Porto Sketches, xi.

by the time i woke on monday the routine was standard and i was out the door and down at a café before 11. the previous night's burning bellyache was gone but to make sure it would stay gone i went down and got some plum and pastry from the old women hawkers in the market.

most of what id seen outside of wine places had been closed the previous day so a lot of the morning was revisiting the open and bustling locales. i spent almost an hour in "europe's most beautiful bookshop", mostly sitting on the floor reading about olive oil production and then dodging other tourists and their camera viewfinders trained on the grand central staircase and stained glass ceiling. i went back by the central train station and other sites i’d seen the first day in the same morning sun, combing every street, alley and square to burn their image firmly in my mind.

Porto Sketches, x.

then the only sounds in the air came from our sandals dragging along the shiny paving stones of the wide pedestrian shopping street down we strolled and our voices bouncing off the storefront windows. there was no one else in the avenue designed to accomodate hundreds, but i didnt feel out of step. i spoke at length with the brighter blond about the camino de santiago, which she had also done a portion of, and then we turned and were at another street, similar to the indoor outdoor passage where babak and i had encountered the subterranean sleeping compartment bar the other night. again the entrance was odd, but this time there was no one. instead it was more like a university building, with a plastered bulletin board and reclanguar spiral staircase with frosted glass windows in the middle of every door leading off. we passed across and inside where there was, reassuringly, a bar. polished mahogany in fact, and smart staff in all black behind. some words i now forget were spoke and then we went upstairs where a few university-cool looking kids were hunched on short cubes in a cluster while 3 young guys prepared instruments on a stage. the lights were low to match the music playing, and the graphic printed walls were different colors mixed with grey. in the adjacent room a short girl with short dark hair and big dark eyes polished glasses behind a bar and i asked for a wine.

Porto Sketches, ix.

on sunday i woke as normal - with bright sun sluicing through slats onto my face and no one in the room but tasos across from me, lying dead to the world as he was to remain for the next several hours. i got up and ready and headed back into the city for some kind of morning ritual. i skipped the poveiros praça and went straight into the center, to find comfort in the 50 cent coffees that were one of the few constants of the days.

Porto Sketches, viii.

later on, we’re descending from the circus that is tasos and his 'hood and babak is venting.

<< are these guys actually enrolled in university? did we just experience the product of greek and portugese education? the credit ratings are all starting to make sense... >>

up from aliados - the central avenue thus far used as the point of origin - on the other side we come into a series of squares and terraces where the night clearly begins, and after careful selection, actually find a bright aluminum table open and sit outside a grand, fin de siglo bar with mirrors, columns, where wide trays covered in bottles and glasses are carried hurriedly by waistcoated waiters leaning and breezing across the floor. thinking it standard practice, i signal one with my upraised hand, and receive a knowing wink that tells me he'll be right over.

Porto Sketches, vii.

at 19:30 i was in just one of those old man bars, waiting for tasos and babak who were upstairs cleaning up and getting ready for the night. in a few they came down to join me and spend the next two hours watching the US blow nearly every opportunity they had to take control of the second round game against ghana. in the end it was terrible but we were in portugal and tasos was waiting outside the bar with his friend and a joint so i let the past pass and with babak by my side, stepped out into the dark.