...Woody Allen?

5/2-5/13 (Porto)

Ahhh, is it really already May 9th?!  PANIC.  No lo puedo creer.

When I first got to Spain, that afternoon of October 18th when I got my first glimpses of Lugo walking around with Ana, it felt like all the months stretched into an endless expanse in front of me.  It was scary.  Exciting, but scary.  And now it's already gone.  Oof.

I'm excited to go home.  I miss Florida and everyone in it.  I even just miss America, period.  And I miss calling it "America," despite that being a somewhat controversial name.  I'll be happy to get back.  But I'll also be sad to leave Lugo.  To leave Spain.. heck, to leave Europe.  There's so much cool stuff over here! haha.  That sounds juvenile and ridiculous... but it's true!  And normally I'm so far away from this side of the world.  I wonder if I'll ever see the people I've met here again.  I hope so.  I hope I'll see Galicia again.  I certainly hope I'll see Spain again.  GAH.  I need to stop worrying about the future, but my God, there are so many what if's... What if this, what if that, what if what if what if... So what!  Ok.  Moving on.

The point of this post, the exciting part, is that I spent last weekend in Porto (Portugal) with Cristine!  Yes, Cristine actually came to visit!  So fantastic.  I can't even tell you how surreal it was to hang out with my Tampa friend in Portugal.  All of a sudden, we were just in the same hostel room.  Magic.  (there will be more magic in this post, too... hehe. 'cause I'm kind of a nerd.)

The bus ride I took from Santiago was really pretty, too.  I got to see Pontevedra and Vigo for the first time.  Also drove by a town called Braga, which made me snigger ("bragas" means underwear/panties in Spanish).  I'd really like to actually go to Vigo.  With 3 weekends left and me trying to save up money, vamos a ver if that happens :p

Porto (Oporto in Spanish and English), is a neat little town in Northern Portugal on the coast where the river Douro (which starts in Spain) meets the Atlantic Ocean.  One the opposite bank of the Douro is the town of Vila Nova de Gaia (Gaia).  This is where port wine comes from.  There are 6 six bridges connecting Porto and Gaia.  Throw in a bunch of old Portuguese buildings covered in tile, a weekend full of sunshine, yummy pastries, and friendly people (Portoans?) and you've got a beautiful city!  Oh, also, JK Rowling was apparently living in Porto and working as an English teacher when she started writing the first Harry Potter book.  So there are wizards, too, as you'll soon see.

The first afternoon we were there, we stopped for lunch and then walked down to the river (with some accidental and purposeful wandering through the tiny residential streets on the way).  It was so freaking pretty down there, especially as the sun was starting to set, that we went and bought a bottle of wine and drank it on the wharf :)

First view of the river, and the Ponte Luiz I (the bridge)

The Praça da Ribeira.  Heart of the oldest part of the town.

What a place to reunite!

First glimpse of the cathedral, on top of the hill.

Wine = obtained ;)

Looking across the river at Gaia.

Watching the sun go down on the river :)

The next day, at the suggestion of the guy working at the hostel, we took a bus out to the beach, and took an approximately 5-6 hour walk back to the Ribeira area.  Of course, it would have been shorter, but we stopped for manyyyy pictures and also francesinhas!  Francesinhas are a type of sandwich that are famous in Portugal, and especially in Porto.  And it's not just a tourist thing.  One of the guys working at the hostel told us he meets his friends every Thursday to go eat them.  "Francesinha" (according to our French Canadian friend from the hostel) translates to "little French girl."  This makes zero sense to me, as they seem neither little, nor French.  Pictures to follow.

Forte de São Francisco Xavier.  Where our walk began.

So many pretty rocks!  And look at that water!

Foz neighborhood!

Kinda sorta like being back in Florida? jeje

Hola!

Boats!

And those (drum roll) are francesinhas!  Steak (I took that out), two types of sausage, ham, giant mushy bread, covered in melted cheese, with a fried egg on top, and swimming in secret sauce (yes, it is a secret).  And surrounded by french fries.  For good measure. (No, we couldn't finish them.)

After we and our food babies got back to Ribeira, we crossed the river to Vila Nova de Gaia.

With the purpose of going to a wine tasting/tour at Taylor's winery.

Me, standing in front of some decorative boats.  This type of boat used to be used to transport the port from the area where the grapes are grown to Porto/Gaia for the port making process to be completed and for the finished product to be stored and shipped.

We had to hike up quite a hill to get to Taylor's, but it was pretty.

When we got there, there was a rose garden, and they gave us our first port wine sample.

The Taylor's mark (4 XX).  This mark/company has been around since 1692! Holy wow, Batman!

Giant barrels of port wine.

One of the largest (the largest?) wine barrels in Europe.

Our other samples, that we enjoyed out in the garden :)

We walked across the top of the bridge on our way back to Porto.

If you look closely, you can see the names of a bunch of wineries in this picture: Taylor's (background), Calem, Sandeman, Offley...

Somewhat accidentally stumbled across the cathedral on our way back down the hill.

Another night spent down by the river, this time drinking vinho verde :) (yes, that means green wine... It's really just white wine, but is called that because of the region the grapes come from or something like that.)  Oh, and there was a man played guitar and singing softly in Portuguese behind us.  Pretty idyllic.

I've decided my blog posts tend to be way too long... so I'll stop this first part of the Porto tales here, and continue mañana.  Boas noites, everyone.

Oh, this post is titled the way it is because Cristine said something about feeling like she was in a Woody Allen movie on the first night.  After this, we turned to each other periodically throughout the weekend and just said "Woody Allen? What? Woody Allen?" jeje.  No tiene mucho sentido, but there it is.  It made us giggle at the time.  FUN FACT: "Woody Allen" is pronounced "Boody Allen" by Spanish speakers in Spain.  Everything sounds like a "b" in Spanish... b's, v's, w's...

Also also, the rest of the magic I referred to earlier will have to wait till the next installment.  hehe.