Holy Week Part III: Cliffhanger resolved

Oh no! The bus was full! So instead we had to catch a different bus in the afternoon, with like 3 hours to kill in Vigo. It was kinda miserable since it was raining and windy, but we went and had coffee and acquired an umbrella. I didn't mention before, but I also bought my first ever umbrella in Vigo and I still feel... conflicted. The Pacific Northwesterner in me tells me to tough it out, it's just water, wear a raincoat dammit. But the cat-like creature of comfort in me says f*** water, it's cold and wet. 

Anyway, after a little trial and error we found the hostel which was in a refurbished old house from the 19th century. Our room had a little balcony that looked out on the Rua Santa Catarina, a pedestrian street full of shops and cafes.

Check out the paving for the sidewalks.

Being frugal travelers, we bought some veggies and made stir-fry in the hostel then went to THE FANCIEST MCDONALDS EVER in the plaza by the town hall for icecream.

The Imperial McDonald's. Do you see the chandeliers inside?

Now, if you know me at all, you should know that I am not a fan of fast food in general. It's low quality, bad for you, bad for the environment, and bad for small businesses. But when you're traveling, sometimes it's just easier than trying to navigate a new restaurant with a confusing menu and you don't know if you seat yourself or you wait for the waiter or you go to the front to order or when you pay... 

Anyway, we couldn't find a bar so we settled for McFlurries. 

To my surprise, the place was absolutely packed. Kind of like the mall in Vigo, I would have thought that in a place with so many special, unique, and frankly more cultural places to go the locals wouldn't be so enamored with Micky-Dee's.

The next day we got up early and caught the free walking tour provided by the hostel. Normally it's a group of hostels that go together, but there were so many of us that we split into smaller groups, and Laura and I ended up with five or six other girls from our hostel, so our tour was a little more quiet and personal than the big 20 person groups. 

Our first stop was in the big plaza in front of the town hall building, both of which were absolutely enormous.

The long narrow plaza, dominated by the town hall building put me in mind of grand revolutions, with some charismatic speaker riling up the masses filling the plaza, watching the speech on screens, the speaker too small and far away but at the same time larger than life. Traffic stopped, flags flying from the balconies of the ancient buildings that have seen revolutions come and go before.

Okay, so I'm prone to daydreaming. Anyway, here's a picture of me with the thing.

We wandered for a bit, through narrow busy streets and irregularly-shaped plazas and the guide gave us little pieces of history and stories, though I don't remember most of them now. One that I do remember was that JK Rowling was living in Porto when she first started writing the Harry Potter books, and some of the places are based off of things in the city. Namely the library at Hogwarts and this bookstore near the university.

It's not allowed to take photos inside the bookstore, so I'll see if I can paint a picture in words. The bookstore is called Lello e Irmão (Lello and Brother), located in the University district. It is a tall, narrow building lit from a single huge skylight with a pattern of blue and gold stained glass around the edges. The whole place smells like damp wood and new books and there is a business that seems out of step in a bookstore. 

A huge twisty-curvy staircase dominates the downstairs, like a double helix that got pulled apart and tangled up again. You can tell that people tend to take the right stair and not the left because the red paint is worn thin in the middle of the stairs, showing white, and then brown underneath. Upstairs there are more shelves to browse, and a little giftshop/cafe where you can watch the tourists try and sneak photos while the employees aren't looking. I sat for a while in a deep cushioned chair reading Richard Dawkins in Portuguese until Laura came to fetch me saying that the tour was moving on.

I could see why Rowling got inspired.

From there we saw a plaza dedicated to some Portuguese prince who died of typhoid and was a benefactor of the arts.

The dedication says "To D. Pedro V. For gratitude. The Portuense Artists. In 1862" There are also some spikes on his head and shoulders to keep the birds from landing on him. And for me, I will always think of this plaza as "Typhoid Plaza."

The next notable thing we visited was the bridge and the river. Did I mention that it was truly nasty out by this point? My pants were heavy with water and no amount of hitching could make them stay up. But we carried on, intrepid tourists that we were. I think our poor guide would have rather gone home. I'm glad we didn't though, because this was the part of the trip that made me fall in love with Porto. All the crumbling ancientness, like jungle ruins of a long fallen empire, with bits of modernity springing up through the cracks.

This post has already turned out longer than I anticipated, so I'll leave off here.