I guess even vacation blogs (is that what this is?) need vacations. After leaving Portugal we made our way back to Wisconsin (with a sprint through Madrid and a spell in Brooklyn) and have spent the last month and a half separating ass from elbow. We’ve seen doctors and accountants, met with daycares and dentists, dealt with health scares and existential crises and taken Nakota in for her seventh emergency room visit. That’s Nakota: 7, Wilder: 0.
On the work tip, I’ve been writing travel articles about Morocco, Portugal and Wisconsin for Fodors and writing about wellness (yes, the irony is thick) for the blog accompanying my dear friends’ kickass podcast, Highway to Well. But mostly, I’ve been like a ceiling fan whose chain you keep pulling, unable to figure out if it’s slowing down or speeding up. I’m the fan, the chain, and the annoyed person pulling the chain, watching and waiting, with better things to do than look at a fucking fan all day, but I think it–I–us, is finally coming to a stop. And after having spent the past 6 months away from home and still not quite clear on where that is, it feels comforting to be crossing things off lists, making plans for dates farther out than a week, and all around getting my shit together. Kind of. I’m trying to figure out how we can spend a month in South America this winter, so...
But before I say goodbye to our last trip completely and this blog gets rightly hijacked by the present tense, I’ve got a few posts to close out Portugal. First up, Porto.
Crouched on a hill sloping down to the serpentine Douro river, Porto is like a hunchbacked comfy old lady that you just want to hug and bake with all afternoon while sipping from a dusty unlabeled bottle that she keeps tucked away in her flour-covered housecoat. The mighty elixir that you are sipping is, of course, Port, and damn does this town have some good ones. I mean, so I’ve heard. I basically drank wine the whole time I was there. Sorry.
Everything is on an incline in Porto and with our children past stroller age but not quite of the “yes my legs work and I can use them at all times” age, we naturally gravitated downhill. It ended up working in our favor though, because at the bottom of the hill is Ribeira, Porto’s oldest neighborhood and a UNESCO World Heritage site, overlooking the river and Port houses looming on the opposite bank. The cheapest way of getting across is to jump on the Douro River Taxi. For six euros we got the whole family across (kids were free) and spent the afternoon lounging at the Port houses watching the boats go by.
Another favorite was this fantastic bar-meets-antique-store-meets-curios shop. Could’ve killed days in this giant warehouse if there wasn’t a constant threat of our kids breaking something that cost more than our tickets home combined.
Oh, and check out this cereal restaurant. I had this idea when I was 8! Okay, everybody had this idea when they were 8. But isn’t it awesome that somebody actually did it?
Next up, Coimbra. I will forever remember Coimbra as the city that I almost killed our car in. But before that happened we had a lovely time bumming around this ancient university town, home to the oldest university in Portugal and one of the oldest in Europe.
Somewhat centrally located inland between Lisbon and Porto, Coimbra often gets left off must-see lists but that’s exactly why you should visit it. The architecture is stunning, the university brings a young, cool vibe, and it has a gorgeously preserved medieval old town. But why look at the real, perfect, incredible thing when you can cross the river and see fake, flawed, miniature representations of the real thing?
Oh, I know, the same reason you take a ride on another fake choo choo. Because you have kids. And you love them, goddamnit.
Let's just say Billy's and my enthusiasm was drawn to scale.
After leaving the land of the Oompa Loompas we headed to the parking garage for our car. “I’ll drive,” I confidently told Billy, though in truth I had a bad feeling. I’d only been driving stick for about a month and I’d usually drive us to where we were going and leave the getting us home safely part to Billy. The streets were narrow and steep but I figured if I could just make it out of the city and onto the open road I’d be fine. As it turned out, I couldn’t even make it out of the parking garage.
As I started up the steep hill of the exit ramp the car stopped moving. There was a car behind me. I kicked the clutch in, nervous that I would slide into it.
“Give it some gas,” Billy said. I carefully took my foot off the clutch and put my other foot on the gas. We started sliding. Shit.
“Gas!” Billy said.
“I am!” I yelled.
“Punch it!” he commanded. I stepped on the gas harder. Nothing.
“I’M GIVING IT GAS!!!” I shouted, flustered.
“PUNCH IT!!” the kids sang from the back seat. They had taken to hating it when I drove stick and sided with whatever Billy said when it came to educating me on the intricacies of the machine. Rude.
I slammed my foot even harder on the gas and that’s when I saw the smoke, billowing up from the hood of the car like thick steam from a cauldron of toil and trouble. Fuck. Billy looked down at the stick.
“YOU’RE IN THIRD GEAR!!!”
“What? Oh, oh, oh, oh no–”
“Get out!” He ordered.
But no, that wouldn’t work. I could not get out. Because there was a car behind me, and I was mortified. So I crawled over to the passenger side like an admonished child. The smoke took some time to clear. The smell was horrific. I spent the ride home apologizing and googling what I had done. We debated between calling the rental agency in Spain (and possibly having to cut our trip short) or letting it ride and telling them when we returned the car. We chose the latter. The smell hung around for a good three days but then she drove like new.
Or at least that’s what Billy said. My driving privileges were revoked.
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