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!
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. :-)
