Saturday, 29 June
We woke up in our own apartment and decided to take things easy for the day. Finn was content to hang around the house so Jen and I finally roused ourselves and walked downtown to find a good breakfast. On the way we stopped at an impossibly crowded antique store to browse through the stuff. There was a lot of vintange petroliana available but I stayed strong and backed away from it. Jen and I found our breakfast at an interesting combination store/cafe (think of a Banana Republic with a full restaurant on the second floor).
We tried a Caipirinha for the first time, which were delicious and deadly, and each of us had a wonderful meal followed by cappuccino and dessert. Taking our time to slowly wander back home, we did some more lazy sightseeing and tried to find some other alternatives for food and destinations later in the week.
Sunday, 30 June – 7822 steps
We’d been told about a variation on the Pastel De Nata called Ovos Moles, which are the specialty of a coastal town a little south of us called Aviero. The town is nestled right on the water and also includes several examples of Art Nouveau architecture as well as a museum (and several ancient cathedrals, of course) so we set course southward to check it out. After finding some on-street parking that wasn’t covered by my app we got some lunch and commenced to walk the town. The Art Nouveau museum was underwhelming, as was the city museum, but we learned some things about the region and saw some beautiful buildings.
Stopping for our first ovos moles at a touristy cafe, we were underwhelmed with the flavor—very yolky as opposed to creamy like the Pastel de Nata. We walked the old section of town over to their historic cathedral and were lucky enough to sneak in before they closed, which was lucky; it’s a beautiful building filled with some incredible art (and one creepy seven-swords Our Lady of Sorrow statue).
Leaving there we decided we needed to make sure the subpar ovos moles weren’t a fluke and found a beautiful padaria where the woman at the counter hooked us up with several things to try. This one was a little sweeter but still very yolky—so we decided this wasn’t for us. With that, we headed back to the car and to our house in Porto.
Monday 1 July – 15,943 steps
Monday was the day. Jen and I plotted a course around the old section of Porto to see a bunch of sights, some of which we’d bumped into and others we didn’t know about. I got up early and crossed the street to pick up coffee and egg croissants at the bakery on the corner (something I’d already made a habit of; the guys behind the counter were exceptionally generous to your jet lagged correspondent) while everyone got ready to go. Our course took us first to a proper breakfast at a lovely cafe in the historic district, and we filled up on good food and our second Porn Star Martini of the trip (highly recommended).
From there we went first to the Chapel of Souls, an 18th-century church covered in hand-painted tilework, where we shot a few pictures and then went inside to pay our respects.
The influencers were out in force outside so we continued on our way to our next waypoint: the Majestic Cafe, an Art Nouveau restaurant with eye-watering pricing (most likely to keep the influencers from clogging the place up). We viewed it from outside and then kept moving.
The church of Saint Ildefonso is up on top of the hill in the middle of a shopping district. It has an unmistakeable impact on the area not only because of its location, but because of the incredible tile work across the outside of the whole building. Both times we saw it, it was behind locked gates, so we couldn’t go up or inside, but as an object in both morning and afternoon light, it was beautiful to look at.
From here we wandered further downhill, and through some construction to reach the Porto train station, which had been noted in a bunch of the different guides we read for its architecture and tile work. This was definitely something we wanted to see, so we brave the crowds and went inside we weren’t disappointed. The main hall is empty of benches like most modern train stations are, but is filled with people all staring upward at the tile and plasterwork.
Outside, it’s an old-school series of platforms with latticed ironwork creating a barrel roof, under which several trains sat idling. It’s actually in the middle of a valley so the trains leave through tunnels at the other end of the station, and the whole thing is surrounded by ancient buildings, reaching up over the edges. We stood and took pictures and walked the platforms for a while, then went back into the main building to stare upward for a while longer.
Leaving the train station, we wandered the streets slowly downhill until we found a nice open air café to stop and get a cold beer and a nosh to eat. We were entertained by a man playing an alto sax out in the Square for euros, who was perhaps, un willingly accompanied by a man in his 60s or 70s suggestively dancing to his music, trying to get women passers-by to join him. Café culture really is a thing, and I could really get used to it here in the states if our towns and cities were actually organized in a humane way.
The next thing we ran into was the Bolsa palace, the original stock exchange for the city when Porto was a key trading port. We were a little dubious about the ticket price, but once we walked in the building, and saw how magnificent everything was we were happy we had taken the chance. The middle courtyard was being rented out for some sort of event so we couldn’t stand in the middle and look upward but from where we were it was breathtaking.
One thing that we got to see that made us very happy was the final stop on the tour, a room called the Arabian room, which was decorated in the 1880s with carved wood covered in gold and Arabian accents.
Leaving the Bolsa, we found ourselves very close to sea level and figured we might try walking over one of the bridges to see the other side of the city. The city has three bridges, and we were close to one with a span we could cross at our level.
On the other side of the water, we took a break at a park and rest our legs and looked at a map. We realized we were very close to most of the port wine distilleries, and thought we would stop in for a tasting. We chose Callum as our vineyard, and were lucky to get a table outside under an umbrella to watch people walk past. Jen and I settled on a flight of vintage ports with a cheese plate to accompany things. All in all, it was a lovely way to spend an hour or two by the water and tasting fantastic wine.
From there, we walked back across the low span of the bridge to the funicular, which was a cheap way to climb 40 stories without having to walk any stairs. From there, we circle back to walk out on the top span of the bridge and view the city from high. It was beautiful, but a little wobbly so we only got out about a third of the way before coming back. On our way back we stopped past the church of Saint Ildefonso again, this time in the afternoon light, and marvel at how beautiful it still was. The rest of the trip was a slow uphill until we got back to the apartment and at that point we were so tired we didn’t go back out for dinner.
Tuesday, 2 July – 8662 steps
There were a couple of things still on our list that we wanted to see before we left Porto so we made a careful plan and mapped out our course for the last few highlights Finn had made a list of sites she wanted to see, one of which was called the Bank of Materials which is a collection built by the city of reclaimed tile from buildings that have been torn down. After getting a decent breakfast at a café, halfway downtown, we circled a square until we found the museum itself, which was tucked away on a side street. The museum itself wasn’t very big, but held too long racks full of wooden boxes with reclaimed tile inside with more patterns than we had seen out on the street—in geometric shapes, hand, painted scenes, and printed patterns. They also had an entire collection of porcelain street signs, plaster, castings, and a couple of mosaics on display.
After that, we wanted to see the Livaria Lello, which is build as the most beautiful bookstore in the world. As with many things in Porto, you have to get tickets so we figured out our entry time and only had to wait about 20 minutes to get in. Once inside, it’s filled with the requisite influencers, and TikTokers, all posing on the grand staircase, which is only about two people wide, so you have to wait for people to make duck lips before you can go anywhere. With about 1/10 of the people inside the library would be absolutely beautiful, but we had a hard time really enjoying it when being jostled by other tourists wandering up and down looking for the best photo op. They were hosting a celebration of José Saramago, the only Portuguese Nobel winner, whose biography display made him sound like a very humorous and interesting author—but none of his work was available in English. It was breathtaking inside but we all reached our people limit quickly and bailed out.
Worried about having some upscale clothing for dinner, we walked downtown Porto to try and find a women’s boutique with a blouse that Jen could wear (she packed for cold weather and it got hot on us) but the only two choices seemed to be cheap tourist peasant-type clothes or the Zara/Burberry stores where you have to buzz to be let inside. We gave up on this after awhile and headed back home.
We made plans to try a restaurant our hosts recommended, so we hopped in the car and drove to the west side of the city. The restaurant specializes in fresh seafood, and when I walked in I was met by a glass case holding some of the largest lobster I’ve ever seen. Our waiter was excellent and recommended some fantastic dishes for us: Jen had a seafood “açorda” (bread and seafood stew), I had grilled crayfish with butter rice, and Finn had steamed clams. They paired it with an excellent wine, and we were all in heaven. Everything was perfect and we had a great evening together. Waddling home, we all hit the sack immediately.
Wednesday, 3 July – 7715 steps
We got a late start on Wednesday, possibly because we were trying to put off the idea of having to leave. We did some straightening up around the apartment and I went out to fill up the rental car. There wasn’t much left to see other than wandering the streets, but we headed back downtown to find some lunch and check out a store we’d scoped out for Finn days earlier. The other thing we wanted to do was find the arts district to see if there was anyplace selling something we could bring home and hang on the wall, as well as some gifts for our hosts. We found a long street sprinkled with upscale art galleries—actual hung artwork on the wall—and smaller shops with prints and more tourist centered objects. We did stumble on one storefront, selling prints from local artists, which was perfect for what we wanted. After only about five minutes of looking, Jen found a series of prints by one artist that we really loved and we picked a bunch out for ourselves.
Then we regretfully wandered back to the apartment to straighten everything up, repack all of our gear, and get ready for the following morning.
Thursday, 4 July
Our flight was at 12:20 so we wanted to be in the airport by 9 AM. We got the rental car back to the counter by 8:20 and we’re walking into the airport by 8:40 from there. We had to wait about an hour for the ticket window to open up to get checked in. Once that was complete, we made our way through security and found our gate. I had woken with a sore throat and my nose had started running, so we stopped in at a pharmacy and got me some bizarre Portuguese cold meds that tasted like old sheets and a couple of masks I could wear on the plane.
The first flight to Lisbon went without any problems and this time we had an extra 40 minutes to make it to our connecting flight again there was some confusion as to which gate we were supposed to go to, and once we got into the boarding line, there was an extra security check that made no sense to us. But we boarded the plane and settled in for the flight. Then it turned out. There was something wrong with the plane. They made us wait an hour, and then had us deplane out onto the tarmac and get onto some very hot buses. At this point, I was running a fever, so standing on that bus made me feel like my eyeballs were boiling in a pot of stew. They drove us to the other side of the gate to a different plane, let us bake on the bus for about 20 minutes and then got us on the new plane. There was no issue with this plane, so they got us in the air and we flew without incident back to Dulles. After collecting our luggage, we called for an Uber and got back the house at about 12:30PM (6:30AM Portugal time).
Portugal (and Spain!) were very, very good to us, and I would not hesitate for a second to go back. Obrigado!
File this under It’s About Fucking Time: the Baltimore County School system will allow cellphone bans in their classrooms starting this coming year. Our daughter wasn’t allowed to bring her phone to school last year for various reasons, but I’ll be glad to have the rest of the students hang theirs up too. I’d link to some of the appropriate local news channels here, but they’re all behind paywalls or not even reporting on this.
This has been making the rounds, but not as loudly as the press’ continual hand-wringing over whether or not Biden is too old to serve: Robert Reich lays out the facts behind Project 2025, Trump’s plan to destroy the US Government and turn it—blatantly, nakedly—into an autocracy. It’s written by his people, for his people.
I spent my time in Portugal trying to be in Portugal and not spending it behind the eyepiece of a camera or at a keyboard, with varying levels of success. The goal was to unwind and I think I was pretty successful at that, other than the stressful parts of driving in unfamiliar cities. I did keep some brief notes on paper, and I’ll do my best to line them up with any pictures I’ve got.
Friday 21 June – 9,310 steps
We caught an Uber to the airport and had a smooth flight over the Atlantic to Madrid, where things went a little sideways. Iberia airlines do a great job in the air but only provide 37 seconds to catch connecting flights, which meant what you might expect: we missed ours. Madrid airport is huge and they made us transit from one end of it to the other, with a 12-minute train ride in the middle. We got to our gate and the woman told us we couldn’t board, so we had to join a queue of other people waiting at a help desk for further information. They put us on a new flight leaving in 6 hours and gave us vouchers for the McDonald’s in the airport (no thanks) so we got some Iberico sandwiches and found some benches near a charging station to wait things out. The flight to Porto went pretty quickly. By the time we got our baggage, it was 10PM local time and all the rental counters were closed, so we Uber’d to our apartment and dropped our stuff off. Then we wandered the neighborhood to find some food and got pizza at a place around the corner playing Bollywood music videos.
Saturday 22 June – 4,903 steps
Rising late in the day, we Uber’d back to the airport and picked up a new rental: a shiny gray Peugeot 308. The Uber driver told us we were right on time for the Festa De São João Porto, the yearly tribute to St. John the Baptist, and the city’s biggest celebration. We returned home and I found an app to handle street parking in Porto, which was confusing at first until I got the hang of how it tracked time. I don’t have the final bill from Budget yet but I never saw a ticket tucked under the wiper, so I think we made out OK.
We then wandered the neighborhood looking for some dinner and found a place down the hill who served us giant plates of meat with expertly cooked cabbage and potatoes.
Sunday 23 June – 10,756 steps
We walked across the street to a tiny storefront called Comfort Cakes and were lucky enough to be seated out back in a cozy garden, where we got a hearty, healthy breakfast with great coffee. From there we walked downtown to the river for the first time, a total drop of about 470 feet over almost two miles. Walking downhill for the first half was pretty normal; it felt like most normal cities in that the streets and sidewalks were wide and things felt airy. At about the mile mark things suddenly narrowed and the sidewalks were only big enough for one person. We were clearly in the Old City at this point, and it was wonderful. Apart from almost getting run over. We made it down to one of the landmarks on the bucket list, the Igreja do Carmo, and did a little shopping across the street.
Walking down by the river, they were clearly ramping up for the celebration but we weren’t feeling up to the crowds quite yet. So we wandered back north a little bit, and stopped in a restaurant for a Francesinha, which was good but not the wonderous delicacy we had been promised. Wandering back to the house, we relaxed and listened to the city as they shot off fireworks and watched candle-powered lanterns float across the skyline.
Monday 24 June – 7,468 steps
This was our first travel day; we rose late and got on the road in the early afternoon to Lisbon. Driving through the Portuguese countryside reminded me a lot of California in that the ground cover is all brown but the trees are green, and the vistas are wide. The Peugeot was very pleasant to drive long distance once we figured out how it integrated CarPlay with our phones; the only trouble we had was when Maps got behind where we were and missed important turns in the city. We made it into Lisbon in the afternoon and Siri helpfully directed us to pull into a taxi stand outside our hotel, which made the drivers very unhappy.
I backed out of there and drove up steep alleyways until I found a place to park, then walked to the hotel for a garage key and hiked back to the car. After checking in, we did a little wandering and found an outdoor café serving seafood, where Jen and I shared a giant lobster/seafood stew.
Tuesday 25 June – 14,840 steps, 28 floors
This was our big sightseeing day and we had a lot of ground to cover, so we hit the ground running. We got a quick breakfast and then waited in line for a trolley to carry us up the hills to an open-air flea market on the other side of the castle. This was worth the wait, as the climb was steep (I’d gotten us a hotel in the Rossio district, which is centrally located in the historical area but almost at sea level) and we hopped off with only a short walk to go. We toured the market—so many tempting things there, so little suitcase space—saw the National Pantheon, and hiked over to the castle to wait in line for entry. After some confusion and indifferent ticketing agents we finally got inside and were delighted to find a whole family of peacocks wandering the grounds.
The main castle involved a lot of stairs, and we climbed many of them before our calves and knees rang the alarm bell. After exiting the castle we wandered back into the central section of the city and had dinner at a little out-of-the-way restaurant our concierge recommended. Here we had some traditional Portuguese fish—Jen had the cod while I had the seabream. She got a nicely filleted cut on her plate and I got the whole wangdang fish—but it was delicious even though I had to remove a few bones. We capped off the meal with some Port wine and a dessert, and left a good tip for our waiter, who couldn’t have been nicer.
Wednesday 26 June – 6,611 steps
We got up earlier this day because we knew we had to get on the road and out of town early, so I found a breakfast spot called The Folks Sé, where Jen said she had the best french toast of her life, and where my black coffee was good enough to convince me that black coffee is good. We wandered back to the room, got our gear together, and reversed the complicated process of checking out to get on the road. Our destination was the town of Evora, where Finn had found something she wanted to see: the Chapel of Bones. The drive was pretty uneventful but the Maps app suddenly got very balky which resulted in us driving in loops around an ancient city filled with one-way alleys the width of a closet door. We finally found a place to pull over, reset the map, and dive into the city a different way, which led us (by chance) to a tiny parking lot where we were able to find a spot.
The Chapel of Bones is part of a larger church built by Franciscan monks, and is breathtaking to behold. I haven’t been to the Catacombs in Paris but this is a similar vibe. We toured the church and surrounding area, then hopped in the car to continue on to Seville, which was another three and a half hours away. The drive was lovely, and whatever anxieties we had about crossing into Spain were for nothing. Just like in the States, there’s just a sign and then the road quality changes. We got into Seville late, and I was past the hangry stage. We tried to get seats at the hotel restaurant but it was smaller than advertised and full, so we settled for room service cheeseburgers and champagne.
Thursday 27 June – 12,770 steps
We woke up early to hike to the Alcazar, which was only a mile of very confusing directions away. The map app got us pretty turned around but we were able to make it within our admittance time and we got our bearings inside a glorious outer courtyard. Once through the main gate the true beauty of the place was breathtaking. We’ve seen parts of it on Game of Thrones but to actually be there is another thing entirely. The palace is sprawling and includes indoor and outdoor gardens, and I think we walked every inch of it. The tilework is exqusite, and even if we couldn’t make it to the Alhambra further west, I’m so glad we made this trip. There were a few moments in the courtyard when the murmur of the crowd died back and a flock of starlings chirped as they chased each other in circles; I could imagine standing there centuries ago as a visitor to the palace.
From there we walked out into the center of Seville and up to the main cathedral, where I popped online and got us some tickets. I’ve been in a lot of cathedrals over the years, but this one was whoa. Like somebody with Trump’s sense of interior decoration got in there and barfed gold leaf all over everything. It’s beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but overdone by a factor of three. We walked the whole cathedral, stopping to look at the remains of Christopher Columbus and reviewing the choir box in the center, which looked more like a set from the Ministry of Magic in a Harry Potter novel.
Feeling exhausted, and unable to face up to the reality of all of the stairs between us and the top of the bell tower, we walked back to the car and hit the road for Sintra. It was a long drive—about four and a half hours—and we wound up getting in to our tiny hillside hotel at after 9PM. They got us checked in and we set Finn up for bed while we ventured out in a rainstorm for some dinner. We had to walk up the hillside road into town and found seats at an excellent little restaurant the concierge recommended to us. Unfortunately, the walk back down the hillside was just as wet, but with full stomachs, it wasn’t as bad.
Friday 28 June – 8,089 steps, 34 floors
Our day in Sintra was one of highs and lows, successes and failures. The hotel provided a lovely little breakfast to our room, and we got the car packed up and ready as soon as we could. Driving into Sintra, we hunted for a parking spot and found one close to the Sintra National Palace. Because the parking app I already had on my phone was incompatible and the other three it suggested would not let me open accounts, I sent the girls ahead while I struggled to get the parking issue sorted out. Then it turned out we were in the entirely wrong place; the palace we wanted to see was further up the mountain and we’d need to take a bus to get there. We bought new tickets and I got some coins to cover the parking, and we hopped on the bus up into the mist.
Ordinarily Sintra is clear and you can see the surrounding castles and countryside for miles, but it was socked in with fog all day for us. Which made it kind of spooky and cool, actually. The bus dropped us at the Moorish Castle, which is a little further down the road, but we then realized we needed to get to the National Palace of Pena (the thing we’d actually come to see) as soon as possible, because there was still a half-hour hike up the hill to get to the entrance.
Once we were there, though, it was worth the money and hassle. The castle is like a life-size version of the fanciful ones I built out of LEGO when I was 9; the architecture was incredible throughout the whole building. We toured the palace and ended up outside overlooking what would have been the valley. Knowing the parking meter was a ticking time bomb, I left the ladies to get a bite to eat and check out the Moorish Castle, and hoofed it back downhill to get more money in the meter. With that done (7 minutes to spare!) I walked further up the street to a café and sat down to a delicious ham and cheese sandwich with a warm cappuccino.
The girls gave me a play-by-play and returned to the car soaking wet; the rain had increased as they were touring the second castle. I’d heated up the car and we hit the road for Porto. We stopped off at a service stop for gas, sandwiches, and a Red Bull for me, and made it back to our apartment after the sun had set.
Part 2 coming up next.
Heh heh. We weren’t at the parade this year (we were somewhere over the Atlantic) but the local ABC affiliate posted a film crew across the street from our house. My sister in law is waving in the background at 0:40 and our car is behind the biker at 1:30. I’d embed it here but the dipshit media has disabled playback on other websites.
- Smoking is still a thing in Europe. We have all but abolished it in the Mid-Atlantic region of the US; in Europe it’s still acceptable to sit outside and light up a heater next to a family of four eating dinner.
- Beer and wine are available in highway rest stops.
- Highway rest stops in general, actually—they are tidy, well-stocked, the food is decent, the service is friendly, the bathrooms are clean, and they are well-organized. Portugal, you win this one.
- Prosciutto, all the time. What the fuck is wrong with America? Prosciutto is amazing, and it’s available everywhere in Portugal. It’s the foundation of a lightweight sandwich (the Iberico) which washes down great with a Fanta or a lager and doesn’t make you feel gross for eating half a deli counter.
- The Pastel De Nata is a lovely custard-filled tart you can get almost anywhere for ~1€. It’s not quite the pastry of heaven we were promised, but it’s pretty fucking good with a cappuccino on an empty stomach.
- The Ovos Moles, however, were kind of gross. The custard is more egg yolk than anything else, and it’s sealed in a thin crust made of unleavened Catholic host. We tried these at two different bakeries in their town of origin and were not impressed.
- Hill braking. Our Peugeot 308 is a manual and was very fun to drive, but some of the grades in Portuguese hill country were 10˚ or steeper. Having a hill brake (in neutral, letting off the brake facing up an incline, the car holds your position until you’ve engaged the clutch fully) was a godsend, or I would have smoked that transmission on the first day in Lisbon.
- The Mediterranean. We were able to see it from the southern route we took back to Porto, but it wasn’t ever close enough to warrant a detour just to say we’d dipped our toes in it. Very beautiful to see.
- Cafe culture. I wanted to stop at every cafe in Porto, Lisbon, Sintra, and Seville just to sit and have a coffee or a drink. What a lovely way to live life (apart from the smoking).
- Red Bull. So I’ve avoided Red Bull since the 90’s when it came on the scene; I tried one or two at that point and just switched back to coffee, the taste of which I enjoyed more anyway. Now that I’m Middle Aged the diuretic effects of coffee hit me a lot harder, and after a bunch of my plumbing got modified during surgery it doesn’t leave me with a lot of time for an escape plan. Facing a 250km drive in the warm Iberian sun while still slightly jet lagged, I needed something to keep me awake that wasn’t going to have me shitting in a bush beside a Portuguese highway. Red Bull did the trick, and I was able to sleep each night when we got to our destination. Still tastes like Hawaiian Punch, though.
- Espresso after dinner, at least for Bill, is a Bad Idea. We had an incredible seafood dinner Tuesday evening on the east side of town which I finished off with a tiny cup of the local rocket fuel. Laying in bed when we got back to the apartment, I passed out at 12 until about 4, and then woke up wide-eyed, trying to fight off intrusive thoughts about developments in US politics. I didn’t return to sleep, choosing to watch YouTube videos until the sun came up. Now I’m high on two cups of coffee and a Sudafed because if I nap at any point today I won’t sleep tonight. And strangely this did not have the expected effect on my bottom system. My middle-aged chassis remains a mystery.
- eSim cards. We’ve had mixed results with these, which are basically apps that can be downloaded to use European cell carriers instead of racking up expensive roaming fees through our US-based carriers; on the whole it’s been great to be able to access maps, ticketing apps, and websites from our phones. In practice we’ve found it hard to get reliable service from them. Mine will work and then Jen’s won’t; two hours later it’s the opposite. They will claim we are connected but they aren’t, or we just don’t get cell coverage in certain areas. And Finn’s phone is apparently not compatible with them at all (see: expensive roaming fees).
- European hillside houses. I am fascinated with the architecture and construction of houses built into hillsides and on top of cliffs and next to windy streets; Portugal is lousy with them. I feel some connection with my grandfather, a mason, when I look at these magical buildings and wonder how they were built and who designed that cool stairway and where does that little door go? I spend a lot of time wondering who the people were that lived in these places and what their lives were like.
- Parking in Portugal has been challenging. There are machines which take Euros, and there are apps you can use without leaving your car. Some of the apps work in certain cities and some don’t. Some require a European bank account, 24 hours to transfer money, and a signup process longer than a US tax return. This is not helpful when your ticket to a local museum is scheduled for the next 20 minutes (and the Europeans are strict about admittance times). Some require a premade account not offered through the app. And some—like the one I’m using to park outside our apartment—have a very fluid definition of timespan. Hopefully I will not be bankrupted by hidden parking fees when we return home.
- Scooter culture. I would love to have a Vespa or Lambretta to pop into town for fresh bread and vegetables, or to go pick up dinner. It would make a lot more sense to only have a scooter here in Europe, as gas is extremely expensive—almost a dollar more per liter. They are, predictably, cheaper to buy here, but I’d have to pay to ship one to the states. So it washes out, I guess.
- The rambly vibe of Portuguese cities. There seem to be neighborhoods like there are in US-based cities, but things are a lot more spread out here—in the US there are clusters of restaurants or shops clumped together like islands in a vast ocean, where in Portugal you can find a bar, restaurant, shop or pharmacy on almost every block. The sense of city as community is strong here—it’s the exact opposite of the US. I can see why Europeans who live in the States might feel isolated and lonely almost immediately.
- There are also a lot of empty storefronts (at least in the area we’re staying) where sometimes it looks like things shut down last week and sometimes it looks like it closed in 1762. Hard to say what the reasons for that might be.
- Good shoes. I was told we Americans would be easy to spot because of our brightly colored shoes, but truthfully I think we’re pretty average. I bought a new pair of light Nikes before we left and they have been perfect for climbing steep, slippery cobblestone alleyways, even if my heart and my knees aren’t up to the challenge.
- Exercise. On that note, I’m woefully out of shape. Time to get serious when we return home.
- Because I have decided to only carry a cellphone as a camera, I have shamelessly embraced the family selfie. I am not, however, wandering the city behind a selfie stick or gimbal mount, as I have seen repeatedly this past week. It feels weird and wrong not to have a specialized camera (apart from the 35mm film camera I’m carrying) so I’m spending more time focusing on being in the place and less time trying to compose shots of the place. I feel that this is progress. I also feel like one of my arms has been chopped off.
- I’m becoming more and more aware of my mood in relation to my stomach; there have been several times on this trip when my blood sugar is low and I’m struggling to keep my wits about me on a dangerously empty stomach. This is aggravated by the fact that we’re 6 hours ahead of our normal schedule. We have joked several times on this trip that Finley travels on sugar, but I need to stay on top of my hangry better.
- BMW drivers in Europe are the same entitled, inflamed assholes they are in America. Turn signals are optional, and they will drive right up your butt until you get out of their way. Nice to see some things are universal.
- The Portuguese, with the exception of ticket attendants at the major tourist spots, are all the most lovely, patient, understanding, and friendly people. Which is a blessing, given the challenges your correspondent has with communication.
- I really need to learn, or at least, do some basic studying on a Romance language to beef up my skills. I hate being a stupid American.
- The weather, apart from rain and fog at the most scenic of our destinations, and one day of heat in our second week, has been glorious. It’s been around ~72˚ and sunny for most of our stay, and we missed the heatwave that sat on Seville by one day, making our tour of the Alcázar a pleasant one.