Reunited and It Feels So Good…

Denise is back! She arrived last week, much to the delight of Coco and me: the pack is back together. It was an arduous 30-hour journey for her, from Portland, Oregon to Porto, Portugal, with stops in Los Angeles, Paris, and Madrid before finally touching down here late Tuesday night. With an itinerary like that, it would take her a few days to get reacquainted with Portuguese time but she was up on Wednesday morning, ready to start exploring Porto, despite the jetlag. 

Before moving on to present day highlights, we should say that Finn is back in Portland and doing great: he’s moved into our basement apartment and got his old job back at Settlemiers, working on the design team, doing collaborations with Nike. Denise wants to name check some of the many family and friends who helped her and Finn in small and big ways during her time in the States, and are continuing to help in so many ways! Big cheers and thanks to Nora and Ken Ross, Reilly, Sarah Whistler, Marianne Mullen and Chris Cirillo, Connie Hendrix and Todd Freeman, Sean and Izumi Mullen, Joe and Becca Mullen, Bridget Stolee, Ann and Sean Mullen, Karen and John from next door, Eileen and Richard Stolee, Holly Haber, Greg Perrin and Gail Butensky, Pat and Tim, Pat Slattery, Therese Randall, Vicki and Rosie Amorose, Blake Swensen, Katie Boucher, Chuck and Karen Michener, Maureen and Louie Melchor, Mark and Elaine Israel, and Ginni Harriman. All stand and take a bow. Now it’s back to Porto!

Naturally, the first place I had to show her was Coco’s dog park, where she had learned some new tricks. With Denise gone for seven weeks, I took over as Coco’s alpha human by default, much to Dee’s chagrin, so she’s working on regaining her “top-dog” status. After that, it was off to the Ribeira, or riverfront, where we had fallen in love with Porto in 2019, pausing for some glamor shots on the Dom Luîs I Bridge. The next few days, we did more of the same, exploring parts of the city that I had uncovered in her absence. It was fun seeing the places through Denise’s eyes and she pointed out a lot of things that I had missed. 

Unfortunately, we then lost a few days to a bout of Covid that Denise caught either in Portland or in her travels. Luckily, thanks to my nursing training, I managed to avoid contagion. In addition, her arrival coincided with the rainy season here and so our wanderings are generally timed to avoid the worst of the downpours. We are from the Pacific Northwest so, naturally, we have good rain gear — the Tripeiros seem to prefer the umbrella as the first line of defense against the moisture — but it’s still a lot less fun to walk around when it’s raining. Sometimes, we get lucky and make it home before the downpours, and other times we arrive drenched. What can you do? I should mention that Coco hates the rain and will often flat out refuse to walk when it’s more than drizzling. We’ve gotten our steps in when possible but we’ve also received numerous warnings from the Portugal Emergency Notification Service via text about “coastal events” and “heavy rain, localized flooding, and high winds.” My advice to tourists planning on visiting northern Portugal on the Atlantic Ocean would be to get out by mid-October at the latest. 

We are leaving here next week, heading south to the drier, warmer, and, hopefully, sunnier Algarve district of Portugal, staying in Altura, a small, rural town hard by the Atlantic. After seven weeks in the big city, I’m ready for some small town energy. Today, I purposefully stepped in front of a speeding BMW — always the German cars —  that was barreling down the small alley near our house at a dangerous speed. This same guy had nearly hit Coco the other day as I struggled to get her out of the way so I was ready for him this time. After he stopped, I gave him some helpful tips on his driving style and he let me know what he thought of my mother. I think it’s time I got to a remote area with fewer cars and fewer people. The best part of our next stop is that our oldest son Reilly is going to join us for a week or so. He found a cheap airfare from Portland and is looking forward to spending a week with us on the beach, his happy place. We are getting another car from the French leasing scheme before we head down that way so we’ll be able to explore the Algarve and parts of Andalucia in Spain. We were planning a trip with Reilly to Morocco but their recent earthquake put an end to that adventure. 

I feel like I’ve covered Porto pretty well in previous editions so, for the rest of the story, we’ll let the photos and the captions (mis)lead you.

Okay, that’s enough of that! We’ll report in from the Algarve soon!