The Grove

I found the hipster part of town where people ride the sort of bikes they have in Portlandia, and are too cool to pose with it, but they're okay with you taking a picture of them doing what they normally do. (Which is also the part of town where the bars are called things like "Handlebar.")

Bikes were everywhere (as were skateboards, although they didn't make it into the pictures).

(A random aside: Francisco said that last weekend a guy came down the road on a pogo stick at Eastern Market. He said it was a good pogo stick, too, because the guy could get some air.)

I liked this neighborhood a lot--it is visually interesting and colorful and seems to have a lot of neighborhood pride. I tried to stop in somewhere called Sweetie Pies (which, it turns out has nothing to do with sweets nor pies, and so became a lot less useful to me right then). Actually, it's a soul food restaurant--the line wound around the store several times, which made me wonder what was up. Google said something about Oprah and a reality tv show, so I'm going to have to let that all settle down before I go back and visit.