I’ve been spending a lot of time away from the computer in Portugal for both mental and practical reasons; I spend most of my waking hours in front of one on a normal day so it’s great to look up from the keyboard and not think about looking back down for several days on end. I have had to consult it here and there (where are we going? is there street parking? what time are the tickets? do we need ID to get in?) but I’ve tried to keep things as non-technological as possible. My Instagram feed is pretty quiet as well.

We’re back in Porto, where we have an apartment lent to us by friends, for the first time in five days, and we’re sitting on the couch relaxing while a tiny European washing machine gurgles on the patio next to us. Today’s itinerary is “fuck-all”, as we’re catching up from some travel through Portugal, into Spain, and back again, and waiting for clean clothes. We put about 745 miles on a rented Peugeot 308, staying in hotels along the way, and we got to see some amazing sights. Portugal is like what Ireland would be if it was in California: there’s another castle over every hill, except that they’re still in excellent shape and not surrounded by sheep. I’ll write more about the details later.

I made a conscious decision not to bring a ton of cameras on this trip after talking it over with Jen. Instead, we both upgraded our aging iPhones to new 15 Pro models, and I’ve used mine as my primary since we’ve been here. I also brought Dad’s 35mm Minolta X7000 and my DJI Action camera, but that’s the extent of what I’ve been lugging around. It’s weird not to be using a dedicated camera for the first time in 25 years, but what I’ve been getting out of the iPhone has been pretty damn good. And I’m not ashamed to say we’re leaning into the selfie on this trip, as we don’t have a lot of current shots of the three of us.