The river walk is chaos. Porto vendors shout to every passing tourist, their voices mingling with the music pouring out of shops and the weaker sounds of the street performers.

 

Breakdancers, musicians, magicians and singers line the walk, willingly adding themselves to the mayhem. They play Portuguese music and sing in their native languages. One of the performers stands close to the edge of the path, near the drop off to the water.

 

She’s wearing a wide brimmed hat, collared shirt, patterned sweater, and maroon pants. Her black loafers lay haphazardly beside the small tattered rug she is standing on in her bare feet. A display of CD’s lays in front of her, arranged in a small semi circle.

 

A crowd begins to gather around her, some placing money in her open guitar case. In small letters. her name, Keely Denham, is printed across the front.

 

Her soft voice floats over the crowd, weaving among passers by and gently drawing them in. Even though she’s singing in English, the pure emotion in her voice can be understood in any language.

 

After a while she takes a break to move to a different spot along the path. Her Australian accent can be heard as she talks to her wife, Nicole, who, out of all the spectators, seemed the most transfixed by Keely’s performance.

 

They’ve been in Porto for five months and plan to stay much longer.

 

Together, they’ve been all over the world, traveling for Keely to busk, or play music in the street. But something kept pulling them back to Portugal. Some of it was practical.

 

“Porto, specifically, it’s really quite cheap to live here,” Keely says, “Like food and everything. I think that’s the other thing I really like about the city, it’s very reasonable. Like you buy an apple and you think ‘Yeah this apple should be this price’. So I don’t feel guilty about buying this apple or whatever.”

 

Other things seemed more like subtle hints, letting them know that Porto was where they were meant to be.

 

“A bit later, we found out Nicole’s great grandfather is from here,” Keely says. “Crazy!”

 

When they first came from Australia, Keely had left her job as a music teacher behind. They stayed in Portugal for a few months until their visas ran out. From there, they bounced from London to Wales, Paris, Berlin, Helsinki, and Estonia.

 

Their travels were full of surreal moments. From playing on the steps in Paris to their plane getting struck by lightning on their way from Helsinki.

 

But their paths always seemed to lead back to Portugal, even their lives in Australia pushed them to Porto.

 

“I went to uni, university,” Keely says. “I was just thinking about this the other day. If I had not gone to uni to study music, I would not be here. I have done so many things just because of that.”

 

But even in the bright sun and warm weather, Keely isn’t blind to the struggles of normal Portuguese people.

 

“It’s getting harder, a lot more expensive even for the Portuguese people as well. And it’s crazy and little old ladies are getting kicked out of their homes,” she says. “Little old ladies that have had their homes for like 70 years and the government is like ‘No! I’m having this house,’. Yeah it really sucks.”

 

Unlike some Portuguese natives, Keely and Nicole plan to stay in Porto and pursue Keely’s dream of being an established singer.

 

“For an amount of time we’re seeing how it goes, probably for a couple years,” Keely says. “And it’s so nice to be in Europe, and in a place that is so beautiful in winter. We’ll see, there are lots of pros and cons to weigh at each place you go.”

 

In May, Keely will go to Lisbon to record an EP-- or an album if that’s what she decides on. For now, they check the weather every morning and hope the Portuguese sun makes an encore.

 

“If it’s sunny then we’re gonna go play. If not, we get to be tourists and go around the city. Yeah, pretty much we just check the weather and come down, see people that know that are usually here, play, and then that’s it.”

 

Keely’s music continues to grow and evolve the longer she stays.

 

“Everything has changed so much, I didn’t expect it to change, to evolve so much, because of the environment and everything else.”