What's in a glass stem?

It’s pretty much been a full week since Ann and I spent a good 24 hours traveling from Eugene to San Francisco to Munich to Porto and what a whirl-wind of a trip it’s been so far.  I can’t possibly hope to capture everything so I’ll settle for telling you about the exploration we did the day after we arrived after we checked out the location of the bank (and withdrew funds from our Portuguese bank account on the Portuguese language ATM), purchased Metro tickets, and walked past the offices that will help us find a place to live so we would know where we were going when the time comes.  So join us for our first full day in Porto!

Now, we weren’t really trying to see anything in particular that Sunday, and certainly did not want to try and see the whole city.  We were still a bit jet lagged - I slept like a rock, Ann didn’t sleep much at all - and we just wanted to get some blood running through our bodies after our too-long journey cooped up in a flying tube, get a feel for the city and find a good restaurant.

The getting the blood flowing was the easy part given that the main downtown area is on a hill side and we’re staying in a 1 bedroom apartment just on the edge of the tourist area.  As you can see - it’s easy to go downhill!  As you can imagine, it takes a bit more effort to get back to our flat at the end of the day.

The city was as interesting as we’d hoped and had been told.  I love just walking through cities and Porto is a joy to explore!  Without trying we wound up walking past some very prominent sights, though didn’t stop to go in.  That would wait for another day.  Our primary goal was to have a fine dinner, and for that we followed one of Ricks Steve’s suggestions.  Many fine restaurants are closed on Sunday, but the Restaurante Guarany is not.  

There we decided to try a fine Portuguese meal of . . . sea bass and octopus!

Both were delicious, though mine was a bit more tasty than Ann’s (octopus itself doesn’t have a lot of flavor to it, but it was very well prepared).  We of course had to have some Douro Valley wine to go with the dinner.

And one can’t have dinner at a fine restaurant without trying dessert!  Anyway, we knew that any extra calories that we put on with dessert would be walked off by the time we got home.  Still, we both will need to watch our weight here (damn the food is good) so we shared a dessert.

Can you tell we were enjoying ourselves?

Portugal has its own coffee culture and it’s a good one, which Ann enjoyed.  Me, I had a dessert wine and since the dessert came with a matched Port at a good price (the waitress said it’s her favorite Port - Graham’s 20-year Tawny) I couldn’t pass it up (though the first few blocks after leaving the restaurant were . . . interesting.).  And from drinking the Port comes the title of this blog post.

You see, every once in a while my architecture design background sneaks up on me, grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me in a, “Wow, this is fantastic!” Kind of way.  It happened the first time we ate at Hells Backbone Grill when I picked up the fork and knife and couldn’t believe how well weighted they were and how well they fit the hand (they’re a set by Henckels that I believe are only available commercially), and had to blab on and on about how well designed they were to Ann, Gary and Paula.  Then I tasted the food there and . . . forgot about the silverware.  Well, I had another one of those moments at the Guaranay.

I took one sip of the Porto and was simply stunned by the flavor.  It was so smooth and delicious.  I grabbed the glass again by the stem and had another sip, this time holding the glass while I carefully enjoyed the beverage.  I talked about it a bit with Ann, and then took another sip.  And as I was enjoying that sip, my brain suddenly locked onto my left thumb.  It was nestled in an elegant notch formed into the edge of the Port glass, perfectly placed to hold the glass in just the right way.

There was nothing to do but comment to Ann about it, take a photograph of it, and then enjoy the rest of the Port.  

After dinner, we decided to walk around a bit.  We located a couple of places we’ll try to visit when the crowds are not around.  One of them is the Livaria Lello, the bookstore with an elegantly curved wooden staircase that the one in the Harry Potter movies is based on.  There was, of course, a line to get in, so we passed by it.  A few doors down was a store that sold Portuguese made/designed goods so we entered it.  And while the staircase wasn’t quite as elegant as the Livaria Lello, it and the store had a wonderful character to it.

As we walked down the road a bit more I turned around and saw, of all things, a tuk tuk ferrying a couple of people around. If you don’t know what a tuk tuk is, it’s the 3-wheeled blue thing  to the left of the tower.

And if you’re still wondering why I might be surprised to find one in Porto, let’s just say that the last (and only) time I rode in a tuk tuk was in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.  Though I guess the traffic there was no less chaotic than in Porto.  Or maybe the Port hadn’t quite worn off yet (after another dinner that ended with a Port, Ann started telling me, “Dan, that the tawny speaking!”).  

A little ways later we ran into a group of singers on the street singing some very traditional Portuguese music.  Strangely enough, we ran into them a few blocks later (having taken different routes) and then we ran into several groups giving performances around the city municipal building.  Thank you Porto Tourism Board.

The day was drawing to a close and on the way back we stopped off at a grocery store to stock up on supplies so we didn’t have to eat out all the time.

By the time we got home, it was dark and we were pooped, having walked uphill pretty much all the way back.  

And the view from our apartment, well you can see for yourself.

Since then, we’ve been doing our best to adapt to Portuguese life.  Like the two hour lunch we had yesterday (the other session that ended with Port I talked about above), or the “Let’s stop for coffee and a Nata and relax a bit” that one or the other of us will suggest, or the trip to the very-local place referred to as the “man cave” where we had Portuguese sandwiches and Ann made the mistake of ordering water instead of a beer and they, very loudly, rang the bell of shame.  

While we’re still not up to the idea of starting dinner at 8 pm, we are starting to get the hang of Portuguese life and, to be honest, we’re not minding it one bit.