Whirlwind Vacation

I'm in Porto, Portugal right now, home to port, the lovely, generally deep red, fortified wine, and a former residence of mine. You see, several years ago (like 9? Maybe only 8 . . . I can't be bothered to really figure out since I've had 1/2 a bottle of wine plus a glass of port already . . . only been here about 6 hours but it's great . . . anyway, where was I? Oh yes) I spent about 3 months living here, taking intensive language classes and meandering around the city in my spare time. You'd think I would remember some of the streets, some of the intersections, the general lay of the land . . . but it doesn't seem that I do. Cousin S and I (S is the daughter of intrepid Aunt L of the Bangkok Oasis . . . which I would Hyperlink but this old version of IE doesn't seem to support such flights of fancy) wandered long and hard . . . and wetly, after awhile, when rain and hail poured briefly onto our heads, but I will say that we eventually found the Ribeiro district, down along the Douro, and had an excellent dinner of fish and soup and "couver", which is the non-negotiable charge for bread (that you may as well cheerfully eat because it's really good and you haven't had anything for hours), and a dessert with almonds and an eggy custard, then we also made our way back home and while it mayn't have been direct, it was in fact accomplished. Now how's that for a Henry Jamesesque sentence.
Our flight to here was relatively uneventful, particularly for the hour and a half that we were sitting, beyond departure time, either in the terminal or on the runway while I had to pee increasingly badly, so that was good. Minus the having to pee.

Anyway, the whirlwind is that S and I had two nights in London, one of which included an amazing, enlightening performance (hyperlink to come someday), now we're in Porto for three nights, then Lisbon for three, then S leaves and I have Porto for 2 and London for 2 and home.

And now my coin-op computer time is about to run out (coin-op! Who knew!), so off I go to bed.

Whirlwind!