Porto, Portugal: November 23-26

Colleen and I went to Porto, Portugal for Thanksgiving weekend. It was our random trip of the semester. We got up early on Friday and headed to airport. We arrived in Porto around 12:30. We found our hostel and got some food. First impressions of Porto were not the best. It was not very clean and not the type of environment we expected. We even thought about trying to change our flight and come back to London early but it was expensive. Once we started really walking around the city we found it to not be so bad after all. We tried to find a tourist office to help give us information on what to do while we were in Porto. This was when the communication barrier really started to show. Once we had some ideas, we started wandering and found the Cads da Camara which was a church on the top of a hill. It over looked the river. We tried to find a way down the hill to the river but after some wandering we went back to the main streets which made it much easier to get down the cliff. Along the river their were some little shops. We then crossed over the Ponte de Luis I bridge into Gia, another city in Portugal. Gia is known for their port wine. When we were on the Porto side of the river we saw Cable cars that brought you to the top of the hill. Porto and Gia are both built on hills. We took the cable cars because it wasn't very expensive and thought it would be fun. We learned that Porto had some interesting forms of transportation. We walked up to the Do Infante Santo which was a monument it was kinda weird because it was guarded by the army. We walked through a park and took the cable cars back down. We got a free port wine tasting with our cable car ride. I found out that I am not a big fan of port wine. It was to sweet. Now don't get me wrong I like my wine a little sweet and not to bitter but this was to much. The sun was starting to set.Iit was really pretty looking at all the Porto houses that were piled on top of each other with the sunset behind them and the river in front. We got dinner and called it an early night.

On Saturday we decided to get tickets for the yellow bus tour. There were two tours and we could spread them out over two days. They were also hop on hop off tours so we could get out and walk around the different parts of Porto. It was pretty sunny out so we decided to take the Castle tour because it brought us down by the beach. We weren't able to go into any of the castles but that was okay. Once we got to the beach we got off the bus and went down on the sand. Colleen and I were both in boots but we took our shoes off anyway and ran through the water. It was surprisingly pretty warm . My pants got a little at the bottom even after rolling them but I didn't care. We sat on the beach for about 2 hours. It was weird thinking about how I was on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. The waves were huge on this side. I wanted to go in so bad but the undertow looked like it would be pretty bad. The waves did look like tons of fun though! We got back on the bus and headed back into the center of Porto. We got dinner and walked through some of the shops. We were really starting to notice the language barrier. It was hard to communicate when we tried to order food of buy things. Portugal was definitely the hardest country when it came to communication.

We got up Sunday morning and tried to find a place for breakfast. It was very difficult to find a place with people who speak English. We did a lot of miming. Porto shuts down on Sunday morning we found out. Stores and cafe's didn't really start opening till about 1:00. We got back on the yellow bus for the Historical Porto Tour. It brought us through more of the city and back down to part of the beach. We got off again and walked down some of the piers. There was a light house on one of them as well. The waves down here were bigger than the ones on the beach! They would crash against the piers and come up over the top. We had to be careful walking so we wouldn't get splashed. The waves were so fun to watch. We also saw some whirl pools in the water. We walked down on one part of the beach. The sand in Portugal was different than the sand in America. It was much looser and your feet sank in more. We spent again almost 2 hours down on the beach watching the waves. Once we got back on the tour bus it brought us into Gia and then back to Porto Center. We got dinner then walked over to Gia to get pictures of the city at night and to try and find ice cream. We walked back across the Ponte de Luis. On the side of the cliff there was this cool train thing. The bottom of it looked like an accordion and would stretch out so you were still level to the ground as it went down the steep cliff. Colleen and I had seen it the day before and wanted to know what it was. Being us silly girls we decided to take a ride. We get to the top and find out it was actually just public transportation to get from the bottom of the cliff to the top. We still thought it was cool and got a good view of the Gia.

Monday was our last day in Porto. We really had been having a relaxing weekend as we had hoped. We didn't have much of a plan but wanted to go back to the beach. We decided to try and see if we could take the yellow bus again and not pay for the bus ride there. Each time we had gotten on the bus we just had to hold up our receipt. They never checked it so we were able to get a free ride. I must say traveling has taught me ways around paying for public transportation. Maybe its just the now poor study abroad student in me. We sat on the beach for a bit. The water was colder but the sun made it kinda hot while we were sitting there. It was really nice. It started to sprinkle though randomly and got colder when the sun was hidden by a clouds. The weather was so bizarre. It would be raining a little and then not at all and when it was raining you could still see the sun. You could also see the line of rain over the ocean. We walked down the beach a bit and the towards the Cheese Castle which was one of the Castles on the tour from Saturday. This Castle was our favorite because it reminded us of the Little Mermaid Castle. Colleen and I might be 20 and 21 years old but we are still kids at heart. We found a gelato place on the water and then walked to find a bus stop for the yellow bus. We started to watch the sunset over the ocean but of course it started to rain again even though you could still see the sunset. When we turned around to go back to the bus stop there was a double rainbow over the city. This is like the 5th rainbow at least that I have seen since being abroad. It was a great way to end our relaxing weekend in Porto. We got back to the center, got dinner, and headed to the airport. We met 2 girls on our flight home. One goes to Westminster and lives in Alexander Flemming and the other is studying abroad with a different school but is from Massachusetts. It definitely is a small world.

The Cheese castle

Sunset

It was nice to make my final trip a relaxing one. We were not rushed and had plenty of time to do things. I loved being able to sit on the beach. I now have to start buckling down writing papers and finishing projects. I'm not stressing yet and if I stick to my deadlines I think I will be doing fine. This trip gave me a grand total of 6 countries in 3 months! That is crazy. I am so excited to spend my last 3 weeks in London. I am definitely going to miss it out here. Stay tuned for my final adventures around London for the next 3 weeks. I have decided that every day I am not in class I am going to do something off my bucket list even if it means pulling all nighters to finish my papers.

Cheers,
Allie