We are visiting Portland today. The sun is warm, so we hop on our Vespa and tour the city on two motorized wheels. In reality, Portland would be a perfect biking town: full of cycling routes and well-marked bike lanes. We get to Pioneer Square during a festival of Native Americans. The place is packed with people. We find out that on Sunday there will be the Portland Marathon and this weekend everything is geared towards celebrating this event. I did not know that Indian dances were propitiatory for marathoners...
We walk about for a few hours, noticing that there is an incredible amount of homeless people around, and the streets are quite dirty, it looks a little bit like New York without the vibe.
We park our Vespa outside a bike store and it gets hit by a car backing out of a parking space. The guy comes into the store looking for us and gives us his business card for the damage reimbursement. Only the right blinker seems to be smashed, his car does not have a scratch. The light works though. Oh well, it happens. We will look for a dealership on Internet tonight. There should be one, given that we saw quite a few Vespas around. |