Escape from Trump headlines?

Spoiler: 3300 miles is not far enough.

February 15, 2025

While watching CNN International in Porto, Portugal, I was unprepared for the spectacle of the press gaggle surrounding our newly minted Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, discussing President Trump’s Ukraine strategy. It turns out that excluding Ukraine from the negotiations, proposed to take place in Saudi Arabia and to include only Russia and the U.S., did not make any more sense to me when it was broadcast in Portuguese. Apparently Ukrainian President Zelensky feels the same way about that suggestion.

Our current stay in Porto, Portugal’s “second city”, came about through serendipity, a lucky blend of timing and circumstance. My wife and I had spent a few days here ten years ago when we utilized the Porto airport to fly home from a trip to Spain, and since then we have been looking for an opportunity to come back. This visit came about when some friends told us about their plans to vacation here, and we invited ourselves along. Taking a “warm up” break from the Adirondack winter is a luxury that we award ourselves occasionally. This year we needed a break not just from the ice and snow, but from the stories from Washington that are dominating the news cycles, one preposterous announcement after another. And then another. A getaway was in order.

As important as we may think of ourselves on the world’s stage, the rest of the planet does manage to get through the day without wondering how they will survive without pennies. I also did not need to be reminded that Rod Blagojevich was in jail, or why he was in jail, or why the President felt he was being treated “very unfairly”. We needed a break.

I have always enjoyed traveling. I should clarify that by always, I mean since I was gainfully employed and could afford my own plane ticket. My parents never left the country and neither did I until I was a freshly minted stockbroker with Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner and Smith in the late 70’s when a few friends and I rented a house in Montego Bay, Jamaica. I remember it like it was yesterday. The couple that owned the rental house had arranged for a driver to pick us up at the airport and take us there. The driver’s name was Rudy Lyle, and he drove a red and white Volkswagen bus. Think Cheech and Chong VW bus, with Bob Marley blasting from a radio speaker which was hanging from the dashboard. I asked Rudy to stop at Hertz on the way to the house so I could pick up our rental car. He responded immediately: “You don’t need rental car, mon, you have Rudeeee!” Intrigued by the idea of having a driver on the island for the week, never having driven on the left side of the road, I asked Rudy what he would charge us for the week. “How much is your rental car?” asked Rudy. I think it was something like $150 for the week, and I gave that number to Rudy. He immediately responded: “Rudy costs one-hundred-fifty-dollars, mon!” Rudy became our driver for the week, and for many weeks thereafter on subsequent trips to the island. He was on call 24/7, and served as chauffeur, tour guide, translator, bodyguard and was – and probably still is - the best $150 ever spent during a vacation. Just the introduction to Bongo Silly, a local Rastafarian entrepreneur / tavern owner in nearby Dunn’s River Falls was worth the price.

I remember our first shopping trip that day, to buy supplies for the house for the week. Someone asked me to bring back milk for their morning coffee. The shopkeeper apologized as he explained to me that he was out of milk but would have a new supply soon as milk was delivered on Tuesdays. We drank black coffee until Tuesday morning when a few dozen boxes of ultra-pasteurized – and unrefrigerated - milk appeared on the grocer’s shelf. It was the first time I had ever seen ultra-pasteurized milk, which was the only milk that the store carried. Refrigeration was a luxury in much of the Caribbean back then. I later discovered that Rudy kept a container of this milk in the glove compartment of his VW bus, which I found extraordinarily convenient. I still think of this milk story frequently – even now, forty-five years later – when I am standing in the supermarket dairy aisle, looking at the forty feet of milk choices that we now have: whole milk, low fat milk, skim milk, soy milk, almond milk, in pints and quarts and half gallons, each from a variety of producers, some organic, some not. I will sometimes look at that dairy aisle of milk containers packaged in every shape and size and color of the rainbow and think of that Jamaican shopkeeper telling me – “Milk will be here on Tuesday.” It reminds me of how good we have it here in the U.S. – and how spoiled, and wasteful we are. And that ultra-pasteurized milk never caught on here in the States.

Travel helps to put things in perspective. We can argue whether or not it is “proper perspective” but it does provide a context for the way we do things, as opposed to how the rest of the world does things. Here in Porto, like most anywhere else in Europe, you immediately notice that cars are half the size of our popular cars at home. I am not referring to large SUV’s like Suburbans or Expeditions. I have not seen one large SUV in Portugal on this trip. Not one. Ditto pick-up trucks. A (US) midsize Volvo or BMW is the largest type of car that you will see. Mini Coopers and tiny Smart cars are very popular, as are micro sized Fiats. The price of gas is certainly a contributing factor. Local prices are $1.80 per liter, which is approximately $6.80 per US gallon, almost twice what I was paying in New York before we left. Another major impediment to owning a vehicle in Porto, and many if not most European cities that I have visited, is parking. The streets were laid out centuries or more likely, millennia ago, and no thought was given to automobiles, especially parking said automobiles. On-street parking is as scarce as public parking lots, which explains the proliferation of cars the size of roller skates. On the other hand, unlike the United Sates, public transportation is widely available, clean, affordable, and efficient. As an example, here in Porto, a thirty day “MetroCard” is available for 40 euros ($41.28). Seniors pay 30 euros ($30.95) and students ride for free. MetroCard holders can travel anywhere within the city limits using bus, subway, the “tram” — a trolley line that runs along the Douro riverfront out to the ocean—or the “funicular”, an inclined cable car that ferries passengers from the lower riverfront district up to the highest point in the city behind the Porto Cathedral. All are well maintained, spotlessly clean, and on time. MetroCard holders can use any and all of this public transportation for about $1 per day. Who needs a car?

To spend time here is to step back in time, in a most positive way, to a time before chain hotels and big box stores and fast-food restaurants. I did see one sign in town for a McDonalds, and it looked as out of place as my Ram 2500 pickup would look if we brought it here and somehow were able to navigate it into the center of town. The businesses, the shops and bars and wine stores and coffee shops and restaurants are all small, family-owned businesses. One of our favorite meals to date -at a tiny establishment called Taberna dos Mercadores – had a sixteen-seat capacity. Sixteen seats!

A peek behind Taberna dos Mercadores’ unassuming entryway revealed the treasures awaiting inside.

As we waited outside hoping to score a table, two cooks carrying what looked like apple cakes scurried by. We later learned that they were making their way to the pastry oven located in a nearby alley off the street. Needless to say, everyone had walked there. Porto is a world apart from the malls and cookie cutter chain stores and restaurants and next day delivery of anything you (thought you) needed.

Most importantly, our time here is providing something of a respite from the news back home. CNN International and BBC News are currently focusing on the case of Luis Rubiales, he of the unwelcomed kiss bestowed upon Spanish soccer star Jenni Hermoso at the medal ceremony following Spain’s World Cup victory. Euro-centric stories such as the Trump’s vision for a cessation of hostilities in Ukraine are getting coverage. To the surprise of no one, the consensus here seems to be that Trump is throwing Zelensky under the proverbial bus, focusing on bilateral negotiations with Putin and seemingly excluding Ukraine’s direct participation in the talks. Macron & Co and former friends and family including NATO and the UK are not pleased. At all.

Thankfully, there is little coverage of US “domestic” stories like President Trump commuting the sentence of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. This is indeed a blessing, as I really do not want to know anything about it.

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