porto
only managed to have a short stay here, one night infact, but most definitely worth it. dramatic looking porto, as the travel guides exclaim, is extremely picturesque, and the best aspect is from the opposite bank of the douro river, gaia, where the port-wine factory's show off their wares and give guided tours of big barrells of port (fancy port from porto, who would have thought!).
so we arrived last night late, as usual and will be the same for lisbon this evening. got to bed at a reasonable hour for the first time in what feels like forever but is pretty much only about a week or something. the night-dayer here was kicked off with a dinner amongst more students up near the local university. most normal people in portugal eat dinner before 11pm but the student population here is large enough to keep kitchens open to all hours. my 'hamburger on a plate' - ie hamburger with no bread and lots of fries - was chewed down to the sound of students shouting out their initiation rites and downing jugs of beer attached to their necks. i steered clear of alcholism by just a sliver and stuck to the one beer and a shared mini bottle of wine with lucy. hard not to join in the festivities though! we went to bed after a brief nighttime tour of upper eschalons of porto's hilly streets and then dealt with the smell of cigarette smoke produced by a guy with lungs that sound like a broken toilet at various intervals throughout the night in our otherwise comfortable and clean room.
today has been a day of walking and picture taking. we felt like novices again with our first supermarket meal in a while, but we'll be back into the swing before too long. must bolt to catch the second last train of the day to lisbon now. a post from there no doubt...
so we arrived last night late, as usual and will be the same for lisbon this evening. got to bed at a reasonable hour for the first time in what feels like forever but is pretty much only about a week or something. the night-dayer here was kicked off with a dinner amongst more students up near the local university. most normal people in portugal eat dinner before 11pm but the student population here is large enough to keep kitchens open to all hours. my 'hamburger on a plate' - ie hamburger with no bread and lots of fries - was chewed down to the sound of students shouting out their initiation rites and downing jugs of beer attached to their necks. i steered clear of alcholism by just a sliver and stuck to the one beer and a shared mini bottle of wine with lucy. hard not to join in the festivities though! we went to bed after a brief nighttime tour of upper eschalons of porto's hilly streets and then dealt with the smell of cigarette smoke produced by a guy with lungs that sound like a broken toilet at various intervals throughout the night in our otherwise comfortable and clean room.
today has been a day of walking and picture taking. we felt like novices again with our first supermarket meal in a while, but we'll be back into the swing before too long. must bolt to catch the second last train of the day to lisbon now. a post from there no doubt...
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