Portugal: DAY TWO (segunda dia)

After taking Romeo for a walk to the gas station (closest section of grass that isn’t Holy) and back (this actually is better than it sounds) we went down to Pic-Nic and got a galao (latte) and found the guys watching one of the many futbol matches that were somehow important and on TV there. When I say “the guys” I mean some variation of the American players; usually just Bobby & Ken, but sometimes Majiid and/or Adam, too. And for all those paying close attention to my diet, YES I am drinking leite (milk) but I’m still not eating cheese. It’s really tricky to get around the dairy thing on an island whose entire economy relies on cows and fish. However, we actually haven’t eaten any fish yet and the only peixe (pro. peshe) I’ve seen has been frozen and covered in plastic wrap.

 This is the gas station. See that car bridge in the distance? This will become an integral part of my runs.

After we got galao, we took Ken & Bobby back to our apartment to show them. I took this opportunity to try to run around the village. Bobby told me it was about 1.2 miles (2km…must learn European weights and measures….!!!) around the whole village. I made my route look sort of like a star fish, jutting out and back down the beach, up one lomba (hilly road leading to houses above the village, literal definition: bump.) and back down, around the square, up another lomba and back down.

Here is the square.

When I say “hilly road” I mean practically vertical. PRACTICALLY VERTICAL. I went ¼ mile up the second lomba and thought I was going to keel over. I ran back down toward the guy’s apartment, which happens to stand above a minimart (super mercado), and over the river. I came back across the river over the stepping stones.

Down around the gymnasium one more time and up our rua (road). Just barely hitting 3.0 miles at our door. After a few minutes of kitchen planks & push-ups, I hopped in the shower. This is when I discovered that we had no hot water. Did I mention I had already destroyed my blow dryer? Because I did. On day one. Something about wattage I don’t understand and probably never will. It went “pop-fizzle-silence”. Luckily, I just chopped my hair off, so I can get away with the cute-shaggy-unbrushed-look for a few days. Except that my tweezers aren’t any good, so my brows are a little out of control, and now we have no hot water, so shaving my legs is no longer a priority. I can only pull this new look off for so long. John figured out we had no propane, which I guess is a fixable problem. I splashed myself with some ice cold water, threw some clothes on, finished myself off with make-up and jewelry to cover up the shaggy-hair-hairy-legs factors and went back to Pic-Nic to “watch the game”/iMessage my friends and put some pictures on Instagram.

We met the guy’s at their place later on to eat dinner and steal their wifi. They don’t seem to mind that this relationship is not mutually-beneficially. At least, not yet.