Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Cape Crusaders -- A PortoPerish Special (Part One of Two!)

The trip is long over, and you're wondering where the report on Porto is.  And you're wondering if I'm going to call this a RePorto.™ Well it's here, and I am.

Part of the reason for the delay is that on day 16 of our 19 days abroad, I became a broken man.

The culprit?  This:


The traditional Francesinha sandwich...


...also known as the "Little Frenchie," which makes no sense, since it is the size of my fat face.  They're available at just about every restaurant and cafe throughout Porto.  We got ours at the Majestic...


...where I also drank a delicious mojito made with Port!

And although we had been walking many, many kilomiles each day throughout this trip, this sandwich conquered me in a pretty significant way.   Perhaps it is because I ate this for dinner on the same day I had ice cream and cereal for breakfast

Flashback Flakes!  
Now part of your complete Blogfast®

…or perhaps it's because the sandwich has ham, pork, sausage, roast beef and like six other meats, all covered in a thick layer of cheese and gravy.

It. Was. Delicious.  Even if it did put me into a coma for a little while.

And now, without further adieu...I present to you, The RePorto™

PART ONE:  
CAPE CRUSADERS

After checking into our hotel in Porto...


...Donna, Jon and I wandered around the city, and I immediately noticed something strange...


Capes.

Lots of people wearing capes.


And guess what?  They were pretty awesome.


I wanted one.

I needed one.

And so, our main goal throughout our final stop of this tour:  Find. Me. A. Cape.

We searched everywhere our fat, aching feet would take us. 

High…


...and low...


We tried the retail route, and asked a sales clerk if he had any leads...


…but despite his beautiful smile, his sexy, porcelain-like skin...   


....and our obvious romantic connection, he wasn't very helpful.

 And yes, for the record, I did try to put out. 

We were getting nowhere fast, so we took our search to the streets...


...but we didn't get very fur...


Also, in case you're wondering, this is all totally true, and not at all an excuse to spice up yet another lazy photo essay from this vacation. 







Honest.


Anyway, back to our quest.  

We tried to ask the locals...


...but they were mostly unhelpful.


Eventually, we stumbled upon a group of cape-ers wandering around, chanting.

But as soon as they saw the cameras, they vanished, seemingly into thin air...


...or perhaps they just walked away.  My memory’s a little hazy.

Once the sun went down, more cape wearers began to appear...


...we followed one and he lead us to an entire group of them!  And they were chanting!  

(No, this part's serious.  There were like thirty of them, and they were chanting.)

When they saw us with our cameras, they immediately stopped chanting (I'm not joking) and asked us to stop taking photographic evidence (this part is totally true.  For realz, yo.)

We complied, because we were frightened, and quite obviously dealing with some sort of cult... perhaps a group of youths practicing the dark arts!

The plot thickens!  

Ponder THAT as you look at some street art...






Since we were in over our heads on this, we spent the next day looking for clues.  The first place we checked upon waking up was the local graveyard.  


Because obviously, that's where dark arts are always practiced! Duh.





We dug around as much as we could...






...but it was clear to us that we were hitting another dead end.



Obviously, we were barking up the wrong tree...


...and the situation was turning grave...



...so we moved on.



Once we left the cemetery, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being watched...


...my fears were confirmed almost immediately, when my own sister was attacked in broad daylight...


...by an unruly pigeon.


Brutal.  


After that shitty incident, Donna and I decided to continue our search inside of a local weirdo bar...



...which, we hoped, would be dripping with information.


Everything seemed to be going well...


...but before we could even ask about the capes, Donna again fell victim to an attack! 


This time, in the form of Black Vodka!  One sip, and she was a goner!


I knew it could only be the Caped Ones.  Like evil Batmen, they were trying to destroy us!  Dark Artists, using Darkness to try and conquer us!  But they didn't count on Jon and I being there to help!

We looked everywhere for a way to reverse the spell.


First, we tried the water...


...but we didn't have much luck.


Next, we tried Lello & Irmão Bookstore...


...known for its architectural beauty...


...and rich literary history...


...it's even been said that JK Rowling was inspired by this place to create the world of Harry Potter.


We were just beginning our search when we were asked to leave, for some reason...


...thwarted again!

Back on the streets again, we explored some churches...




But we were running out of ideas, brah...


...and Donna was getting crazier! 


Luckily we stumbled upon some ancient catacombs.  


Our plan was to use the spirits to help us drive the dark forces out of Donna!  


Or just leave her there if we couldn't fix her.


We knew it wouldn't be easy...but we had to try!



A couple of selfie spells later...


...and Donna was good as new!




It was quite the harrowing experience!


This is pretty much exactly how it happened....



...and to reiterate...


...this was definitely NOT an elaborate lie to take you through another lame photo journey throughout Porto...


...but thanks for asking.



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