McDonalds was our saving grace the night before and we woke up renewed with hope: tablets are allowed at meals, hallelujah! We had a full day planned for our last full day in Porto starting with an art class where we would learn about and paint our own Azulejos – the traditional tile that adorns most every Portuguese building.
Our teacher was knowledgable, patient and engaging working with the adults and then helping the kids do their tracing. He was just patient enough to give everyone their artistic space and would helpfully swoop in when our handiwork threatened to butcher his culture beyond recognition. The end results won’t be displayed on any important buildings any time soon, but I know a spot in our garden where they’ll blend in just fine!
We roamed around the city a bit before handling some much needed laundry chores and got ready for the days main event: an afternoon and evening spent at The World of Wine – a big museum complex with 6 different exhibits all dedicated to various aspects of basket weaving.
Just kidding, it’s all about wine, duh.
We chose to take a tuk-tuk ride over to our destination and it was quickly declared the kids’ favorite mode of transportation. And here we thought we’d have to go to Thailand for this experience!
Despite being dedicated to the theme of wine, the museums are amazingly kid friendly, the exhibits are all interactive and for any tasting experience they have sparkling grape juice on stand by. The kids favorites were the Planet Cork (I learned a lot as well!) and the Pink Palace where we all got to jump and play in a neon pink ball pit pool. This place is clearly an instagrammers dream, with photo ops and props everywhere. Luckily being there midweek before most schools are out in Europe meant we had the place pretty much to ourselves.
We finished up with enough time to walk over to our dinner experience for the night. This restaurant has epic views over the river, bridge and Porto PLUS a kids menu that included pasta and salmon – two things my kids will absolutely eat. This will be a fantastic way to end our stay in Porto!
Do you hear that? The sound of the universe cackling? Sigh. We didn’t either.
We had noticed a trend with restaurants during our very brief time here, namely that they don’t open for dinner until 7 PM. For a regular adult meal time that seems perfectly reasonable, with kids it’s been a bit challenging. Add in the country motto of 2+ hour long meals and…we knew to be as prepared as possible for a later night. Coloring books were packed, uno was packed, tablets were packed. We got this.
*hehehe*
The weather had turned a bit chilly but we gamely chose an outdoor spot to fully soak in the epic views and eventual sunset. The manager was kind enough to bring out a blanket for the kiddos as this was the one day we failed to pack our sweaters. We oohed and aaahed over the scenery. We enjoyed the kids drawings. We waited.
And waited.
And waited.
At the 30 minute mark all the tables got bread service. It was like a coordinated dance. Then Arthur fell out of his chair, knocking it over in the process. Much fuss was made, ice was offered, many waitstaff checked on us but no one asked us what we’d like to drink. I edged our drink order in and it was promptly whisked away before I could also start ordering food.
You know where this is going. Kids are now tired, hungry, cranky and, in Arthurs case, moderately injured and embarassed. The adults are now tired, hungry, cranky and moderately embarassed. Where was McDonalds when you need him?
We eventually received our drinks, we later were able to order, and by around 9 PM we received our food, had moved inside, and were firmly in a “whatever, man” state of mind. It was genuinely funny to overhear a patrons response when they were asked how everything was upon leaving – they simply said “Not good”.
The staff couldn’t have been kinder, they definitely could have been faster. At the end of the day Arthur declared his pasta “the best”, Zeke loved his salmon “with lime” (it was lemon), and the kids dessert came with three scoops of icecream. If the kids are happy, I’m happy.
But wait, there’s more!
It is now around 10 PM, we are about 1.5 miles from our apartment and Porto is extremely hilly. Not to mention we have two exhausted kids and only one of them is border line carry-able. The restaurant calls a Taxi for us and we think nothing of it. We accidentally almost steal someone else’s Uber – which we hadn’t even thought of as an option til that moment – the women in the group were insistent that we stay in the Uber when they saw we had two kids, but our taxi arrived at that exact moment so we switched. As we were getting sorted I call out to the Uber driver “are Ubers better than the taxis?” He gave a noncommittal shrug in the universal symbol of “meh?”. It was definitely a sign. We pile into our taxi and he starts driving before my door is closed.
Thus began the wildest 1.5 mile ride of our lives. Our driver spoke no english (not a knock, just adding to the scene!) and drove two speeds: ‘bat out of hell’ and ‘brake pedal against floorboard’. There are lots of pedestrians out and about, the largest roads in the city are barely large enough for a city bus, I jokingly ask about the number of pedestrians hit per year which was met with stoney silence.
Jokes on me because as we were coming up to our stop our driver wrecked into a car. Cue immediate WTF. I get the kids out, everyone is fine if a little shocked, the taxi car is a bit banged up on the side. The driver apologizes the best he can and declares “It’s fine”.
Indeed.
We walk back to the apartment and Adam realizes that the Uber estimate for the ride back was 20 minutes.
We had made it back in 4.
Uber: for when you don’t want to die getting home.
