Porto, Portugal and a Huge, Awesome Festival!!!!

 On the way to Porto (pronounced Portu) by bus, we had to make a stop at Coimbra (pronounced queem brah), and I was getting hungry. Next to the bus stop was a fancy McDonald's that had giant iPads that you could watch tv and play games on. 

When we got to Porto, we found out that there was a feast of Saint John of Porto going on that day. I took a picture of small sweet basil bushes and these cool toy hammers that made a squeaky noise. The hammers were a symbol of courtship, and the basil was given to your girlfriend or boyfriend. They were selling them all over the town. We saw all of this, but didn't really know what they were for (see later on!)

Next to all that there was a big thing of cherries.

On our way down from the hotel, we saw many things. And most of those things were churches. 

In front of one church there was something called a sunwheel, a live art project, and I tried to turn it because it looked easy, but it was a lot harder than I thought. But I still did it anyways.

Further on, we saw the rock stage that was going to be playing during the festival that night.

We kind of drifted off to the side after we saw the stage, and the first thing we noticed were these barrels. I didn't know what they were and at first thought they were oil, but mommy told me they were kegs of beer, also for the festival.

Further down, we saw a McDonald's that had an eagle made of stone on top of the name.

A statue of a newsman holding up the paper.

Next we went to the train station just to take a look. It was full of tiles showing historic moments.

Outside of the train station, there was a cool rock with tiles melted onto it.

Since it was in season, I decided I should get one of the hammer things to hit people on the head with, cuz that's what you do on this festival. 

Here's a picture of me fighting with a random girl on the street with the hammer. I found out that you hit people on the head as a sign of love or play.

Further down on that street there was a cool ball that had all of these hammers sticking out of it. On the entrance, there was a sign that said gira, which means to turn and also means pretty. I got in and we spun around in it.

We took a left across the waterfront, and we came across a shop that had a cool bowl in it.

Here's a tile of Saint John.

Still on the waterfront, we noticed that a lot of things were decorated with balloons and streamers and colorful things, so I took a picture.

After a while, people started really getting wild, and they were listening to music and dancing with their hammers and hitting people on the head.

I kinda got in the party, and there was this awesome dude that let me take a picture of him. 

Since it was the waterfront, there was the Douro river, which means golden river. On the water there were lots of beautiful boats.

We also saw a bridge that had this really cool pattern, and Victormama told us that the man who made it was Gustave Eiffel, the same man who built the Eiffel Tower!

We wanted to see the city on the other side of the bridge called Vilanova de Gaia, so we crossed the bridge, which was closed to cars because of the festival.

A beautiful picture with the boats and the bridge. Gaia is known for its Port wine making (more on that later!)

On the other side there was a cool lift that went upwards - a sky lift.

I'd been noticing a couple of these. In Portuguese they're called farturas. They were churros! I always wanted to try churros, and here I am eating a strawberry jam filled churro!

After that, it was time for dinner, so we went to a restaurant that was also a gift shop. 

On the festival, they also light lanterns, and I got a picture of the very first one. 

After dark, the party really started. I started bonking people on the head like crazy, and it was REALLY fun!!!

I got a video of some people setting a lantern.

After some more walking, we came across the stage, and it would have been way too blurry if I took a picture of the actual stage, so I took a picture of the screen that was videoing the stage.

After that, we made our way back down to the waterfront, to see the best part of all. Fireworks at midnight! It was a firework show on the river - there were fireworks dropping from the bridge, and shooting from the bridge, and also from the boats on the river.

This is me after the fireworks. This is one of the biggest festivals in Europe, and over 200,000 people were there. There were so many people, that it took us 2 hours to walk home afterwards, all uphill!