Portugal Blog Coning Soon… But First a Quick Journal

2024-02-23

I’m currently in Portugal on my eighth day of my trip with my mom. We spent the first half of the trip in Lisbon then moved on to Porto for the latter half.

View outside our Airbnb

As we have been constantly out and about exploring the cities, my mom suggested that she would stay in for the day today. I decided to be lazy with her in the morning, watching the harsh rain interrupting many travellers’ itineraries, watching volleyball (important one between 대한항공 and 삼성화재 in favour of 한국전력) and eating the leftover seafood rice & cheesecake from the day before. When the weather cleared a bit, I got ready to venture on my own for the afternoon. The back and forth between sunshine and rain didn’t make the walk easy but I got lucky not getting stuck under the downpour.

View after having walked up a very steep side street

After roaming around the neighbourhood which we haven’t been to, I searched Google Maps for cafe options so I can grab a drink and sweets. After not-settling for the first couple places I found, I entered a cafe called ‘Combi’ just at the ourskirts of the core Porto downtown.

As I found a seat with my mocha and nata, another rainfall came down strong. What a relief it was that I found a refuge just in time!

Mocha with oat milk

Today is the day where I spoke the least, as mom and I kept to ourselves during the morning except for when we had breakfast. This level of non-speech is my norm so I feel comfortable at the moment, although I’m grateful for mom’s presence on this trip. I keep thinking about how it’d have been if I stuck with the original plan, which was to travel on my own. The solo travel definitely would have had its own pros and I’d have enjoyed it nonetheless, but I’ve gained wonderful new memories with mom, benefited from the ‘엄마찬스‘ and had a better overall trip with such a wonderful travel companion. She is intellectual, open-minded, expressive and loving. She appreciates and respects my decisions, suggestions and desires for different travel itinerary items.

Although I have a decent amount of travelling experience under my sleeve, it is exciting that there’s still a lot of ‘life’ that I’ve yet to live. I hope to use this experience as fuel for my life back at home in order to grow, and become a better person with even more broadened perspective.