Porto 1

Having already bought my bus tickets, I was prepared on Friday to head off to meet Caroline (Ballard) in Porto, Portugal. I had class as usual until lunch at 2, and afterwards I took a long long siesta before meeting up with Katie for some coffee and a walk. We tried something really interesting - MacDonalds café con helado (coffee with ice cream). It was good until the ice cream all melted and the coffee was cold, I think that idea still needs some tinkering. Katie and I walked all around the city, looking at some interesting points on the western side of the city, along the protective wall by the river. After the river, we found a big interesting cathedral, I believe the one that I accidentally walked into in the middle of a mass one time. We were admiring the incredible carvings on the front of the façade when we turned down a path to find a little convent, and we saw an open door. Katie was very skeptical as to whether or not we´re supposed to go inside, but generally unafraid I walked right on in and found another open door, and upon going inside I saw a couple of directional touristy signs, so I knew I wasn´t anywhere I shouldn´t be. But as I walked in, a nun came through the door, apparantly just ready to close the place up. Very nicely she informed me that the visiting hours were coming to an end and Katie and I went on our way. Around the corner, we found this incredibly little shop that sold lots of wine and hams and specialized ciders and lots of cookies (so naturally Katie was all over that) and after enjoying some of the cookies, we made our way back to the plaza mayor where we parted ways. After that I don´t quite recall what I did, except probably wander the city a little bit, taking my time to get back home for dinner at nine.



Madre was making some filets of white fish! She had a delicious tomato sauce with it too, and I was getting really excited watching her dish it into this glass bowl for service when all of a sudden the bowl exploded. Glass shards popped every which way, the fish falling among the dangerous pieces. Well we had leftovers that night, which were good. And at the dinner table Ian and Austin and I had some good natured joking and talking, and all was well. After dinner I went as is my general custom to a local internet café to talk to Bethany for an hour or so.

I try to talk to Bethany just about every night, it´s kind of my time to talk away my worries and feel connected to someone and to get some positive feelings.


You know I think I´ve learned some things about myself while I´ve been here - what I miss. What I miss from home tells me what´s important to me, it tells me what things mean to me and what I like and want. What I miss most from home is Bethany. Our relationship has grown really strong and she´s really my best friend, the person I would run to with anything and talk about anything. I can´t wait to meet up with her in Rome and have fun adventures together! The next thing that I miss is self determination - saying hey, friends are coming over to my place right now or hey I want to eat out tonight or I think I´ll spend the night at my friend´s place or let´s watch a movie at your house or my house or someplace. It kind of feels like we´re back in elementary school, go home for everything and only in special circumstances get to have people over or go play for long times. And it´s really kind of lame how little the JMU office is open - 4 hours, 4 days a week. Anyways, the next thing I miss is cooking. I want to play with my food. I want to be able to sleep in on a Saturday and make a loaf or two of bread. I want to come home and make eggs and bacon. I want to throw together a fantastic meal just for the heck of it, but I have to eat whatever madre gives us - which is usually awesome but not always what we want, you know? Give us pizza one night or chinese food or sandwiches or something other than Spanish ham. Yes it´s good, but so is variety. And I miss just the act of cooking, while I´ve been here I eat a lot of oranges because it gives me a chance to prepare something - peel and clean and neatly pick apart. People think it´s wierd and why would I just not eat oranges if it´s that much work? Well, I just like working on food. The next thing I miss is being able to joke with people. I just don´t know Spanish enough to be able to be funny, and it definitely makes it less fun. You may be wondering why I haven´t missed music yet? I think JMU burned me out on music, I just love listening to good music, I haven´t really had any cravings to play it. Whatever, I´m going to need to play next semester, so it´s not the end or anything.

So I talked to Bethany and then went back and got prepared for the trip. I left rather abruptly at around 12:45 so that I would be on time, and I got there and waited for a while - I had brought a large blanket that Bethany made for me, and it kept me very nice and warm, I´m very glad I have it with me :-). And I got on the bus no problem and sat next to a quiet guy who slept the whole time. The entire trip there was a movie playing in English with subtitles in Portuguese, a lame ´80s movie with Steven Seagal called Above the Law. Anyways it was a long trip and I was probably asleep half of the time, or at least half asleep most of the time.

When we finally arrived in Porto, it was still pitch black and they just kind of left us there in this little plaza. So walking with my somewhat heavy backpack and messenger-style backpack. First I asked some cab drivers where the metro was, and I tried to follow their directions, then I came along two guys walking, one of them about my age, one of them kind of old. The guy my age asked for a cigarette, but I didn´t have any. I asked them in Spanish where the metro was, and they seemed nice enough to want to show me where it is. So I was following them and talking to them as best I could about where I was from. I couldn´t understand a lot of what they said, but they kept talking to me and we got to these stone steps that led down to a stone path and a bridge across a stream to another road. I figured they must know the quickest way to get to the metro apparantly was through this shortcut.
When we got to the bottom of the stone steps, however, the old guy stopped me and started asking me for a little donation for the trouble, so I gave him a Euro, but then he said that he needed more than that for coffee or cocaine. Ah, we seemed to be getting to the heart of the matter. I emphatically told them no money for drugs, and then that I simply had no money. The younger guy seemed to be distracted and not very interested in asking me about anything. As I tried to walk away, they got in my way and wouldn´t let me pass. But the older guy seemed to be very impatient about asking for money and all of a sudden grabbed one of the straps around my chest and would not let go despite my continued demand for him to let go. Then he began making slicing motions and I think was telling me if I didn´t give him the money he would cut me. The younger guy to the side seemed somewhat disinterested but still involved in keeping me there. The older guy began to reach through his pockets, I suspected for a knife. Fearing the worst I began to reach for my multi-tool to try to get the knife, but this seemed to distract him from his search and he began asking what I was looking for. Then he lost his patience and started pushing around and I fell to the ground. While the younger guy was not really that involved, the older guy was trying to push me around and grab at things, so I then started to really fight back and push him back and around and I tried to grab him and turn him around. I felt right then more afraid than anything else, so I completely forgot everything that would make sense to do - trip and push down, break one of his arms, break his nose, knee in the groin. All I did was wrestle off the old man to the ground as best I could and made sure the younger guy understood I didn´t want to fight him and ran off. As I was running away I realized that there was a puncture wound on my left index inger and a large scratch on my middle finger. The only casualties I was sure of.
Later I could not find my camera, which perhaps may have been left on the bus to Porto. Either way, apparantly they don´t make that kind of camera anymore, nor the charger nor a PC cord... so even if they did steal it, the camera´s no good to them. Some small conscious compensation.
Even as my heart was racing, I walked around the city for a while trying to find the metro station, asking some shop-keepers who were really friendly and eventually finding that I had gone to the right place and turned around once before. But I got to the metro station and made it out to Vilha do Conde where Caroline was living and when I arrived there was a map right there. So already having her address I just decided to find my way to her house, even though I had told her to meet me at the stop what would be an hour later.
After a wrong turn or two, I found her house and rang the bell. I wasn´t sure to expect since by then it was bout 8:15am. Caroline´s host Padre answered the door and very kindly let me into a very very modern looking house with broad colors and clean smooth surfaces. He very nicely asked me to put my stuff down and brought me coffee and bread and butter and went to wake up Caroline. So I, sweaty, heart still beating a little funy and tired as anything first saw Caroling sitting at her table drinking coffee as she surprisedly looked up at me in her PJs. After hugging and saying hi and everything, she was nice enough to let me go sleep for a while. So I went up into a guest room of sorts and woke up to Caroline´s nudges at about 11am, whereas we went out to see Porto after some discussions with Caroline´s very nice family. Her mother is rather attractive at her age, very friendly and her father as well is very distinguished and speaks Spanish very fluently, so I had no trouble communicating with the family. Caroline´s host sister seemed very friendly and pleasant and her host brother seemed a difficult teenage boy but nonetheless an interesting and generally friendly guy. This was going to be an interesting trip, stay tuned for more!