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Published: November 2nd 2006
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Lisbon Train Station
Shortly after this shot I just about jumped on a train to the south instead of north becuase I had the wrong time on my watch. Boa Dia, that and about three other words is the great repertoire of my Portuguese language! I have to laugh, for the last month all that has been jibber jabbering around me has been the "throat clearing" dialect of Dutch mixed with a little Antwerp version (although both Dutch apparantly they are different a bit like comparing an American from Alabama to a Brit from Brixton). Where is this place? Finally I know where I have been for the last month and could possibly point to it on a map, don´t hold me to it though! If you check out Portugal and find a city on the coast called Figueria da Foz then I was about 15minutes in land from there.
The Termas da Azenha were I was based was a healing place of relaxation during the wars that plauged Europe. Soilders would go to the Terma to bath in the speacial mineral water that comes up from the springs deep below the earth. Thats enough of that, special my ar#se, sorry but that is literal too! Mineral-I -say-Shem-eral after drinking this highly potent, never cold, tap water I made a series of special visits to my porcelein friend where
The local
This was where Augusto North from the north of Portugal loved to practise english and rack up the pool balls for usually Gino and I. after a gallant Austin Powers moment I could´t dispose of the paper down the bowl as there is a complicated sewerage system that required everyone to put the paper in a bin. Yikes! After I got into the habit of this, sometimes I slipped, but hey I am not going down to retrieve anything, it seemed like acceptable behaviour.
Again the place and experience was definitely enhanced by the people that were coming and going. The volunteers were made up of Dutch (go figure), a Belguim (the lovely and grumpy Gino), a Hungarian (Bernadette, soon to be called Bernie) and me NZ represent! Our days consisted of rolling out of bed at 8.45am (this got increasingly later as the month wore on and the parties never ceased), stumble blindly down stairs to eat fresh bread rolls, chocolate paste and strong coffee (I guess in hindesight this probably didn´t help the tap water situation, arh well live and learn). This changed of course if you were on breakfast which it seeemed I was whenever bottles of port had been consumed until late the night before (it was just uncanny).
What have I learnt:
I have become an expert in
The hardest of all the days - concreting
I managed to get concrete everywhere and a very sore back, I am just not cut out for labour. ways of the warrior snail. Those slippery bastards know how to find a vegie patch, seriously you have to show them whose boss or else no vegies for dinner (and we all know that means no pudding!). Not only this but if anyone feels like having a mosaic decorated bathroom I am your women, check out my efforts in one of the pictures (I did get better, I promise!). And I can command a mean poker face, may be thats because I still don´t know when a round ends so I have no reaction to my cards what so ever.
Moments of madness:
I though I was going to die twice a day every Friday getting to and from the disco tech (don´t you love that word, disco tech it just conjures up images of the eighties for me)! Hella is íns´with a Portuguese taxi driver who would dive all the way from Figueria to the Terma to pick us up and drive us to the disco tech. DRIVE? Holy shit, again I apologise for swearing but honestly I am speechless, when I say “he was going 140km per hour through narrow villages, pulling handbreaks around round-a-bouts and getting
Termas da Azenha
The following are pictures from where I was based for the month... air from average speed bumps”, really, I am just softening it because Mum and Dad are reading this. I was terrorised and shaken, worse than when Uncle Fred of 83 decided to drive Dan and I at 120ks on the Napier Taupo highway. The more I protested to Hella the more she translated to the drive that I thought his driving was really ´neat´! Yes Hella you had fun ´translating´for me didn´t you!
Another moment of madness was when I though I had made my fortune. Within days of being at the Termas it was explained very cordially that when I am taking a shower donºt be afriad if a ´lobster´comes out of the pipes!? Are you freaken kidding me! I was thinking lobsters, coming thorugh pipes willy~-nilly do these people know how much you pay for lobster, and they are just hanging out in a shower? So if you haven´t worked it out by now, this was a lost in translation moment. ´lobster´is really one of those fresh water crayfish, creepy crawly things, we use to find in the creek. (You know the ones Emma, you stabbed my leg in the process!). But still this was not a
nice thought, so I used to block the pipe while in the shower so those little buggars couldn´t ambush me.
Many funny Dutch-Garian-lish words and sayings going on; One of my Favourites was when at dinner Gino announced that his ´balls were a funny formation´, that was a crowd pleaser. He meant that he kept losing pool becasue his pool balls never seemed to be in a good position. I wish I could learn to keep my composure in situations like that and then I wouldn´t have wasted perfectly good soup by spraying the wall with it.
Lots of breath taking scenery, walking home from the train station for an hour always evoked the need to go snap happy. This is good because I led Gino and I off in the exact opposite direction from where we should have gone adding an additional 40 minutes to our walk, oops (sorry Ems I could never be in logistics like you!). I swore we were on the right track becasue I could see the church steeple oin the horizon, stupid girl, there are church steeples on every horizon if you turn 360degrees!
I am now hanging out in Coimbra
prentending to be an international student, getting food discounts and partying like I am 23 again (okay so maybe I never stopped partying from the age of 23) but as hella pointed out at least we have the party pimples to fit in if anyone doubts out age!
Tommorrow its Porto for lunch then Lisbon for the weekend and the Algarve for next week. I will leave for London on the 10th of Nov so look out Dan I will have a Portuguese tan and bottom from all the bread and pasrtries to match - emmmmmmm pasteries errrrrrrrororororollllll.
Love ya leave ya I have more coffee to drink! Look out London here I come - Hooplah!
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Sammie
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looking hot
Looking hot - how much i miss you when i see your face. you'd think i was pregnant again with how teary i get when your face comes up!! fabulous travel stories yet again. tommi wants to know when abba and dan are home from their verrrry long (said with hands out, palms up) holiday. apparently you're both coming to her birthday party! by the way love all the new outfits you seem to be wearing in every photo! love ya xSx