In early may, in a rush to get all the bills paid, I mistakenly used my Metro Credit Union web banking system to pay a bill that didn’t exist — I paid down $3000 on a credit card that I’d cancelled earlier in the year. This was completely operator error on my part: I should have removed the “payee” from my setup once I’d cancelled the card, and I didn’t. The result was that I checked the wrong “VISA” line when I went to pay the bill.

And it was Sunday.

I tried calling the Internet technical support line and, although they were kind, they couldn’t help (it’s probably a Good Thing that technicians can’t move money).

They suggested a call “TelPay” which is the agency that actually routes online bill payments through to local credit unions for handling (the great secret of the “online banking” universe is that the back-end is still very, very manual). TelPay’s voicemail answered and I left a message; they called me back and left a message for me a few hours later telling me that there was nothing they could do to help.

So I sent email to the ever-helpful Doug Bridges at Metro Credit Union. And I left him a voicemail. And I left a general voicemail there too, just in case Doug was on vacation or out of the office.

Monday morning, bless their hearts, Metro were all over the issue, and managed to get the right messages to the right places to stop the bill payment train from running (I couldn’t imagine what trying to get $3000 back out of a closed VISA account would be like).

By the time all was said and done, it took 18 days to get the money back into my business account proving that, even with the best intentions of all involved, it still takes time to undo stupid mistakes.

I don’t fault Metro for any of this — as I said, it was operator error that caused the problem. And Doug stayed in touch with me through the undo process. But it seems to me that, going forward, it might make general sense to build customer-driven undo features into web banking systems; surely I’m not the only one clicking in the wrong place.

Another lesson learned.

It seems that Flickr has melted down; as a result, you can expect “this image not available” graphics to appear various places here until things are fixed there.

Oliver was very excited to find that Blue’s Clues exists in Portugal, albeit with a host named Duarte (I think) and not Steve (or Joe):

One our way down into Porto this morning for our train out to Régua, we were nabbed by the transit cops.

The Porto Metro system, like many these days, works on the honour system — you buy and validate your ticket on your own, and there are no gates to pass through, you just walk on. The check against abuse is a team of roving ticket checkers who carry hand-held computers that can check to see if the ticket you bought (assuming you bought a ticket in the first place!) is valid.

Our tickets weren’t valid.

As it happens, we got nabbed just as our stop was coming up, so when we arrived at Trindade station we were accompanied by the Metro Cops. They were actually quite pleasant — no shackles or take-downs, etc. — and when they realized we were non-Portuguese, the gloves came on in full and they were super-nice to us.

The error of our ways was simple: we’d been working under the assumption that when you purchased a ticket, you determined the number of “zones” you needed to purchase by counting the number of zone boundaries you were going to cross. We started in C3, and were traveling through C2 to C1, so always reasoned that this would require a two zone (or “Z2”) ticket.

It doesn’t.

You count the total number of zones that you’ll travel from, through and into to calculate your ticket needs: so a trip from C3 through C2 to C1 is a three zone ticket.

Oops.

Fortunately we were taken pity on (we didn’t mention a week and a half of previous offenses), and let off with a simple purchase of the additional zones required.

There was a subsidiary issue of needing a ticket for Oliver too — ignorance again — but that again was let off with a simple ticket purchase.

In our bleary morning coffee-less fog, this all seemed a little bit overwhelming, but as the day wore on we came to appreciate how lucky we were to encounter such friendly enforcers. Had the situation gone differently, we might have spent the day cooling our heels in Transit Prison rather than floating down the Douro.

Lesson learned.

Given that the spark of the germ of the idea that got us here to Porto was reading Cork Boat by John Pollack, a necessary component of this trip was to experience Douro River up close.

So this morning the alarm went off at 6:15 a.m., we were out of the house by 7:00 a.m., and at the São Bento Station by 8:00 a.m. for departure to Régua, about 2 hours upriver from Porto, and the departure point for our cruise down-river. The day was perfect: crisp and sunny with just a little wind.

We were sailing with Douro Azul, one of the major operators on the river, and our 42 EUR ticket (1/2 price for Oliver) included train transportation up and cruise back down, with 3-course lunch on the boat included. It was worth every penny.

Before I found Cork Boat in the used books section last year, I’d never heard of the Douro river: Danube, Nile, Vltava yes, but never a word about the Douro. This is not surprising, of course, given that for many years I’d confused Puerto Rico with Portugal (yes, I am an idiot; and it kind of makes it hard to tear a strip out of others for that whole Slovenia — Slovakia confusion).

I’m happy to say that not only have I come to understand the unique attractions of Portugal, but now that I’ve sailed down the Douro, I’ve come to appreciate it as one of the world’s great rivers. I took a gazillion photos (warning: many photos of shore from river, locks, etc.), but none can really do justice to the majesty of this body of water. Like the Grand Canyon, it’s something that you simply can’t take a picture of; you gotta be there yourself to understand.

Although the cruise down-river took 6 hours, it didn’t feel long at all, as there was always something to catch the eye around the next corner. If you are ever anywhere near the Douro, I heartily recommend experiencing it firsthand.

We arrived back in Vila Nova de Gaia quay (across the river from Porto) around 6:00 p.m., and feeling the tickle of being famished, we opted to eat right on the wharf at an Indian restaurant called Real Indiana. Much to our surprise (we expected Pizza Hut style Indian food), the food was excellent, and the service stellar (anyone who gives Oliver a Kinder Surprise Egg on the way out deserves an award in my books).

When dinner was over we walked back into Porto over the Ponte Luiz I, up the hill back to São Bento Station, and caught the Metro home.

It was an excellent day.

Vacationing can be hard work, so Oliver and I took the day off. While Catherine went exploring in Porto, we rambled around the house and didn’t really do anything. Around 4:30 p.m. we got ourselves together and went out for dinner near the beach, and then went for a walk at sunset:

While searching the web for a picture of our house in Charlottetown this morning, I stumbled across the fact that our house is thoroughly described here as one of “Canada’s Historic Places.” Their research is amazing — I didn’t know half of what they relate. Now I’m not sure whether I feel qualified to live in a house “associated with many prominent Islanders.”

Miracle of miracles, after a long and exhausting day yesterday, Oliver and I managed to get ourselves up and out the door by 9:30 a.m. this morning, destination: Stuart Little.

We raced over the draw bridge and caught the Metro with seconds to spare. By the time we we arrived at the Casa da Música 30 minutes later, it had started to rain; we happened upon a taxi, asked him to take us to the Hotel Impanema Park, and were glad we did when it turned out to be just a little more than too far to walk, rain or no.

This morning’s programme — a screening of Stuart Little with sundry crafts activities surrounding, and a Happy Buffet to finish — was organized by the intriguing Associação para a Medicina, as Artes e as Ideias — the Association for Medicine, Arts and Ideas. Upon arrival at the hotel we were greeted by AMAI co-conspirator (the ebullient) Cristina Basto, lucky for us an English speaker, and she gave us the lay of the land. When she told us the film was to be screened in Portuguese — something, truth be told, I’d foolishly never considered — I calmly acted like I knew all along.

And so I’ve come to think that the test of a good childrens’ movie is if it can hold the attention of kids, and their parents, in a language they don’t understand at all. I’m happy to report that Stuart Little meets this standard; but for some confusion about the identity of the strange kidnapper mice who spirited Stuart off to the mini-golf course hideaway, both Oliver and I got the whole thing. I was especially happy that it was a bona fide film presentation, with real film and a real projector; nice to see that video projection hasn’t completely overtaken the world yet.

While we had planned to leave once the film was over, Cristina invited us to stay for the aforementioned Happy Buffet. This turned out to be a very kid-centric spread of soup, rice, potatos, hamburgers, fish cakes, sausages, potato chips, brownies, chocolate mousse, fruit salad, and a Stuart Little cake, all for 10 EUR each. Suffice to say Oliver and I got our money’s worth and Oliver, being ebullient in his own way, worked the room and managed to introduce himself to almost everyone (including Cristina’s husband Filipe and their two children), find out their names, and in some cases explain the intricacies of his jean jacket to them.

By the time we emerged into the drizzly afternoon at 2:00 p.m., we were well fed and happy and feeling that, as long as there are people willing to organize Sunday morning movies with Happy Buffets, all is right with the world.

Catherine rang in on the mobile to announce that she’d decided that she wanted to join our caravan of fun at this point, so we arranged to rendezvous at Fundação de Serralves where we’d had so much fun on Thursday. Catherine hopped on the 500 bus and Oliver and I, after buying an umbrella to ward off the rain, ended up walking for 5 blocks in the wrong direction before seeing the error of our ways and hopping on the 207 bus that took us almost to the Serralves front door.

By the time we hooked up with Catherine, the sky was blue and the sun was out and it was a beautiful, beautiful day. We started our visit where we’d left off on Thursday with a visit to the Casa Serralves, a mid-twentieth century home filled with art deco treasures the likes of which you seldom see all gathered together in one place:

We learned later that the entire collection in the house is owned by one collector. We wanted to move in. At the very least, I think I should have T-shirts printed up with “Bring Back Art Deco Now!” on them.

Famished by all the fab art deco action, we headed down to the mid-park Tea House and enjoyed tea served in beautiful china, warm scones, smoked salmon sandwiches and a piece of chocolate cake, all under the newly sunny skies. While Catherine and Oliver ran off to order the cake, I pulled out my mobile and had a brief instant messaging exchange with Olle up in Copenhagen, readying the ground for the next leg of our trip while still basking in the glow of the first one.

Before leaving Serralves for the day, we popped in to the book shop (if you are ever shopping for architecture books, this is the place: they have a very broad collection). Catherine and Oliver ran upstairs to the washoom, and while they were waiting for me to arrive, who should they run into by the aforementioned ebullient Cristina Basto, now ferrying around North Carolinian visitors. While in most cases bumping into someone like this would strike me as an amazing coincidence, life with Oliver is full of such things; his social aura is great.

Filled with art and tea and chance encounters, we hopped back on the 207 bus and took it down to near the mouth of the Douro and had a very pleasant walk along the waterfront towards the ocean. Along the way we got caught in a sudden downpour; our dampness was rewarded with a series of stunning rainbows over the city:

We finally reached the end (or is it the beginning?) of the Douro, and we turned right towards Matosinhos, stopping at the first restaurant we met, which happened to be a fondue place. Catherine has been wanting to pull me into her fondue cult since we met 15 years ago, and her dreams were finally realized; we shared a tasty meal of shrimp, bacon and cheese fondue followed by dessert of chocolate fondue (making Oliver’s chocolate intake for the take about 16 gallons). My only misgiving about the fondue lifestyle is fear of boiling oil spilling all over Oliver; I was running emergency extraction manoevers through my head throughout the meal — oil spills, I lunge in front of oil protecting Oliver, etc. Fortunately I never had to put them into action.

We finished off the evening by walking through to the end of the Esplanadas da Foz, and caught the handy 500 bus all the way back to where, 12 hours earlier, we’d begun our day.

And we thought we were exhausted yesterday. Way too many photos for my own good if you’re interested.