Day: February 2, 2023

Today was another interesting day.

I had woken up in the middle of the night last night. Actually it was mid early morning around 3am. I checked the fireplace to see if the wood was still burning. I added a little bit to it and then sat down at the computer because I wasn’t tired anymore. I put more in my blog and posted it as you may have seen. I couldn’t get the images on at the time but I did later on.

It was freezing in the house. I put layers on over top of my jammies and then put a hat on and gloves! It’s funny how we can rely on central heating at home. You forget that in a lot of the world, they don’t use it anyway. I tapped away on the computer and checked emails and got myself up-to-date. Somewhere around 4:30 AM, after several cups of tea, I went back to bed keeping the hat on my head, and the fleece over my pajamas. I snuggled down and fell asleep. Next thing I knew it was 9:30 AM. I got myself cleaned up, brushed my teeth, got dressed in layers, had another couple of cups of tea and then, I decided to go outside and walk into town with my walking poles and little fold up bags to get some food shopping. I figured they don’t use plastic here either. Walking up the lane I turned around and came back down to take some layers off. It was hot outside. No, I’m not complaining, but I couldn’t walkif I was sweating already!!!

I walked into town. It was a little farther than I thought it would be but, interesting, and I felt comfortable. First thing was a cup of coffee was a café au lait I used to have when I was last in Spain. It was good but it’s not what I wanted.

After that I walked down the main street to the cliffs and the entrance to the beach. The town is beautiful, so clean, absolutely pristine. And because it’s slow season it’s not busy that’s what I like. After getting a view of my surroundings, I came back up to a restaurant that I thought might be interesting. I ordered the menu of the day.(menu do dia) It happened to be octopus or calamar,i not in the North American style. It was good and I had a lovely salad with it. I skipped the dessert and I also didn’t have it beer or wine with it. I thought I was being really good. I hadn’t eaten in 24 hours so I was thinking I was quite the saint. I paid and left and went over to the Supermercado, that was 2 o’clock in the afternoon and it wasn’t open until 3 o’clock. What a strange hour to open a grocery store! I went back to the restaurant and had a beer losing my sainthood in that choice.

At 3 o’clock I went back into the market and got my food. Prices sure are high! No surprise in that mention. I had so many bags Luís,(my landlord) offered to take them for me later so I could walk home without any weight. I did just tha, left the bags in the restaurant I had just eaten in. On arrival home it was still hot outside.

I sat around, feeling quite sleepy in the sun, and then the sun went down and it got cold again. My ability to light a fire in the fireplace is lacking. I am no firestarter! Several attempts failed. I texted Luís and he said he would help when he got here with my groceries. He didn’t arrive until after 6 PM, not his fault. I feel guilty depending on him. But he did pick my groceries up and they are here now. Well while lighting the fire, we started talking (no, he is lighting my fire-that would take an explosion!) and I learned so much about this environment. By the way, he is an environmentalist. (Coincidence, eh.) He does something down on the Algarve with wind turbines and monitoring how it affects birds. I’ll find more about that later. He is quite the personality, very attractive, probably somewhere around my son’s age.

Around 9 o’clock, his mother called. I think he should’ve been home instead of chatting with an old lady!

To sum it all up, I really like this house, and I think maybe next year this is going to be a holiday home for artist to paint. We could rent both sides of the house and sleep about 10 individuals. The coast line is wild. It’s a Neal Grieg coastline. It would be so great to paint

Tomorrow I will go, the other way up the road to check out the Fisherman’s wharf. Just a brief glimpse of that and I knew I wanted to be there. I’m bringing my camera.

See you later.

I really did have it well organized and my itinerary was printed so that I could follow it!

Arrive in Lisbon.
After getting a new sim card at the terminal, for using in Portugal, I planned to grab the shuttle bus to take me into the city centre bus station so that I could get a bus south down to Zambujeira Do Mar. Simple eh?That’s where it all fell apart. I sat at the shuttle bus station, and no bus arrived. Instead of asking somebody who spoke English, I just sat waiting. A man came up to me, shaking his head and pointing no no no, and then pointed to the sign in the shelter that stated (in Portuguese)that the bus was cancelled permanently??? the lonely planet guide didn’t indicate that! I thought I’d take a regular transport bus into town; by then I was wandering outside the airport with luggage and a backpack! I asked the next driver who opened the door to his bus, if he was going near Sete Rios. No, he said, you need bus 73. I’ll take you to the stop for it. Balancing my luggage in my backpack and my purse at the front of the bus, as he wound around bends really quickly, he let me off at the next stop. No charge! Wait there for bus 73 -within a minute a bus came along 731. No, I need bus 73, I thought, so I waited -buses came and passed. They all had three numbers- was I missing something? Finally I figured out the timetable on the walI of the shelter,waited an hour when the bus number 731 arrived agai,I asked, are you going to the Sete Rios bus station? Yes! Yahoo! I got on! Two euros is the cost to get into the city. Wow. Everybody on the bus was Portuguese. No English was spoken, many talking on their cell phone speakers, phones held away from their faces. Finally at the end of the line I was dropped off at what was supposed to be Sete Rios bus station. Construction just like in Toronto.! The building was being changed. Somehow there was no access. I kept asking people, how do I get to the bus station, Finally I asked Google on my phone and it said I was 6 km away. I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t slept on the plane and it was catching up on me. I walked around the construction hauling my luggage on cobblestones.
My phone said I was there. I had arrived, but I could see no opening in the wall to enter anywhere. Buses were parked on the street. I asked one bus driver and he said yes I’ve arrived. It’s there just go a bit farther. There’s an opening and you cross through the entrance to the parking lot And go across in through the door. I had arrived. Finally!
The trip south was interesting. The bus was full and it was Xpress so I assumed I’d get there quickly. (Within 4 hours )We travelled the Coastal Alentejo stopping in Sines, Vila Nova De Milfontes, Porto Cova and then my trip ended in Zambujeira do Mar, my new home for the next two months.

I am writing this at 5 am, Feb. 2nd, at the kitchen table with jammies on, fleece, vest, warm hat and occasionally gloves, drinking green tea. I haven’t had time to shop for food so the last 24 hours have definitely fit into my fasting routine. It is cold and yesterday when I arrived it was warm. Today I will take pictures and post more.

PS… it’s going up to 16 C today!