Life is an adventure! Well, it is for us anyway. Part of what makes adventure is the possibility of things going wrong. Sometimes terribly wrong, but usually just odd little inconveniences.
Last Sunday we went to church—St. Andrews Church of Scotland. We got on the tram. I had it all mapped out on my app. I crack myself up. The tram didn't stop at the place we needed it to stop. It turns out you have to push a button telling the tram to stop. So we backtracked through alleys, streets, and stairs until we found it.
It's a tiny little old church like the one my Grandpa used to preach in. It was a great sermon given by Pastor Norman in a Scottish brogue. He is very dramatic. A little four year-old girl trotted around during the entire sermon in spite of the stern glares by the older women. The hymns were terrible, so all you could hear were two brave souls singing and everyone else kind of murmuring along. Afterwards we were ushered down to the yard and rec-room for little English style sandwiches and guacamole and chips. Everyone was so nice. We'll be back.
I decided to explore some of the communities along the train (not the tram) route going past our home. I discovered a beach town called Carcavelos. We packed up our backpack and wore layers. Trying to figure out which train we wanted was tricky, but we'd been observing them coming and going, so we knew the trains went the opposite direction of highway lanes—they ran more like the British roads. That accomplished, we went over the foot-bridge and descended to our train. So far so good. When the train pulled in, we climbed aboard and looked for the scanner, but none could be found. We jumped back off before the doors could close and located the scanner. Twenty minutes later we scanned our passes and then hopped back on the train.
In Carcavelos, we disembarked and walked the mile to the beach… the perfect beach. All along the boardwalk were humble little restaurants and surfing schools. It was a bit chilly, but that didn't stop the surfers.
I loved the various groups of kids in their surfing classes. So cute. They had a kid's zip-line on the beach—that was a source of entertainment for sure. At one end of the beach is an ancient fort. We noticed the ferries carting people/cars to two towns across the river and thought that looked promising (more on that later). We stayed at the beach all day except at one point we came to a tunnel, so we followed it up to the town. We walked around a bit and headed back to the beach. When we finally decided to leave, we wandered through several neighborhoods en route and fell in love.
Back up to the train. We scanned our passes before getting on and happily watched the sunset from the windows. And then we passed our exit. The train didn't even slow down. Two exits later the train stopped. We got off and started walking back in hopes of finding a returning bus (hoping it would be the right bus). We succeeded and therefore spent the night in our home instead of wandering the streets of Portugal all night. It turns out that during high-volume rush hour, we needed to get off the train at some point and get back on another train—on the same exact tracks—that would stop at our place… seriously does this make sense to anyone?
This leads me to a subject dear to my heart. Food. We're having the hardest time adjusting to how early they eat in Belem. In Lisbon it was the normal European late nights, but here it's much earlier. By the time we got back from our journey it was about 8:00pm. We knew where we wanted to eat, but they were closed. So was the next place. We found an open restaurant (we were the last guests) and ate the worst meal so far. To warn you, I don't like starchy, carb-loaded foods. A normal Portuguese meal here will have both white rice and a pile of limp French fries taking up three quarters of the plate. Trust me, I'm very particular about what the other quarter of the dish is going to be. That’s one of the reasons I order the garlic shrimp so often because it comes alone… just shrimp. On this occasion I ended up with a tiny hamburger patty with a fried egg on top (normally my favorite, but this egg wasn't sunny-side up like it should've been). By the way, when they set bread, butter, olives, and cheese on the table, don’t eat it unless you want to pay for it.
The next day we went back to the pool to swim for exactly 45 minutes and then to the grocery store. I bought a package of diced beef, an onion, and olive oil. I'd read a recipe for this meat and was excited to try it. That was the very worst inedible beef I'd ever eaten. I managed to gnaw my way through about ten percent of it… I was thankful for my baked potato. It's a learning curve. The salmon I bought last week was the best I'd ever had (shrug). Today we got more salmon and chicken.
Thursday we decided to explore those two towns we'd watched the ferry stop at on the south side of the river. This time there were scattered clouds. No problem. We went to the ferry station and followed a girl on… past the cars pulling on. The first adorable little town was Brandao. We walked for about an hour. When we came back to the station we discovered that the ferry doesn't stop at Brandao every time it comes by. It would be over two hours before the next ferry to Trafaria! We'd already walked the entire town.
We went into a restaurant and had a traditional lunch of garlic prawns and caldo verde (spinach soup). Then we went and stood staring fearfully at the dock because the ferry was sitting there, doing nothing. I asked two times to be sure the ferry was leaving at 3:00. Apparently it was the ferry staff's lunch break. We got on successfully and went to Trafaria. As soon as we arrived, I checked the return schedule :)
For some reason we began walking west right away. Probably because an enormous ugly factory looms over the pretty little town. We were rewarded with an absolutely stunning beach with a vast Atlantic view.
We had to walk a trail to get there. It was really pretty, but far off the beaten path. The first beach café we came to was closed for the low season.
We began the trek down the beach to find someplace to sit with a beer and a glass of wine. We found one, and there we sat as we watched a storm sweep in. Suddenly our lovely sunny view was grey and rainy. And we still had over an hour's worth of walking ahead of us. We had raincoats, but still. It wasn't exactly how we wanted to spend the rest of our day. Joe saved the day and called an Uber. I'm amazed at this service. It's so nice to just type in where you want to go. They already know where you are, so you don't have to try to explain your location over the phone.
In five minutes the car came through the rain in the gravel parking lot and took us to the ferry station in time to catch a boat back to Belem. Crazy day.
The weather is volatile this time of year. When we flew in a couple of weeks ago, it felt like the captain was doing jumping jacks with the plane. When he landed, he had to slam on the brakes. I could hear things falling and several phones skidded past us. From our favorite restaurant I've discovered that there's never a time when there is no plane in the sky. Lisbon airport is a busy place. The weather has calmed down a bit this week. For awhile there I was completely baffled as to what to expect. Sometimes it would be sunny and a misty rain would be coming in on the wind.
Now I just carry my raincoat with me everywhere. It's times like this that we find a sheltered corner, and I sit with my wine or port with my nose pointed towards the sun like a cat.
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