Saturday, August 20th –Sunday, August 21st We woke up Saturday morning at 6:00 AM, expecting darkness and freezing temperatures that come with UK before sunrise. However, the sun was up and the weather was perfectly tolerable with a cardigan. The lady who runs the hostel had breakfast ready for us, and we quickly got ready and jumped into a cab (Indian. Holler) to the Stansted airport. Stansted airport was SO NICE. I think that’s where all the RyanAir flights depart from the UK, so I suppose the credit is due to RyanAir. I was really impressed with the airline until we reached the gate and there was a ridiculously long line to board the plane (which makes sense because none of the seats are assigned, it’s first come-first serve). Most of the people on our flight to Porto were Portguese, probably returning from vacation. But there were still a bunch of British people, and it’s just so cool that European countries are so accessible to the UK and especially mainland Europe, where you just jump on a train. I mean, WHAT? Amazing. (I would totally take advantage of this. Going to Porto for the weekend BRB). The flight was nice, but comical. The entire 2 hours a little girl was screaming at unheard of decibels. Also, there were ads aired over the intercom every 10 minutes. I managed to sleep, only because I was completely exhausted (thank goodness). I opened up the book I brought, The Girl Who Played With Fire, which is the 2nd in the trilogy of the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. When we arrived in Porto and got off the plane, the heat was more than welcomed after being on a freezing train and shortly prior, a chilly UK morning. We boarded the metro to our train station Trinidade (after figuring out that the train ticket machines had an English option…struggles). The metro ride into the city was especially enjoyable because it passed through all the outskirts of the city, which tourists don’t usually have access to, you know? It’s all about the glitz and the glam and what the country’s department of tourism puts together to present to outsiders. Portugal has a very rustic feel, almost like a Latin American country. Some characters were on our train and provided good entertainment on the 30-minute journey. Porto is absolutely breathtaking. We had all day Saturday (more or less) and most of Sunday (the plan was to take a night train to Madrid via Lisbon). As we were walking to the hostel, the city was eerily empty. We were so taken aback that we were wondering whether or not the Portuguese practiced siesta like the Spaniards did. Anyway, our hostel was called The Yellow House. Super cool and everything a hostel should be. Three stories, bunk beds from IKEA, not enough bathrooms, and a super sweet manager. We asked her if it was siesta, and she replied with a laugh “No! It’s the weekend – everyone is at the beach!!” So, we proceeded onto…the riverfront. Hilarious in retrospect because I have no idea why we didn’t just go to the beach. I think it was accidental; we just took the wrong streets. It was fate, though, because the riverfront (Ribeira) was a slice of paradise. Once near the water, we ate at a cute outdoor café (there were many lining the street we were on, so we just picked one and sat down), and I ordered cod cakes, salad, and French fries (it was a combo meal). Delicious!!! Everything was so fresh tasting. I went for the seafood because I figured it was a more traditional meal. After that, I wanted to take a nap (eating and sleeping…I could do it all day everyday), but we did something much more productive and walked along the riverfront, exploring and taking beautiful pictures. Porto is the birthplace of Port wine, so along the river are wine production companies showcasing their products. We stopped into a family-run Port cave (cellar) called Vasconcellos. There was a tour and Port tasting for 3 euro!!! What a steal. We sampled two white Ports and two red Ports. Our tour guide Yolanda explained the process of Port. The reason it’s so sweet is because the fermenting is cut short with the addition of a type of moonshine after a certain amount of time. This causes the wine to retain its sugar. After the Port wine tour, we sat along the riverfront and just soaked in the city. Ah it was so gorgeous and the perfect mix of tourists and natives (the former being present in a lesser proportion). We ate dinner at a place where the friendly man out front recruited us with his charm (not to mention the reasonable prices). We ended up falling in love with him. The food was delicious but heavy – Malvika and I ordered “rissol” which we had seen on menus all day and assumed it was a traditional dish. It was a meat pie, kind of like an empanada but better because the shell was thicker. However, Fernando Nogueira stole the show. He told us he was in charge of Public relations and Mario, our waiter, was the one who dealt with the food. He kept us company the entire time we sat outside the little restaurant, which ended up being 3 hours. He was this dynamic Portuguese man, handsome, probably in his late 60s, and completely hilarious. There was a language barrier but it didn’t really interfere with our interaction with him. We worked around it. He only knew Portuguese and French, and we only speak English and Spanish. Somehow we managed. Haha so funny. We took a picture with him after paying for our bill and couldn’t get over how refreshing it was to meet him. Not that there’s been a shortage of dynamic or interesting people we’ve met on this trip thus far, but just in general. There’s just something special about meeting a wonderful person in passing. It’s inspiring. We stayed by the Ribeira until nightfall, wanting to see it lit up after sunset. Man, was it worth it. Laura and Molly have their nice Nikons with them, so they were able to capture the beauty of it. We dilly-dallied until 11:00 PM, when we got in a taxi and headed back to The Yellow House. Once there, we decided we were so in love with Day Porto that we wanted to experience Night Porto. There were two people fast asleep in our room when we walked in. Super awkward. We dragged all of our suitcases into the hallway and changed into the bathroom into more night appropriate wear. Hostel world had recommended places after dark, and we trusted their testimony. What a terrible idea on our part. First of all, the street that the club was on was right next to our hostel, so we assumed it was walking distance. Nope. Avenida de Boavista stretched across the entire city, all the way to the coast. It was obvious we wouldn’t be walking to Triplex after 10 minutes. We turned around, defeated, and ran into a group of French kids staying at The Yellow House too. They seemed to be going out, so we asked them where they were headed and hahaha they were not receptive. They ended up telling us they were going to a famous club in this district where they’d take the metro, but it was a “well dressed party,” implying we were not well dressed. We laughed, embarrassed and offended, and ended up taking a taxi to Triplex, which was completely empty, and we mumbled to the driver that we wanted to go back to the hostel where he picked us up. Overall, it was a complete failure. Hilarious, but upsetting.