Somewhere Between the First and Last Walk

GRIP: Wine, Heritage, and Hospitality in Porto, Portugal

Dusk along the Douro River with traditional rabelo boats and the Dom Luís I Bridge.

Somewhere between my first and last walk down to the Douro River, a place I had never lived started to feel like home.

When I first arrived in Porto, I was still figuring everything out. The streets were unfamiliar, I did not know my way around, and I had no idea what a normal day would eventually look like. Within a few weeks, the city started to develop its own rhythm. Five days a week, I would make my way to Churchill’s Lodge, where I worked in hospitality serving wine. I got to know my coworkers, learned the pace of a shift, and became comfortable with the little routines that make a workplace feel familiar. Outside of work, my friends and I developed our own routines too. We knew where we liked to eat, where we would end up at night, and the streets we could walk without thinking about where we were going. The Douro became the place I would go when I had nowhere else I needed to be. I walked down there on my first day in Porto, and I found myself returning throughout the summer, sometimes with friends and sometimes alone. By the end, I did not have to think about how to get there. I just knew the way.

That is what made this summer feel different from a trip. I was not simply visiting Portugal. I had somewhere to be every morning. I had people expecting me at work. I had friends to meet later that night. I had a commute, a favorite place to walk, and another day waiting for me when I woke up. Churchill’s became a surprisingly important part of that. Some of my favorite memories from the summer came from moments that would sound completely unremarkable to anyone else: something funny happening during a shift, talking with a coworker on the way home, or laughing with friends after a long day. They were not the moments I expected to remember when I left for Portugal, but they were the moments that slowly made the city feel like mine.

There were, of course, plenty of moments that felt much bigger than everyday life. I kayaked through the caves of the Algarve, hiked through the clouds in Madeira, spent nights in Ibiza, wandered through Madrid, and stood atop the Eiffel Tower. There were times when I would stop and think about how unbelievable it was that I was actually there. But now, looking through my camera roll from home, I find myself smiling at something different. It is the five-second video of my friends laughing at something stupid. It is a random moment at work. It is a clip from a night in Porto that I barely remember taking. The big experiences are the easiest to recognize as memories while they are happening. The ordinary ones usually are not.

I think part of the reason I noticed them was because I spent the summer without cell data. On my first day, I discovered that my phone was locked into a contract and could not use data abroad. At the time, it felt like a disaster. I had just arrived in a new country and suddenly could not constantly pull up a map, search for a restaurant, or check where I was going. Instead, I had to pay attention. I learned streets by memory and started recognizing landmarks. I asked people for directions. I walked through unfamiliar cities without always knowing exactly where I was going. On my commute and on walks through Porto, I had nothing to do but look around and think.

What surprised me was not just that I could live without my phone. It was how differently I used it when I did have it. Without the constant ability to check what everyone else was doing, I stopped feeling like I needed to document what I was doing for anyone else. I could take a five-second video because my friend said something funny, not because it was worth posting. I could sit by the river without worrying about getting the right picture. I could walk home from work with nothing but my thoughts and some music. I was still taking pictures and videos all summer, but they became less about proving where I was and more about saving the little pieces of the life I was actually living.

That is probably why those videos mean so much to me now. When I look back, I do not necessarily want to return to the top of the Eiffel Tower or recreate the perfect travel picture. I want to hear my friends laughing again. I want to be back at Churchill’s after a shift, walking home through streets that I no longer had to think about navigating. I want another night in Porto that starts without a plan and ends with everyone wondering how it got so late. I want to walk down to the Douro and sit there for a while, knowing I have nowhere else to be.

On my last day in Porto, I walked down to the river one more time. It was the same walk I had taken on my first day, except now I knew every turn. I did not need a map. I did not need to look at my phone. I just walked. I sat by the river for a while and watched the boats pass, the restaurants fill up, and people move along the water, just as they had throughout the summer. Nothing about the scene was particularly different. I was.

For two months, those ordinary moments were simply my life. I did not know which ones I would miss, because I was too busy living them. Now, looking back at the little videos and memories I brought home, I think that is what made this summer so special. I did not just get to see incredible places. I got to know what it felt like to belong somewhere I had never expected to call home.