July 16. Chorizo Bread – the Ultimate Perfection

Today was a busy day. We started out at Brown’s coffee. It’s the same place where we got our nap after arriving to the city a little over a week ago. After Georgia did her homework, Irina and Isabella picked her up and they went off to Cascais. I was really worried about them going. It is a very nice place and optimal for today’s 36 Celcius but it is 40 minutes away.

During lunch Dan and I went to Budget to reserve a car for the weekend. We were there a week earlier and the man there told us not to worry, the car will be ready, just come on Monday to reserve. Well today he said it is going to be a problem. It is not awful but we have already made plans in Porto this weekend and reserved hotel in a middle of the woods somewhere. It would not be great to go there by train

The man called another agent, his partner from a local company and sent us there. On the phone it sounded like a woman. When we arrived, there was a teenage girl who greeted us and told us it will be a problem ”because they won't have any cars available at the end of the week.” We were about to head out to Rentacar where we were earlier and were told that “carseat will be a problem” but her dad came in and said everything is going to be OK. He went through the process of writing down the reservation and putting it in some box. I asked what about “what your daughter said?” He said “she is 14 and does not know what is going on. I’ll talk to her.” We’ll just hope for the best.

We went to Starbucks Chiado. Internet was not working so we bought some locally available Internet from another company. I stayed around for a bit but then it got too loud and hot so I went home. Dan stayed back. A/C at home is great. After work we went to St. Sebastian hypermarket and loaded up on the local specialties: bread, cheese, and jambon. We are not going to lose any weight here. Incidentally local kids seem to be on the same diet. And majority are overweight.

Then again there may be another two reasons for that: 1) They don’t have anywhere to play; 2) Yesterday, on the way to Belem, we ran into attraction where if you buy ice-cream they will give you a ticket to the arcade. In that arcade there are different play areas with little challenges. If you win, they give you a hand band. Some kids wore scores of those bands. I can only imagine how much ice-cream those kids ate. We told the guy at the entrance that the kids already had some ice-cream today. And that we can pay for the ticket but we don’t want any more ice-cream. He looked at us funny but gave us two free tickets.

So back to Lisbon. When we came home, the kids & Irina were already back from a day at Cascais. She was utterly tired. Georgia told us how when they were in the pizza place there, some guy who was building a website for the pizza place wanted to photograph her and asked HER if she would mind that he would take a few pictures of her. She said no. Irina was not pleased about them asking a kid rather than adult and so said no to pictures as well. She initially wanted to call us but decided not to. Irina said it looked legitimate and photographer asked other people at the pizza place afterwards. Maybe that’s how they do it here but I was really not comfortable. We told Georgia and Irina and Isabella to never agree to requests like that. Really, for a pizza website you need a picture of a kid and you ask a 6 year old kid for that rather than adult they are with???

After we took kids out for some well-deserved ice-cream and then put them to sleep we went to the kitchen and checked out our purchases. You are probably anticipating the best moment of this here post. And it is coming. What’s better than bread and salami? Bread and pork fat? Bread and chorizo? A bread that already has all of these things baked into it. Add to it some Nisa cheese and Super Bock or Sagres and it is a perfect way to finish the day. We should really follow the example of Portuguese adults and lay off this stuff and substitute it with flavorful sardines. Starting from now because all the other food is finished.