End of the World and Tunnels Galore

We are dying to share with you two wonderful "must sees" in Portugal! Our friends, Laura and Paul were just visiting and together we found some great spots to explore. The first one is Cabo da Roca, "where the land ends and the sea begins". This is the westernmost point in all of Europe and was once thought to be literally the end of the world. It was absolutely breathtaking! The pictures do not do it justice!

The other place that we LOVED was Quinta de Regaleira in Sintra, Portugal. OMG! It was so fun! It is a magical palace with beautiful gardens, fountains and hidden tunnels galore. We had such a great time exploring there, we felt like we were in the Goonies. We went through dark tunnels with water dripping on us and the only light was from my keychain. We never knew where we would end up but with every turn there was always a surprise. We definitely plan to go back many more times =)

Rainy Day Project - Recycled Portuguese Bath Tile Mosaic

The other day Graham and I were walking home from the shopping center and stumbled across some beautiful portuguese tiles that had been thrown out. We decided we would take them home and create a mosaic on a rainy day. We had a lot of fun! We also found a scrap piece of wood right down the street from the tile and brought that home to use as the base.

Our steps were:
1. Cleaned the tiles with soap and water and picked out our favorite ones.

2. Laid out a towel on the floor and put our scrap piece of wood down on one side and then we made a shape the same size as the wood with masking tape. In that shape we placed our tiles and moved them around until we got the right design.

3. We then painted the border of our wood with white paint.

4. After the paint dried, we mixed a bag of white cement per the instructions on the bag. Then we had to work quickly!

5. We spread the cement down, combed it with a hair comb and then quickly pressed our tiles into the cement. It took only a few minutes to dry.

Voila! That's all it took! All in all, it took us about 10 minutes to complete the project and about 4 dollars for the cement (we had the white paint already from a previous project). It was a great way to reuse some beautiful tiles that no one wanted anymore and to bring an original piece of artwork to our apartment.

Portimao, Seville, and Granada

Hola! Sorry to keep you waiting for an update; its been a whirl wind voyage traveling South through the Algarve of Portugal and the Andalucia of Spain. Who knew these entire countrysides were void of all native plants and in turn replaced with valuable croplands for export? Portugal's countryside is almost entirely planted with Cork Oak and Citrus.


Spain is quite the same, except instead of Cork thats produced its Olives, lots of Olives. Olive trees stretch over every mountain and into each valley as far as the eye can see. Primarly in the Andalucia region of Spain the olives are collected then pressed into the golden green EVOO.

Seville is famous for the Cathedral and Real Alcazar, a royal palace and garden that was constructed by the Moors and later taken by the Christians. Citrus, Palms, and pebbled paths abound.

Granada's main attraction is the Alhambra, another royal palace built by the Moors in the 12th Century. The Alhambra streches across an entire mountain and contains endless gardens with Jasmine, Cypress, Citrus, and water water everywhere!

We have finally come to rest in Cordoba, Spain where we will visit the Mezquita Catedral before driving back the Lisbon tomorrow morning. Stay tuned for more photos from the 6 hour drive home!

Estoril Casino & Sintra

So we are officially the worst bloggers ever. We have been meaning to update the blog for over a week now, sorry! Let's see, what have we been up to? We went to Casino Estoril which is the largest casino in all of Europe and saw "Fado, Historia de um Povo" ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0GjMgydphI )
about the music that defines Portugal. It was amazing! I won us 30 euro at the roulette table and we dined on a large portuguese buffet, with my most favorite desert of all time, pastel de nata. The night was also in celebration of our 1 year anniversary. I can't believe it's already been over a year!


We have also been very lucky to get to know our local cafe owners, Bella and Fransisco. Their cafe (Gingas) is right down the street from us and we frequently hang out there playing cards.....mainly Crazy 8's and Gin rummy. Bella and Fransisco took us to Sintra this past Sunday in a car ( what a luxury!!!!!) with some of their other family members, who also speak english! Sintra was just beautiful! It is a small resort town about 20 minutes away. Many of the Lisboa's visit there on the weekend to see the Château de Sintra and sample the world famous pastry called "Queijadas de Sintra".

A few other noteworthy things that differentiate the european lifestyle from the Americans include the Portuguese's' obsession with Cafe (Espresso), a micro cup of strong coffee that they drink morning, noon, and night. Perhaps this is the reason they drive so intensely, always bumper to bumper and 20 km over the speed limit in any zone.

They also have a taste for Bacalhau- Surprisingly this fish does not exist in any Portuguese water. It is imported from Norway, dried, salted, then shipped to seemingly every fish store in this country that is the geographic equivalent size of Indiana and Maine.

Lastly, the eggs of Portugal contain dark yellow (almost orange) yolks and often times still have a stray feather attached to the outside of the shell. Perhaps is because they are not refrigerated or because the chickens run free and are allowed to catch grasshoppers and dig for worms.

We are really excited because we are going to a social on Friday night in Lisboa for expats. We hope to make some new friends!

Miss you all! Love, E&G

Getting Settled

Things have been a little challenging lately! We have been trying to get to know our surroundings and trying to communicate in portuguese. It's proving to be much harder than we expected! The past few days have been filled with sleeping in, shopping for new bed linens and fishing equipment, going to the local grocery store (pingo doce) almost daily, learning the public transportation system (lordy, don't even get me started on that!!), walks/runs on the boardwalk and last night cleaning the carpet b/c I stepped in dog poop on our walk home. It was bound to happen at some point, I suppose =(

Tomorrow our plan is to ride the public bikes and to go to the local market. The weather has been beautiful and we are very thankful for that! More to come.....

First Entry from Cascais

We are here! I have so much to tell you and I doubt I can write it all in one cohesive entry so this entry is going to be as if I were talking to a girlfriend on the phone....think rambling!

Bom dia! It is 12:45pm and Graham and I just woke up, we are still adjusting to the 5 hour time difference. The sun is out and it is a beautiful day! Let me start from the beginning.....

Ok, so yesterday was our first day here and we packed in a lot. but let's go back to the day we left Alexandria. I was a mess, so nervous I thought I was going to throw up, more because I am afraid to fly, not because of coming to Portugal. I cried saying goodbye to my family at the airport (not surprising for anyone who truly knows me, remember the week of crying when I first got to virginia tech??) Graham was very good with me, very patient. We board the flight and 3 ativan and 3 glasses of wine later, I pass out. The next flight from heathrow to Lisbon was a piece of cake.

Here we are, in Lisbon, it's 6pm and we are freaking out. we find a tourist desk and the guy there spoke english and directed us to the taxi line. After a 30 minute taxi ride at 140 km/hour (oh about 80 mph) in rush hour (yea, scary) we arrive to Sam's apt. We love it! So we unpacked everything and went out to wander around at around 9pm. We found a bar right across the street and got 2 beers, and a large plate of french fries for 4,50 euro, very cheap! There was a very nice lady that worked there named Bella who said she would help us with our portuguese.

That brings us to day 1 here in Cascais. As we are leaving our apt we run into our new neighbor, Jack Cling who is 90 years old and from Detroit. Yay, he speaks english and portuguese! He is so sweet, so we went down to Cafe Nikola which is on the first floor of our apt building and had um cafe come leite with him. Then we went to Pingo Doce, our local grocery store, which was an adventure. Whoever said lots of people here speak english were lying, b/c it seems as though we are the only people, other than Jack and Bella who speak english.

Since we are car-less, we then walked to downtown Cascais, about a 15 minute walk. We went to the mall and went to the food court and studied all the menus trying to figure out the english translation (people looked at us like we were crazy). Ok, so then we just walked around, went to the pier, to boca de inferno (mouth of the devil, i'll let graham explain that in another entry), the municipal park which was beautiful, and finally to the Jumbo mart (think walmart). All in all we walked probably 5 miles! It was wonderful.

A few things of note, people here love to smoke and they have to do it outside so that's kind of annoying. There is also a good amount of grafitti on most buildings. It is very green here, lots of beautiful landscape. Everyone drinks espresso at all times of the day. People drive like maniacs and pedestrians do not have the right of way. All sidewalks are hand-laid tile but be careful to watch out for dog poop.

I probably know about 30 words of portuguese now and am dying to learn more! Graham said "gracias" to the mailman, so he has a little work to do, haha! Ok that's it for me now, I'll let Graham say a few words. Miss you all! Pictures to come, internet is s-l-o-w.....

Last night in USA!

So tomorrow is the big day and I am a mixture of emotions! I am excited, scared, nervous and hopeful. Graham and I have been packing and repacking, trying to spend time with friends and family and running last minute errands. Like I said earlier, it is very difficult to prepare to go to another country for an extended period of time, especially when you can only bring two 50 pound bags (plus a carryon and personal item which I have packed full, obviously!!).

We had a wonderful Christmas in Alexandria, followed by a visit to Pennsylvania and Delaware to see more family members including Graham's adorable grandpa Sam. I had the best time visiting him and getting to know him. I think he really liked me too! We chatted, went out to lunch and even danced together. We are so thankful for our time with him and his caretaker Wallid, who is amazing!!

We spent New Years in Sperryville, VA together which was our 1st anniversary (yay)! Some of our friends came by to visit and we had a great time! It is so relaxing in Sperryville!

Thank you everyone for the well wishes! We are so blessed to have the support of all of our friends and family! Thank you especially to my family who has made our "homebase" possible, collecting our mail, letting us store things and the list goes on and on.

We wish you all good health and many blessings in 2011 and hope to see each and everyone of you in Portugal, haha!!!

xoxo