Our Portuguese New Year

We were able to move around our flights for free, and were even able to spend more time in Lisbon for the New Year celebrations. We flew in on the 27th instead, which was nice that the snow finally started to disappear. I don’t do snow. I visit it, but then I leave. I have come to terms with the fact that I would not enjoy living around snow for months on end. With that said, we left the snow behind and were greeted with sunshine. Well, maybe not sunshine, but sun breaks and partially cloudy with minor sprinkles. Rain I can handle!

We exchanged our gifts anyway with Bruno and his family and ate ourselves silly in the process. There are so many yummy, yet fattening Portuguese desserts that neither one of us could live without trying, and of course, sampling again for good measure. Bruno is an excellent cook and with the sea so close, there was seafood at every meal. Now, I love prawns, but after eating them for 4 days straight, for lunch, snack, dinner and yes, even another snack, I was nearly sick of them.

We had a day of touring around Lisbon, since most of our other visits were spent on the beaches. We wandered around the old world fair exhibitions still standing, meandered through the shopping areas, gandered at Callatrava’s work, and even got to see one of Bruno’s designs: a small pedestrian bridge between buildings. We even stumbled across some ice skating, but it was on plastic, so we were not quite sure what to make of that. As the climbed the hills over Lisbon to the old castle ruins, it was great to hear all the sounds and songs of Christmas.

For New Years Eve, we had a feast with some of our old Portuguese friends and some new ones. Rita and Xu brought their new baby, Francesca, and when she started screaming like a dying cat, they knew it was time to head out. Ben noted that I may be good with small children, but I certainly do not look like a natural with small babies. They are so tiny, they sort of freak me out.

We popped the champagne at midnight, which neither of us partook in. Ben does not drink and I do not drink anything with pain in the name. Learned that one the hard way......but I did learn that lesson. We played a great charades type game that was made even more hilarious given the fact that the cards were in Portuguese, so we had to translate, and they had the difficult task of explaining their characters in English, so it was a translating game for both of us. My team crushed them the first round, but Ben’s team finished strong in the second round. I think my team just got too drunk, or else we would have won both. The night came to a close at 5:30 when our eyes could no longer stay open.

Our last day there, we got to have our favourite cakes in Belem, see the potential home that Bruno and Marta are trying to purchase and walk along a very foggy waterfront. The San Francisco bridge tippy-tops and Jesus were the only things sticking out of the clouds. It was a great visit with our two Christmas Travel Buddies, and it really lifted our spirits to get 2011 kick off right!