Day 1 - Porto

the night before our trip i could barely sleep. i woke up for the last time at about 4am. i ended up getting to the airport WAY too early and sitting alone for a couple hours. i was too excited. we got to porto at about noon and where checked into the hostel by 1. we set out for lunch and found 3 euro lasagne! it was gross... from there we just started walking. we spotted an open top bus tour so we hopped on. i love those, they are a great way to see a lot of things and get oriented with the city. this city is full of churches and old historic buildings. all the old buildings and many of the new have a pretty distinct style with tiles covers most of the facade. most of the tiled parts make up elaborate mosaics that depict historic moments from Portuguese history or the Bible. This is the most interesting thing about Porto so far, the rest of the tour was rather boring. We did find the beach so we got off the bus and visited an old castle that was a fortress to protect the beach. From there we walked for almost an hour. The beach is very rocky and not comfortable to walk on. It's also full of old people. This town seems to be full of the older generation. After the beach walk we got back to the main part of town and boarded a river cruise that came with the tour. This part was pretty interesting because the city is divided by a river and there are quite a few interesting bridges spanning across. From there we had a long walk back to the hostel. I wore my flops and wore a nice blister between my toes on both feet. They are still bleeding this morning so that will make the next few days fun. No more flops. The city is very hilly so there are many uphill walks when we are out and about. When we got back to the hostel we rested for a bit, I had a shower, and then we went out for dinner. We ate at some diner that had pretty much everything. We finished at about 10pm and where very tired so we just went to bed. I'm up this morning and had breakfast here at the hostel. I think we are about to head to the train station to reserve tickets for Lisbon tomorrow, then we're off the lay in the sun on the beach. In the afternoon we may tour a port factory if we can find one. (Port is a wine that is made here, google it.) Having fun so far. I only realized this morning that I will be traveling a total of 50 days by the time it is all said and done!