Apr 13th - 20th

Another week gone by at school, and another long weekend in Portugal with the family! What more could someone want?

Last week at school went by pretty quickly seeing as I ditched out on my Friday class! Tuesday I had a midterm in my Financial Systems class. The test ran pretty smoothly, but I definitely screwed one question up. It was pone of those choose the answer that is false questions, and one of the answers was something along the lines of, social security is used to help people during jubilation. Well, only in the class after was this word brought up again, and I learned that it meant retirement, not happiness! I thought it was definitely a free be that the teacher was throwing our way! ha ha...I should have known the word, but thought it was the same as in Portuguese which is reformar, or reforming. The rest of the day at school breezed right on bye.

Wednesday I had to get together with my group from my financial management class to do a case study. Not a huge fan of my group, because it is one Spanish girl, Lara, who shoes up twists her finger through her hair and does nothing except say yes that looks fine, when in reality she has no idea and doesn´t care. The other group member is Marco, an Italian guy, he is pretty good, he at least knows more or less what is going on, but I guess I just wish they would show up to class more and it would be more effective group meetings. I got through the case study with them, went home to pack the bags, out to buy Avo a birthday present, grabbed a bite to eat with Amy, and made to the bus station with about 5 minutes to spare! The bus ride there went well, I got some a presentation ready for Monday and read a bit of my book before catching a few hours of sleep. It rained heavily the whole way there, yet we still ended up arriving a bit ahead of schedule which was nice. Tio Joao said he would pick me up but because we were 45 minutes early and it was only 5:45a.m. I decided to grab a taxi. Of course when I got to the door I saw that the lights were on, he was up waiting! WHOOPS!

Avo woke up shortly after I got there, and I was able to wish her a very happy birthday bright and early. I went back to sleep for a few more hours, and woke up in time to go out to lunch to celebrate her birthday. We (Tio Joao, Tio Ita, Tio Ze, Tia Nicha, David, Pedro, Domingos, Francisco, and I) went out for Japanese food for lunch, and we all really enjoyed being together and celebrating. The rest of the afternoon Avo and I hung out around the house while she answered her cell phone, then the house phone, then her cell, then the house....It never seemed to end, every time I would be drifting off to get in a little nap RING RING RING, it was like a bad nightmare! That night Avo was going to make dinner but I thought that it as unreasonable for her to be cooking for herself on her birthday so I took her out to dinner. We went to a local cervejeria, seafood bar / bar / restaurant, and had Betock´s which are not seafood! We ate steaks with a fried egg on top, french fries, rice, and salad. One of Avo´s and my favorite dishes! After dinner I met up with Domingos and Francisco and we went out for a beer in Barro Alto, and met back up with Pedro. It was a mellow night, but cool to just hang with the cousins and take in the young night life scene of Lisbon. Oooops, I forgot to mention that between the phone ringing off the hook and dinner Avo and I found time to go to the hospital to see Felicia and give her dinner. She seems to be doing well, and was in good spirits.

Friday, Avo did not wake we up to go to coffee with her and I ended up waking up around 12:45...I was not too pleased! One of the things I really enjoy about being home with Avo is going out to get coffee with her in the morning, and my lack of discipline in waking up kept me from doing so. The good news is that I woke up just in time for lunch! We had Favas with Chorizo.


AHHHHHHHHHHH Why did it not save after I wrote the whole DAMN post.... I will continue the epic tale tomorrow!

Well, I had the whole post written and done with last night, then I went to post it just to realize the internet was down and it did not save my draft or allow me to post the blog entry, so I will pick back up where I left off.

After lunch Tia Nicha picked me up and it was off to her house to hang out for the day. I ended up going to run a few errands with her, and then we went and picked up Maria from school. It is always fun going to pick her up because she is so excited! After picking her up we hung around the house for the afternoon. That evening Teresa invited me to go with her, her boyfriend (Francisco), and a couple of other friends to a dance class that they are taking. We went and had a class on the Waltz. Not my favorite dance, but I sure to like to get out on the dance floor and cut it up, so it was a great time to do that. I danced most the time with some older lady from Brazil, but also snuck away to get a couple of dances in with Teresa. I got back to Tia Nicha and Tio Quim's house just in time for dinner! MMMM, It seems that food is all I talk about, really I d other things than just eat here! For dinner Tia Nicha made Pork Alentejana, probably butchered the spelling there, it is a pork dish cooked with a dried red bell pepper paste and man is it GOOD! Another one of my favorite dishes. After dinner Tia Nicha, David, Maria, and I watched So You Think You Can Dance, a show that I had never seen back home but was really cool. Sure enough right as it was ending it was off to the next adventure. Domingos and Francisco picked me up and we were off to a little sports club / bar. The place is really funny, it is just a door of an apartment building, you walk up to the second floor, go in to what looks to be an apartment, and then you are n this mellow hang out place. There are a few different rooms, one is like an office, one is a bar, and the other is a big room with card and pool tables. Good luck ever finding the place if you did not know where it is! We met up with Bruschy and a few of his friends there and then we went to Bruschy's house to hang and watch a movie.

Saturday was another long day. Tio Joao, Avo and I went out for our morning coffee at Sul America, a coffee shop around the corner from the house, and then like always it was off to a busy day. Avo had a lunch with her cousins and girl friends in Cascais, and Tio Joao and I headed over to Tia Nicha's and Tio Quim's for lunch. Up to this point it had rained most of the time I was in Lisbon, but we caught a few good hours during lunch so we took advantage and ate outside under their beautiful treacle that was full of pungent purple wisteria. The smell of the wisteria was almost taken over by the cheese that Tio Quim had spread out on the table. Their family was just in Paris, and he had brought home a few different cheeses to try out. Let's just put it this way, after the cheeses were taken out of the air tight wrapping that they were transported in, Tia Nicha made them stay outside because they were so stinky. Now I like cheese, but man one of the three that he brought was some sort of ultra cured, super stinky cheese that was quite BOLD in flavor. I tried all of them, and left that one for last. I got the first bite down, but was not to sure if I could get the second one down. I powered through it though. When I arrived in Spain, I came with a goal of eating everything, or at least trying everything that was put in front of me. So far I have yet to fail! After Lunch Tia Nicha and I took a nice walk down by the river and enjoyed the sun as much as we could. After a bit of a nap it was off to give Felicia dinner because Avo was not sure she would make it back from her lunch in time. When I arrived her niece was there, but it was good to see her as always and I spent a while chatting and enjoying her company. IT would have been nice to call it a night, but that is never the case, sleeping does not seem to be an option when I am in Lisbon! I went home to change, and it was out with the guys. I picked up Domingos, Francisco, and Bruschy, we grabbed a quick bite of dinner, pre-gamed at Bruschy's house a bit, and it was off to the dicso. We went to a club called Lux, one of the more popular spots in Lisbon and we celebrated Domingos' and Francisco's birthdays seeing as they were the Monday before I arrived and the Tuesday after left respectively. It was a good night and I ended up at home around 6:30 or 7:00.

After a breif nap, or what was supposed to be a nights sleep, it was off to grab the morning coffee with Avo and Tio Joao! We took a bit of a walk after our coffee, grabbed some lunch together, and like always I was off an running. I met back up with Domingos and then we went and grabbed a coffee with White Castle. After the coffee, we walked along the river for a while and headed to Tia Nicha's to see them one more time and have snack. We made scones which were Delicious! I think we made about 10 or 11, and David (The man-child) powered down at least 5 of them! I wish I had that kind of gift, eating as much as possible and staying like a twig! After snack we said our goodbyes and headed to give Felicia one more visit before I went back to Madrid. She was in a great mood, she was laughing and cracking jokes, at one point she was laughing so hard she was crying! It was a great time! Domingos and I headed back to Avo's house, hung out for a bit, grabbed a quick bite of dinner and then he and Tio Joao dropped me off at the bus terminal. Thank goodness I was not flying, because the Lisbon airport was full of tourists from northern Europe that could not get home because of the Volcano in Iceland!

The trip home went real smoothly. I slept for the majority of the time, but still squeezed in a couple hours when I got home at 8:00. There is nothing like sleeping in your own bead! The day at school went pretty well. I had a presentation in my International Finance class, in Spanish, about the financial crisis in the U.S. Right after my presentation I checked my email luckily, and found out that my group members in my Financial Management class were not going to go to class, and of course Lara was the one that was supposed to print out our project. I rushed around and got the project printed, and made it to class just in time. I was not too thrilled about the whole situation, but then again there was not too much to do about it. The rest of the day ran smoothly which was nice.

Tuesday was a rough morning, I some how got my sleep schedule all mixed around (I wonder why!?) and ended up sleeping through my first few classes, the good news is that I still made it to my World Economics class, so I did not miss the whole day. Apart from that, not much happened. I watched Barcelona play International Milan, and loose, with the neighbors Rita and Carlos. I guess I should be rooting for the Spanish team, but being a supporter of Real Madrid kept me from rooting for Barcelona!

Well I had this whole post done and ready to go up last night, but I have been having mad computer problems, and it did not save my draft and I lost everything when the computer crashed on me. Maybe I should have saved it more periodically, but lets not be ridiculous here, that is the computers job!

Well, I hope that I have not bored you yet again with one of my posts. If I have, no I do not feel bad! I hope this finds everyone doing very well.

Much Love Always,

Phil

P.S. Big news that I almost forgot. I finally booked my flight home. I will be back the evening of August 5th! I am really excited to hang with the family during the summer here, and then a few weeks with John after they leave! I am also really excited to come back and see all of my friends! Of course good news comes with a little bad, I will have to be back in Arizona August 7th, but hey a day and a half is better than none at home!