Portugal

Yeah, I can´t stay put for very long. I´d been in Sweden for almost 3 months and the traveling bug got the best of me. Or was it that I miss my sister too much and it felt strange being back in Stockholm and not having her living just around the corner? Or maybe I was just curious about her new life with her cute little baby Uma, living with Joâo´s family in the suburbs of Coimbra, and having a trendy shop down town? Maybe I wanted to make sure that she was doing ok? Maybe I wasn´t doing ok? Maybe I was tired of stressing around in Stockholm waiting for "everything to happen" and tired of nothing getting done? Or maybe it´s cause I still don´t have a real job but I had made some $$$ so why not?! Whatever, I booked a flight and 4 days later I was on my way.

Thank god I speak Spanish! Ok, Spanish and Portugese are different, but not TOO different. It´s sort of like Swedish and Norweigan, so I understand just about everything but I have a very good excuse not to participate in the conversations. Most people speak English though, and everybody understands spanish, so there´s really no problems. And all our family reunions are a mixture of English, Swedish, Spanish and Portugese, so I´m sort of used to jumping back and forth. Sometimes I trip into the little French that I know, but then my sister gets angry and says that I will just confuse the kids. Yeah, as if things are kept simple now. Joâo´s sister-in-law is Ukranian, and something tells me the language mixture won´t stop there.


And no, it´s not totally hot and exotic down here in Portugal. It´s sort of cold and dark, and it rains several times a day. It is carnival days but the weather doesn´t tempt us to go outside, yet there´s no heating inside so we feel cold most of the time. So what do we do all day? Well, we knit, read, watch tv,... just like regular old grannies.

And this is nothing new to me. I am a regular old granny, forget the pictures of the previous postings, they are rare moments, and the every day life just isn´t worth documenting so there are no real photos of me. And photos from this trip? Well, we have done SOME touristy stuff, but I can´t post them until I get home again. So... catch ya later!