Last night I labored over my post, only to find out it was lost in a WordPress void today. GAAAAHHHH. I will try to recreate it now 😦
The day was a bit more difficult today. We started out with breakfast at the hostel again and then hopped on a trolley up the hill to see the Castelo de Sao Jorge in the jumbled narrow streets of the sloping Alfama neighborhood. But we somehow overshot our stops and ended up too high on the hill, past the reach of our map. The girls were happy to chase pigeons but Zach and I knew that wouldn’t last long so I steeled my nerves and tried out my Portuguese on an elderly man passing by. Thanks to the Pimsleur language program I successfully asked for and understood directions with no English involved! This was a huge boost to my self confidence since just about every other conversation (other than just asking where the bathroom is) has consisted of me asking something in what I think is decent Portuguese and the person immediately responding in English (sometimes French, sometimes Italian, but never Portuguese).
Anyway, we wound our way through the dusty alleyways on the un-stroller-friendly streets and ended up at the castle tired and cranky and hungry. Thankfully we chose the right place just inside the castle walls to rest and eat popsicles, because before long a peacock strolled by, and that did wonders for the girls’ moods! Melina decided that she will frame a picture we took of the peacock to put up on her room. Diane decided that all pigeons would henceforward be called peacocks.
We explored the grounds, sitting on cannons and chasing more pigeons and climbing the castle walls to the medieval turrets. The European lack of safety railings were clearly too risky for Diane and it gave Zach a heart attack every time Melina lost her footing (which is about every three steps. Seriously, are all five year olds this clumsy??!) so he carried D down to look for pinecones and play in the dirt (her favorite past times) while Melina and I climbed every turret pretending to be knights in shining armor. It was pretty magical and Melina was absolutely thrilled. She kept telling me, “this is the best day of my life!”
Leaving the castle we headed for a seafood restaurant for lunch and found ourselves lost again, so by the time we reached the restaurant with patience waning and tummies rumbling, we didnt care too much that the prices were higher than we are used to and just went on in. I am so glad we did, because the grilled sardines and intensely flavored seafood soup were simply divine! I could eat that meal every day of this trip and never get tired of it. Melina discovered that she loves clams, and she and I plotted to search them out on menus going forward. Unfortunately, we had reached the tipping point with Diane where she was too hungry to oblige us in any way, so refused to eat anything. I did catch her sneaking a few bites when we weren’t looking, though.
Luckily our next stop was a cool and quiet cathedral where Diane fell asleep in the stroller so I had the chance to feed Melina my brand of religious teachings in response to all of her very insightful questions. It was a short walk back, so on the way we picked up some pao de chorico e queijo (bread with chorizo and cheese) as well as some vinho verde for dinner back at the apartment. That was basically our day, but we did also fit in a successful trip to the supermercado to pick up supplies for tomorrow’s dinner. We have found that when traveling with kids in countries where dinner is eaten well past bedtime, it is much easier to eat out for lunch and then self-cater for dinner. Then once the girls are asleep we are able to sip wine and gaze out our window, listening to the accordians serenade us and the smell of roasting chicken and sardines lulls us to sleep. As we are doing. Right. Now.
We have only been interrupted a few time with Diane’s stall tactics tonight: “Mommy, Mina is kicking me” or “Mina took my covers” (both of these after Melina was fast asleep) or “Mommy there’s bad guys” or her new favorite, “Mommy, I need a smeh smeh.” We have no idea what a “smeh smeh” is, but from the way she mumbles it and looks at us slyly we are pretty sure it is a word she has made up just to mess with us.
By the way, we have been thoroughly confused by the word for “thank you” in Portuguese. In all my language lessons I learned that women say “obrigada” and men say “obrigado.” But we have heard men say obrigada and women say obrigado, and the best explanation I can get on the internet is “it’s just random.” Not very helpful.
Here are some more pictures from our day:
Traveling Together 