Finding My Footsteps

It was my final day in Portugal and I was in Porto, sitting at an outside table at a Turkish restaurant, right next to the McDonald’s restaurant which was famous for its beautiful building. Vegan Francesinha After a week or more here, I wanted something different to codfish that was on every menu or francesinha, a generously cheese-coated sandwich of epic proportions and calories. A simple falafel doner kebab would suit me (and my recently healed gut) just fine while I thought about everything I saw over the past week in this beautiful country.  I wouldn’t say I loved the food here…. Not even the kebab tasted of much, however €8 for a kebab, fries and a can of peach iced tea was cheaper than McDonalds! I had spent the previous three days in Porto, one discovering the downtown touristy streets and nightlife, the second was at the Fox do Douro where I discovered mature and flowering Pohutukawa trees along the coast, and the third day was at the Douro Valley with its epic views of...

Back in France I had bought some olive oil at a vineyard because it tasted so good.  I quickly found out, however, that the bottle didn’t seal completely.   It leaked a little so I stored it inside two ziplock bags and placed it in my cosmetic bag and then into a dry bag for good measure because I was flying from Barcelona to Casablanca.      Despite my best efforts the oil escaped out of the ziplock bags and into my cosmetic bag, through everything in it, from my toothbrush to my hairbrush.   It had even seeped through the so-called material of the dry bag and then into almost everything else inside my backpack.   Everything I picked up was slippery with oil but instead of freaking out, I decided to use the oil-soaked items as a moisturiser for my skin, which  had become especially dry with all the travel.  Goodbye Marrakesh.  I even got compliments from my group saying how shimmery my skin was looking lately.  Yes, an expensiv...