Porto

Now, on my last post i did promise not to rant too much about the epic train ride, so i'm going to do my best. it started pretty well. i got on my train at about 10:30pm (it was the only train for that day) and i met 3 English students (2 guys, 1 girl) that were traveling to Morocco for charity. they were really cool and were doing the majority of there traveling by hitch hiking. i personally feel a bit iffy about hitch hiking, but there uni has been doing this charity adventure for many years now and they assured me that it was fine. they said they had already met one guy in France that, not only gave them a lift, he put them up for the night and took them out for dinner and drinks. how incredibly thoughtful, i tell you, the French are getting a bad wrap. they were telling me other students that have done the same trip have been given lifts by actor, Ewan McGregor, while he was filming 'the long way around' series, and also by the French soccer team. what a great story to tell the grand kids! anyway, they were heading to Madrid to catch another train, so at about 3am they got out, and it got a bit grim after that. it was really hard to get to sleep because for some reason the heaters were on full ball. but i some how got, what felt like, an hours sleep, which was just enough to keep me going.
at about 9:30am i got out at my connecting station, that was in the middle of absolutely nowhere. the guy in the ticket booth spoke no English so i had to use my charades skills to the best of my ability to buy a ticket up to Porto. first thing i was a little bit shocked at was, when the train pulled in, how good it was. the station i was standing at seemed to be just about crumbling in front of me, so i kind of expected the same for the train. not the case, they are brand spanking new.
after a short train ride into Porto i got out and i instantly i fell in love with the place. Porto was so beautiful. the train station had all these different pictures painted on the tiles that looked like they had been there for hundreds of years, and just in the short walk to my hostel i was thinking 'this has got to be other of the most character filled places i've ever been to', it was like every building seemed to have a story, and the longer i stayed here, the more i got that feeling. i noticed i've really enjoyed places when i had no idea what was there or what to expect, so in a sense whatever i came across was going to be bonus.

the hostel i'm staying in is really cool. it was clean, had nice showers and breakfast included. but it was decked out nicely too, it was movie themed and has plenty of vintage movie posters hanging up and a good range of DVD's. after my epic journey, i was feeling rather haggard and wasn't into doing much, so i parked myself in front of the TV and the DVD range came in very handy indeed. The people that ran the hostel were really nice too. they cooked us some traditional sausages and some other little bits and pieces, which was nice. the guy who cooked them was telling me that in the 1500's the they were trying to drive the jews out of the country. the way they knew if people were jewish was because the sausages that everyone ate were make or pork and the jews didn't eat them. so the jews put there heads together and came up with a solution, they would make the sausages out of chicken! sounds like it was an idea that wouldn't last long right? wrong, most people didn't find out that they were made of chicken until hundreds of years later! i asked the guy at the hostel if people here are still into making there own sausages etc. and he said that the older generation still do, everyone seems to have there own recipes, but a lot of people just buy it from the shops. he said its probably one of those fine arts that we will lose after time. which i think is a real shame.

apart from the guy who looked and dressed exactly like Kurt Cobain (turns out grunge isn't dead), i met a older woman who was also staying at the hostel, which you don't get very often. her name was Carol, i'm guessing she was in her late 60's maybe early 70's. i found her really interesting. she grew up in New York but she had spent most of her life as a social worker, working all around the world and had only recently retired, and now lives in Thailand. she was here in Porto to do a 200km walk to the north of Portugal, i was quite impressed with that, then she told me that she had just come from doing an 800km walk across spain and in a months time was doing a camping trip with a couple of other women, or as she put them, 'crazy grannies', in Mongolia. she was such an amazing woman, and had no signs of slowing down. it made me think, 'i hope i'm that active when i'm that age'. even when i was young i've always got on with people that were older than me, or at the very least, listened to grown ups speak to each other. i still do. i don't really know why, i guess i've just always been interested in hearing their stories because they've already experienced and seen so much in there lives.

i did a fair bit of just wandering around town while i was here, i love all the buildings here, they are just so amazing to look at, i've noticed quite a lot of houses have tiles on them with interesting patterns or sometimes scenes are painted on the tile. when you get high enough you all you can see is a sea of terracotta roofs. i found one little book store in particular that was brilliant, it was so old with ornate wood paneling but best of all it had an amazing winding stair case up to the second floor. oh, i thought i should mention that Porto has put me in such a good mood i've even found my second wind for checking out churches!
its quite common to see beautiful old buildings that have falling into disrepair and just been abandoned. either the people here have no money to renovate them or they haven't got enough money to pull them down, so they just leave them.
i really like some of the signage on the shops here too. some of it looks like its been hanging in from the day the shop opened, truth be told it probably has (there doesn't seem to be a high turn over of shops). some of the craftsmanship and type choices are supurb (i'm a bit of a type nut). you don't really see nice type selection too often these days, mainly because everyone who owns a computer thinks they are a designer which makes some design horrendous. there are times when 'Cooper black' or 'Stencil' just won't do kids.
there really proud of there bridges here. they have 6 of them that cross the river, to be honest its nothing to really rave about but one of them was designed by Mr Eiffel, the guy who did the Effiel Tower.

i've found Porto quite a safe place really. the people here really friendly, i don't speak any portuguese so i was wondering how that would go down with the locals, but they are more than happy to help you out. there are a couple of sketchy looking characters a times, but there are everywhere throughout europe. and the majority of places are pretty safe to walk around during the day, just at night i wouldn't fancy a stroll around some of the darker alley ways.

before i got here i thought that Portuguese food would be pretty much exactly the same as Spanish food, but it turns out its not. well, there are some things that are similar, but there are differences. one difference i've noticed is that there pastry is really yellow in colour and its kind of a cross between pastry and cake, but not quite cake. if that makes sence, very strange.
while i was here i wanted to try a a dish thats only served in Porto. its called 'Francesinha', and its kind of like a sandwich with different types of meat in it, with melted cheese over the top of it, covering it, then they put a spicy gravy over the top of it. it sounds, and kind of looks, like something your mates would invent on a footy trip and dare you to eat, but it was pretty tasty actually.
i don't think i've mentioned this yet but, you're not really meant to drink the water in Spain and Portugal. some people say you can, others say you shouldn't. i've decided not to take the risk, there's nothing worst than being sick while you're traveling. but it does make it traveling around this area a bit of a pain, because it is warming up a little bit now, and i imagine its only going to get worst. speaking of drinking, as you might have figured from the name, Porto is famous for its port. supposidly the surrounding area around is perfect for growing grapes. there are a number of different cellars to visit here in Porto, but i got a tour of Ferreira cellars. the building they were in was so old and amazing to walk through. on the tour that gave you a rough outline of how to create Port, i kind of knew most of it, you don't grow up in the yarra valley and not learn a thing or two about how its made. but they got to sample some of the stuff at the end which was pretty good. i'm not much of a port drinker myself, but i felt it was one of those things i should try while i was here.

i went out one night with a couple of people i met at the hostel and had a great time. there was a street party that we just kind of fell into, there was a huge crowd of people listening to a band playing jazz. after that we ended up crashing a birthday party by accident. we saw one bar that had music pumping out of it so we went in, it was a great vibe so we just hung around, it until someone offered us birthday cake that we realised it was a mother and daughter joint birthday part. the daughter was turning 17 and the mum was turning 41 but i don't believe her, i swear she looked like the daughters sister, at the very most she she looked 21. which reminds me, if got to get me a portuguese wife! they age incredibly well. it was such a brilliant night, not only did we we get birthday cake, they showed us some dance moves, apparently its all in the hips. the only thing we missed out on was the lolly bag at the end, which is always the sign of a classic birthday party.

well i think i'm going to have to go out on a limb here and say that i would easily put Porto in my top 10 of favourite places. i think mainly because it felt quite untouched by tourists. i haven't met too many people that have traveled to Portugal and if they have, they have only been to Lisbon, so Porto seems a little bit forgotten about. i'm heading to Lisbon next, which i think should still be lots of fun. i've heard that Porto and Lisbon are like chalk and cheese so i'm looking forward to seeing what its like and comparing the two cities.