Beginning Our Journey and Butchering a Lovely Language
We began our trip on the “glamping” version of the Camino by flying straight to Porto, the second largest city in Portugal. I think the flight was great because there was no one sitting in the middle seat, and we only felt marginally like “sardines.”
Upon arrival at the hotel, we were confronted with our usual problems, like how the bloody lights turn on and off. Our young porter explained in great detail, the complexities of our room’s light system and all I wanted to say was that I had just spent four hours sleeping on my airplane seat’s tray table, so he needed to go a little slower. I am all for supporting the environment, but upon leaving the room, does shutting off all things electrical save that much energy? I think not.
We spent the day first, on a walking tour and then roaming around on our own. The citizens of this fair city are so friendly, and it’s clear that they want we, the tourists to be happy here and will do anything to help us towards that end.
Take for example, our attempts to speak their language. While we both try to be “global citizens,”our feeble attempts to speak the native language often falls short. The heart of the problem on this trip was because our Portuguese language studies consisted of a few language cassettes (that’s right, “cassettes”) we listened to 35 years ago before visiting Portugal for the first time on our honeymoon and whatever we remembered from the Colin Firth/“Aurelia” story line from “Love Actually.” Even with such a limited language foundation, this did not deter the townspeople from correcting our pronunciation every time—and they did it with such sincerity. This included a taxi driver slowing down the car just to assist with our butchering of his language. If this scenario took place in America, I think there would have been some major eye rolling going on.
My tray table sleeping has caught up with me, and I am ready to call it a night. “Buon noit Jaime.” (If you don’t get that, you clearly haven’t watched “Love Actually” enough.) Tomorrow, we are going on a river cruise and will stop at local vineyards that produce port wine. Not to worry, my sea bands are already packed.
Upon arrival at the hotel, we were confronted with our usual problems, like how the bloody lights turn on and off. Our young porter explained in great detail, the complexities of our room’s light system and all I wanted to say was that I had just spent four hours sleeping on my airplane seat’s tray table, so he needed to go a little slower. I am all for supporting the environment, but upon leaving the room, does shutting off all things electrical save that much energy? I think not.
We spent the day first, on a walking tour and then roaming around on our own. The citizens of this fair city are so friendly, and it’s clear that they want we, the tourists to be happy here and will do anything to help us towards that end.
Take for example, our attempts to speak their language. While we both try to be “global citizens,”our feeble attempts to speak the native language often falls short. The heart of the problem on this trip was because our Portuguese language studies consisted of a few language cassettes (that’s right, “cassettes”) we listened to 35 years ago before visiting Portugal for the first time on our honeymoon and whatever we remembered from the Colin Firth/“Aurelia” story line from “Love Actually.” Even with such a limited language foundation, this did not deter the townspeople from correcting our pronunciation every time—and they did it with such sincerity. This included a taxi driver slowing down the car just to assist with our butchering of his language. If this scenario took place in America, I think there would have been some major eye rolling going on.
My tray table sleeping has caught up with me, and I am ready to call it a night. “Buon noit Jaime.” (If you don’t get that, you clearly haven’t watched “Love Actually” enough.) Tomorrow, we are going on a river cruise and will stop at local vineyards that produce port wine. Not to worry, my sea bands are already packed.
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