all over the country. We didn't see much of the aquarium but I have to say from what we did see, it wasn't that impressive. I guess this huge tank was pretty cool though.

The best thing about the Seattle Aquarium was the location. It's right on Puget Sound. Awesome view.

After the aquarium we went out to a bar in our neighborhood for a little while with some of the LGOs and Sloanies. We had to take this picture of Chuck and two of his classmates, ZZ and Hector, because the 3 of them were on the same "core team" in the Fall. It's crazy that 3 of the 7 Puffins (their team name) all ended up in the same place for their internships!

Friday night, Chuckie and I ventured downtown to Safeco Field for the Mariners vs. Cubs baseball game. He had been to the stadium before with some of our friends on a night I had to work, but this was my first time at the field. It was beautiful!

The game wasn't sold out by any means so we just picked some seats in left field, and in the shade, and enjoyed the game.

For a reason I can't remember, my dad has always been a Cubs fan, therefore my family has always cheered for the Cubs. My dad also coached my little sister's softball team for a lot of years, and they were always the Cubs. So this was the perfect game for us to go to! I felt a little bad, cheering for the Cubs instead of Seattle, but no one seemed to mind and there were actually A LOT of Cubs fans in attendance! Sadly, the Cubs lost.

But I did hear they beat Seattle on Saturday and Sunday. So yay!

Saturday we woke up early and met up with some LGOs and Sloanies to drive 2 hours to Mt. Rainier National Park for some hiking. Chuck and I had been to the park before with my parents, but now that it's summertime, the snow is melted and the park looked a lot different!

We started with a hike on the Rampart Ridge Trail. The trail was a loop and the whole thing, round trip, was about 5 miles. I think. At least, that's what the sign said.

The hike up to the viewpoint was not easy but not TOO intense. We did sweat a lot though. But when we finally made it to the top, the views were incredible. The weather was perfect that day as well which made it even better.

Hello, Mt. Rainier!

The way back down was a little intense because for a small stretch of the trail we were completely ambushed by mosquitos. Once we got away from them though it was a nice walk down the hill.

Because of the timing, Chuckie and I had to leave after that hike so I could get back to Seattle in time to work an event at the arts center, but the rest of the group continued up into the park to do another hike. I wish we could have stayed because it was such a nice day for hiking! Maybe next time, I won't have to work on the same day.

Sunday I had to work at Nike all day but Sunday night we met up with some friends to see the new Star Trek movie. We saw it partly because we wanted to hang out and partly because no one has air conditioning in their apartments and it was really hot on Sunday and seeing a movie was an excuse to get out of our houses and hang out somewhere with air conditioning.

So as you can see: networking events, bars, group outings, baseball games... Yes, Seattle felt a lot like Boston this week.

Up next for us is another trip to Louisville. Originally we didn't plan to visit home in July but Amazon wants Chuck to visit several fulfillment centers around Kentucky to shadow some people and see if he'd be interested in working in one of the fulfillment centers after LGO. Exciting stuff! I'm just going along for fun. We leave for Louisville on July 4th and we'll be there for 2 weeks! Chuck has to work the whole time we're home but I don't, so it's kind of like a summer vacation for me. Chuckie will work on his internship and I will work on my tan! (Don't worry- he gets to have a little fun too!)