Okay so last time really wasn't about Portugal. This time it is. And since it's getting late here I'll probably make it a part I and part II of Portugal, which means it will be just as epic as Harry Potter 7 or The Hobbit...okay maybe not that epic, but still!
Soooo we got to the airport at 6:30 a.m. in Valencia to leave for Porto. Well to make a long story short, RyanAir raped us for our money. Josh and I hadn't printed off our boarding passes online because usually you can check-in when you get to the airport. This is not the case with RyanAir I guess...It costed us 60 Euros extra to print off our boarding pass there in the airport. ARE YOU JOKING?!!!!?!???!(*!? Yeah, that was no fun, but in the end we figured we might as well just go. Plus we didn't want to leave Carol (my German friend) all alone in Portugal! So we got there around 8:30 a.m. the flight was only about an hour long. We met a nice Spanish girl named Sofia in the plane. She even invited us to her home to eat authentic paella that her mom makes! It's only about a 20 minutes train ride to her house from Valencia. :) She was cool. We got to our hostel (coolest hostel ever!!) and they let us leave our stuff locked up until check in time (2 pm) Even though we hadn't even checked in yet, the receptionist let us help ourselves to some breakfast, delicious! Bakery rolls, cereal, milk, apples, and some sort of chocolate cake they make every morning! So good. Then we decided to wander around since everything was closed since it was Sunday.
We walked through the tiny cobble-stone streets and made our way down the huge hill plateau that the city is on down to the river that runs through it. They have a cool steel bridge that looks kinda like the Eiffel Tower. We went on a boat ride up and down the river going out to the sea even. We then took a wine cellar tour just because it was free and was just about the only thing that was open. It was boring. hahaha but at least it was in Spanish and not Portuguese! The people seemed to not like it if we tried to speak Spanish with them. They were most often more willing to speak with you in English.
We then went on a tram sort of thing up the huge plateau on the other side of the river and crossed the cool steel bridge then up above the main part of the bridge. There were so many locks locked onto the rods of iron on the bridge. Ones like the brass locks you put on a locker in the gym with the little keys to get in? Is that something that they do on many bridges or just the one in Porto?? After that, we went and looked through the beautiful cathedral they have here. The interior used over 400 kg of gold to make it. Amazing. So elegant. We then decided to go eat something, so we picked a small cafe near our hostel right in the middle of the city and had a plate that consisted of a small salad, a fried egg, a sausage, and french fries. Very tasty! we then went to the hostel and hung out there. There were some girls from Canada watching a movie with a girl from Brasil and her boyfriend from France as well, so we ended up watching that movie with them. We then decided to go to bed since we wanted to do so much the next day, (Monday).
Ok. when I wake up tomorrow I will try and write about Monday! Cause I am running on 2 hours of sleep right now. You are probably already guess that by the way I bet my grammar looks like. I think my grammar is getting worse. No good! I'll write more lates mates!!!
"If adventures do not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad" — Jane Austen
Now you know about what they mean when they tell you to "read the fine print" and "if it (the price) looks too good to be true, it probably is" and "knowledge is power". Glad you had a very awesome trip to Portugal! We're all so interested in your posts. Keep them up. Take time for a little study! ;)
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