Home again! It is very nice to be home with Cors. He has been so sweet and excited to see us. We are lucky to have found wonderful people to watch him. (Apparently he was a little terror.)
While we were in Europe I kept a journal. Here are bits of it:
July 2, 2008
I love airports. We got up at 4am played with Cors, finished packing, and then hit the road. We drove to Fairview Heights and took the Metro to the airport. We had our Starbucks and should be boarding soon. Books I have brought with me: Lipstick Jihad, Howard’s End, and our travel guide for Ireland.
We arrived in Chicago and with something like a seven hour layover we decided to take the L into downtown to eat at Giordano’s. We got lost and walked around Chicago for a long time before finding it, so that helped pass the time. We got back to the airport and went to our gate. While waiting for the plane I realized that most of the other passengers spoke English as a second language or not at all. Most of them were also children. I think that the kids all got together before the flight to coordinate their screaming/crying/wailing sessions.
July 4, 2008
We made it to Madrid with very little sleep and made our connecting flight to Porto.
We got off the plane in Porto and I felt very foreign. Joel was so nervous about driving a stick shift in Portugal. He did very well on the expressway (or whatever they call it in Portugal). After an adventuresome and extremely stressful drive and one stop at a Vodafone shop later, we found our Portuguese home, Centro Biblica de Esmoriz. (Esmoriz is the seaside town we are staying in.) Jon and Brian (Liz’s friend from PA and now our friend from PA) were there to meet us. We showered and went to lunch with Jon, Brian, Lacey, and Karl. The six of us have the place to ourselves. The building itself is much nicer than I thought it would be. After lunch we rested and got ready to go to the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Around four Andre came and we followed him to the wedding site. Brian drove our car. (We really like Brian, for his happy personality and his ability to drive a car with manual transmission.) Since we were so very early, we decided to go to Castelo De Santa Maria Da Feira, a beautiful and well preserved castle. It was gorgeous and we climbed and explored it until the rest of the wedding party started to arrive. We walked over to the wedding site, Casa das Ribas. It is a very old villa style house surrounded by the lush and the beautiful. The ceremony is going to be held in a courtyard area, the hors d’ouevres will be in a garden surrounded by trees rosebushes, hydrangeas, and other plants,
and the dinner will be in a tented pavilion. Joel, Brian, Lacey and I sat in the back and chatted. After the rehearsal we went to Andre’s parents’ house for the dinner, which was delicious! We played with Andre’s dog Rex and had a wonderful time. Around midnight Andre and Brian drove Lacey and I back and I went right to sleep. The boys were up very late and it sounds like they had a great time at Andre’s bachelor party.
Portugal is an often picturesque mishmash. More to come as soon as I finish the launry.
Tags: portugal, travel
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