Lisboa

Zach and the Boys at one of the many awesome parks in Lisbon

One of the nice things about traveling with kids is you have to take things a little easier than if you are traveling with proper humans. You get to rest and take naps and relax a little more, without that pesky traveler's guilt of not seeing and doing absolutely everything. It's nice. Of course, you only get to actually relax when they are asleep or distracted by watching the DVDs that your husband bought so he could listen to Portuguese. And eating out is a bit of a challenge, as are quiet museums, but there are gives and takes with everything.

Lion Fountain at the cloister in Belem

For instance, we are experiencing a lazy Sunday afternoon in Lisbon. As I type these words Zach and Sam are taking a nap and Ben and I are watching Portuguese bullfighting on TV. It's crazy. It's similar to Spanish bullfighting, but they are on a horse for the majority of the time and they don't kill the bull in the ring, which is nice. Actually, what we are watching right now is one guy who literally grabs the bull by the horns and then another group of men try to stop the bull by piling onto it. Then after they stop it and jump off, another guy is holding the tail and runs around in a circle with the furious bull. One guy kept missing the bull's horns and was trampled under the bull three times! Its lots of fun to watch.

Katie admiring the awesomeness of the Belem cloister

Anyway, I digress. We've been here about half the time that we are going to be in Lisbon, and it has been a very interesting, fascinating, frustrating, and wonderful trip. It's frustrating because while Zach is in class I'm slightly stuck in our hotel room (our home away from home, away from home) because the stroller just barely fits into this hotel and it is pretty challenging to get out by myself. Also, once I'm out there's not really anything to do close by with the boys except shop. And besides the obvious deterrent of slowly running out of money, Sam has taken to shouting "No! No! No!" every time I walk into a clothing store. I'm really not joking. So, we spend the mornings in our little hotel room watching DVDs and making a mess. Then when Zach gets home from class we'll have lunch and head out to explore.

Zach, putting his awesomeness up against the great Portuguese explorers.

And there is a whole lot to explore! Lisbon is a winding, twisting, glorious city, with statues and parks and fountains everywhere you turn. Or climb, more accurately. We've hit most of the major tourist sites, some several times. And they are fabulous. We are pretty much smack dab in the middle of the city right by the water and it is a good starting point. Of course because we are starting at sea level, that means we have to climb up to everything. And because of all these hills that one has to climb up to get to everything this is the city of the beautiful views. As long as you are willing to climb up to them. We've had several adventurous walks that took us off the beaten track because Zach is determined to find the next Twilight book New Moon in English for me. It's very sweet and funny. Every bookstore he goes in he looks for it. And Zach goes in a lot of bookstores. We found the 3^rd book, Eclipse in English, but that wasn't terribly helpful. Anyway, we have searched out two English bookstores looking for it, but so far with no success. In the process we did find the Portuguese Parliament building, the Institute of Industrial design, more bookstores, the coolest McDonald's we have ever seen, an amazing park with great views and fountains, and all kinds of other things that I don't remember at the moment.

The Belem Monastery from the outside

We also went up to the Castle, but we forgot the camera. Can you believe that? So, we are going to go up again and get some awesome possum pictures for us and to a lesser extent you readers.

(P.S. We never ended up going back to the castle. We tried once, but there was a HUGE line, and it really didn't feel worth it. At all.)

(P.P.S. When we were at the Castle we saw a Peahen walking around, strutting it's not really that impressive stuff. Ben looked at it for a few minutes then said, "I'm gonna eat it!" Funniest. Thing. Ever. I guess we don't have to worry about raising vegetarians.)