Portugal, Day 5: Rainy Day in Oporto & Second Concert

This hotel had fruit, eggs, salad, and pastries for breakfast.  There was probably meat somewhere but I didn't have any today.  I had hot chocolate and added an espresso shot to it, because I was very tired.  We piled onto the bus in light rain for a guided tour of the city.  It was supposed to be part walking, part bus, but the rain kept the informational tour on the bus.  There was a really nice scenic overlook we stopped at to get out and take pictures at even though it was raining, at the end of a bridge crossing the river where you could see the whole city of Porto.  As soon as we got off the bus, the sky opened up.  Thunder crashed.  Lightning flashed.  In seconds, anyone who was outside got soaked.  We all got back on the bus.  As the bus was leaving the spot, we saw a downed tree that had been vertical and healthy only minutes before as we were driving by it on the way up.  We continued the tour on the bus and when the rain let up, we got off and went to the train station to see the tiled artwork there, get lunch on our own, and then the bus took everyone back to the hotel.  Bobby and I just relaxed in the room for a little while and later called a cab to take us to the Arrábida bridge climb.  The weather had cleared up by then and the excursion wasn't cancelled.

When we got there, we were a little early, and we were also the only ones signed up for that time slot.  Bobby jumped around on some stuff nearby while we were waiting for our turn.  The guide noticed and he thought it was pretty cool.  Later, he handed us a brochure and told us about other bridges that don't have guided climbs that he's seen other intrepid adventurers hanging around on.  We wouldn't have time or good enough weather even if we wanted to free climb bridges, which we don't, but it was nice of him to recommend local spots based on our perceived interest.  Of course, he was like, "You didn't hear this from me," so that part won't be going in to my trip advisor review.  He also called us a cab afterwards to take us back to the hotel.  The climb itself was fun.  Low-key, over pretty quickly, but overall worth it.  You get harnessed in, clipped to a metal rope fence, and walk up the curve on the underside of the bridge for the equivalent of 18 stories on a narrow staircase.  At the top, they give you port wine (apparently invented in Porto, where most of the world's port wine still comes from) served in a little chocolate shot glass, which you consume just like the ginja from the other day.  If more liquor and wine were served in chocolate cups, I'd probably be an alcoholic.  Anyway, the view was really wonderful, and then we went back down so we could get ready for our concert.

We had supper first before the concert, at a local restaurant.  There were multiple types of appetizers, all some kind of fried meat bites, and most of them I didn't like too much.  The main course was grilled chicken (or steak if one so chose), which was ok.  Fries and white rice were also served a sides.  Dessert was a kind of pudding with cinnamon that kind of tasted like fruit loops.

The concert was late, starting at 9:30pm.  We've been told this is common in Portugal, nighttime events starting that late because they siesta here so it's not so bad to get up early the next day.  I'm going to come right out and say I was a bit disappointed by this concert.  We were doing a whole hour concert by ourselves this time, no local choirs to break things up or sing joint songs with.  Apparently there was supposed to be another choir but they had to pull out for whatever reason a couple months ago, so we had a solo concert today.  There weren't many people in the audience, it was freezing, the performance space up near the altar was far too small to fit everyone very well (the upshot of this is that we once again put off doing the scarf dance stuff), and sight lines to Dr. Gemme were inconsistent.  I was bobbing and weaving to try to keep my eyes on her from behind others' heads for cues as she was moving around, and I'm pretty sure she conducted this concert differently than she's been conducting rehearsals, so looking for her to cue holds and stuff wasn't as useful because some of her signals made no sense because they weren't what we were looking out for.  People came in and out during the show, and not just in between songs, so it was distracting to some people singing.  When we got it right and didn't lose our place, though, the acoustics were great and it was a very fancy decorated church that was about 500 years old.

After the concert, it was back to the hotel.  We're leaving tomorrow morning at 9:20am to spend the day on the bus driving pretty much the full length of the country to get to Algarve, where they say it will be warm and sunny.  The weather was so bad that it was on the local news back at the hotel tonight.  We couldn't understand much of anything they were saying, but we recognized places we were today in their damage reel.

1-Tile paintings in the train station in Oporto.
2-Bobby climbing stuff.
3-Weird sculpture coming out of the building and the ground near the church we sang in.
4-Panoramic of the inside of the church we sang in, Misericordia.