First week in Porto

Let’s start with the beginning

Eight hours we drove in the car, we had some pauses to eat or rest but not that many. We got lost a couple of times thanks to the stupid GPS that would not be so stupid if my mom would have set it for Porto, Portugal and not Porto, Spain (which is in Galicia by the way). Finally we arrived in the city with our little yellow car filled with luggage for ten months. During the journey, I wasn't nervous but it was an almost automatic reflex when we entered the city. Chaotic, big, full of cars and different directions to take. In fact, we went on the highway again by mistake… (That’s the thing about being from Santander “Oh, what’s that? ” “It’s called a city, Laura” (Well, OK, I am not a red-neck)).

As I was saying, we were entering Porto and I got this nod in the pit of my stomach, I got so nervous. But it wasn't even anything bad; I guess it’s normal.

My first impression of the city “Do people really think that Porto is beautiful? ”. What I saw were streets and more streets. Alleys with abandoned buildings, old, and about to collapse. “Somebody please, explain me how this is beautiful…”.

And then my mind started with “What if my house is a building like this? ”. I did not care a lot, but what were my parents going to think of the place I would live in? I would have to put up with their complaints and concerns for a year.

And how did we find the house? Not thanks to the stupid GPS (now it was stupid itself), that was leading us to I don't know where. But thanks to my first sentence in Portuguese (in Portugal): “Onde fica a Rua Santo Ildefondo? ”. So I lived on the one side of the street and of course we parked on the other side. What a good idea. We walked through the whole street (it’s long, loooong).

However, if I keep on writing with so many details, we will never finish.

So, the apartment, great. My roommates, great. And the building… great! It’s newly remodeled, so it doesn't look like I live in the building of a ghost town.

The city of Porto

And now I want to talk about the city, in another post I’ll talk about the faculty (I am in love with the university here).

So Porto, after all, is beautiful. It is. You can’t avoid realizing, though, that the country in general is quite more poor than Spain. I know that for now I've only been in one city, but well… it’s supposed to be the second most important/big one, right? If a city is going to reflect the conditions of the country, I think it’s a good example. But I mean poor economically, because in many other things they run circles around us.

People… it’s true that, at least in the north of Spain, we are dry and rude. We don’t need to go far to realize that, because here I am, in the neighboring country and everybody is simply adorable. They help you, and talk to you... they talk to you! The other day I went to buy things and the cashier even smiled at me! I thought that was part of mythology!

Okay, maybe I am exaggerating, but what I mean is that people are so nice… Portuguese people are nice, that’s my verdict.

They are nice people, that speak fast, let’s not forget that. I don’t know how they are capable of producing so many weird sounds with their mouths, and all together, one after another… they don’t stop, really. And you are like “What? ” So then they repeat it and they tell you they’ll try to speak more “devagarzinho”. Yes, yes, devagarzinho, damned, devagarzinho…

I have a theory, and it’s that in school, since they are children, they have a subject about “how to speak to screw tourists”. And when students pass they all laugh malevolently. They also have a tourist slave, if possible a poor Spanish that thought “Bah, Portuguese is a piece of cake, a badly spoken Spanish”. And they put him in the middle of the class and the students try to make the unlucky man confused, who also starts whining on the floor “I believed that knowing Galego I would know enough! Why, lord, why me? ”

Okay, enough. Poor Portuguese. They are not to blame that their language is Satan’s favourite.

Below you'll see pictures of the city. The second picture was taken from the top of a monastery in Vila Nova de Gaia. And we can see the bridge of Dom Luís I in both of the pics, designed with the little iron bars Eiffel had left after his tower. (Just kidding). The truth is that it’s very cool at night. You can cross it by foot and by metro in the upper part, and walking and by car through the way at the bottom.

This is the river Douro (Picture 3) (Duero in Spanish). Porto is on the right, and Vila Nova de Gaia is on the left.

Right next to the monastery from where I took these pictures, a touristic monastery I must add, you find things like this: (Picture 4)

And even though this picture, concretely, is of Vila Nova de Gaia, in Porto you could find similar things, for sure. This is what I mean, because you can find this in a lost village of Spain, but not in the middle of Barcelona, for example.

But it doesn't matter. The truth is that it doesn't matter. And people keep on leaving the town and saying that it’s beautiful. Because in fact it is.

These are a couple of pictures of the Ribeira. (Picture 5 and 6). Don’t go out to eat at Ribeira. Don’t! It’s a touristic area and they must think we are all Finnish by the look of the prices. But still, it’s compulsory to go there for a walk at night. And well, I let you have a beer if you want, but no restaurants (unless you’re indeed Finnish).

Giving a bad comparison, it reminds me of “El Barrio Pesquero” in Santander. I can imagine how some years ago, not many I guess, all of these buildings were the houses of the fishermen, and the restaurants of the ground floor were storehouses where they kept their nets and all of those things. And I can imagine a fish market, and people selling what they just cought, fresh fish (and speaking Portuguese fucking quickly).

And let’s go to the Ribeira at night (picture 7) which is until now, the best part of the city. There’s a great atmosphere, people are always going for a walk, you hear the sound of music (since many people play music in the streets), there's people performing to earn some money and all this makes the Ribeira full of life.

Even the mime artists, standing still, are great entertainers. This man, concretely, was juggling with fire. And the illuminated building you can see in the back is the monastery where I took the previous pics from, in Vila Nova de Gaia.

The details

There are many details. Details that, don’t ask me why, remind me of Poets. And the thing is that in Porto I feel like I'm in a city from time to time, and at other moments I feel like I'm in an adorable fishermen's village. I don’t know, that's pretty cool. Because in Santander, or in the middle of Madrid you don’t get to see this : (Picture 8)

It makes me imagine that there’s an old lady living there, and that after lunch she sits down in the rocking chair to work on her knitting shawl. Is it a shawl? Is it made knitting? No idea, so if somebody knows and it’s not what I say it is, forgive my mistake.

There are many more things and many more details that make you think “that’s cool”. And despite the shacks, you still go changing your mind and in the end you agree that Porto is indeed a beautiful city.

I'll leave it at that for now.

See you in Porto.

Photo gallery