"Living my life like it's golden"

Day 1- Pubbing, Clubbing, and Loving It

Ohhhh Porto. You're worth the shitty Uber driver who didn't know how to get to the airport or pick me up, the cheap TAP flight, and much more.

Got in by noon to my AirBNB-- if there was such a thing as a Portuguese AirBNB-n-a-box, this is it. 4th floor walk up, more curtains than glass, colorful, the same Pink Floyd picture of all their albums on ladies backs I had in my dorm room in 3 different places.

Ultimately, it was nice, but not so nice that I'd stay in...which of course I like and need. Rooms looked a bit like a Mediterranean brothel.

As I'd later learn, there's a ton of AirBnB in Porto vs. nice hotels, but they are trying to make upgrades. Upgrades I don't ever want to see... I like it low key.

Anyhow, I had to take a call in an hour, so I figured it was time to jam in a quick meal. And man, did I pick a great, if sleep-inducing meal to choose at 4Royal/Royal4... I don't remember really what it was called.

Picanha with Royal Sauce and a glass of port, Portobello Mushroom croquettes... mwah! Delicious. Something about port wine-- the wrong kind can taste like raisin juice. So for simplicity's sake, I'll refer to it as "RJ" when I experience it later in this post.

Somehow I jammed this in, and took my call while walking the streets of Porto. Sometimes I'd stumble across beautiful buildings in beautiful plazas during the call and be oddly silent for a while

I think this is the Porto Cathedral, but not 100% sure.

Other times, I'd be descending narrow serpentine passages, which I'm sure at night would be terrifying.

Beautiful. Steep. Terrifying at night. Trust me, I know from experience.

At the end-- and thank goodness the call finally ended-- I was rewarded with a beautiful view by the river, as young boys recklessly dove into the water below as you do... and I wish I could.

I'm sure there's a tradition of taking the flat boats on the water here... but I didn't do it.

Anyhow, after sitting and being very pleased with myself for about 13 minutes, I decided was time to go do some work. Found a cafe called "Jeronymo" nearby that was supposed to have good wifi, and boy did they! Literally stayed here for 3 hours to crush email and "homemade lemonades".

Let me tell you a few things about these "homemade lemonades"

1) They didn't have any sugar. Just lemon and water.

2) There was a key shortage of ice.

3) I eventually, as an ugly American, asked for an entire glass of ice just to rectify this situation. No, I don't trust you to just pour the lemonade over this ice, I need to make sure this beverage is as cold as scientifically possible.

After a few hours, it was time to go back to the apartment. I signed up for a pub crawl tonight, and was hoping for a repeat experience of when I was in Dublin, where it was fun, you meet people, and have the possibility for making joyful mistakes.

Well... not sure if that was so. And it started out so promisingly! We were at a casual bar where I could drink "Port Wine Caipirinhas", which were addictive, cold and delicious. We could talk to each other, 3 ladies from Austria, 1 guy from Austria, 1 girl from Thailand, 1 very punk lady from Australia who was so cool she rolled her own cigarettes, and our guide.

Then the club music started, conversation ended, and we were reduced to awkward dancing. If you're asking why it's awkward, it's because dancing in Porto-- bars or Clubs-- is essentially reduced to this:

[Puff puff, sigh, puff puff, sigh, puff puff, throw your butt on the floor of the restaurant and pretend it didnt happen

Anyhow, we went to 2 bars at first, then a Club with 3 floors with different kinds of music. Did I mention this crawl started at 11:30 p.m., and it was empty, but by 3 am, when we arrived at our last destination, everything was crazy? That may have been the "Portuguese shots" foisted upon me at each location, which tasted like anise, which I revile.

Anyhow, it was time to leave. I didn't have clubbing clothes on to begin with, and bed was sounding nice. Stopped at a "Piadeneria", aka the only place with food still open. And let me tell you, whatever they served there (Piadonas? Piadeneri?) was *DELICIOUS*.

It was like a prosciutto, mozzarella and tomato taco. I cannot recommend this highly enough after a series of bars and a club.

Anyhow, it was sleepy time.

Day 2- The Books and the Breakfast

So, the day started with me hearing my afternoon walking tour was canceled :(

Look, I'm determined to make the best out of any situation! I decided to start the day, instead, with what's supposedly a Portuguese staple, a Francesinha. What the fuck is that you ask? It's basically the equivalent of the "Good Morning Burger" from the Simpsons... so, something that's a heart attack on a plate, and guaranteed to absorb any alcohol from the previous night.

I went to Cafe Santiago-- to be sure, a more touristy place than some-- to find this beaut.

So, it's ham, sausage, steak, egg and cheese all over. Covered with sauce. Served with fries.

Watching them make about 100 of these things in a minute (see the middle picture) was pretty cool. Ingesting as much of this as I could... cool, but ultimately coma-inducing. No regrets!

I then went to one of the places best known for the famous "Nata pastries" (probably more famous in Lisbon apparently...), Manteigaria. Delicious!

this was 1 Euro. come on!

I'm sure other places the creamy eggy part is the highlight, but here, the delicious cinnamon crunchy crust was by far the best.

Ok, enough with the food already. Had to get some tourism in. Went to the famous Livraria Lello, where a bunch of movie scenes were filled, and where tourists crowd every day.

Today was no exception. Here's the deal: you can either:

1) wait about an hour with all the tourists and walk in for free

2) wait about 20 minutes, buy a $5 voucher, then cherish the look of envy in people's eyes as you glide by them.

For me, the choice was clear...schadenfreude!

The place was beautiful inside though... check out some pics!

I did not buy any books... but it was fun to look! They actually have an entire "Harry Potter room". If that's your bag. Where's the Lord of the Rings library so I can have my childhood desires catered to?!?!?!

Anyhow, several minutes and pictures later, I just walked out. It was almost time for the USA-Greece basketball game!!!! Also, I needed to find a place to watch NFL tomorrow, and if there was a place that'd play one American sport, surely they'd play two?

Ended up at Adega sports bar. If you like a lot of plywood, cheap beer, and obliging bartenders who will put whatever game on you want, you'll love the Adega sports bar. I'd like to think my presence here pushed us to victory.

"All by myself... don't wanna be... all by myself..."

This feels like as good of a time as any to explain that Porto is a city that's known for tiles. Like, "we put a lot of tiles on our houses, and people find it cute and kitschy". I don't, but hey, I'm nothing if not a man of the people, so enjoy some tiles.

After the game, and a couple hours of work in an internet cafe, it was dinner time!

I decided to go to this place called "Bacalhau" to try the Porto specialty of... bacalhau. What is that you say? It's usually some kind of dried and salted cod mixed into various dishes. I had three amazing things here:

1) Cod skin "potato chips" with spicy tomato sauce

2) Cod tongue and cod cheek...well, basically a risotto

3) Orange mousse gelado swimming in mint sauce with a meringue

I can't recommend this place enough if you come to Porto. Beautiful view--I didn't get one of the outside tables though :(-- wonderful food, and somewhat decent service? That's good enough for me.

After this, I walked back up the steep inclines to go back to my AirBnB. Remember when I said "hey, these narrow passages would be super creepy to walk up at night?". Yup. I don't have pictures, because it was eerily quiet. But. no worries, I made it back incident free... had to wake up early tomorrow for my "all day" trip of the Douro valley.

Day 3: The Wine-ining

So one of the things people tell you to do when you go to Porto is go on a Douro River valley tour. It's your classic "Hey, you get to drink wine, go on a cruise, and make some foolish purchases you regret" situation. But it's worth it because the scenery looks like this:

This river is so beautiful, I would even live in a van down by it.

So I get picked up at a ripe 8ish in the morning in front of my place. My Belgian tour guide Lola says hi, that we'll be doing English and French on the tour today because 3 of our guests were French-speakers. Fine by me! [Ross Geller voice].

Wait, she was actually wrong. Because the Israelis in our van who said they spoke French basically spoke a little bit of French and almost no English. I admire their chutzpah for wanting the tour despite that. But all of her descriptions were pretty well lost on them.

Anyhow, the rest of the crew were an old couple from Niagara on the Lake... the guy was super chatty and annoying and said "I'd trade Presidents with you in a second" to me... so let's ignore them for the rest of today. Then 2 lady besties from Boston who went to Holy Cross, who I'd pal up with to avoid the above guy.

It was a jolly old van ride to get to the picture above in the village of Pinhao. As with all tours, they take you to the cafe where they get a discount for taking you first. I had no interest here... but bought a water after the 90-minute ride out to the country. Next thing you know, though, and I'm drinking somewhat delicious wine at Dorigem vineyards!

This face says it all.

There were several tourist trap elements here:

1) You can tell when the label's mostly in English, it might not be the most authentic.

2) When you don't see how the wine's actually made at a winery, I get suspicious.

3) When the scenery's this beautiful, something's gotta give.

4) They waste your time with a tour of "how they used to make olive oil here until like 20 years ago".

If you are interested in how they used to make that olive oil, though, it was basically with these machines. Crush olives with the thing on the right, pour it over the ropy stuff on the left, boil it so the oil comes to the top, repeat. I just wanted to get to the wine.

They had one decent wine here, their "red reserve", of which I bought 2 bottles. Why 2? Because I needed to have one open to share on the upcoming boat cruise, and I needed something to take back.

Anyhow, the boat cruise-- the scenery was wonderful, and I have exactly zero pictures because I spent the entire time conversing with the Holy Cross ladies while trying not to spill the dark red wine as I was trying to pour it into tiny white cups. Fail. I do have a video of the scenery for Moment of Zen though (spoiler alert!).

Needless to say, I was "feeling good" as my Grandma would put it heading away from the boat to the next location. Which was...another winery. Gulp. (Wordplay!)

Well, it was a port winery at least, which in my mind meant I wasn't going to overindulge due to my dislike of RJ I mentioned above. Here's a couple of pics:

I did a tasting of about 5 different type of port, all of which tasted vaguely like RJ, but obviously the more expensive ones, less so. It wasn't actually that expensive here-- even the smaller batches, but I just didn't like it enough to actually buy a bottle. My advice would be if you don't know anything about port and you want to try it, try a tawny one (these have more barrel flavor) that's not a blend, but a single year. Because that will probably cost a lot of money and taste not amazing, this should be enough of an experience for a lifetime.

I arrived back after this having fallen asleep in the van, full of wine. This is a common experience I'm told, given that half of our passengers did the same.

How would I spend my last night in Porto? Trying to watch the Bills game of course! I met a bunch of foreigners back at Adega bar who were all trying desperately to make their cable work better. We streamed the game and had a couple of beers, but eventually, I just gave up and streamed it at that nearby Internet cafe. Shrug. Go Bills! They make me wanna shout! Bills win! #billsmafia

This may surprise you, but a day full of drinking in the hot Portuguese sun does not make for an excellent foundation for staying out late. I tried some Portuguese ramen fusion(it's a thing!), then just went back and went to bed so I could be on time to fly to Frankfurt tomorrow.

Spicy portuguese pork belly ramen???? yes please!

Random Things:

-By far, the funniest thing I saw in Porto was a jacked tattooed fellow in an alley screaming "Shut up when I'm talking to you!!!" (from that Linkin Park song) to no one in particular as he urinated wildly.

You know what? You're right.

-Nearly as funny as the first thing was a Portuguese bachelor party screaming at me "Bill Gates!!!! You're Bill Gates" while holding 3 separate blow up dolls between them.

Boobs and bones. I'm sure there's a higher artistic purpose here, but I don't know what it is.

I'm gonna go out on a "limb" and say this is no Firebolt.

This was the NICEST Steak N Shake I have EVER seen in my life. And yes, it's the same exact chain.

Moment of Zen