There is no bidet culture in Porto. Now that that’s out of the way, I can tell you about our day.

We opted for a super slow roll, leaving the house at 1.30pm, rather than any earlier. Considering that we hit all of the majour spots yesterday, we didn’t feel rushed to head anywhere specific, and this pace is very much welcome. One I hope to maintain until this first segment of my sabbatical takes me home to Ottawa.

Yesterday I mentioned that you can’t get lost here. I wasn’t kidding. We used maps to get us to our sushi joint, but decided to simply roam afterwards, knowing that we would eventually land near our apartment. No word of a lie, we suddenly found ourselves on our street, around 3 hours into our walk. I imagine that living here for any extended period of time would get old relatively quickly, but for a short sprint, it’s all manner of ideal.

We ate the best salmon sashimi and tuna sushi I have had in a very long time. They both literally melted inside of our mouths and that meal was enough to sustain us for a five hour walk and no dinner. There’s simply no room left in our bellies.

During our wanders, we fell into the obviously money’d area of Porto. The homes were giant, fenced, and with beautifully manicured gardens. I’ve always wanted a garden, in fact – a place to sit in to read, one filled with flowers and fruit to which I might tend as I grow older. It sounds a little romantic because it absolutely is. Needless to say, I was climbing little walls to look over the fences out of curiosity at their trees which I originally thought were some alien rose situation. These are not roses, but I can’t identify them. Can you? Their trees reach two and three stories high and are covered in blossoms, none of which are scented. Closing our day at the Majestic Café was beautiful, but especially if you’ve never walked into a traditional old-world Parisienne bistro. More than anything, it was fun to people-watch while there; my favourite being a man who had tattooed on his neck, the lipstick mark of his partner. This, the closest to a woman peeing on a man as I’m going to get unless I fall onto the wrong url.

Today, I am grateful for:
1. Waking up so refreshed and full of energy that Azza couldn’t stop my monologue for the first 30 minutes. At one point I stopped and mentioned how I feel completely back to normal, and super excited about everything around me. It’s nice to be home, back in my own head, y’all.
2. Traditional coffee shops run by families, where the coffee is made by old men. Porto is covered in hipster coffee places, none of which are to my liking. Also, none of them serve meio do leite, which is what I’ve now become used to and in fact prefer.
3. The Qiblah app. Traveling this much, I can barely keep track of the date. Most definitely, I can’t keep track of in which direction I need to face to pray.

Porto | April 11, 2019

Comments closed.