Where are we?

  Granja, Portugal
Thursday, May 14, 2009

On May 8th it was time for us to say good-bye to Lisbon and continue on with our adventure.  We took a taxi with Maria and Albert to the train station in true amazing race style.  The taxi driver, the oldest in all of Portugal, knew every shortcut in the city.  Unfortunately he had no idea what parts of the city were under construction.  After going around in circles, watching Albert look at his watch, then Bruce look at his watch, then Albert look at his watch etc. (you get the picture), and listening to some Portuguese swear words, we finally made it to the train station with 30 minutes to spare.  In true Albert and Maria style, they came right onto the train with us, helped us find our seats, got our luggage stored, and our lunch set up. The boys, of course, asked why they couldn't stay with Albert and Maria while we went on our way, knowing there was still some ice cream in the freezer and a soccer game coming on.   After some convincing, and some paniced looks from Albert and Maria, the boys settled in on the train for our 3 hour ride to Granja.  

Granja is in Northern Portugal, about 20 minutes south of Porto (Portugal's second largest city). The train was fairly uneventful except for Cohen announcing to the whole train that he had to "go poop" and throughly enjoying the giggles from the other passengers.  We arrived at the house we rented mid-afternoon.  After showing us the house, the owner was nice enough to take us to get some grocieres and show us a little of the village.  Granja is a working fishing village where you can watch the fisherman bring in their catch everyday.  We're going to drag one of their finest home to cook up soon.  Being the adventureers we really are, we specifically chose to stay in a small village so we could really experience the real Portuguese lifestyle.  How small is this town where we ended up?   Here's some examples: 1- they still put the railway crossing down by hand, 2- you have to walk 15 minutes to find a corner store and 3- no one speaks English, and we mean NOBODY!  We are adapting o.k. to the language barrier though.  By the time we get home we be able to sign up for the grand championship of charades.  The kids are doing really well and often suggest that we check our "porch- a- knees" (as Cohen calls it) book if we don't know a word.  We even feel like rock stars here.  I don't think the locals have seen a group of people so pale in all their life.  Wherever we go, we feel as though the papparazzi are watching. 

We are having a nice time just relaxing. There is a beautiful 15 km wooden walkway along the ocean that we have been enjoying everyday. There is also a community pool with a playground that the kids have been taking advantage of.   For the most part we are just reading our books, playing on the beach, and playing board games instead of sightseeing. Next week we are renting a car to do some touring of Northern Portugal and are going to go into Porto for a couple of days to do some sightseeing.  We'll be celebrating Caleb's 6th birthday next week Portugeuse style - whatever that means.  Anyway, we best get going, our fans are going to wonder what happend to us!