Greetings friends & family,
As I am writing to you today I am recovering from Covid. I guess that I should be thankful that I didn't lose my sense of taste or smell but I certainly was extremely congested and my cough was ridiculous. I'm not sure where I picked it up. We had been in Italy for two weeks, arriving home early in the morning on Sunday, June 23. In order to catch our flight we had to get up at 3:30 a.m. to catch a ride from the hotel driver, which was delayed a bit because he overslept and then the hotel van's battery was dead. The driver finally got us to the airport for our 6 a.m. flight and we landed in Porto at 8 a.m.
That same evening we had tickets to attend a big event down at the riverfront celebrating São João, which I wrote about last year in June. This is the event where everyone carries a plastic hammer and hits people gently on the head. The event we attended was held at WOW(World of Wine) which is on the Gaia side of the river, overlooking Porto. There was lots of food to choose from including grilled sardines and grilled pork as well as a variety of wines and beer. A band was playing on the outdoor patio where we were seated and as the sun went down many people started lighting the lanterns and letting them float up into the sky. An hour later you could see glowing lanterns across the sky. FYI, air traffic control actually has to divert planes for a few hours because of all these lanterns. All was well until we left at midnight to find our Uber driver and couldn't. It was all very frustrating and with the amount of people in attendance, both at our event and along the waterfront, it was just crazy. After finally giving up on ever finding our driver or him finding us, we headed down to the waterfront thinking we would walk across the bridge to the other side and find a way home. Sadly, that's not what happened because we immediately become stuck in the biggest mass of people I've ever seen. We were shoulder to shoulder, jammed like sardines, literally not moving and with nowhere to go. There were people with kids and little babies stuck in the crowd. As more and more people were preparing to go home (or join the walk to the ocean which starts at midnight on the Porto side) this mass of people grew and grew. We were all thinking that we would move forward toward the entrance to the bridge, however there were very few moments when we would have success taking 5-10 steps before stopping again and waiting. An hour and a half later we were close enough to see that foot traffic had been stopped on the bridge because an ambulance was stopped in the middle of it. At that point we finally were able to make an escape from the crowd and walk up a steep hill to get to the top of the bridge where the Metro line runs. Of course, the first Metro stop in that area had been blocked off completely with chain-link fencing due to all the crowds so we had to walk a few blocks to catch the Metro (as did thousands of others). By now it was about 2:30 a.m. When the next Metro car arrived we were again packed like sardines and still had to change trains at the main station. I will say that while no one enjoyed being packed inside, everyone was very civil. When we finally arrived at our Metro stop, which is about 20 minutes from our home, we tried once more to call an Uber but to no avail. So we walked home, arriving at 3:45 and falling into bed at 4 a.m. While we were stuck in the mass of bodies I kept thinking that this was the perfect place to catch Covid. And no, we hadn't expected for this to happen so we didn't have masks with us. It was an outdoor event and we thought we were going to Uber home. Lesson learned ... next year we will choose a different spot from which to watch the festivities.
The following day, Monday, was my first and only chance to meet with my partner to practice for our final oral test which was scheduled for Tuesday 6/25. I hadn't had any time to practice while in Italy and was totally unprepared. Nevertheless, on Tuesday we sat for our oral exam ... 15 minutes of conversing while playing various roles. Rather than knowing how to describe symptoms to a pharmacist and asking for drugs, we also had to know what the pharmacist would say because we could be assigned either role once in front of the instructors. It was the same for a scene in a restaurant where one of us had to be the waiter, and at the grocery store, where one person had to be the clerk. All I can say is that the points received for the oral portion are but a small portion of the overall grade. I didn't feel well and I didn't perform well. Nick and I both missed the final written exams for our classes while in Italy so our make-up date was set for Thursday 6/27. We both spent all day Wednesday studying/cramming, all the while I was getting sicker. On Thursday afternoon we showed up and spent 4 hours ... yes, 4 freaking hours completing our written tests. Our previous two tests only took 1.5-2 hours to complete however the final tests were both long and crazy difficult. On the way home I decided to stop at the pharmacy and, using my best Portuguese, I described my symptoms and got two different drugs to help. Later that night I recalled that we had Covid tests at home so the following morning I tested myself and the result was positive almost immediately. Thankfully, no one I came in contact with has come down with Covid.
Thankfully today I'm feeling a lot better than I have. My last class for A1 is on Wednesday though Nick's A2 class doesn't end until 7/11. Friday night is a big dinner at the school for all the students who attend classes there.
Our two week trip to Italy was great. We met up with Erinn and my two grandchildren in Rome and spent time with them touring the Colosseum, the Pantheon, The Forum, etc. One day we took a tour of Pompeii which also included a visit to Positano on the Amalfi Coast where we had a great day and beautiful weather. The following day we headed to Florence where we spent another six days in that lovely city. Our Airbnb was located in a very cool, trendy neighborhood about a 20+ minute walk to Ponte Vecchio in the historic district. The owner of the Airbnb is married to a well known contemporary artist from Florence, Sergio Cerchi, and all the artwork inside were originals by him. I've included a few of them. The one with the lemon shaped timer was hanging in the kitchen above a shelf where the actual lemon timer was sitting. Very clever staging. We had a guided tour of the David, which was very educational and interesting and then we visited the DaVinci Museum, another fascinating place. The kids toured Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens on their own, since we've both done that previously. Zoe enjoyed her first virgin Aperol Spritz and Owen was busy trying to learn to speak some words in Italian. He has a remarkable ear for it. He also has a great sense of direction which we sometimes needed.
Finally, on June 29th we celebrated our two year anniversary living in Porto. It's hard to believe that it's already been two years. Sadly, thanks to my Covid, we had to cancel our celebratory dinner with friends scheduled that night but we'll reschedule it soon. Wishing you all a good summer.
Adeus, abraços e beijos.