This is the second holiday I’ve been able to benefit from while here in Europe. Not that I’ve celebrated anything, unless you call free days from school and touristing celebrating. :D This time around, we went to Belem so that Ashlee could finally try some real pasteis de Belem (a custardy dessert from Belem), which are supposedly more or less the same as pasteis de nata, except with a secret ingredient unique to a particular restaurant in Belem, a suburb of Lisbon.
We were going to hit up the nearby cathedral next, but there was a sick line of tourists. Come to find out, it was because there was a special mass for the day’s Corpo de Deus (Body of God) holiday. Fancy that—a special mass for the holiday! Of course, it made sense; we just hadn’t considered it. So, instead, we went to the waterfront and enjoyed the view, a monument, and a stone tower. Hehe, Ben and Ashlee talked to each other, wondering whether or not there was a plaque for the monument, but concluding that nobody would read it—unless they were me, which they immediately realized was true because at that very moment I was reading something inscribed on the monument! So I’m a nerd and like to know stuff. I admit it.
After taking advantage of the freedom from school thanks to the national holiday and its accompanying free-ness at national monuments such as the stone tower and the cloister adjoining the Belem Cathedral, which is where the famous Portuguese author, Camoes, is entombed, we went back into the city to see Ben’s place and let him show us around some spots in town that he’s found while being here. One was a massive sloping hill that revealed a marvelous view of the city once at the top, and another was along the waterfront by a huge mall. I don’t particularly enjoy hiking, but I do love walking and talking with my friends, occasionally stopping to sit and enjoy the scenery. We’ve done all of the above, and I love soaking it in! I don’t even remember much of what we talked about, but simple things like laughing at a seagull struggling to fly against the wind, causing it to go in circles, and singing “Dynamite” together—or at least the bits and pieces we scrapped together from memory—are what make it happy for me.
We ended our Portuguese holiday in a veritably Portuguese manner by eating genuine Portuguese food: Chili’s! Okay, so it was very much American, but it’s funny just how much American things me manquent, and it’s here in Portugal and the menu was mostly in Portuguese, so it counts, right?
The Belem Cathedral
The Belem Tower (pics below are from its cellar)
Look at me! Forget My Size Barbie; I could have my own My Size Door!
The one little "skylight" in the room that allowed Ben to stand up straight. Note the arch behind Ashlee as a point of reference for how low the ceiling was!
The massive sloping hill. (I spy a castle!)
Doors and tunnels! You are amazing!
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