Europe Day 7: 10/21/08

Breakfast is included at our Porto hotel and it is served from 8-10 in the dining room behind the reception area. I thought that I smelled bacon in the morning but I thought I was imagining it because breakfast included at the hotels we have stayed at are usually more like continental or English style breakfast (any combination of coffee, tea, bread, orange juice, cereal with milk, or yogurt) Not here! When I found my parents in the room, it looked like they were in the middle of high tea in England. Breakfast was a buffet but the tables were lined with fine linens and real silverware and dishes. After showing my room key, I had my choice of eggs, bacon, egg frittata, all kinds of rolls, endless pastries, fruit, 3 different kinds of cereal, and coffee, tea, milk, orange and grapefruit juice, and chocolate milk drink. It was something else! Unfortunately, it was the one and only time we would get to enjoy it because we were leaving so early the next morning for our flight to Marseille, France. We took our time and while my parents washed up for the day, I ventured out to some of the shops in our neighborhood. I found all kinds of awesome little stores but ultimately, I only spent a euro on some hair clips at a beauty supply store a block up from the hotel.
Unfortunately, it rained the ENTIRE rest of the day. We walked across Pont Luis before it got too cold, wet, and windy but that was the driest part of the day. We decided to go on a tour of one of the caves but the only time slot we could do (for an English language tour) was later that afternoon at Sandeman Port, one of the most famous and oldest Port producers. To pass the time, we ate lunch at a café where Dad ordered some sausage that came to the table on a plate of flames. The waitress told us to wait 5 minutes so we watched dad’s lunch cook at our table (while Mom and I wolfed down our sandwiches). It was much too cold to walk far from Sandeman so after sitting in the lounge area there for awhile, we decided to go to a café nearby and have a hot cup of tea to dry off and warm up a bit.
While we were there, a friendly young American girl befriended us during her lunch of a cheeseburger, fries, and chocolate cake. She asked where we were from and as it turned out she was from Wisconsin. She had graduated from college in May and was now teaching English in Spain. She came to Porto for a “weekend” (M-Tu-Wed) trip and she was killing time before the Sandeman tour as well. She was cute; so wide eyed and so happy to be in Europe taking it all in.
Before we knew it, it was time to start the tour. As it turned out, Sandeman has quite a history. Basically, Georges Sandeman was a very early entrepreneur. He had all kinds of ideas for marketing and branding that were well before his time. The result was this incredibly sophisticated and posh brand today. We learned a lot of things on the tour, including the significance of the Zorro-esque logo. It stands for the Spanish and Portugese roots of the brand-the hat is a traditional Spanish sombrero and the cape is the Portugese University cape that we had been seeing in Lisbon and also in Porto. At the end of the tour and a short video, we were able to do a bit of a tasting. We had a ruby port and a tawny and they were both these abundantly rich and full-bodied ports. Port is so sweet and strong (20% alcohol) and is understandably usually paired with other rich foods like cheese and chocolate.
After spending some money in the gift shop (it’s almost impossible to not leave somewhat infatuated with the Sandeman brand), we caught the hop on/off bus (the ticket is good for 24 hours) back to the hotel where I decided to bravely attempt to dye my hair. I went back to the beauty supply store and with hand motions and pointing, I left with dye and developer…no gloves, no bowl to mix, no brush. I had about 40 minutes before dinner with my parents so I put 2 plastic bags on my hands, poured out some developer and then added the dye to the bottle of developer and shook like crazy…and prayed as I put it on my hair. The result was fantastic (God is faithful, even in a foreign country where my logic and sense was slightly impaired, obviously) and the only downside was going out to dinner in the rain with somewhat wet hair.
When we got back to the hotel, we requested some early wake up calls for the next morning since we were flying to Marseilles at 8am from the Porto airport.

Pictures from Porto, Day 2: