2004 Portugal

 ESOMAR conference in Portugal

Sharilyn came to stay with the kids.  So grateful to her.

Salema

Small peaceful, quiet seaside town. Chris braved swimming in the cold Eastern Atlantic water.  A cat ran from the beach with a great big fish in it's mouth just like you'd see in a cartoon!  Made me laugh and I wished I had my camera.

 

Beach da Rainha in Cascais

I think these are squid or octopus
hanging to dry

We took Salema's one and only taxi to Lagos where we caught a train to Evora.  Lagos had several stork nests atop of the tall poles and one on a smoke stack with two storks in it, one of them standing.  Wished I could get a picture as our taxi sped by.

A funny thing happened while we waited to board the train.  A multitude of us were standing by the train whose doors were closed and we all assumed it wasn't time to board.  Up walked two very small of stature little old ladies in their wool skirts and waking shoes, carrying big handbags.  They walked past all of us, pushed open a train door and stepped on, causing the rest of us to gather our belongings and follow!  Ha ha, I wonder if we all would have stood there until we missed the train.

At one point we changed trains onto a one car clickety clack jerky train that the elders call a Twinkie because it really looks like one.  Yes, in Evora we ran into some elders who told us where the church was.  They taught Sunday school and spoke in sacrament meeting.  One of them played the small keyboard with one finger for the hymn singing.  What would that little branch do without them.

We went to this chapel made of human bones:

Capela dos Ossos 

The estimated 5,000 skeletons came from nearby cemeteries, 

which were too full at the time.

Cathedral of Evora

 

Like most European towns, Evora has a town square where everything seems to happen. In the square, people gather, they post things on the sign including who in the town has died and people leave flowers or candles at the base of the sign post. We in the US are really missing something by not making big town squares.  It's what gives the town a community feel; a place to gather and post messages and where everything happens.  

Speaking of where things happen, one evening in the square, we suddenly heard amazing singing coming from somewhere.   The men's voices were very strong, powerful and beautiful!  Soon we saw them coming into the square from a side street all dressed in native costume.  No sooner did we see them, then we heard some more singing from the other side of the square and then a 3rd group.  Soon all 3 groups arrived in the square singing wonderful melodic songs.  I wish I understood the words.  We found out there was a bull fight that night at 11pm and these groups came from other towns and had something to do with it.  They all slowly walked on down to the bull ring outside of town, singing!  

We called home to talk to Sharilyn and the kids. Jarom has taken 3 steps!  Monday Shar & Andrew chased 3 deer out of the backyard.  Tues Shar chased 2 out all by herself.  A huge racoon keeps getting into the garage and eats Nimbus's food.  Shar will keep the back garage door closed now because of this.  Andrew's clever thinking decided to lure it in.  He watched for it through the little side kitchen window and when it came onto the deck, he gave it the ol' one, two with his pellet gun.  Also Nimbus brought them all a present like he loves to do.  He jumped through the window with a dead vole.

Cool people encounters:

We got to the Lisbon bus terminal to go to Fatima and found a sign saying that as of that day, the bus station had moved to another location.  We were confused because we couldn't read the Portuguese sign.  An old lady and her daughter came by and fortunately the daughter could speak English.  She told us what the sign said.  We all walked together to the new location.  When we told her we were going to Fatima and she said "Oh! My mother would be so happy if you would think of her while you are there!"  I told her we would be happy to.  She then spoke to her mom in Portuguese and her mom looked over at us beaming and with a big smile and said something in Portuguese.  Fatima is a very special town to Catholics.  Soon we got to the bus station and bid goodbye and thank you to the Ladies.  About 10 min later, outside of the bus window where I was sitting, there stood the old lady and her daughter smiling and waving at us.  How did they find us with all those buses!  We waved back & then the old lady put her hands together in prayer fashion, raised them to us & then pointed to herself.  I smiled and nodded "yes" to her.  I put my hands together in prayer form and pointed to her.  She looked so happy and thrilled that I almost cried and I was filled with love for her.  This quickly became an exchange not between strangers, but sisters; an exchange that no language barrier could bar.  I will always remember her expression and I said a prayer for her (and her daughter) that day in Fatima.

 

Another sweet moment

While waiting at Fatima's bus station to go to Batelha, we heard a happy "Oh hello!"  It was two girls from Japan waving and happy to see us.  We had met them in the Evora bus station many days earlier.  (In Evora they expressed concern that being a Sunday, all the tourist info centers were closed and they didn't know where they could stay.  I pulled out the name, address and phone # of the place we had just stayed and told them that we liked the place and knew they still had rooms available.  Chris showed them where it was on a map & they gratefully thanked us.)  So here we were, many hours away from Evora and days later seeing them once again.  I asked if they had found the hotel that we had suggested & they said yes and they enjoyed it and thanked us again.  We then waved to each other as we boarded the bus and bid our friends from Japan a "Sayonara".   

Though there is much trouble in this world, there are so many of our sweet brothers & sisters who are full of love & goodness, no matter where in the world you go.

Lisbon

While Chris was in conference, I had some wonderful reading time.  I finished "The Da Vinci Code" and Erin Klingler's book.

We visited cathedrals and museums and went to an awesome photography show called "Earth from Above" that Emily would have loved!  Beautiful photos blown up large poster size of stuff that looks cool from up high like patchwork fields, colorful baskets, oriental rugs, a storm on the ground or over water, fountains, tile patterns etc.

An old lady on our bus saw Chris looking at a map trying to figure our where to get off of the bus.  She said something to us in Portuguese that we couldn't understand and the lady next to her told us that she had asked us if we needed any help. She then kindly stepped into the role of helper.  As soon as she helped us, she gave up her seat to a pregnant lady and then dad gave up his seat to her, which put her sitting next to me and we enjoyed chatting until our stop.

We ate at a Fado restaurant.  Fado is a Portuguese style of folk music and this restaurant had Fado singers and some costumed dancers and mandolin players. It was delightful and made up for the yukky food. (not enough veg and very tough meat.) I love how people sing along in Europe!  They know the songs and sing along. It almost feels like your in a scene from a musical.  One song, at a certain part, everyone started making kissing sounds.  It sounded like a bunch of birds chirping!  I wish Americans did that!