Sunday, November 7, 2010

You're going to be surprised to read what I did this week.

To pick up where I last left off on my adventures in Portugal...

After reuniting with Mere at the Trindade metro station, we ventured into the city centre attempting to navigate to our hostel. The directions were absolutely ridiculous. Firstly, you've got to understand that European cities are so much older than US cities. That means they were not built in a grid pattern. Streets are not numbered, parrallel or perpendicular. The "roads" are just a mish mash of diagonal streets and slim pathways that I mistake for sidewalks sometimes. It's not like NYC where the map looks like graph paper; the maps look more like scribble lines because the roads are so curvy.

To get to our hostel, StepsHouse in Porto, I think there were about 15 directions from the metro stop to our hostel. Porto is a pretty hilly city so we were going up and down a lot getting there. I was a little bit nervous trying to find this place. We stopped and asked for directions multiple times, but no one really speaks English and of course we know absolutely zero Portuguese. We asked these two old men where to go, but literally had no idea what they said at all. All I got from the conversation was that we needed to turn at right some point (and that was based on his hand gestures). We also asked these two older women where to go. I'm almost sure one of them was hal drunk. She was was laughing so hard and of coure we had no idea what she was talking about. I just laughed when she did so it would seem like I knew what was going on. I honestly had no idea. This lady has now become the vivid image in my mind of what our few days in Porto were. She had to be shorter than five foot and was pretty round. She wore a long skirt to the ground; her long dark hair was in a wad on her head; and she had a burnt orange colored scarf wrapped around her body. I think my memory of her will be in my mind forever. We eventually made it to our hostel. We had to walk up a bunch of stairs and turn left down an alley wide enough for two people to fit across to get there. All in all, we only got went the wrong way two or three times, which wasn't too bad I thought.

Friday night we crashed and went to bed shortly after arriving. We spoke to the Brazilian man who worked at the hostel and he pointed out places on a map we should visit. We also met a man from Denmark who was staying in our hotel. He'd probably already consumed quite a bit of alcohol before we met him. The next day at breakfast we saw him and I'm pretty sure he had no idea who we were. We probably talked to him for 20 minutes or so on Friday night.

The atmosphere of the hostel was quite friendly and cozy. The Brazilian man was very helpful and relaxed. The beds were INCREDIBLY comfortable. Granted, I'm comparing it to my bed here in London which literally consists of one fitted sheet, one blanket that is shorter than me and a pillow. It's not the most grand bed, but it gets the job done. I can't wait to go home and sleep in my bed. Just thinking about that makes me excited. Seriously.  It was a very clean hostel and nothing like the stereotypical ones you see in movies. Mom and Dad, I felt very safe the entire time I was there. No need to worry. :) If you are really curious, you can view pictures here: http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/StepsHouse/Porto/36955

Saturday 30 October 2010
We woke up pretty early (to us that is like 8am...we're in college, give us a break) because we wanted to have the entire day to explore. The hostel provided a breakfast which we took advantage of. I had cereal and a roll with jam. Yummm.

Below is some pictures of our walk from our hostel to the center of town.
This is the "street" our hostel was on. The woman is standing where the door is to go inside.






Porto was different from any other European city I have been to. It was almost like time had stopped for this city. Things were very old and grungy. It was just not what I was expecting. I think that should be the motto of this semester. "We aren't in America, things aren't what you think they will be."

So we backtracked back to the city center and stopped at the tourist information booth to pick up a more legitimate map as opposed to the jank internet ones we printed before coming. The Brazilian worker at our hostel informed us that a portion Harry Potter was inspired by a book store, Livraria Lello in Porto. Apparently, JK Rowling living in Porto in the 1990s and used some of the city for her inspiration. Meredith, has a slight obsession for Harry Potter so once she heard this, it was already decided that we would go check it out. I'm not really a Harry Potter fan, but I figured it would be a cool thing to see so I didn't mind.

Below is some pictures of the city as we walked toward the book store.
The Clerigos Clock tower is in the center. It's one of the iconic landmarks of Porto.



Until it took us over an hour to find the shop. Ridiculous. We literally walked in the same two blocks for about an hour looking for this. And it started raining. I was really irratated and was over searching for it. Since so many people visit the book store, it was on the map we picked up. How the map was drawn we assumed it would be a free standing, independent building. It was actually attached to a row of small shops, so we walked by it many times without even realizing it. I was so glad when we actually found it. I just felt like we were wasting so much time (which we truly were) looking for this book store that I didn't know anything about or much less care about.

I am, however, glad we found it and saw it. It was really neat on the inside. Gorgeous actually.
I took this picture WAY before we realized the white store was the Libraria Lello. We walked right past it. Meredith even made a comment about the pastry shop next door while we were searching for it.


 Sweet, right?

This is the underside of the stairs with the stained glass ceiling.

View from the second floor looking down.

Next we walked back down to the center of town (we walked up a giant incline to get to the book store, remember what I was saying about it being a hilly city?) We did a bit of shopping on the way.Everything was really cheap in comparison to London. What am I saying? Any place in the world is cheaper than London, but Porto was very cheap. Meredith found a pair of adorable brown boots. Here's some pictures of our journey down the hill.


After shopping we walked to a market on the other side of town. The city is pretty small so walking was not a problem. It probably took 30 minutes or so to get there. It was mostly food and flowers so we did not stay long. There was a ton of shopping along the way, so we enjoyed that :) I didn't buy anything on Saturday though.




Next was lunch time. Finally. So much hunger going on by this point. The Brazilian worker (whose name I don't know, that's what I refer to him just as "Brazilian worker"...) told us that we had to try "Francesinha" for lunch. Translated, it literally means, "little French lady" and it is a food unique to Porto, Portugal. It's basically toast with a lot of meat inside including beef, pork and ham. It's covered in melted cheese and spicy sauce. The meal is supposed to be accompanied by beer, never wine. Of course I had to try this Portuguese delicacy (joke.) Meredith loved the lunch. I wasn't so keen on it, but I'm glad I tried it. I think it was just a bit too cheesy for me.

Our waiter didn't speak much English but we managed to communicate enough to askfor a quick photo.

After lunch we headed down to the "Ribiera", the most picturesque part of the city. It honestly looked like a postcard. Many buildings in Porto use tiles for the siding instead of bricks, stones, etc. The vibrant colors were so gorgeous. We had to see the Dom Luis I Bridge, designed by Gustave Eiffel, the artichitect of the Eiffel Tower. It was designed in 1886 and at the time it was the bridge with the longest iron arch in the world. It is over the Duormo River. I took a ridiculous amount of pictures of the Ribiera. Here are some of my favorites.






We crossed the Dom Luis I and headed over to a wine cellar tour and tasting. Apparently, this is the thing to do in Porto so we had to take part. We went to the first wine cellar we found, Calem. It was needless to say, delicious wine. We had a glass of white and red of the "Old Friends" wine.




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