This trip was back in the early spring, I think we were hanging out and it came up that Kawan had never been? Anyway, it was as magical as it always was, plus the added benefit of good company. I don’t have an essay in me about this weekend, sorry. Enjoy the pix though.
I remember this drive across the bridge; it was cloudy in the east bay, and then after Yerba Buena island, the fog closed in around me and all I could see were the cars around me and the structure of the bridge. I thought about ‘casual domain shear’, which was an idea from the last half-good Neal Stephenson book, Anathem. Basically, if you’re sufficiently isolated from some part of physical reality, time runs differently; in the book there are monks that use this phenomenon (and other monks that talk about it ad nauseam, I said it was half-good).
Of course, we all know when you’re stuck in traffic, time is very plastic. It seems to take forever to get nowhere at all, and once you’ve arrived something about the experience makes all that time sort of vanish from your memory, as if the whole thing was an illusion. I certainly don’t remember anything else about this traffic jam; looking at my calendar for that day, I was going to the mission to get a haircut.
Anyway. It’s winter again, and even if the weather is bad it’s still beautiful. Many times the light is flat and the pictures are bad. I promise not to share those.
Saudade means a profound longing or lonelyness, the emotion you feel for someone you love is a long ways a way, in time, space, or emotion. You say, when you’re leaving your beloved, ‘Vou ter saudade de voce’ when you’re leaving, probably not on a trip, but when you know you won’t see them again for a while. It can be sad, but it’s also an expression of love.
Like I said, we were kind of staying in the tourist quarter, near the river, but the last day or two we wandered into town a little more; I went to a cigar shop and bought real Habanos, Cuban cigars, and the weather oscillated between clouds and sun. I think I was starting to get worn down from being on the road at that point.
And then, we went home.
These pick up right where the pictures from yesterday left off. I had just walked by the guy in the bear suit playing bass, it was our second day in town and we were just walking around the tourist area near the Ponte Louis I, the arch bridge in a couple of these pictures. Lots of locals hanging around too, although it was obviously a destination and not as much a place people live.
The top of the bridge was maybe 100m longer than the bottom, and connected higher elevations of each side. The hills of Porto were steep enough around the river that there were stairs and a funicular that I didn’t get to ride (too crowded, didn’t want COVID). But the bridge was nice, top and bottom.
Went across, dodging the bright yellow trams, and took a cable car ride down to the side of the river. Nice way to see the city, good views all around. When we got to the end, we went to a little food hall, where there was a Brazilian spot serving Pao de quejio, brazilian cheese bread. It’s so good, and so cheesy.
I think after that we looked around at a bunch of little stalls in a street market that was set up, nothing I really wanted to buy though, so I didn’t. Took the tram back up the hill, walked back across to the Porto side of the river; at least according to the map, Porto is on the north side, and it’s another town on the other side. Our rental was up the hill a bit, just around the corner from some spectacular views.
We did end up taking kind of the long way home, wandering up into town, past some more modern shops and cafes. It’s a nice town, Porto. A bunch of people have said it’s similar to SF, in that both are tourist destinations, both are very hilly, both are on the west coast and enjoy a mediterranean climate. It’s also actually several cities bisected by a body of water, the bay here and the River Douro there. Neither is the biggest city on their respective coasts, both have a larger city to the south that starts with L (LA/Lisbon).
I think that’s where the similarities end, though? Porto is a very different geography really, away from the river it’s a plateau. The architecture couldn’t be more different; the building we stayed in was older than California. They speak Portugese, and when I tried to speak it, I think there was some confusion because I speak the Brazilian form and not theirs. Tons of walking, just way more than is possible in any city in the US save like, New York.
Good city though. Plenty of good wine, coffee and food. I’ve got one more set of photos and then it’s on to the next thing that happened. I have no idea what that is now, but I will soon.
Been a while since I rapped at ya… These are from last fall, because I have once again let my backlog get way ahead of me… there are so many things from this year that I haven’t posted. Porto I didn’t post yet because it’s hard to edit down to something coherent and postable, but here I am posting anyway. Probably will be 2-3 posts? I’m trying.
This was kind of my half of our big trip last year; we try to go on a trip in the fall, and 22/23 were both europe, with Sun and Bass, a music festival, for the first week, and the second week usually somewhere else: previously Florence. I already posted the Sun n Bass photos a while back, but never got around to these, mostly because it’s a lot to get through and I always had a quick win that I could post and get on with things, and then… a lot of other things happened.
The first thing that happened is that I got serious about finishing San Pablo. I made a final edit, printed work prints, stared at them for two months, and finally sequenced them in what I’ve been calling ‘vibe order’. Then I put them in a really simply laid out photo book and had that printed through Blurb.
Then I decided for this fall, to take a cross country motorcycle trip instead of flying to Europe. That took a couple of months to prepare for, and a bunch of stuff that would normally live on here ended up over there. I may copy those posts over, or I may make a static site for it, not sure. I need to stop sending buttondown $30/mo to not send emails, for sure though.
I did that, published a newsletter post every day I was out, and then when I got back re-formatted everything into a magazine that I still need to to quite a bit of work to. I think I don’t like the way I designed it at all, and I might make it a small landscape book instead. Anyway.
Enough words for now. More Porto next time.
Copyright © 2008-Forever, Matt Mills.
