Portugal

Portugal was amazing!

We explored the western coast, toured several castles (every town, even the little towns, have castles), went wine tasting in the Douro Valley, learned all about port and drank plenty of yummy port in Oporto, drove through miles and miles of cork and olive trees in the southern part near Evora, soaked up the big-city ambiance of Lisbon and while our pace was feverish at times, I am so pleased with all we saw and so lucky to take such an incredible trip with my parents.

It's not even so much the things we saw as the experiences we had that made it so great. Sometimes, even just the simple task of negotiating a foreign language to order a simple breakfast, can turn into a huge obstacle and make for some good stories. For one week, every meal we ordered, every time we needed to find a bathroom or ask for directions and every time we had to look for a place to stay, we struggled to speak just enough Portuguese for the locals to take pity on us and help us find what we needed.

I think the best parts of the trip were when we were sitting outdoors (perhaps in a cafe) and watching a day in the life of someone who lived there, whether it be walking their child to school or doing some grocery shopping. I really enjoyed soaking up the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) ways in which Portuguese culture and way-of-life differ from our American way.

I found this quote in one of my travel books and it so nicely sums up why I LIVE to travel:

"Travel is intensified living--maximum thrills per minute and one of the last great sources of legal adventure. Travel is freedom. It's recess, and we need it.

Globe-trotting destroys ethnocentrocity. It helps you understand and appreciate different cultures. Thoughtful travel engages you with the world. Travel changes people. It broadens perspectives and teaches new ways to measure quality of life. Rather than fear the diversity on this planet, travelers celebrate it. Many travelers toss aside their hometown blinders. Their prized souvenirs are the strands of different cultures they decide to knit into their own character."

Running in Portugal was NOT amazing. In fact, I wasn't able to run at all while I was away. I've been procrastinating admitting this on my blog until I knew I was back on track because I was unsure what it meant for my training. I knew that it wasn't good to miss a whole week of training, but I didn't know where I was going to be at when I got back.

There are several reasons I didn't run in Portugal but I'll list the 3 main ones:

• Remember when I wrote about how I was planning on doing my running when my parents were resting? Yea, they don't rest. Period. They are hard-core travelers who had so much energy and ambition to see everything possible, that I was left exhausted at the end of most days. Also, I didn't really have any spare time at the end of the day.
• All of the streets look like this and were incredibly uneven cobblestone and incredibly narrow, not to mention smoggy and polluted. In the cities, which is where we were the majority of the time, it was just too dangerous due to the crazy traffic.
• It got light sooo late there. The one morning that I set my alarm to get up and run at 6am, when the alarm went off, it was still pitch black outside and by 7:30am, the time I needed to be getting ready for our scheduled breakfast, the sun was barely coming up. I just did not feel safe running in the dark in such a foreign place.

Anyhow, it is what it is. I didn't run in Portugal. I'm not beating myself up about it because it's not that I didn't want to run, it just wasn't feasible.

In lieu of an amazing report on my runs through Portugal, you'll have to settle for some pictures to highlight some of the things we saw. Enjoy!