Sunday ; Mostly sunny, warm, a bit windy in the evening.
This morning we walked to the MEU grocery store and replenished a few grocery items.
This afternoon we went for a long walk to explore the Monte Brasil Forest Reserve, contained within the fortress walls of Castle of Sao Filipe a.k.a. Sao Joao Baptista do Monte Brasil. The long walk to the entrance to Monte Brasil, and then around the walled fortress grounds, was all uphill. VERY uphill !
I knew from reading tourism information that there is a large feral cat colony living in the Monte Brasil Forest Reserve, and sure enough, we encountered two cats of the colony. One was standoffish, and one was quite sociable. What seemed inexplicable was the flock of chickens wandering around in the forest, both hens and roosters.
In the early evening we went back to Preça Velha to see a choral choir perform. And, well … you know … <whispering> … buy something good to eat. We listened to the choir performance, then wandered around the charity food vendor booths, selecting a slice of a cream filled cake to take home for bedtime or breakfast.
I have just begun to use a new “fitness” app on our i-Phone, measuring my daily steps, distance walked and calories used in the process. WOW ! No wonder my feet are blistered. HA HA HA !
Monday ; Mostly cloudy, warm, very windy.
We had another slow, lazy day. This morning we went out to run some errands, at Azores Airlines and Vodafone again. Questions asked and answered, issues resolved, I hope. From there we walked over to Aki Perto to replenish lettuce and tomatoes. We dipsy doodled around for awhile, just to walk for exercise before returning home for lunch. And a nap for me !
Around 5:30 PM, as dusk set in, we went for another exercise walk. We walked over to Preça Velha to see if there were any Christmas activities. There weren’t. The Christmas Village celebrations seem to have Mondays and Tuesdays off. We wandered around, finding a pastelaria (pastry and cake shop) that we had not seen before. We bought a muffin for breakfast tomorrow, and a couple of meat filled phyllo pastries for lunch tomorrow.
Tuesday ; Sunny, warm, a really lovely “winter” day in the Azores.
By design, now that we have been here for two weeks, we have morphed from “tourist” to “resident”. We have slowed down … my blistered feet are grateful … and are more “living here” than “visiting here”.
With that in mind, late this morning we went out for a long walk, for exercise, and to just enjoy the lovely weather. We walked to Joanne’s favourite municipal park, and wandered around and explored the park for quite awhile. It’s quite large ! And, of course, very hilly ! On the way back to our guesthouse we stopped at a Portuguese version of a “dollar store” and browsed through Christmas ornaments. We have a small collection of Christmas ornaments, each piece a special reminder of some place or person. I bought another one today.
This afternoon I did quite a bit of research on travel by bus and train during the rest of our winter season in Portugal. I tried repeatedly to buy some bus tickets online, but was unsuccessful. The websites I was using seemed unable to process payment by any of my Canadian credit cards.
Early this evening we went out for another long walk, this time along the harbour and marina and waterfront. By the time we returned home, we were tired, especially Joanne. She was doing a lot of “whining” about how far we walked today. I was dismissive, until I checked my new fitness app on the i-Phone. OH … we walked about six km.! All hilly !
Wednesday ; Sunny and warm.
Around 11:30 AM we headed out to Preça Velha to catch a bus to a large grocery store. With a large bakery/café next door. I used the i-Phone’s live map function to determine the correct bus stop location, and next bus scheduled. Once on the bus, I followed along on the i-Phone’s live map to know when to get off the bus, then how to walk the short remaining distance to the grocery store. I’m quite enamoured with our new i-Phone and its live map and translator functions. And I’m becoming reasonably proficient with using those functions.
We peeked into the bakery/café before going into the grocery store, to decide whether we were going to have lunch and purchase bread in the grocery store or in the bakery/café. We replenished groceries, buying enough “essentials” and microwaveable supper ingredients to likely last for our remaining two weeks here in Angra do Heroisma. We went next door and had a wonderful lunch ; chicken & rice soup, and tuna quiche for me, split pea & bacon soup, and ham & cheese quiche for Joanne. I had never had tuna quiche before. It was great ! We bought quite a few pastries for bedtimes and breakfasts, and a small loaf of crusty Portuguese bread before leaving. With assistance by our trusty i-Phone we found our way to the nearby correct bus stop (remember, most streets here are one way, and frequent “roundabouts”), and returned home.
After an afternoon nap I trimmed my beard. I draped a towel over the bathroom sink as I did so. When I was finished, I folded the towel, carried it to the exit door of our room, opened the door, and vigorously shook out the towel. All the beard hair trimmings flew out … and into the open driver’s window of the passing police car. YIKES ! HA HA HA <SNORT> HA HA ! ! ! I somewhat forgot that the extremely narrow cobblestone street is about twelve inches from our door.
The cop flinched slightly, but kept driving. I suppose these sorts of incidents are not uncommon here in Europe wherever there are narrow streets and even narrower sidewalks. Seems reminiscent of Monty Python skits with people emptying chamber pots out their doors and windows. HA HA HA !
OH ! <knock knock> Here’s our landlord again, with another two slices of freshly baked apple pie. Thank you very much / muito obrigado, Senhor José (pronounced “zhoseh”, soft “e” sound, translates as Joseph).
At 8:15 PM we headed out again, for a Christmas concert at 8:30 PM at Preça Velha. The five member band performing was a Portuguese pop-rock (?) band. While we were enjoying the performance Joanne went over to one of the charity fund raiser food booths and bought us a large, luscious slice of “tarte Estrela de Jesus” (Star of Jesus pie). I think I know why it’s named that. After the first bite, you exclaim “HOLY JESUS”, it’s that good ! HA HA HA ! It’s kind of like a cheesecake with a butter tart on top. We enjoyed the performance until it ended at 10:15 PM and we were home by 10:30 PM.
By the way, the band’s name was “Rapazes da Canada de Trás”, which our i-Phone translates as “Boys from Canada from Behind”. HUH ? ? ? WHAT ? ? ? Canadian Backstreet Boys ? ? ? Canadian Bum Boys ? ? ?
Thursday ; Portugal’s Restoration of Independence Day
Sunny and very warm. A lovely day to celebrate the reclamation / Restoration of Independence from them ****ing Spaniards. HA HA HA !
Well ! Restoration of Independence Day started at 8 AM, with extremely loud explosions being shot off over the ocean from the beach in front of our guesthouse. HMPH … I suppose everybody is awake NOW ! I opened the door and peeked out. It seemed as if there was a small group of young men with … <blink blink> … what appeared to be shoulder mounted rocket propelled grenade (RPG) launchers lobbing exploding grenades out over the bay. HUH ? ! ?
Joanne went back to sleep, but … HA HA HA … at 8:30 AM a large marching band led by many flag bearers congregated in front of a building about half a block from us and began to very loudly play some rousing patriotic tunes of … independence, I guess. I could almost feel the community’s collective “flipping the bird” at Spain. HA HA HA !
Now (10 AM) there are a bunch of small boats collecting in the bay. I stepped outside our door to take a closer look and could see that there is a large collection of kayakers congregating on the beach. <shrug>
At noon we went for an exercise walk, culminating at Aki Perto (tagline ; Supermercado dos Açores) to replenish water, lettuce, and tomatoes. We had a late lunch in our room, then I did online research for next winter’s travel dreams. Unexpectedly … I ended up booking a room for next November in a resort town in the country of Malta. I recently gave advice to Joanne’s younger niece to “open the door when opportunity knocks”. So … I followed my own advice. It was a lot of “back and forth” with the guesthouse owner / manager, prompted by an initial pricing error on Booking.com’s website. By the end of the day, our first destination for next winter’s travels was “wrapped up”.
WOO-HOO !
Joanne was very tired tonight due to poor sleep last night, and she did not want to go to our planned outing for this evening, a choir performance at Praça Velha. So … I went by myself, but … did not stay long. It was chilly, and raining lightly, so … I returned home and we had supper.
Well … the new next door neighbours certainly are noisy when having sex, aren’t they ? ! ? Somebody (her !) must be watching too much cheap porn !
Friday ; Sunny and warm during the day, chilly in the evening.
Around 11:30 AM we headed out for our morning exercise walk, and to enjoy the lovely weather. We descended the many steep stairs down to the beach, then wandered around on the beach for awhile. We walked to the end of the harbour breakwater and back, then up into town. We wandered around downtown for awhile then picked up a few grocery items at Aki Perto before heading home for lunch.
At 6 PM, as dusk settled in, we went for another long exercise walk. The air had chilled considerably from earlier in the day. BRRRRR ! After having supper in our room we walked over to Praça Velha for tonight’s “Christmas In The Village” concert, a smooth jazz / soft rock trio. It was a pleasant and relaxing evening listening to their music, some Portuguese, some American pop rock. It began to drizzle as their performance ended. BRRRRR !
GEEEEZ … wet cobblestones are slippery, especially uphill / downhill !
Saturday ; Cloudy and chilly in the morning, cold and raining the rest of the day.
We went out late this morning for an exercise walk, and to replenish a few grocery items at MEU Super. On the way back home with our groceries we stopped at Alto Sé Café and bought their daily special to take home for lunch. Many of the local restaurants have a daily special at a very reasonable price. Some of them post their weekly specials menu on Monday of each week. We check Copacabana’s and Alto Sé’s each week.
Lunch was cream of vegetable soup, small salad, carne assada (roasted meat, specifically roast beef) on a bed of rice, fruit juice, and a chocolate & whipped cream pastry roll for dessert. €6.50 + 50¢ for “doggy bag” containers = €7.00 / a bit less than CA$10.00. Easily enough to feed both of us.
Due to the weather we spent the afternoon and evening at home, doing not much of anything. Joanne did crosswords and Sudokus on the i-Phone, I did a variety of miscellaneous work on the laptop. Our landlord brought over fresh apple pie again, for the fourth time. He certainly does make good apple pies. Thank you again / obrigado novamente, Senhor José.
DSK
No comments:
Post a Comment