Evenings in Vancouver and Portland

After classes, we would usually return to the hotel to clean up and then find a place to grab dinner. Our meet and greet dinner had been at a place in Vancouver called Charlies' Bistro. We kind of overwhelmed the poor server, but he was the first of many wonderful service people we encountered which gave me a sense of how nice, helpful and down to earth the people in this area are.
One night, we coordinated a trip to the Pearl District in Portland with the Southern California contingent and found a delicious Italian restaurant to take over, Via Delizia. Again, we overwhelmed the place but were served by attentive friendly staff. We found the food to be absolutely delicious and their tiramisu was top notch. We thought we missed out on gelato due to a busted freezer, but they managed to scrape up some amaretto to go with the tiramisu.
In Vancouver, there was a nice inexpensive Thai restaurant near the hotel that we could walk to. The other mainstay was the Black Angus which was on the same lot as our hotel. On Wednesday, the 4th of July holiday meant that almost all the local establishments were closed so a group of 13 or 14 of us descended on the place. We were joined by Scott and Randall, which gave me a chance to find out Scott's story a little (and an interesting one it is, too). After dinner, a few of us headed to the local Fort where their big fireworks display was to take place. When it turned out the admission was $7 dollars, a few of us turned around and headed back to our hotel. From our window, we could see about 10 displays across the horizon. Not only that, but fireworks are legal in Washington so there were some rockets being set up right in the hotel parking lot! The various displays went on for a good three hours!
Aside from the holiday evening, we rarely saw more than a handful of people on the streets. It was so desolate, as to be a little weird. I can't quite figure out how the shops stay in business.
Since almost all of the camp contingent was staying at the same hotel, we often saw them at breakfast or in the lobby. I had breakfast every morning with the trio from Vancouver, Canada, as it turned out we were the late risers!
Unfortunately I was not at all pleased with the hotel. The beds were soft and uncomfortable, the bathrooms were not properly cleaned and they were constantly skimping out on towels. After hearing from other campers, we suspect the cleaning staff on our floor was the deficiency.