porto, portugal

It's been a crazy couple of days here in Porto, Portugal.  We arrived yesterday around noon.  As we walked off the plane (down the stairs and onto the tarmac), I felt like i was suddenly in a totally different place.  I felt like I was on vacation, in Central or South America.  It was wonderful and warm; it felt like vacation.

We got to our hostel and decided to find some food and check out the city center.  We found a restaurant that had a special meal.  8 different type of meat, fries, rice and beans all for 8 Euros.  PLUS, freshly grilled pineapple.  It was delicious.  

Then we walked down the the river and the historic city center.  It was absolutley amazing.  Felt like a total beach town.  The sun was setting and I was thinking that I could just sit there the rest of the night and enjoy the view and the atmosphere.

This is just one of the amazing bridges here in Porto, design by Eiffel!

Today, it was rainy.  No more mid-seventies and sun :(  But we headed out to the ocean first thing in the morning and saw some beautiful waves.  It was crazy beautiful and the water wasn't actually that cold!  We saw Alvaro Siza's Pool and Tea House.  And later on, his architecture school and museum of modern art.  I like to call it Siza-day ;)

We ended the day at Rem/OMA's Casa da Musica for a concert and tour.  It's an amazing building and I'm really glad we got to see it, despite being totally soaking wet from walking around in the rain all morning.  Oh, and we went out for a nice dinner, compliments of IIT ;)