Week 2: June 18 - 24

Much less time was spent this week "nesting", and we did quite a bit more exploring instead! On Monday, we ate breakfast at Pastelaria Roma, a local coffee shop that has become Henry's most requested pastelaria in town. After some reading time at home, Steve took the kids to explore a park near the aqueduct. The kids made a friend and played at the pond with the turtles and ducks!

Tuesday we rented a car and drove to Óbidos, a historical village surrounded by castle walls. The town is known for it's Ginja, a Portuguese cherry liqueur. After a bit of exploring, the kids did a full lap around the town's castle wall. Before we left we hit the XII Apóstolos pizza restaurant, which was one of the family high-points from last year's trip and completely lived up to our memory.

The bunk beds finally arrived after some...ahem...confusion on the part of the delivery folks about what a delivery window is causing us to have to reschedule. We also spent more time walking Setubal, where we hit some of the historic neighborhoods in the Praca de Bocage area, the ferry terminal, and more. The surprising food discovery of this week was "Meat and Bun". Despite it's styling looking like a low-grade ripoff of a Burger King this place is legit. They serve burgers, with outstanding fries as well as mexican food, which is pretty lacking in this corner of the world.

The weather in Portugal has been pretty darn hot, and this weekend was expected to be a bit brutal at ~100F. Friday we packed a simple lunch and went to the Albarquel beach to let the kids play in the sand while Erin and Steve relaxed under the umbrellas and read. We're not really the kind of folks to spend a ton of time at the beach, but this was a very nice outing. With the heat ramping up over the weekend, it was good that we got out when we did, too. One of the other practices we've adopted is walking to the city beach (about 20 minutes walk from the apartment) after dinner. The crowd is usually just leaving as the sun is about to set and it's usually a great temperature. This has been one of the things we've really enjoyed, and will likely continue to do so as often as possible.

Week one highs and lows

Nora: high point - Going to old and new restaurants (Obidos Pizza, Meat and Bun, Golden Dragon, Docinho de Mel. low point - Seeing the fire on the hillside near Forte Sao Felipe. Something new - I thought Portugal didn’t have very many fires, but this week I learned that Portugal does get fires.
Henry: high point - Going to Obidos (walking around the city on the wall, Obidos pizza) and going to the Golden Dragon. low point - “I made some bad moves that will come back to haunt me in my future” (Secretly playing games on my iPad when I wasn’t allowed to). Something new - I learned that I like pavlova by trying Junie’s at Docinho de Mel
Junie: high point - Going to Palmela Castle. Low point - Forte Sao Felipe was closed. Something new - I made two friends!
Erin: high point - Obidos, especially finding the pizza place and the views, plus the cool bookstore with the lacemaker. Low point - The extreme heat, and some minor anxiety about the fire on the hillside nearby. Something new - I made tostas mistas at home and they were good! I also did laundry in the sink and hung it to dry on the balcony
Steve: high point - Visiting Obidos. Low point - The heat (over 100 degrees). Something new - Learned more day to day tasks like parking in Setubal, using Multi Banco Way, local bus system, renting a car

Family movie of the week

Week one movie: School of rock
Rating: 8