A pretty good day

So, after posting a bunch of stuff this morning, I went out on the town. Town being Porto, Portugal, of course. First, I gotta tell you about this room. It's a tiny, dingy room on the top floor (4th, but 5th to all you yanks,) of this rat trap of a fleabag hotel in downtown Porto. The toilet is down the hall, but it's missing a light, so I use the one on the 3rd floor. The shower is on the 3rd floor, too. Shared with who knows how many people. The manager told me to lock my moto to a tree out front on the sidewalk so it doesn't get stolen. Last night, there were a bunch of idiotic tourists (I assume,) screaming at the top of their lungs at 3am. (Why do idiots insist on proclaiming their stupidity so loudly?)

Anyway, this morning, I left the hotel and headed for the Casa da Musica. It's a new concert venue designed by Rem Koolhas, and it really is great. Stainless steel all around, with curved glass walls, stone, and colored paving. Hi tech all the way. and beautiful. They even have an area where you can make electronic music on your own, and cut a CD of it, too. I may go there later for a latin music concert with Chuchu Valdes.
After that, I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art. The museum is great, but the major part of the exhibition was devoted to a video artist of some repute. Sorry, the emperor/artist isn't wearing any clothes. Boring waste of time. Not so for the grounds. A beautiful park/farm in the city with some cool art, too.

After that, I zipped down to the coast and checked out a bunch of surf spots. I found one with some real promise, called ironically, English Beach. It looked so good, I beat feet back to the hotel, grabbed my gear and raced back to the beach. I was putting on my fins when the lifeguard came and tried to talk me out of it. He _really_ didn't want me going out. The surf was almost head high and broke off some rocks at the edge of a small pocket beach. He talked about the current, etc, yadda yadda, but he said he couldn't keep me from going out. So I went out. The waves were OK, a bit mushy and not really steep enough faces to bodysurf, but I caught a couple of fun ones. Just getting in the water with energy was great. After 40 minutes, 4 other surfers came out and told me the whole beach was concerned about my safety. hmmpf. One surfer said they called the cops. After an hour or so, I swam in. When I hit the beach and came in through the 4' shorebreak, there was applause. It seemed really silly, so I jumped back in the water and did some stupid pratfall stuff. The lifeguard, a city official, and a lady psychologist talked to me about my experience. The woman was really impressed that being a waterman was so easy for me. (Seems a bit weird for us BSers, I know.) The lifeguard eventually said I could have been arrested, because there was a blackball, even though he said he couldn't stop me earlier. I asked him if he was concerned about the boardsurfers, too, and he mumbled something.

After I left the beach, I rode back to town and found a little place called Vinologia. It's a bar that specializes in port wine. Being a port novice, I tried the top end 3 glass taster - white, tawny and ruby. That was so good, I had to have another glass of good tawny. The waiter/owner told me a bit about port wine and put a bowl of a dried apricot, chocolate, and a prune on the table to go with the 3 glasses. It was delicious. I'm now hooked. While I was drinking, 3 people came and sat next to me. Two ladies from Santa Rosa (one a winemaker,) and a Portugese man who makes port wine. In the next half hour, I got a lesson in the port wine industry.
In any case, I am now 19 Euros lighter and tipsy again, but really happy, too.  ;-)
So I think I need to get some food in me and maybe go listen to some good music.
Later.

2 views from my hotel room. The door on the right is the toilet.

 The Casa da Musica:

Scenes around Porto:

 Vinologia: