Loving Lisbon

The best Mother’s Day ever. Hands down. I wish I could spend every Mother’s Day strolling through gorgeous European cities with my three favorite people, sampling pastries and exploring monuments and monasteries!

We all awoke at 7am (for the benefit of those of you who don’t have young kids and are under the age of 60, this is the normal time for us) completely refreshed and ready to start our day. Our foolproof method of avoiding jet lag in Europe is to suffer through that first day with only the few hours of sleep we got on the plane (well, minutes in my case) and then crash at about 8pm for 11 hours of sleep. Works every time.

So we started off right with delicious waffles and the ubiquitous continental breakfast of bread, cheese, and tomatoes at our hostel. Then the girls were delighted when we hopped on a trolley (Diane calls it a trollbus) to the neighborhood of Belem which is famous for its monuments and more importantly, its pastries. Of course, it is a gorgeous weekend in May, and Sunday happens to be the day when most of the attractions in Belem are free, so the place was pretty popular. But no worries, because we were entertained by a pair of adorable girls chasing plastic bags on the sidewalk and then belting out songs from Frozen to the masses of tourists waiting in line for the Monasterio de Jeronimos. Whose kids were those, anyway? Then (perhaps it was to quell the performance) we were ushered into the “family line” which means we got to walk past the whole line of tourists who had so recently been smiling at our girls but who now glared at us in murderous rage. Sorry folks, if we are given a chance to legally jump queue we are going to take it.

We felt no shame as we explored the monastery, where the sand colored stone and swirling spirals so resemble the drip castles we churn out every year in Ocean City. The girls delighted in playing in the dirt in the dry fountain in the middle of the courtyard and then were entranced by a chamber choir rehearsing in a small chapel. It was pretty darn magical. Made it easy afterwards to treat them to the the famous pasteis de nata (cream pastries) that are so popular here. Rich and freshly made, they are simply sinful with a cup of cafe com leite. YUM.

We then strolled through a seaside park dotted with olive trees on our way to the Monument of Explorers, an imposing cross-shaped structure on the edge of the ocean decorated with sculptures of the great Portuguese explorers lined up the sea as if they were walking a plank. It was a short walk then to the Tower of Belem, a giant sandcastle in the water, connected to land by a narrow bridge where tourists again lined up like cattle. We waited for a while before being whisked again to a family line. It made us feel like royalty (well, maybe a royalty whose people despise them and glower at them in hatred).

The tower has gorgeous views and cool lookout alcoves where the girls watched white sailed ships glide towards the ocean. But perhaps even more fascinating was the simple and ingenious system that was set up to control the crowds of people trying to climb the tiny spiral staircase. There was a digital display on each doorway with an up arrow and a down arrow and a timer under each. When the up arrow was green, people could go up while the timer counted down for 3 minutes. Then the arrow turns red and a loud beeping noise alerts the climbers to exit at the nearest landing and wait while the down arrow turns green for the descenders. Brilliant. And also apparently IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC TO UNDERSTAND. Good thing I don’t get annoyed when people can’t follow simple instructions. Oh wait, does WordPress not have a sarcasm font?

The rest of our day we explored the cobblestone streets of Bairro Alto and Chiado, two of the hilly, pastel neighborhoods of Lisbon. We even ducked into an upscale pastry shop and let the girls pick out 6 or seven “dulces” to take back to the apartment. At a whopping 3.80 euros, along with our earlier pastry shop meal which was shockingly cheap, Zach has decided that pastries are the best deal in Portugal. No arguments here!

Our day is winding down and Melina has been asleep for a while, but as I type Diane has been holding out with her stall tactic of choice: declaring every 2 or 3 minutes that she has to “go potty,” sitting for a millisecond and then announcing she is “all done!” before heading back to bed and starting the whole charade over again two minutes later. We’ve been taking turns, but Zach just got back after being gone for at least 10 minutes and his story has me giggling so I must share: she sat, didn’t go, yelled at him that she  needed her privacy so he left and stood outside the doorway. She then tried to unroll all the toilet paper and in doing so, fell into the toilet. Zach ran in and unwedged her little bottom from the bowl and put her back in bed when she told him she needed her stuffed monkey. Zach looked for monkey for at least a few minutes and told D he couldn’t find it, at which point she sheepishly admitted that “Daddy, monkey in the shower.” Zach retrieved monkey from the shower and returned it to D explaining that monkeys don’t take showers. Now Zach also had to use the bathroom and as soon as he finished he heard a little voice say “Daddy, I have to go potty.” Of course.

Aside from this side show, the girls were angelic nearly all day and Melina even drew me some beautiful pictures for Mother’s Day. Such a perfect day! There is even a street musician outside serenading us with our wedding song. And yes senhor it is A Wonderful World.