Today we got up at 7am, got breakfast and got ready to go on land. We arrived at the Ponta Delgada Port in the Açores on Sal Miguel Island (Green Island) at about 8am. We got off the ship with a main mission of finding an Internet cafe. We asked people at the information booth and a police officer, and walked by it a couple of times before finding it. Once there, we updated our blog and uploaded some pictures to it. Since we ran out of time while uploading, we do not know what got posted. We will figure that out when we get to Lisbon.
After the Internet cafe, we strolled the old, narrow streets. We took pictures. We saw a church that could probably be sighted from outer space. It was decked out in thousands of colorful bulbs. The streets were mostly brick and cobblestone. The weather was sunny and fairly warm. Many people are sporting bad sunburns today. We enjoyed the nice sea breeze.
After taking in the small city, we went on a quest to find a customs office to stamp our passports, but were unsuccessful. So we got in line for the shuttle back
to the boat. That is when the real fun began. Christine suddenly blurted out, "I left my thingy in the thing!" Amazingly Kim responded, "What?! You left your flash drive in the computer?!" Indeed, that is what happened. We forgot to pull it out of the USB port since the time count down was pressuring us to finish quickly. So we walked all the way back to the Internet cafe. There was a guy in his 20s there at the desk. Christine walked up and said, "Did you find a flash drive here today?" BLANK STARE....He responded in Portuguese that he did not understand. So Christine used her charades skills to ask for paper and pen and then utilized her terrible drawing skills. She drew a picture of her flash drive to which he responded in English, "aaahhh....balahlbakhdlah (name of a street, pointing), the store". Christine replied, "no, no, I lost it!" He continued to point in a direction saying store. Christine let an old couple talk to him for a minute about a question they had while she thought of a plan to get him to understand she did not need a store. This is how our next interaction
went.
Christine: Puedes hablar en espaol? (Can you speak Spanish?) *No Spanish punctuation because we cannot figure it out on the computer, but you all will get the point)
Local: Si!! Puedo hablar en espanol. (Yes! I can speak in Spanish)
Christine: Me perdido mi flash drive para la computadora. (I lost my flash drive for the computer). Now mind you, Christine and Kim's Spanish skills are quite rough, but since Christine knew more Spanish than he knew English and since they both know no Portuguese, Christine kept talking to him mixing Spanish and English, using many hand gestures.
Local: OOhhh---Tu Sandisk!
Christine: Grateful for a breakthrough: Si! Si! Yes, My Sandisk!
Local: Ohhh, hmmm....no se. (I don't know) La chica -hand gestures eating, points to time on computer then points to counter and said 30 minutes.
Disappointed Christine: Uugghh, Pero Mi barco (but my ship) - hand signals floating away while thinking of a verb- Mi barco va a 02:00! (My ship leaves at 2:00 - It was 1:30ish at this point.)
Local: Barco?
Christine: Ship?
Local: Blank stare
Christine: Draws a picture of a ship (sail boat) like a 4 year old would.
Local: Hopeless face---Que color?
Christine:
color? gris (grey)
Local: gris?! Kim points to the color on Christine's backpack
Local: hhmm...no.
Then the lady walked in early (!). They blabbered in Portuguese and no-it was gone. But really, the interaction with the locals was worth it-it was fun to try to get over the language barriers and charades is always a good time. It was a true taste if the next coupe of months to come.
We went back to the shuttles and back to our ship. We walked along the storm breakers and then boarded or ship. We ate lunch then took a quick nap before our Murder Mystery dinner. We went to the Stardust Theatre and were split into groups of 6. Luckily, we had a pretty young group who were very lively. We had a lot of fun. Kim played the role of Leilani, a hula dancer who had previously pushed her fiance into a volcano. Christine was the supermodel Nadia Seymour, who was obsessed with the murder victim since high school.
After the dinner, we went back to our room to get ready for the show. It was the Second City Comedy Troop. A lot of SNL actors and actresses
got their start working as part of this group. It was a very funny show with some skits about cruise life and some improvisation. Christina sat with us for the show and Jon Jon took a break from his duties to come and talk with us before the show.
After the show we got ready and went up to the sock-hop. However, as soon as we walked in they started a couples dance so we left to check out the Toga Party in another lounge. Unfortunately, there were only about 3 people there so we went back to the sock-hop and found seats. We ordered sodas because Kim is in serious caffeine withdrawl with pop being so expensive on the ship (and they only have coke products, Kim prefers Pepsi). We talked for awhile with Jon Jon and Miguel. Miguel and Christine danced for a couple of songs. We left when it was over and went back to the Toga Party to talk with Miguel, Christina, and our French teacher/DJ Geoff. We left with Christina who lives on our floor and she slipped Kim some Diet Pepsi that she can get cheap from the crew store (Yay Christina!). The we called it a night and went to bed. However, having caught up on our sleep over the past few days, we were unable to fall asleep until after 4:00 in the morning. Technically though, 4 in the morning where we are is like 11 pm in NY, so perhaps our bodies are just simply rejecting time change.
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Map of Portugal