Pasteis de nata and Sneeches

The weather is windy and cool today after lots of rain last night and the night before. Thankfully the rain didn't start until we were safe in bed at home on Wednesday, as we had a great afternoon adventure to a neighborhood along the river (towards the sea) called Belem. Found a GREAT playground for Ian there where he could really "get his sillies out." Then we dispensed with the "dessert only after dinner" rule and all enjoyed "pasteis de nata," delicious pastries, flakey on the outside and creamy in the center - like a little tart. Apparently (by reputation) this pastelleria has the best "pasteis de nata" in all of Lisbon. Then yesterday after class we found a new (to us) neighborhood on the other side of the hill from our apartment with lots of fun shops and beautifully kept houses and apartments - one of the fun aspects of a large city is the way neighborhoods are nestled together and can be very different even though they are so close to one another... We have deduced that our neighborhood is, shall we say, awaiting gentrification...

For his homework yesterday, Rich translated Doctor Suess's "The Sneeches" into Portuguese for his teacher! it was a good way for him to practice the mixing of verb tenses (indefinite, past perfect, etc.) Then he had to do The Zax live on the spot. phew. I continue to have fascinating discussions with my teachers about how close something is to something else, or where this is or that is. sigh... my head is exploding with information, and yet i feel so far from being able to speak. today i opened my mouth and said a sentence with half turkish and half portuguese and didn't even realize it until my teacher started laughing. oh well. it's only been 2 weeks!

We found a Mozambican restaurant in downtown Lisbon so will head there tonight for dinner with the other students at our school (at the moment two, one woman from the Netherlands and a man from Finland). should be fun!

We discovered that we have access to an unsecured wireless network from our balcony IF our computers are above the level of the railing of the balcony, so now Rich and I have a funny ritual of working during Ian's afternoon nap, standing up and drinking beer. :-)

Belem and Arruda

We are spending the weekend with our friend Maria (she spent 3 weeks at Chitengo in Gorongosa National Park last summer and became good friends with many of the staff there, including my boss Vasco). She is a very warm and generous person and we are enjoying staying at her home in the country outside of Lisbon. And, she has wireless internet! so it is a chance for a little bit of catching up for us. Plus today is rainy and cool so we have a good excuse to be inside catching up on emails.

Ian had the morning of his life, getting a full personal tour of the fire station of the local town. maria's ex-husband is the volunteer fire department manager for that town, so we had an "in" for a tour by the weekend fire chief himself! You can imagine how seriously Ian took this tour - he was so excited he could hardly stand it. he got to climb on the fire trucks and see inside each of them, try on the helmets of the firemen, and see all the rooms where they live in the firehouse. wow. what a day. we will show him lions, elephants, and all kinds of other exciting animals and sights in Africa, and just you wait, he will remember this fire house tour as more important. :-)

We are one week into our one-month adventure in Portugal. I still can barely speak but my understanding is improving. nothing like one-on-one classes to move one along with language skills. The groups with whom we have our lessons specilizes in preparing people to go to do development work in former portuguese colonies, so it's a great way to work with a lot of good leftists :-) Everytime I go to speak Portuguese, turkish comes out, but I am working on that :-)

We had a lovely morning yesterday, taking the train from downtown Lisbon to a neighborhood just a few minutes down the river (Belem) where we toured the beautiful famous "Torre de Belem" (tower of Belem) and ate the best pastries and coffee beside the river. yum.

Next weekend we will spend with our friends Manuel Dematos and his wife Viviene and their daughter Alice. Our IES friends may remember Manuel, who started in Land Resources at the same time as me. Manuel is from Lisbon and now lives in Brussels working for the EU, but they are coming for a vacation in Portugal and will spend some if it with us! We are very happy about that. They met us in Amsterday when we were en route to Mozambique last fall... Good friends. And finally we will have a bit of Portuguese to speak with them!

Update from Lisbon

Thanks to all who have sent emails in the last few days! great to hear from so many friends and family.

We are all doing well. Ian has adjusted wonderfully to Natasha - he barely skips a beat when we depart for class in the morning. Yesterday they went to the aquarium. (Natasha is the 22-year old daughter of Sophia, who is coming to work at Gorongosa Park - Natasha will come too, and be Ian's nanny in Mozambique as well).

Rich and I continue with our classes -- the 5 hours a day fly by, and we have homework ("TPC" or "Trabalho para casa") every night. last night I had to write a paragraph about myself. tonight I have to write a paragraph about my family. Rich had to give a 20-minute oral presentation (without notes!) about the US to his teacher today!! I am so glad we are in different classes. Our apartment is working out really well for us. We can walk to class in 25 minutes, or take the subway in a little less time. very easy. and it is walking distance to many great sights in Lisbon. If you look in this photo, our house is just to the right of the large cement wall in the middle of the photo, between the trees in the middle and the trees on the right.

That's all for now. more soon!

Arrived in Lisbon

Boa tarde! We arrived Saturday morning (March 17) after a hectic (nearly comical) departure from Madison - only got out by with the help of friends and neighbors. The flight from Chicago was uneventful but largely sleepless, but we still had a great day Saturday and Sunday getting to know Lisbon a bit. Our apartment is very near the downtown area - we walked yesterday to the castle on the hill opposite our apartment in just a short time - great view of the city from there, and Ian loved the old canons. The apartment is tiny (go to http://www.lisbonflats.com and click on Taipas to see photos), but is good practice for our 620 sq ft home in Mozambique... found a grocery store in walking distance and stocked up. Today was our first day of class - tons to learn, but good. now back to ian and natasha, who had a good day from all reports! (natasha is our babysitter).