Things to do before you die:

See the pope √

I'm not Catholic.  Most of you know that.  I was baptized Catholic, then my family moved to Memphis, and we switched to what my Dad calls "Catholic Light," i.e. Methodist.  I like Methodists; they're nice people.

Anyway, this past weekend was a long weekend.  Thursday was Jour de l'Ascension, and to make a long weekend out of it, the primary schools faire le pont d'ascension.  They "make the Ascension bridge" and move the Friday schedule to Wednesday.  So Elvynia and I made the best of the long weekend and went to a place where we thought it would be warm and sunny.

Did I mention that Angers had a second winter?  After all that talk of the great weather, Mother Nature decided we didn't deserve sun and warmth, and it was freaking cold for another week and a half.  It was like it was February again, and I was miserable.  And off we flew to Porto.

Porto is a nice city.  Our Ryan Air flight was, of course, delayed, so we didn't arrive until after midnight, so we were unable to take public transport to our hostel.  We took a cab and, thankfully, were not screwed over.  We stayed in a pretty nice hostel in Porto, the Andarilho Oporto Hostel.  Well it was nice except for the beds and the lack of heating.  I guess I can't complain since it was about €15/night.
Friday morning, we asked the guy who ran the hostel what we should do, he told us to avoid a large section of the city because... the Pope was there.  I suppose he was trying to be helpful and advise us to avoid the crowd, but, seriously, why would we pass up an opportunity to see the Pope?  Even if you hate him, you have to admit he's kind of a big deal.  So to the Pope we went.

It was pretty much what you'd expect in a Catholic country.  Lots and lots of people filled the streets, waving flags with the his face on them.  They were singing hymns (or whatever they're called if they're called something different in the Catholic church.)  We didn't get very close, but I could see lots of the red-robed bishop people, and I could kind of make out the main dude amongst them.  There was a big screen next to them, however, and I definitely saw the Pope - in his hat - on the screen.

Then we wandered away.  We had some requisite cheap Portuguese food, fish sandwiches and the delicious Nata pastry.  We wandered some more; we went to the river side and had an awkward interaction with a port wine seller, which resulted in us buying a mini-bottle and drinking it on a bench.  It was pretty good.  Then we climbed a million steps back up to the city and got a bit lost, but we found the hostel.
The thing about Porto is there just doesn't seem to be a ton going on.  In Lisbon, there were lots of people and restaurants and bars and pastry shops.  In Porto, it was difficult to find things that were open. We weren't sure if it was the Pope's fault or not.  Friday night we went on a long, long quest to find dinner and ended up eating around 10pm.  It was good: salmon with potatoes and vegetables.  It was also cheap. Each of us paid just under €8 for quite a bit of food.  That night we started talking to some other people at the hostel, and we all went for a drink, which was fun.

On Saturday, after some unintentional, preemptive shopping, we took an afternoon train to Espinho to see the ocean!  It was a little too chilly and waaayy too windy to do much, so we sat on some rocks in the sun for a while then went on a quest for fresh seafood.  We ended up at a nice restaurant where we sat upstairs and had an ocean view.  We ended up getting a menu that included bread with butter and anchovy spread, olives, vegetable soup, fish stew, desert, and either half or a whole bottle of wine.  It was delicious.  (And again very cheap... a meal of those proportions in France would be at least €20/person.  We paid €12.50 each.  I love Portugal.)
The stew came in a HUGE pot for the two of us to share.  We did not finish it.  We barely ate half of it; it was just a ton of food.  The wine was a little confusing, as he left a whole bottle on the table, and we had thought it included half a bottle.  We didn't drink all of it, but it was, apparently, included in the price.

After sitting a long time to digest, we walked back along the beach to take a train to Porto.  We did a little more shopping around, then went back to the hostel to rest.  We grabbed a couple more pastries to say farewell to the land of cheap and delicious food and then retired to pack...

Sunday we spent entirely too long traveling back to Angers.  When I am old and rich, I will buy direct flights everywhere, regardless of price.  Until then, traveling goes something like it did Sunday: metro to Airport: 30 minutes. Sitting in airport: 1-2 hours, Flight: 2 hours, Bus from Beauvais Airport to Paris: 1 hours 20 minutes, Metro from bus station to train station: 20 minutes, Sitting around train station: 1.5 hours, Cheap train to Angers: 2.5 hours to Le Mans then 40 minutes to Angers, Walk from train station to the Foyer of Good Advice: 10 minutes.
It was a long day, but I spent a lot of that time reading.  And a day spent reading is never a waste.

The conclusion: even though Porto wasn't as exciting as Lisbon, it had it's appeal.  Plus, we are tired teachairs, so sitting next to the river and the ocean and drinking and eating were major highlights of the trip, as far as I'm concerned.

Next on the agenda: Franzi does France! She's coming next weekend! I'm so excited.