Day 3

For those of you who don't know, and I for one didn't, Porto is a party town. Last night I lay my head down finally at about 9:30, only to be woken up at 11:30 to blaring music. Now don't get me wrong, the music was great, the band was super tight and the woman's voice was awesome, however being woken up out of a dead sleep to base vibrations through your floor and your window shaking from the same is a little disconcerting. Okay I said to myself, it will be quiet in just a couple hours then you can get back to sleep. 2 am rolls around, sigh of relief. Wait, 2:05, 2:15...2:30. Crap! I forgot a lot of bars in Europe close at 3 am. Well that's okay, it's almost 3. Finally the band is finished, only for me to hear another bar just a bit further down which is unfortunately playing trance club music stuff, also exceedingly loudly. At this point you should know it turns out I am actually turning 87 in two weeks time, not 30, and have no tolerance to such loud nonsense that early in the morning! Continuing on, it all gets shut down just after 6 in the morning, now time to make up some sleep, finally drift off just in time for the people to start getting breakfast started in the room next to mine. They are not quiet. Let's face it Dart, you lost this battle, just get up and get ready for the day!

Last year I took an allergy sensitivity test and it turns out I really shouldn't eat any kind of dairy, or any kind of grain except oatmeal. I sat down to breakfast and had a plate of bread, butter and spreadable cheese put in front of me. Of course. Well, this will make for one interesting uncomfortable gut day... Let's DO this! No regrets people, the croissant went down pretty darn quick! This whole eating thing might be a challenge. Well, actually it won't, of COURSE I'm going to eat everything and just suffer the consequences later!

On the docket for the day: pick up our "pilgrim credentials" from the main cathedral, go on a hop on hop off tour, and drink some port. Fantastic. Not 5 minutes out the door we walk into a street market, and I do love a good market, so many things to buy! Five earings and a necklace with the local design which signifies love and wealth later (the girl I bought the earings from told me the meaning of these to which my response was love AND wealth?? What more could you need??) we were on our way again. With dad as navigator we make our way to a cathedral, unfortunately not the right one, even when I told him I wasn't sure the way we were going was right, the nice young man there pointed us in the right direction. A couple minutes later dad looks a bit unsure of the direction and I have to take over the map, there is a strong chance we may not get there before it closes... (Yes I am exaggerating) . So here we are walking along, one of the roads doesn't quite match up but I know we are going in the right direction, dad just randomly pops into a tourist information place, the next thing I know were  he's getting directions from someone!! How rude! And where did they send us? The same way we were already going! Rude father. Rude. You should probably know I am literally writing this at 5:30 in the morning waiting for the trance to stop so he has no way to defend himself. He can do that later. Anyway, make it to the cathedral and a bored man gives us our credentials for a mere euro fifty each, how exciting! What are these credentials you ask? We get a stamp along the way at each town we hit to prove we actually did the walk.

Next up we hit the bus tour, Porto really is a beautiful city. Ups and downs, mosaic tile on everything, elaborate bridges. Beautiful. The highlight of the tour? The free Port tastings of course! Oh port, you fortified wine, you fortify me. Entering the first place, dad is already making friends with the front desk girl, she was trying to give him a lesson on the proper way to say the 'O' in Ola. Apparently he didn't *quite* get it, although she was very encouraging about it! By the time we left, her parting remark to my dad was "You sir, I will no forget". I have a feeling that will be something of a trend along the way! Right, the port, what can you say? Delicious! I tried a rose, which is apparently quite new, and a white, which I didn't know even existed before. If you haven't tried it I highly recommend. Wait, I don't think it's sold in Canada, I'll bring some back for you, de nada (you're welcome). The second place had a bit if a restaurant and a Fado singer so mom and dad made themselves comfortable, but what's got two thumbs and was fading fast? This girl right here, I needed a nap. A half hour walk and almost 200 stairs later I was back in my little closet.

At an appropriate Portugal dinner time we went in search of food, unfortunately the restaurant the guidebook suggested didn't seem to exist any more, so rolled the dice and tried a random place. Alas we rolled wrong. Bad? Poorly? Either way it didn't live up to our previous dinner but you can't win them all!

Well, it's about 6:30 in the am, that means the trance is over and I have about an hour before the breakfast ladies start doing their thing, so with that dear friends, good morning??

Dart the Younger