PORTUGAL!

We have been paying and preparing for this trip of a lifetime for almost 2 years! When I first heard about it, I really wanted Carter to go. His 3rd grade teacher and her husband were the organizers for the Tooele group and when the day finally came, I couldn't believe how fast it came! 

Chad dropped us off at the airport and we found our fellow yellow shirted group quickly and started the check in process for 42 people in our group! 

We got lots of stares and questions about our shirts and it was fun to tell everyone we were going to Portugal! We all look so fresh! 

We had a layover in Colorado and Newark NJ. I loved seeing NEW YORK from the sky. It went on like this for miles and miles of sky scrapper buildings! So cool. I even spotted the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island. That place is also on the bucket list of places to visit!

We made it on the plane and we were prepped with movies and snacks and neck pillows for 16 hours of travel! 

It was weird to leave at 11 our time and arrive the next morning in Portugal. I was thankfully able to sleep some on the plane when it was time to sleep. It wasn't great sleep but I was worried I wouldn't get any so I was so glad. Hello Portugal!!!!!

We landed in Porto at 9 am and we hit the ground running for day 2 of our trip! We wouldn't see our hotel room until bed time. We met our guide, Beatriz, who was fantastic! She does tours more than half the year and is from Spain. We loved her and her sense of humor and how she made us all feel comfortable and loved. She had a purple dino on a telescoping rod and lead us around the city always telling us to follow Pepe, the dinosaur. 

We first did a walking Tour of Porto. The town feels like something out of a movie. we got to look and shop around. We were taken into the fanciest McDonalds I'd ever seen! They served soup! Music echoed in the streets from musicians playing for tips. We thought it funny that most of them played American music. Probably for the American tourists. I couldn't believe the acoustics and how it just echoed off everything around us totally immersing us in the music. 

We went to the Don Luis Bridge and walked across it. Later, we would float under it in the Durro River. 

This incredible church was not one we entered but it was amazing to see all the detail on it! How in the heck did they make such fancy buildings centuries ago?!

We visited the Sao Bento Railway Station. The tile work and architecture was incredible and all the tiles were hand painted and pieced together. 

I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan but I was getting major HP vibes from this train station. It still is a working station today! 

City of Porto

One store was called the DUCK STORE. All they sold was rubber ducks. Mollie had to see it. 

Everywhere we went there were delicious pastries and food displayed in the window. Nutella is very popular there and I was so impressed by these giant tubs of Nutella! My kids would have gone crazy for this and it was pretty cheap too. But we were told we couldn't get it home on the airplane. 

Cristano Renaldo has his own store there! 

Lunch was always on our own and we found a cute little sandwich shop tucked down an alley way that seemed safe. I had a salad and Carter had a sandwich. I didn't love my salad, but Carter said his was really good. Different for sure!

This tall building is called torre dos Cleigos. It is 250 feet tall and towers above the whole city. It is a bell tower and we got to hike it and all its steps the following day.

We visited Antigua Cadeia da Relacau Prison built in the 1700s. It was slightly creepy. Carter and i hopped in an elevator here and we could NOT tell if it was moving at all. Just about the time I started to panic that we were stuck in an elevator, the door behind us silently opened. There was not one jostle to it moving or a single sound. It was absolutely eerie! 

Everyone was starting to drop like flies! We were all so tired. Some kids didn't sleep at all on the plane and were paying for it! Cute Fernanda and Aline passed out on a bench in the jail. It was so nice and cool in here everyone just hung out to escape the heat. 

It was here that I learned that you don't flush the toilet paper...but not until my second trip to use the bathroom later in the day. OOOPs....I guess their plumbing isn't as efficient because they can't dig as deep since they are built on old ruins. 

This fountain was in the middle of town. A landmark for us to find everyone and also a place to watch bums fish out the money that people threw in. But again...look at that architecture! 

Dinner that night was at O Calcula. We were served our first course of bread and oil, slightly different than the italians...then soup, which is served before every meal. Then we had Pork and potatoes and veggies  with fresh squeezed lemonade and a yummy apple cake for dessert. It was delicious yet bland at the same time. 
 We were so happy to get to our hotel room and fall into bed early! I had no problem sleeping on this trip at all because we hit the pavement hard each day! Wow we were so busy and I was happy to crawl into bed next to my roomate, Stephanie Findlay and fall fast asleep!