At The Lavandaria in Porto

I can't get FB to load my photos right now, so I'll share an experience I had without photos.

Kathryn and I sallied forth on a three pronged mission this morning: find a laundry and wash clothes, eat breakfast, return the laundry to the hotel, and go locate a yarn store we found online.

We accomplished two parts of the plan. Except the yarn store wasn't a storefront, it was a yarn broker's office-at-home address. Didn't work for us.

Having returned to our new hotel . . . we had moved down the street, literally 178 meters, to an incredibly better-feeling hotel (15 rooms; in the family thirty-five years) . . . I went up the street and around the corner to reclaim our clothes. We had them washed and dried (not folded) for the same amount it would have cost to have done it ourselves at the self-serve laundry a block farther down across that street.

I picked up our clothes and handed the man a twenty-euro note; his wife had to run to the shop next door to get change for the seven-euro ticket. While she was gone, he asked me how I felt about what President Trump was doing to America's standing in Europe, and he expressed what he thought Europe was feeling about it all.

I couldn't lie to the man. I told him I personally wept for how my country was reeling under this administration. I was embarrassed about the way my country was treating its historic allies today. He commented that America was a vast nation; how did so many people vote to put him in power? I explained how, in the US money had become political power and how rich people could sway an election.

I told him how I had had a friend who was a multimillionaire and how our friendship had broken up over political differences, how my friend supported Trump's present actions and vilified the words of an opponent spoken forty and more years ago. I spoke of how differently he and I saw our world.

I took a scrap of paper and drew two sets of dollar signs, one set with many, one with few and put two lines between the sets to show the great difference between those groups. I spoke of the five-star hotels that my friend exclusively went to and how I only could afford the two-star hotels. I also shared an awareness I achieved about a week ago, really, that those traveling in the five-star world never even saw all the people, the students, the tradesmen, the shopkeepers, (yes) the teachers, in the two-star world. They never experienced their aspirations, their frustrations, their dreams.

I mentioned that I wept for my country, that I loved the opportunity to meet the beautiful, the vibrant, people of his beautiful and history-rich country.

In the midst of my reply, his wife had returned with my thirteen euros change, and she had gone toward the back of the shop. Another lady had come in to collect her cleaning and had remained to listen.

As I began my thanks-and-farewells, the owner held up his hand to stay me and called his wife. She nearly ran to the front desk, saying, "I do not speak much English, but . . ." and she and her husband spoke quickly between themselves ---- and the lady on my side of the counter turned to me and said, "They are saying, 'when you come back to Portugal, please, they want you to come back here and visit with them.'"

Wordless, I raised my open hand in farewell, and walked from the shop, a much-humbled man.

POP LAVANDARIA