Day 4 in Porto

Today began with a delicious breakfast with which I received good ‘ol coffee (I know I already told you, but I think it is double note worthy). Later at the board meeting, fresh coffee was brought in via the same hotel source – sadly it had somehow turned to sludge yet again. I am in hopes that it is an early morning freshness factor… that’s worth getting out of bed.

At 2:00, another gal from our office replaced me so I could get some other work done. So I returned to my room and enjoyed a hamburger from room service. It was really the first thing I have truly devoured. I have always loved different foods, but I really haven’t been able to acquire a hankering for the Portuguese style of food – which is apparently pork and more pork.

Later in the afternoon more of our Lubbock office arrived, they were restless and wanted to get out so several of us walked down the street in a direction I had not gone (after I took them the other direction to see the fish that you saw in yesterday’s post – they took pictures too – ha, ha). Today we happened upon an old cemetery. It was beautiful. At first we couldn’t find an entrance so we thought it was closed to the public so I took this photo from what I could see.

We later found a creaky steal gate that was part way opened so we stepped in. There was someone manning a booth nearby the gate – we thought at first that they were charging admission (although I couldn't imagine it), but they didn’t stop us. These are some of the photos:

It can’t be good to see a black cat in a cemetery, right?

I got to noticing that most of the mausoleums had visible caskets in them.

It was somewhat of an eerie feeling. It got even more eerie when we came upon one that had the full glass pane on the front door broken out. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to break in and I certainly hope no one broke out.

Following our short stroll down the avenue, six of us gathered to go to dinner. Knowing it would be one of our last dinners on our own before the conference starts, we wanted to go to a local hot spot. We asked at the front desk for a recommendation. She recommended Adega & Presuntaria Transmontana, a Portuguese Restaurant down by the river. We piled into two cabs and away we went. About the cabs, I must add, I have yet to ride in one without feeling extremely nauseous when getting out. They drive ridiculously fast down extremely narrow curvy streets. When I say ridiculously fast, I mean the speedometer is usually around 60. All of the cabs are Mercedes. Anyway, back to my story, our cab driver spoke rather good English so we were able to get a fair amount of information out of him which was nice. We had walked past a huge diamond shaped building earlier today and we discussed what it was. I suggested it was a Music Hall of some type. So when we asked the driver what it was he said it was Casa de Musica. I said, “see, I know Portuguese – House of Music”. He turned and looked at me and said – “no lady, train station”. We all got a good laugh out of it. Until, I Googled it when I got back – just couldn’t imagine that it meant train station. It IS a music hall! Anyway, back to my story again… we made it in about 10 minutes to this quaint downtown area. Directly across from the restaurant was the river and this view…

I turned to my right and took this picture…

When the cabby’s dropped us off one of them went in and talked to the folks in the restaurant, we weren’t sure what about until we got in there. He made sure to order us the full Portuguese tasting spread…

Complete with anchovy's in oil...

And yes, our ticket reflected it at the end of the night.

This is the view directly next to where I was seated...

These pork legs have been on every buffet we have eaten at – it is a prosciutto type of pork – hoof and all in most instances.

We were the only ones in the restaurant upon arrival – it was about 7:30 – everyone here eats late. Most restaurants don’t even open until about 7:30. By the time we left there were people standing outside waiting to get in.

Most of the food in the spread was unidentifiable. One guy got brave and tried something he was unfamiliar with and ended up running to the bathroom. We never were too sure what it was. We had decided this spread was our meal. About 45 minutes after arrival they brought us menus. There was everything from pig head to octopus on the menu. I was reminded why I really haven’t felt too hungry since arriving. I found Fish Grill on the menu and inquired about it. He said it was shrimp, sea bass, potatoes and I don’t remember what else. I was excited about it being grilled. So I ordered that. Here is it’s glamour shot…

If you can see the picture well enough – you will notice that the head and tail of the fish are intact, eyeballs and all. I just couldn’t do it. I enjoyed a fish steak of some sort – thought it best not to ask – the shrimp, potatoes, etc.

Desert was quite good…

Here is a shot of our group. Our waiter saw me taking pictures of my food and offered to take one of all of us… I couldn’t act like my food was more important…

Following dinner we took yet another helter skelter cab ride back to the hotel.

Thank you for letting me share my days with you! Love to all!