So sitting down to tell about our family adventure resulted in my own instant boredom - not for the riveting tales of life abroad, but bored of the presentation. How do I make this interesting?
Day one... just kidding.
Meeting the family in Lisbon was a giddy sort of thing, what with everyone taking different flights and coming from different directions. As is usually the case, we arrived in town long before our hotel was ready for us, so we found a cafe on a hill and spent the early Portuguese morning with hot tea and that just-got-to-town sleepy, thrilled feeling.
But starting my story there skips the good parts of the trek over. These include noticing stains on Ellen and Dad's shirts while we were still in the Charleston airport. Ellen's stain looked suspiciously like baby vomit while Dad's looked to have come from his lunch. Both of them were distressed by their stains. "I have to the throw this shirt away!" Dad exclaimed. He put his sweater on over it even though he wasn't cold. Ellen's stain was much more noticeable. She ran off to the bathroom to clean it and somehow that effort turned the stain blue. It became a mystery stain and Ellen spent time standing in positions that hid it from the world.
The other good part is that Dad took an Ambien shortly after we took off. I found him wandering the plane and when he saw me, relief washed over his face. He was so excited to see me, as if months had passed. He gave me an excessively long hug in the aisle and told me, "I love you SO much." Then he sat down and fell asleep and it turns out he doesn't remember a thing of it. He had also convinced the flight attendant to give Ellen and me some ice cream.
"I was walking around?" he asked as we all recounted our in-flight activities, "We talked?"
Georgia, Carolyn, and David eventually met us at the hillside cafe before I took everyone to the clown school for lunch. I was so glad to see that Brett's and my favorite dining establishment from our honeymoon was still going strong. It was a big hit, that clown school lunch, and then we all went back to the hotel for naps.
For the record, I intended to bring my faincy camera on the trip to maximize the the photo documentation prettiness factor. I had my camera and lens and memory card all packed up and ready. I just needed to get the battery from a box of things I left at Mom's house... I couldn't find it. We had just moved out of Black Pig Farms - stuff was everywhere. So I unloaded my camera gear from my carry-on and then rode off to the airport.
That's my long winded apology for presenting you with uninspiring phone photos of such inspiring locales.
During our time in Lisbon we had run-ins with Alston and Hailey (mostly at meal times) and we rode little tuk-tuks around town one morning in an effort to see more of the city. Mom, Dad, Georgia and I rode in Juan's tuk-tuk. Juan was well informed on the history and hubbub of Portugal and had lots of interesting topics to discuss. Carolyn, David, and Ellen rode with Greg; a seemingly drunken Frenchman who spoke little English and probably didn't know what city he was in. What he lacked in qualifications he made up for with spunk. He was nuts; giggly and talkative - you just couldn't understand him. Ellen scrambled out of his tuk-tuk at one stop and said, "I think Greg is crazy!" Dad and Greg spoke the same language in facial expressions and became tickled with each other towards the end. Greg's tuk-tuk was bright yellow and he trailed behind us everywhere Juan went. It was very Pink Panther.
The family really loved Lisbon, with its colors and friendly folks. We moved one step closer to pivoting the future family compound to being one in the Portuguese countryside with "12 bedrooms and views of the sea." (-Dad) Everyone wants to go back to really explore, and I wholeheartedly support this. What else is there to do? Work? Bleh.
In upcoming posts I will outline our stops with notes on family behavior patterns and highlights. I continued my biological study of Ellen, watched Dad tumble into a light depression, and observed the Leisure Club: the Silver Years.
More to come.
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