OMG the best sushi EVER!

Had a couple of mediocre dinners the last couple of nights. Went to an Indian food place that was raved about near the surfing school/memorial to the fishermen in Porto that turned out to be less than spectacular. Who makes papadam with no spices?!?! Then yesterday had dinner at Ricardo's fave chinese place. I ordered some sushi because Ricardo and Sandro had never tried before and I asked the owner whether or not the fish was fresh. She said yes and when we got it the sushi was frozen solid! I inquired about this and she said "oh we get it fresh but then we put it in the refrigerator, it must be turned too cold." YEAH RIGHT. Anyway, the food here was mediocre, but it was great company and I was beyond happy seeing my old friends again.

Today we slept in a bit as it was Irene's day off and we headed into Porto to see a Greenpeace demonstration that Vera was participating in. Portugal apparently eats more fish than the rest of Europe combined!! But the way they catch fish prevents future generations from really growing because they catch fish that are too small. One of the supermarkets - Pingo Doce - really doesn't monitor the size of the fish, just buys whatever is cheap, etc. So they won the award for "worst in terms of disregard of fishing standards." Greenpeace had a huge trophy made for this - it was so crazy!!

We were about to walk to the music center to take a look when Irene saw a Japanese restaurant and mentioned wanting sushi. I thought hey why not and off we went down this very dark, Hollywood-esque staircase into this basement restaurant. The menu looked great, the restaurant was very chic-zen styled-out and there was a wonderful set menu that I decided to order from for both Irene and I. HOLY COW we had like 4 courses of the most amazing sushi, tempura, katsu, sashimi and panacotta. WOW. I'm going back, no joke. It was the best sushi I think I've ever had.

Vera met up with us after her Greenpeace debrief and we walked over to the music center to see the architecture and a cafe that we came across in a magazine on Porto. It was pretty cool, a little modern and very metal, but hey I used to live behind the Disney Music Hall so I'm used to modern and metal, right? The cafe patio was amazing though. Like a huge checkerboard and amazing views of all of Porto out to the sea! We had a few coffees, I got a little further sunburnt and we headed home to get ready for a BBQ at the Turkish association that Vera is a part of.

Turkish BBQ was awesome, met all these nice people, learned what an Erasmus student is, had my coffee grinds read for me, and generally enjoyed myself thoroughly thoroughly. I don't know what it is about this country, but between my friends and the atmosphere, I just love it here so very much!!

Went home with Vera since Irene was sleeping in Braga and that house has 8 cats so I descend quickly into anaphylactic shock as we learned the night before. Rita drove us back in her 2 seater so Vera got into the trunk!!! Gosh, between the time we stuffed 7 huge Africans and me into a dinky little car in Bangui and this, I think I've experienced just about every shenanigan you can imagine transporting people in a car!!