Well, I’ve sat down to write an update at least five different times, but then something always comes up and I get distracted and it goes undone !! I just looked up my blog and realized it’s been over 2 weeks since the last time I wrote. SAD!! I never was very good at keeping a daily journal. And now I have to get all of our happenings caught up. And we have definitely had a few “happenings”. Because, you know, nothing can be easy here in Portugal. J
The last I wrote – the plan was to possibly take the missionaries to Lisbon. Well, we did end up driving the Elders to Lisbon that next day. It was quite fun to see these young guys with beat up suitcases bungee corded to a skateboard for wheels, heading off on their next adventure in Portugal’s largest city. As for us, we spent the rest of the day in Portugal’s largest city – CAR SHOPPING. Although, we did have a great time eating lunch – Chili’s!! The only one in Portugal. We were shocked!! I guess things really have changed, in Portugal, over the last 20 years. And the menu was the same. It was so nice to have familiar food – it made me feel like I was back home. I really wanted to order 1 of everything – but I refrained and ordered my favorite salad (quesadilla explosion) and endless chips & salsa. Oh my – was it good!! The rest of the day was spent trying to look at cars.
We seem to have left our kids home, quite often, looking for a car. So, the next day (Wednesday) was spent at home – Rick looking up used cars on the internet, so we could try to hit a bunch the next time we go in to Lisbon. There are several things that make buying a car in Portugal difficult for us. First, the language barrier (although Rick speaks very well, he’s never had to learn words that have to do with buying a car); second, finding “dealerships” are a joke – even with a GPS, finding an actual address that exists can sometimes feel impossible; and third, getting accurate info on a car (before spending a half hour to an hour finding the car, in the first place) can be extremely frustrating. Just an example – we’d been looking at minivans - We felt that having a car with extra seats would be helpful in case we needed to give the missionaries a ride somewhere, or pick up branch members that may not have a way to get to church, or just to have a couple of extra seats in case Tyler or other people come to visit – so, we go to look at an older 7-seater minivan, and when we get there it is missing the 2 back seats. We ask if he has the seats and he tells us they are back at his shop and he has another van there we can look at. So, we follow him back to his shop. Turns out the 2 back seats are different upholstery. Very typical. No joke – that happened a couple of times. Well, we spent many days looking for a car. I’ll finish that part of the story in a bit.
Wednesday night (the day after we got 2 new Elders) we went to Family Home Evening at the church. We had told the old missionaries that we would come, and so we did. Plus, we wanted to meet our new Branch Presidency (the new Elders). Every Wednesday night (8pm) they have FHE at the church, in hopes that the branch will become more united and have a little fun and spiritual upliftment together. Well, after stopping at a bakery to buy some goodies to share, we arrived about 15 minutes late to the church. Our new Branch President is Elder Duarte, a young African elder from Cabo Verde – which is an island off the African coast that was settled by the Portuguese. The other elder is Elder Walter, from Arizona – he is 6 foot 5 inches – OH MY!! He dwarfs the Portuguese people - and the Maingots, of course. Oh, and FHE? Well, we were the only ones who showed up, except for the man who is the other counselor in the branch presidency. It was nice though. We talked with them for almost 2 hours, shared our sweets, and then went home.
One other bit of our Wednesday – cooking dinner. What a frustration. I had not been able to figure out our oven. So our dinner consisted of a roasted chicken that was burned on the top and raw on the bottom with uncooked potatoes and carrots. Smelled delicious – tasted disgusting – well, the part we could eat without worrying about salmonella poisoning. Kaylie thought my frustration was very funny. Her favorite saying has become “calm down”, spoken with a Portuguese accent. Ha Ha!!
Thursday was spent looking at cars in Lisbon again – just me and Rick. LONG DAY!!!
Friday was a pretty happy day for the kids. We had planned on going to the Feita – which is basically a swap meet put on by the Ciganos (Portuguese for gypsy). But, as I was getting ready to go – the kids came knocking on my bedroom door. They had a cute puppy in their arms. Turns out 2 dogs went running through our backyard. The kids ran outside and called them and the puppy came back. Portugal has lots of dogs that roam the streets. So, we had told them that if they wanted to befriend a stray that would be fine. Well, the kids all chose to stay home and play with the puppy while Rick and I went to the Feita and then car shopped again.
Saturday was the day to buy a car!! Our hopes were high!! We had found several that we thought would work and then Rick wanted to check out a couple more. We took Kaylie and Tanner with us. Because Kaylie is carsick all the time we thought it best if she come and drive in them before we made a final decision. After several test drives, Rick dropped me and the kids off at IKEA while he went to test drive 1 more car. We had a fun time shopping at IKEA, but it was late (11pm) by the time we were done. Because the next day was Sunday we figured we better make a quick stop at a store to buy a couple of food items. After driving around forever we came to the conclusion that Portugal stores don’t stay open 24 hours. And, because we had driven around trying to find an open store, we now needed to get gas. It was raining and late. We finally found an open gas station. Actually, it had a “debit card” pump. The line was fairly long and everyone seemed to be having trouble with the machine. When Rick got up to the pump he was having a hard time figuring out how to get the machine to work. Several car loads of young punk guys had pulled in and were getting annoyed that it was taking so long. The guy that had used the pump before us helped Rick get it going and we headed out. By this time it was after midnight. We jumped on the freeway and not too long after, the engine started making a funny noise and the car started to hesitate. I said something’s wrong with the car. Just as I said that Rick realized that he put “gasoline” in our “diesel” car. We pulled over to the side of the freeway and stopped. Now, what would you do if you were in a country where you don’t have any family or friends nearby, a Bishop to call, you don’t speak the language all that well, and you’ve just ruined the engine in your rental car at 12:30am on a cold rainy night? Hmm…
Well, Rick does what he’s done most of this trip – he called his friend, Fatocha and woke her up. She told us to look at our rental car accident form in the glove compartment. Sure enough – there was a 24 hour roadside assistance phone number. She called it for us and arranged a taxi and a tow truck. After sitting on the side of the freeway for what seemed to be forever, we finally made it back to our house at 2:20 in the morning. Can I just say one thing on the subject – I’m glad it was Rick and not me!!! J
I’ll post this for now and finish tomorrow – it’s late!!
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