Goin' to California: Portland: You Have Outdone Yourself

This past weekend I had the pleasure of traveling to Portland, Maine for the weekend with some fun-loving, stoke-creating ladies and gentlesirs. Portland is awesome for a number of reasons: most of them include the word "brewery," but some don't, and that is why this place is great.

We spent Friday night at Meghan's grandparents' house a few miles south of the city: getting to know some great people, drinking some great Harpoon beer (shout out to Meesh providing free growlers), and screaming at the people in the TV for not doing the Olympics correctly. Note: sleeping in a barn-like room with the A/C blasting is always a great start to the weekend.

Saturday we arrived in Portland, meandering our way to the location of a daytime concert put on by "Mumford and Friends," to which we had tickets. After taking in some (read: NOT ENOUGH) of the city, we went into the concert venue, snagging some up-front real estate. Andrew and I spent a majority of the concert in the beer garden. The opening acts were ok, but really don't hold a candle to Mumford and Sons, who were awesome. They played their two songs AND SOME ADDITIONAL ONES WHICH WERE GOOD. They then got all the bands on stage to sing some crazy group-lyrical-ballad, ending in fireworks. NICE.

Mumf and/or Sons playing one of their two songs (Little Lion Man and the Cave)

WE. ARE. BEAUTIES.

We then headed down for a night on the town (always a good idea). This included singing quite a number of songs about J'Oysters, which is a premiere location in Portland and should be included as a lyric replacing 60-70% of the words of any of your favorite songs. We were lucky enough to get into Gritty's bar, not only because the bars were packed this evening, but also because Meesh decided that "bringing her ID" wasn't a high priority. Everything turned out ok though, and it turned out to be quite an excellent evening, despite the fact that a majority of their beers are terrible.

Fake mustaches were handed out upon entry to the concert. Obviously.

Meeshes gonna Meesh

Sunday began with a gradual entering into society from a hazy, hangovery stupor. This was accelerated with a great brunch just down the road from Ryan's brother's place (where we were able to stay for the evening). Their Jamaican jerk hash was out of control, and they had some great Bloody Mary's. We then drove to Ryan's grandmother's place on the beach, just outside Portland. Fuck. So awesome. We spent the day sitting in the ocean near their private beach. I got about 400 lacerations from the waves hurling me into dagger-like rocks, but they were totally worth it.