7-25-2013 Alberta Last Thursday Event - Eric's Take

At about 6 in the evening we headed off for the Alberta Street event that is held on the last Thursday of each month.  On the way we took note of a couple of things that really make Portland stand out as unique.  The first one is how nice our neighbor's yard looks.  Many people landscape with edibles and they are both useful and beautiful.  It just makes more sense to me to do this.

landscaping with edibles

Our other neighbor has had these people working hard on a brand new retaining wall.  They had a bunch of scrubby bamboo before.  Now they have paid to have that all ripped out and they are getting a new wall built.  They have chosen to have this built out of recycled concrete that used to be a road or floor or parking lot or something.  It is really turning out nice.

The busted up concrete bricks are laid out waiting to become the next course

Here is how it looks up close

Everybody really embraces recycling in Portland and at the street fair it looked like anybody can perform or display and we saw some truly amazing products....and things were super super cheap too!  The bars and restaurants had bands too.  

The Elixer Lab is a great place to hang out on Alberta St

There is a place that is called Pine Street Biscuits.  There is usually a long line there.  I happened to look in there and saw no line.  I ordered the Biscuit and Gravy for 4 bucks.  It started off as a full 6 stars on a 5 scale, but it was sooooo rich that by the end I had to give it 3.5 stars.  I don't know what they put in it, but I was full for the rest of the night. 

Biscuit and Gravy from Pine Street Biscuits

On the street there are a variety of very entertaining bands.  Maybe there were 15 or 20 in all.  They were all very good.  Below is typical of what you might see.  

Alberta Street is shut down from 6 until 9:30 and after it was over we met up with a friend.  He was worried that it might be too cold to ride his scooter home.  His friend offered him her jacket to wear, but he wasn't sure if it was his style.

Justin is sporting his loaner jacket

This was at the bollywood theatre and the food looks really good and reasonably priced there.  After that we happened across a great band.  I didn't catch their name, ... it was something like Chernobyl.  Anyway they were russians and sang many songs in russian.  They were very good and entertaining.  Below is a clip of their performance to give you a feeling for them.