9:36 AM |
Author: Publius
Thursday, July 16th:
On the way to Lisbon, we stopped at the town of Evora. I had high hopes and expectations for Evora - mostly because there were the remains of a Roman temple there. There previous ones that I had seen were pretty amazing. I'm not going to lie, the details of this part of the trip are sketchy. Jess just reminded me that it was surface of the Sun hot there.
On the way, we stopped to get something to eat - or Jess had to pee. It could be either or both, I can't remember. Neil wanted to stay.
We made it the rest of the way. It was a bit of a drive there and then from there to Lisbon. I guess we parked and then headed in to the town. It is an old university town but we didn't see too many people outside. Perhaps it was because it was fucking boiling.
We stopped to get some lunch - the boys shared some eggs and a plate of sausages - which for us is cold cuts:
I did my best Ray Charles impression:
I forget what I ordered - "steak" in some stuff - I don't remember what but I can tell you it was delicious.
The temple, ended up being a bit anticlimactic:
Don't get me wrong, it is still pretty cool but if you have seen the one in Athens or anything in the Roman Forum, you're good. You get the idea and they're far more impressive. I still love this shit though.
Jess forced her way into the church without paying so that she could feed Malcolm while Neil and I sweated like refugees on the front steps of the church. Did we mention that it was friggin' hot?
For those of you who do not speak European, that's 114.8 degrees.
We continued to walk and saw the entrance to a house that Vasco da Gama lived in after his travels:
I'm sure after this there were some ices and ice cream to cool off the boys and then we jumped back in the car to head for Lisbon.
We get to Lisbon and try to call the owner of the apartment when we were about half an hour or so away. This would give her some time to meet us there. My phone is not working. It's refusing to cooperate and then when I think it is, it decides that it is going to have no signal. So, we finally get it back working again and I am able to call her when we are about a block away. She says she can't make it for an hour. So we decide to hit the playground that was there and hang out for a while - which was just what the boys needed.
I was able to get some really good shots of them. Neil is really photogenic - which always worries me. Like some perv is going to try to snatch him up or something one day. God help them if they do because after he tortures them, I will.
The owner was very nice and took us up to the place. They had out a bottle of wine (of course, we're not wine drinkers) and some cheese and crackers. Neil decided that they best way to eat the cheese was to bite into it, which he did repeatedly.
Our penthouse in Lisbon was pretty awesome - the view of the city was great and the inside was pretty awesome too. It was too modern for our linking but we could still really appreciate the set up and conveniences - but most of all the views, which included the top of Sporting Lisbon's stadium.
Kitchen view.
Estádio José Alvalade XXI:
Neil appreciated the little girls room because he had a place to hang out and could play with her toys turning all the girly stuff into Transformers. This also provided him (and us) an oasis and helped to ease some of the tensions from the travel and the small apartments. The place had three bedrooms and one and a half baths and suited us perfectly.
When Neil came out of the room to go with us to the grocery store, he had glitter all over him. This led to our first man to man conversation which Jess didn't approve at first.
"Listen buddy, you can't have glitter all over you. It's not what guys do. It's for girls"
"Why?"
"Neil! You can't say that."
"Ok, Neil, you can have glitter on you. But only if your coming out of the booby bar. Ok?"
"Ok."
I'd say that was a successful conversation.
Friday, July 17th
We had a very lazy and late start to the day. We were headed to Sintra. There are a lot of great palaces and things to see there. We got a late start. We emailed our host and asked if we should drive or take the train because everything we have read says to take the train - she said to drive, so we did. Thankfully, we got a great spot. We had two things to see, the Moorish Castle and the Pena Palace.
We got in to the center of town and had to find the place to het the tickets for the bus. After seeing something that would upset Thomas Magnum, we debated on which way to walk but finally ended up where we had to.
Tough to see - but that large doberman was hanging off the side barking at everyone. Even better, there were two.
We walked along the walls of the Moorish Castle - Neil did really well with the walk that he asked if we could take a picture with this idiot stating to our right. I said, sure buddy, no problem since she is completely fucking oblivious to the fact that she's in our way.
After walking about half the wall, we decided to take a lunch break.
I had snowball envy.
Jess had to nurse and change Malcolm and was done with walking on the wall and climbing so Neil and I went and walked the remainder of the wall on the other side of the courtyard. It was awesome and I am sure that we got a lot of good pictures. You, unfortunately, will get mostly those from the phone. Time is really tough, so picking and downloading from the camera is hard, I may do a separate post with some of the best pictures from the trip.
Below, you will see the Pena Palace from the Moorish Castle. Get a good look, because that's the only look we got too.
We got back to Jess and she made a baby wearing video in the courtyard. If she tries to take credit for doing this in awesome locations, please know that it was my idea.
You're welcome.
So we headed to the Pena Palace. We walked from one to the other - but not after his Highness announced that he had to pee - after we all already went and were away from the bathrooms. So I shuffled him to some place out of view and let him take a whiz. The entrance to the palace was far and we did not have much time left to get back to the car - not to mention that the line of people to get back on to the bus was ridiculous. We had to make a choice and after some debate we decided to get on the bus and head back to the car so that we did not get a ticket. So, driving was not the best idea but not the worst. Jess was willing to go back to the car to pay for more time but I didn't think that would be right, so we all headed back together.
We had dinner - Jess did her best to make the stuff she found in the supermarket the previous day. Unfortunately, even after over cooking it, the pork was still a little pink - dare I say raw - hence the trichinosis post about a week ago. She tried!
It was the porco rolo stuff. When she spoke to the butcher she asked if he spoke English to which his reply was "a little". Meanwhile he spoke it very well. It seems to be the thing they all say here - maybe they are self-conscious about speaking it to Americans but what's the deal, do you not speak well if you don't want to help someone? Are you just being full of shit? Because no matter what, your English is better than our Portuguese.
We did a lot of hanging out on the porch - especially these two maniacs who apparently believe that you are supposed to stand on the table when you are on a 9th floor patio:
Then there was this. A non-circumcised doll that looked like a girl.
Yes, I made a joke about it being the Bruce Jenner baby doll. I'm going to be honest, I don't get the transgender thing, however, I am not saying it is wrong or right. If you're a super liberal, you should probably continue to read. I have said for a very long time that I don't get homosexuality - I don't understand how you would want to be with another disgusting guy like yourself when you can be with a beautiful woman. In the big picture, I do not care and I certainly do not believe that people should be treated differently because of who they are attracted to - or probably more importantly, love. Having said that, I have said numerous times that I do believe that the issues surrounding the rights of homosexuals (gays - what's the PC phrase I am supposed to use) is THE civil rights issue of our time. I don't get it but I also don't care what other people do - that's their decision (or not for those who believe that it is not a choice) but certainly, we have until recently discriminated against people because of their sexual preference and it drives me nuts that the religious crazies could for some time clearly influence laws when one of the principles the country was founded on was a separation of church and state. It was a common sense decision, like the ending of slavery. As for the transgender thing - again, you do what you want to do. The only "issue" I have but it's more of a question is - genetically, after all the hormones and surgeries etc. if there is a blood test, you would still come out to be the same gender, correct? And if not, is there something that says genetically, you should be the opposite? I also wonder - again it is a question, if after some kind of testing it was determined that it was a dysfunction of the brain and could be "fixed" with medicine or some kind of procedure, would we look at it differently? I don't know, I'm just asking. Off the soapbox and now, back to the humor. Who am I to question you if you want to change your porco rolo de carne into a ham sandwich? It's still pork, right?
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