Final Arrangements

Our final full day in Portugal! Our last fill day abroad! What did we do on this last day, what last excursion did we spend this time on, what wild adventure was in store? Nothing. Basically. And I loved it! See, I know it sounds like Jess and I wasted a lot of time on this trip. We went grocery shopping and stayed inside and ate brunch on the back porch and that sounds like nothing but to us, it's all we ever wanted! Jess and I aren't big adventurers (it comes with a thrifty soul) and some people have told us that means we didn't get an 'authentic experience', but that sounds totally backwards to me! First and foremost, there's no such thing as an 'authentic' experience. If you're in Portugal, it's authentic! That being said, if you had to decide, which sounds more 'authentic'? Traipsing about Portugal's tourist spots, eating at tourist cafes surrounded by only other tourists? Or just living like a local? Of course that's a generalization, but when I phrase it that way one certainly sounds better than the other! But the truth is Jess and I did a mix of both! Is it 'authentic'? Who can really say! But we had an awesome time because we did it the way we wanted to and that's just how it is!

Getting less meta, Jess and I did both nothing and something our last full day. We were up at 9:30am to go hunting for those donuts. Jess was up first talking about how she had 'a feeling' they would have them if we went at that exact moment. I wanted the donuts, and Jess has pretty good premonitions relating to food, so I was up and dressed and ready to hunt for donuts! Before we left I had Jess check to see if she could check in for our flight, as it was 24 hours prior, but she found out we have to check in at the airport. That was another thing we had to add to our to-do list for the next days travels, but we let that stress be bottled up as we began The Great Donut Hunt. And it was a success! We found a beautiful pile of fresh donuts waiting for us behind a majestic glass wall, just ready to be consumed by us! We put 6 in 2 bags before deciding we wanted one for the walk home so we got 7. After that satisfying ordeal we felt empowered. Bold. And we realized we still had a lot of money to spend that was gonna be worthless as soon as we went to America, so we checked out some more of the shops. I got myself a package of treats because of who I am as a person while Jess checked out a dress from a rack of discount clothes. The man at the counter spoke with us while we debated whether or not we had the willpower to purchase a dress for 10 euro. We had the money, of course, I just said we needed to spend it before it became worthless, but could we handle the toll?

We handled the toll and bought the dress and we felt barely any buyers remorse! We felt some, obviously, but so much less than usual! On the walk home we ate our donut and Jess paired the dress with a scarf as a belt when we got home and it looks great and I'm glad we got it! We needed a new dress to wear to the library and class. After that little fashion soiree we took some time to think about our plan for our day of departure. I made sandwiches out of the ham and white bread we still had left and made ham and cheese sandwiches to put in the fridge so they'd be ready for the next day. Jess and I ate our sandwiches and in the bedroom and while we chit chatted we organized and packed up as many of our things up as we could. We picked out our comfy outfits for the upcoming plane ride and set them aside so we could pack up the rest of our clothes. We get a carry on and a personal item on our Delta flight so we had a little more wiggle room than the flight from Paris to Portugal as we could pack my Trusty Paris Purse with all the extra stuff we had accumulated from Portugal. And by extra stuff, I mean chocolate. And a lot of it. But not enough.

After Jess and I packed as much as we could I realized I wanted more chocolate to bring home so Jess and I got dressed again and made the same familiar walk to the shops, on the hunt this time for chocolate and sweets. But also, on an outfit for me! Jess had gotten one and I'd kinda wanted something fun from Portugal to wear too so while we browsed for candies I scoped out the dresses, shirts, pants, and rompers for sale. I went back and forth about it but I ended up getting a cute romper I'd had my eye on the first time we went shopping, which was also only 10 euro. Again, some buyers remorse, but I was glad I'd gotten something I could keep after my trip. We came home with the romper and a stock-pile of chocolate that we swore we'd try to save for the ride home. And we did (mostly) so we're pretty good on our word!

We split up for a little while then to relax, as usual, until dinner. We had to try and finish up all the food we had left in the house that we couldn't take with us. I'd used some of the bread for the sandwiches but we still had a lot left. Still, that was an issue for later as we also had half a pizza and a hefty sum of peas sitting in the freezer. I cooked the pizza and didn't burn it because I finally had all this down then made the largest bowl of peas two people could possibly consume. We ate while watching some murder mystery series following a British detective in Jamaica that I can't recall the name of that was very funny. We both panicked together about the travel day we had ahead of us but decided we couldn't deal with that until it came so we watched our show and ate too much food because we can't bear to throw anything out that we paid for and continued about our night.

Around 11:00pm Jess decided she wanted to take a shower and I set about getting everything set and secure for the morning so we could just get up and go. I figured out that the earliest train left the station of 5:44am and would arrive at Sete Rios around 6:00am, but the Metro didn't open until 6:30am so I elected for us to get the 6:04am train so we wouldn't be hanging around the station for half an hour. When Jess got out of the shower she and I packed everything besides what we'd need in the morning up in our backpacks, purse, and laptop bag. We swapped out what was charging with what needed charging and before we went to bed I made an official list of how the morning was going to go to an absolute T. What could go wrong?

Zootopia

We went to the zoo! And it was amazing! We hadn't been to the zoo in forever and it was so much fun! I was very excited so I was up at 10:00am making toast for breakfast. I only made us one piece each because the plan was to get donuts before we got to the train (because those donuts are amazing). We ate and got dressed which took 30 minutes. The plan was to leave at 11:30am. So we had some time on our hands. I spent some time doing my hair nicely while Jess returned to sleeping until 11:30am happened and we trotted off to the shop. But, to our horror, they were out of donuts! Hurt but not defeated we elected to get another chocolate croissant and return after the zoo to see if they were back in stock. With that we hit the train and headed to Sete Rios station where the zoo was a familiar 5 minute walk away! We're rather lucky we took that stroll when we bought the bus tickets because we never would have known how close the zoo was and never would have thought to visit it!

We meandered the Downtown-Disney-esque area outside the zoo to see if the carousel was open, having decided we needed to ride a double decker carousel at least once before leaving Europe, but we found it was still not open. We did find a cool flea-market type deal in the area though, with lots of tables and booths selling a variety of wares! We didn't purchase anything, but it was still fun to see the things people make and sell!

We were going to stop and have our croissant on one of the benches but we decided it'd be way better to eat it while checking out the whole zoo from the top of the gondola ride! So we stood in line and bought our tickets and made a bee-line right for the ride! There was hardly a wait, maybe 3 minutes, before we both scampered on to, as they call it at the zoo, the Cable Car. There are no seats on the ride, you just stand in a little cage that feels like a basket while it takes you around the whole park! We happily munched and crunched on our croissant as it took us around. It passed the aquatic show area first where nothing was going on but we still saw a few dolphins swimming about and heard at least one sea lion. Then it took us over the outside part of the park which we thought would be a good time to check if the carousel was up but it was hidden by trees so bang went that theory. Then it took us uphill all the way to the edge of the park! We passed over hippos, leopards, monkeys, antelopes, getting a view of a variety of animals the zoo offered before we hit the top and descended down over new exhibits of flamingos, elephants, giraffes and more! It was really a great way to start the day so we knew where things were and what the park looked like!

Following that ride we just wandered the left side of the park, seeing what we'd missed on the ride or what we wanted to see more of. We ended up in the Reptile Area, one of those buildings you go into to see small animals in small quarters and it's always really hot so it keeps a solid flow of people moving in and out. We saw a lot fo snakes and a whole pool in the center of the area just filled with turtles. We also saw an alligator who had a large pond area all to himself which took up half the building. A lot of the animals there weirded me out because I'm not a big reptile or amphibian fan. They don't scare me but they don't seem particularly exciting or attractive and I wouldn't want one as a pet ever. Still, it was fun to look around and see all the scaley things from a distance! We eventually exited into the cool refreshing air and it was around this time I decided we needed an ice cream. There were plenty of stands around and it seems to me no day at the zoo is complete without an ice cream. One feels ridiculous wandering about the zoo without an ice cream in hand. So we stopped and got a soft serve cone that's vanilla with a chocolate drizzle mixed in. Now, here in Portugal, they have an interesting way of doing soft serve, at least at ice cream places we went to. While in the US we fill a whole machine with the ice cream where you can tower your ice cream as high as you want, in Portugal there are containers with a porton of soft serve that they load into a machine that swirls it and puts it onto the cone! Totally cool!

Ice cream in hand (but not for long because it was delicious) we found snow leopards who looked super fluffy and wonderful and rhinos which have really funky looking skin, but we also found, weirdly enough, raccoons. Just like regular run-of-the-mill raccoons on display. I mean, I guess they don't have raccoons in Portugal or something but it was still a hoot to see! People were snapping pictures and ooing and ahing and it was great! We walked all the way up the length of the park into essentially the savanna area where all the animals look like variations of antelope and deer just larger but they were cool to see as we reached the very border of the park. We took a rest at the top of the hill and thought about having our sandwiches but decided it wasn't the right time for it. I'm not sure why we felt that way, but we did, so we just sat there until we realized the only way back was the path we'd come and revisited all the animals we'd just seen which was still nice.

Not too long after I decided I wanted another ice cream so I got a Cookies n Cream cone and Jess got a strawberry soft-serve (because we realized we didn't have to share) and we promptly got lost in some kind of monkey exhibit which was the exact opposite of where we wanted to be because we hate monkeys. I think I saw too many Monkey Mauling stories on the news growing up but those creatures legitimately do freak me out and I prefer not to be around them. Jess feels the same so we attempted to go somewhere away from the monkeys but ended up going further towards more monkeys. Ew. Finally we managed to escape, heading over to see the Big Cats. We were experts at spotting the animals that where hidden up in trees or behind bushes. The lynx was the trickiest to find (except the ocelot who we couldn't find at all) and the lions were the easiest because they live in a kind of savanna area where there weren't many places to hide. We resaw the snow leopard we'd passed before but also saw tigers and cheetahs, both of which were very pretty and soft looking.

We reached the beginning of the park again and decided to take another gondola ride! We drank some water and chillaxed that time, just taking a sweet ride around the park. We saw as we began the ride though, that the aquatic show was about to start. After getting off the gondola ride we could still hear it going and decided to just get back on and watch the show from the ride! We only saw part of it, since the ride takes you away from the aquatic area eventually, but we saw some tricks from the sea lions and some flips from the dolphins from the best seats in the house by far! When we got off that time we could tell the show had gotten out because the park was filled with people once again! Not just that, but the line for the gondola had grown from nothing to filling the whole queue! We certainly got on just in time!

We finally decided it was time for our sandwiches so we relaxed on a bench and people watched as everyone found their bearings post-show to figure out their next move. We also checked out the mini gift shop near us but nothing spoke to us so we moved on for a final sweep of the park. We came across a bird area we hadn't seen before that was slightly removed from the flamingo area. There was a sections for large emu-looking birds called rhea's, an encagement for a weird medium sized bird who looked perpetually angry, and a whole open building complete with fountains and a statue of Dionysus for the swans. A literal Swan Lake. I dunno why the swans got so much prestige but their house is better than mine. We also found, of all things, a pet cemetery but not one for zoo animals. instead the cemetery holds the remains and tombstones for beloved pets. Yes, you can pay to have your pet buried at the zoo. I'm not sure why they offer this service, but there are several hundred pets buried there and the tombstones are quite ornate so these people totally had the money for this sort of thing.

Having seen everything in the park we decided it we were ready to head out and see about that carousel ride! And what luck, the ride was open and operating and basically waiting for us! We paid the 2.25 each, which is a bit steep but the ride went on for quite some time as far as we could tell (way longer than the one in Paris that went for like 1 minute) and we might never have another chance to ride a double decker carousel so we went for it! We got the whole top floor to ourselves as there was only one other family on the ride and it was way cool! It was a slow ride and we're totally too old for carousels and stuff but it was too cool to skip and we had a grand time! When the ride finished we poked into the official gift shop one last time before formally exiting the park grounds and heading towards the train station.

The train took forever to show up because some other train headed to Evora needed to stop at the station even though it usually doesn't so while we waited that 25 minutes we went down to the metro station to figure out our route back to the airport so we'd know it. We found a map and both recalled the way we'd come initially when we arrived so we were all set for the eventual return journey! Our train finally arrived and we took the short and very familiar ride back to Corroios followed by a slightly less familiar walk towards the MiniPreco instead of home in search of our favourite donuts. They were, sadly, still out of donuts, but we grabbed a few goodies (not wanting to waste a trip) and headed home to relax after a fun filled day at the zoo! We both chilled out for a bit before I made us pizza for dinner that I only burned a little because I'm really figuring out this whole 'only using the stove top to cook' thing! We watched Dracula: Untold in the living room while we ate and decided the day had been a rousing success!

Daily Dozings

I think of all the 'rest days' Jess and I've had in Portugal, this one was the most deserved! My bones were aching from the hours spent on the bus the day before so moving in the morning was a struggle. Still, Jess had been asked the day before by the AirBnB owner if we could water his plants in the backyard given how hot it was so I was up around 10:30am-ish to get outside and water the plants. I was also exceptionally hungry and we had very little food in the house so I figured the sooner we get up the sooner we can go shopping for food. We did have 2 Naplolanas left so Jess and I ate those to hold us over before we took to the streets to get some actual food. We got a lot of the stuff we'd gotten before (like bread cause we sure do eat a lot of toast) but we got some new stuff to try too! Now that we knew we had money to spend (that we kind of have to spend cause we already exchanged it and we're def not exchanging it back) we felt more free to splurge a little! That being said we got 1 chocolate croissant for 80 cents and 2 donuts for 35 cents each. Big spenders, eh. We also checked out the 1 Euro store right next door to the MiniPreco we typically shopped at to see what they had and ended up buying a couple of fun little goodies there to try!

  Back at our home-away-from-home we set up the back balcony real nice and had a lovely little brunch of donuts, croissant, orange juice, and chocolate straw-stick things called canudinhos recheados. I have not mentioned these chocolate straw-sticks before but Jess and I have eaten at least 3 bags of them since we got here and we bought 2 more at the store that we're gonna fly through. We can't get enough of them. They have them in America but Jess and I can never afford them so we don't buy them but we literally love them the bits and cannot stop eating them. I eat at least 5 every time I write my blog entries. I'm eating them now. I'm not gonna survive without them in America where I go back to being even more of a cheap Scrooge than I am here. The donuts and croissant we new though and they were amazing! The donuts in Portugal are so soft and sweet and the ones we got were coated in sugar and we just knew we had to get more! And the croissant was just loaded inside with the very best chocolate while the outside was a very doughy and sweet croissant, quite different to how flakey we make them in America or how they made them in Paris and it was wonderful!

  An excellent selection of food resulted in a lovely brunch where we excitedly yammered about how proud of ourselves we were for the day before's achievements. We think we're rather brave. True adventurers and all that. And we got a lot of information we needed! I remembered at brunch that we had wifi again and sent Jess all the notes I had taken at the castle for her to organize and work through. Having done that, Jess disappeared to her living room to deal with her research and putz off a little leaving me to chill in the bedroom where I did just that. I did such things as: laid down, played on my phone, posted on Instagram and Facebook, and wrote my excessively long blog post, all of which felt like a perfectly valid use of my time after the day I'd had before.

  Jess emerged from her hovel just as we were both getting hungry so I turned on the oven (like an expert) and made up the kinda-sorta pre-made hamburgers we'd bought at a 2 for 1 deal in MiniPreco. There were two hamburgers topped with cheese, each in between two very nice hamburger buns. The burger was cooked already so all I had to do was warm it up! While Jess and I usually eat in the living room and watch TV, it was actually still daylight out when we decided to have dinner so I set us up on the back balcony again. We each had our hamburgers which we're excellent! They come pre-stuffed with onions and seasoning, something we never do in America! We also tried two soft drinks we'd gotten at the Euro store: A mango compal and a leite com chocolate ucal. The first was a very sweet drink that is mango-flavoured but has a host of other fruits and vegieveget mixed in with it and it was excellent. The second was basically just very good chocolate milk! We were satisfied with both, even more so as we'd only paid 1.20 for both drinks combined! Dinner was filled with chatter as we discussed our plans for the next day. We'd both liked the zoo when we saw the outside of it and formally decided that's what we were going to do. It would cast 21.50 each, but we decided we had the money and it would be fun! We haven't been to a zoo in forever!

  Dinner was followed by a period of moving conversation as we cleared the table, did dishes, and meandered about the house discussion our plans. Eventually Jess took a shower, then I took mine so we'd be fresh and ready for the zoo the next day (and just to get the gross bus-ness off us). We returned to our respective areas, which both of us brought snacks to because we'd gotten a lot of chocolates and sweets at the store and we naturally have to eat all of them before we leave! We ate and rested right up until about midnight when we both tottered off to bed, plan in mind for an exciting and semi-adventurous trip to the zoo!

Hassle At The Castle

  Boy howdy folks do I have a whale of a tale for you! You ever just set your mind so firmly on something that you defied reason and rational in order to get what you want? That was us getting to this castle. Our day started at 6:30am when we got up and ready to walk the 10 minute trip to the train station by by 7:15am. We caught the 8:00am train towards Sete Rios, where we'd been the day before, and made our way to the bus station right next door. Having bought our tickets 're day before we situated ourselves in a moderately hard bench for an hour awaiting our 9:30am bus. In this time we both used our phones to again try and figure out how to get from the bus station in Ponte De Lima, which we decided was probably the Central Station (though we couldn't be sure), to the Paco da Gloria. We had no success but we did had saved a map of an 11 minute walk to a taxi which we decided we'd walk to once we arrived at the station. We sobbed at the idea of spending money on a taxi, but whatever the cost we were going to pay it to get to this castle!

  At the station we finally ate our breakfast, a pastry each because we'd run out of bread for toast, just before our bus rolled up. Jess and I were some of the first on which was good and bad. Good: we found seats right away. Bad: we didn't read 're ticket right and there are assigned seats and had to move to find ours when the correct passengers showed up! We're silly geese. We did find out seats though which weren't far from the ones we'd chosen for ourselves and we got nice and situated for the long drive ahead! The drive was almost exactly 5 hours and had five stops, the last stop being Ponte de Lima. The bus did have a bathroom, but here's a thing we learned through experience. The bathroom on the bus is locked so you have to ask for a key. Once you ask for the key they 'turn on' the bathroom from the front, meaning they turn on the lights and the water. It makes sense that they would do this - It must cost something to run the water and electricity in the bathroom so why run it all the time? If people have to ask the key then the driver and the attendant know someone is going to use it and can turn it on and off as the key is exchanged. If they're close to a stop though, they'll just tell you that they're coming up to a stop so you can go then. But here's the thing: Public bathrooms are not free in Portugal (or in Paris which is why Jess and I took the metro back to our AirBnB when we had to use it). They're not outrageously expensive, ranging usually from 25 cents to a full euro (except at the Louvre mall-carousel area where it was 2 euro and 25 cents which is outrageous, at least comparatively speaking) but the bus bathroom is free to use. Still, they prefer you pay for the bathrooms at the station rather than use the one on the bus so they certainly encourage you to just wait until we stop. Jess got given that run-around, the attendant not mentioning the one at the station would cost 25 cents, so we just waited until we were driving again to have me ask for the key so we could both go. Not sure if that's useful information for anyone, but that's what's up with Portuguese buses. Still better than the one we rode in Ireland that didn't have a toilet at all though, so pros and cons!

  Bathroom situation well in hand, we arrived at 2:30pm-ish to the Central de camionagem, or the Central Station. It was the stop Jess and I had guesstimated to be the right one so we had a general idea of where we were in relation to the castle. Still, the Paco da Gloria was a 10 minute car drive away so we were still sticking with the walk to the taxi station. We were sort of confused about the directions we had to get there but what'd you know, we came across a taxi we assume had just dropped some off! There was a slight language barrier and he wasn't sure how to get to Paco da Gloria exactly as he'd never gone there but he made a call, gave us an estimate of the cost of the drive (upon my asking) and off we went! The ride was a thrill as Jess and I wondered the whole time if we'd chosen the right place. The scenery was beautiful during the ride though, reminding us very much of the rolling green hills of Ireland as we swooped and swivled down the thin and winding roads. Jess and I were still worried we weren't going to the Paco da Gloria but as soon as we saw signs pointing towards it we knew we were at least headed the right way for what we came to see, even if it wasn't the right castle!

  A tall but thin archway greeted us before the castle itself. The archway was very obviously made for horses and people but not cars as the driver attempted to navigate his way in. He could have just dropped us off outside of it but once he started going through there was no turning back. He had to flatten his side-view mirror to fit in, but he actually managed it and the castle came into view. It was smaller than expected, surrounded by more trees than we imagined, but there was no doubt it was the one from the postcard! We'd found the right castle and we'd made it there! A weird thing happened when we were paying the driver though. I asked him what was an appropriate tip in Portugal as I didn't know and didn't care if he said more money than it usually was because we'd found the castle and I felt on top of the world! But he didn't understand and instead put me on the phone with Benjamin, one of his employers who speaks English. I tried to speak to him but the connection was bad so I decided to let it go, but Jess got on the phone and used the time to schedule for us to be picked up at 5:00pm outside the Paco da Gloria, which was quite clever of her because we'd need that! That handled we said farewell to our driver and admired the castle.

  There were people around setting up for a wedding that was set to happen this weekend which we'd been informed of previously by Leno. None of them said anything to us though and we were to shy to make fools out of ourselves with them so we just nonchalantly wandered around the grounds, what little there were. The 'castle' is much smaller than the American newspapers exaggerated it to be but it was still a lovely old building with a great view! We decided to try our luck inside to see if anyone was there. It is, after all, a hotel so we figured someone had to be there for people seeking rooms. We were wrong. The inside looks much the same as any old building with no place for checking in or anything. The door we walked through led to some kind of parlor room attached to an almost empty room on the right and billiards room on the left. Both had connecting rooms, but still nowhere a person might find someone to check in or ask questions. On the way outside we were encountered by a person who spoke only Portuguese. We explained that we'd spoken to Leno on the phone and he nodded and walked away. We followed his general direction back to the front of the house where we dawdled a little bit debating what to do when the man we'd run into returned with someone else. The second man asked if we were looking for Leno and we said yes and he said "That's me!" and we were very relieved. We shook his hand and he apologized for being a little messy as he was working in the garden to prepare for the wedding. We certainly had no qualms with that and we chatted while he showed us around.

  He took us to the backyard that we'd already sort of trespassed through then took us up the outdoor staircase to the second floor through the balcony doors. There we saw a grand hallway filled with all kinds of busts that he explained were copies of ones from the Louvre! He then took us to a small room where he showed us the picture of Count Alexio that he had mentioned over the phone and let us take pictures. When we left that room he asked us to wait a moment while he went and found Robert Illing, the owner of the hotel! He'd returned just in time to be there when we were! A Californian he was exceptionally American and we all had a pleasant time getting introduced. We explained that we were students from Stetson University being paid by the school to conduct research on the life of Elizabeth Stetson, Countess de Santa Eulalia. He was more than happy to talk to us and we went out onto the balcony for a chat. There was a cat there named Amadeus whom Jess held while she and Robert spoke and I took notes.

  Robert Illing told us the history of the castle, which he just calls a house and is probably a better title given how small it is. It's a manor of course, it's not like it's a flat, but it isn't what it's been hyped up to be in America. While newpapers claimed it was a "100 room castle" it has really maybe 20 with only 4 bedrooms in total. The grounds of the castle were used back in the early centuries as a Roman building of some kind, then over the ruins was built small square tower in 1230. In the 1720's that building was taken down and the castle as we saw it was put in with very few modifications over the years. It was originally just used for tenant farmers until Count Alexio bought it and fixed it up. Now there are claims Alexio inherited the castle but Robert explained that the Alexio was the fourth son of his family and wouldn't have inherited anything, not even a title. The title likely comes from the king, Manuel II, whom he convinced to give it to him somehow along with perhaps a few other honors. Alexio didn't make too many changes to the castle while he fixed it up though, only adding several touches from a torn-down convent including a series of bells, battlements, and pinnacles for decoration to make the castle appear more mideval. He also added a series of pipes he aquired from Porto which ran gas and spewed fire which he used to do shows at night. All artists are crazy, man.

  After our conversation Leno said farewell as he had to head down to the Refois Monestary. He offered to drive us there, as it was the second piece of land the Count bought (or inherited) but he couldn't drive us back and while the walk was only 45 minutes we didn't have that kind of time. Illing took us back inside where he showed us almost all the rooms of the house including a parlor-study area where there was a genealogy of the count and several pictures in a scrapbook of Elizabeth and Alexio! Jess got photographic copies of everything while I still took notes in each room he led us through including the dining room which was originally the castle entrance, and the downstairs which was originally only used for farmers, tools, wine, and animals. It was used differently when Alexio owned it, but as he wasn't using it much since he and Elizabeth lived in Philadelphia mostly he let farmers live in it until his death. After he died they remained there for some time but Elizabeth and her son from John B. Stetson never paid the taxes on it so it was siseiz by the government in 1937 and sold for only 600 euro to an Englishman who lived there for 40 years. That owner also changed very little about the castle though so it remains in fairly accurate condition from when it was built in the 18th century.

  We explored a bit outside, saying hello to the sweet little cat running around again, before he offered to take us to see the house the count was born in and his descendants lived! We gladly accepted and he drove us to the house, named literally Home Of The Beautiful View which is certainly true! From the front porch of the house there's the most spectacular view of all of Porto! We met Louisa there, the great-great-grand niece of Alexio who was more than happy to show us around the house and show us what they had of Alexio and Elizabeth. A bit of weirdness though is that they all call her not Elizabeth Stetson, but Marie Isabella Stetson. We're not sure where they got that name from but everyone calls her that there for some reason. They also know nothing about Stetson University, which they thought was in Philadelphia and was founded by "Marie Isabella"'s blood family. Stetson is in fact in Florida and was founded by Henry Deland, though it's named after Stetson because Elizabeth and her first husband donated so much money to save it. Funny how we all got our information jumbled up across the continants. They know nothing of Stetson University or Elizabeth but everything about the Count and the Castle while we're the exact opposite!

  The tour through the house showed us several documents and pictures from Alexio's time and we were shown a sweet private church that is right inside the house that came from the time of Alexio's family. We couldn't stay too long as we had a taxi to catch at 5:00pm. We said farewell and thank you when we left at 4:57pm and hurried back to the castle to meet our cab. Robert said it was a shame for us to come all this way to not see the monestary and offered to tell the taxi driver to go the route by the monestary so we could stop and take pictures. We said we'd love that and when we met the driver he explained it was all sorted. Leno was back as well and both he and Robert gave us their business cards to email with anymore questions and to send final versions of our research. We thanked both of them very much for their help then climbed into the taxi for the drive back. The driver didn't speak any English but he gladly stopped at the monestary for us to get pictures and see it then drove us to the bus stop where we arrived exactly half an hour before our 5:50pm bus ride!

  The bus didn't arrive until 5:50pm exactly but it gave us time to eat the ham and cheese sandwiches I'd packed and discuss things. Instead of discussing the castle, however, we elected to discuss a family that had been on the bus with us on the way up. This family was totally zonked out! There was a mother, two boys who were maybe 8 and 6, and two grandparents. When they got on the bus though, they realized booking their tickets seperatly meant they were sitting in seperate spots, which they didn't like. They tried to ask a couple to move seats but either the people didn't understand or said no, which they're entitled to do. So they tried to get the driver involved to get them to sit together but as there was no reason they needed to all sit together they didn't do anything about it. They decided then to figure out how to split up. The mother sat in the back with grandpa and one of the boys while grandma sat in the front of the bus with the other boy. Seems fine, right? Wrong. The boys were swapped off intermittently between the mother and grandma during the ride and the mother frequently went to the front to give the grandma things the boy had forgotten to take with him, like his hat which didn't seem particularly urgent. Near the end of the trip it became obvious the boys wanted to sit with each other and just shouted conversations to one another from either side of the bus. No one seemed happy about this but the mother and grandparents had no issue letting it happen. The woman in front of us, however, had had enough. The boy's antics across from her in his seat had resulted in him kicking her a few times and she was gonna do something about it. At the last stop before we arrived at Ponte de Lima the boy and his grandma went to the back of the bus to acquire his lunch or something, so the woman in front of us grabbed her son's large duffle bag and chucked it on the seat across from her taking up the whole space so he couldn't sit there. Power. Move. When grandma and the kid got back they discovered the seat there was taken, forcing the child to actually sit in the available seat next to the grandmother instead of taking up two of his own. I think they all got the message and the kids were controlled from that point on. That woman is my hero.

  Anyway, we discussed that while we sat and ate and awaited out bus. 5:50pm came and the bus showed up to whisk us away for another 5 hour drive! At one of the stops two American girls climbed on and checked the bathroom only to discover it was locked. We happily explained what we'd learned about the key being up front and felt like seasoned travelers even though we'd learned it just that morning! The ride back was basically empty with very few people taking a bus to Lisbon set to arrive at 10:50pm. Still, it wasn't totally uneventful as the Lunar Eclipse Blood Moon occureoc right outside our window and we got to watch the whole thing! It was way cool and an amazing end to our crazy day! The day wasn't over yet though and once the bus stopped we trekked to the train station to take a 20 minute train ride back to Corroios where we walked the final 10 minutes back to our house where we quickly ate a bowl of peas for dinner and totally crashed. Total Travel Time Calculations: 10 hours on buses, 40 minutes on trains, 20 minutes in taxis, 20 minutes walking all in one day for 2 hours at a castle. We're clinically insane.

Tickets Please

  Praise be, we actually got out of the house and did something besides shopping! Our day started lateish because of who we are as peole, but we weren't in a rush so we had a lovely brunch of toast and orange juice on the back patio before assembling ourselves for our day trip to Sete Rios to purchase our bus tickets. We were out the door around 1:00pm, fully committed to not screwing up the train validation this time! At the station we reloaded our cards with enough money for the ride to and from and boarded Line 1 towards Roma-Areeiro.

  We rode 3 stops to get to Sete Rio, a trip of about 20 minutes which includes a lovely view of the shores of Portugal as the train takes you over the bridge. We hopped off and found out bearings, navigating out the doors and towards the Red Expressos station! The bus station is mostly outdoors, even the escalators, but there is and inside part where certain buses load and unload and where the ticket booth is located! There were plenty of booths there selling tickets yet for some reason lots of people were lined up for only one. This was weird as all the booths sell the same tickets. Ignoring that Jess and I got in line behind 2 groups of people instead of 5+ and waited a rather short time in total. The woman at the booth for us all sorted out and without us asking or even knowing it existed added an Under 25 discount to the ticket. That's apparently very common in Europe. Now, I said in my earlier that the tickets were going to be 34 euro each one way, but it turned out the bus we wanted was only 21 euro each one way and then with the discount it was only 18 euro and change each and we felt quite pleased with paying that instead of the hundred something euro we thought it was going to be!

  Having bought our ticket and seeing as there was no rush we meandered about the station so we knew where we would be the next day. The stops change each day according to what buses are running and at whAt time, but we think we've got the general gist of the area all sorted out and we should be alright for the journey. That being handled we headed out wit no plan in mind, our work for the day having been done. I'm front of the train station we found and ice cream stand though and decided we'd earned an ice cream (and we had a lot more money on us than we thought we would) so we got an ice cream sandwich to split. What? We didn't feel like millionaires who can each get an ice cream. Baby steps people.

  Ice cream in hand we people watched at the train station, watching regulars and tourists alike begin or end their travels for the day. When the ice cream was finished I decided I'd like to walk up the street to see what we could see. We found ourselves under a large bridge with murals of animals on the beams and realized we must be close to the Jardim Zoologico, or the zoo we'd seen so many advertisements for while on the metros and trains. Turned out it was right across the street and we decided to look around and maybe check the prices. The area outside of the zoo was essentially a miniature zoo equivalent of Downtown Disney with an assortment of places to eat in, shop at, and explore. There's a little garden walkway with benches that Jess and I enjoyed which lead to the prices sign. 21 euro each felt like a but much, but we decided we would see how much money we spent the next few days and if we had enough we'd go for a whole day!

  I do like zoos quite a bit, but of interest to me was a skyline gondola type ride which carries zoo-goers over the zoo and the shopping area. The sign said all attractions except the train are included with the price of admission so I do hope that ride is part of it because I just love those things! If we go, even if it's an extra fee, I at least wanna ride it once! Jess liked the gondola ride too, but as we were walking around she found something else of interest: one of those you machines where you put a coin in and get a random surprise out. The theme of this you machine was squishy animals and Jess decided she needed on. Unfortunately, we didn't have a euro coin which the machine needs. We did, however, have 2 50-can't euro coins so when we poked into the gift shop the woman at the front exchanged them for us. Jessica's prize was a squishy pig which was delightful and we both had a good time smooshing it while we sat on a bench under the gondola ride.

  After enjoying the little pig for a bit we went back to strolling and found a carousel. It was down at the moment but for 2 euro and 65 cents we wouldn't have paid anyway, but we did get pictures because Jess loves carousels! Double decker carousels must be a big thing in Europe because they're the only kind we've seen so far! There were other ride-type things around the shopping area including a bouncy house snapped like a giraffe and several of those coin-operated rides that you'd see in shopping malls. It looked like all the rides were just being opened up, which was weird because it was almost 4:00pm. Must be a Portuguese thing.

  Having seen everything to be seen, Jess and I headed back to the train station, used the booth to put on our cards that we were headed to Corroios and tapped the correct validation stand before boarding Line 4 towards Coina. We successfully got through the exit machines after the ride and were very proud of ourselves for not screwing it up again! We did still stop at the tickets machine again though to reload our Zapping cards so we wouldn't have to worry about it the next day in the early morning. Then we walked home and both took showers so we'd be fresh and ready for our long bus rides and fabulous pictures in front of the castle! Lunch (sort of) was some more peas and two pastries while we chatted like we hadn't seen each other all day. I made sandwiches for the morning before we parted ways and relaxed in our respective areas. Dinner was, shocker, grilled cheese and pastries while we watched Hercules with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. We'd both never seen it but it was ridiculous and we loved it. Also it had The Rock, wow enough. Our meal and movie was followed by a panic session as we realized we had no idea how to get from the bus stop in Porte de Lima to the Paco de Gloria. This castle literally has no official address and the station in Ponte de Lima apparently doesn't have a name listed so we we had to guesstimate that anyway. In the end we decided we were just gonna have to deal with that another time and went to bed for a rousing sleep of maybe 6 hours! C'est la vie!

Back To The Drawing Board

  As mentioned in yesterday's post Jess and I ran into the problem of the castle we seek being super far from our current location. Because it's so far there doesn't seem to be anything listed regarding bus, train, or metro transportation. So, instead of going to the castle it was another day at home here in Portugal. Still, it wasn't a fruitless occasion either! We rolled out of bed around 12:00pm because that's apparently who we are now and Jess secluded herself in the living room to get some research done on how to get us to this castle. I had 4 pieces of toast because I'm a human disaster and eventually Jess joined me in the kitchen for 2 of her own. She had discovered the correct number to use to phone the castle. The castle is currently being used as a hotel, which certainly explains why it wasn't showing up in lists of castles in Portugal. Like a lot of European countries, Portugal has a large number of castle and most of them have been preserved as tourists attractions. As a hotel, however, the Paco de Gloria has escaped notice for almost a century as the castle of Elizabeth Stetson and her husband because it wouldn't be included in lists of castles to visit in Portugal. It's not even really advertised as a castle, just as an antique and historic building with classic rooms for rent. Not super useful for anyone going castle-hunting, amiright?

  Jess had some issues figuring out how to make the call because we're in Portugal and everything is different, but she persevered and managed to get through. While she busied herself with the call I did the laundry which meant a lot of casual eavesdropping to see what was going on. She explained to the person who answered who she was and what she was looking for and she was transferred to a man named Lemo. Lemo was especially nice and extraordinarily useful. He confirmed for her that Alexio, Count we Santa Eulalia was he owner of the castle, saying he actually sits across from a painting of him! He also confirmed that he owned and was buried at the monastery, Refoios do Lema. Lemo tried to put Jess in touch with an R. Shilling who owns the castle/hotel as he would have more information. Unfortunately, he's in California at the moment and wasn't able to take calls, but Leno passed on his email address to Jess so she could reach out herself. There was not end to his usefulness, though, as Jess asked about transportation to the castle from Lisbon. He happily informed her that the Red Expressos station at the Sete Rios train stop has a bus that will take us basically a 10 minute walk away from the castle. The ride, however, is 5 hours long, giving us a grand total of 2 hours at the castle for a one-day trip and is looking to be about 34 dollars per person each way. Ouch. But, we came to see a castle, and see a castle we shall!

 

Like I said, not much really went down. While we received awesome and necessary information for Jessica's research, we physically did very little. Post phone call we discovered we were running out of toilet paper and cheese and made a run to the store where we also got more Napolitanas and a Mars bar for Jess to celebrate a job well done so far! We had dinner of grilled cheese and peas and pastries while we watched Murder, She Wrote. One of the episodes was with Lucy Lawless and it was great! We made a plan to get to the Sete Rios stop the following day to buy the tickets for the day after so we won't have to putz around in line the day of and potentially miss our bus. Now, you can buy the tickets online, but we already have the money we transferred into euros and it'd be a waste to just buy the tickets online when we have the money in cash to afford them. I'd rather pay 4 euro for a train ride to buy them in cash than spend 100 something euro extra a let the money we brought go to waste. It makes sense to us. That being agreed upon we relaxed once again before we were off to bed. Not much to report for this post, but we did get a lot of valuable information and brats exactly what we came here to get!

Win Some/Lose Some

So, it may have escaped my previous blog posts, but Jess and I aren't actually here in Europe for an international joy ride. I mentioned very briefly in my first post that Jess was given a research grant by our University to study in Portugal. Specifically, she's researching Elizabeth Stetson. Elizabeth was the third husband on John B. Stetson, the man who invented the hat of the same name and the man for whom our university is named. The school was started by Henry Deland, for whom our town is named, but John B. Stetson was a friend and when the school had money troubles he paid the way so Deland named the school after him. That's a little background you didn't need, but the person Jess is studying is specifically Elizabeth. Elizabeth was Stetson's third wife, but the one who outlived him. Originally a poor country girl, she was spotted by Stetson during a performance at church where he fell in love with her. He died while she was still quite young, which wasn't shocking as he was 30 years older than her, so she eventually remarried a Portuguese count, Alexio, the Count of Santa Eulalia. With the second marriage she had Stetson's fortune and Alexio's title, so she was living it up! Alexio died before Elizabeth as well, which upset her quite a bit, so she moved to California to live with her son George Stetson until she too died.

That looks like a lot of information, but honestly it's taken forever to wrangle up any of that. Nothing at all was really known about Elizabeth Stetson despite how many contributions she made to the university so Jess's senior project is to assemble a clear narrative and timeline of her life, considering her life as important a legacy to Stetson University as her first husband and Henry Deland's. That has been no easy task, but one huge piece missing is her whole life in Portugal! No one knows anything about it, even where she lived! Jess knew from her research that she lived in a 100 room castle that sources claim to be in Gloria "overlooking Lisbon." We discovered here that that's a total lie. The Gloria part, not the 100 room bit. All we've had to go on is a postcard with a picture of the castle's outside and the newspaper bits claiming it was in Gloria, but the discovery of a book from a cousin of the Count's says Alexio inherited a castle in Porto called Paco de Gloria! The newspapers obviously assumed the name Gloria meant it was in Gloria and misakenly printed a lie. So we know where the castle is! Great! We are staying where the castle isn't. Not great. In fact we're on the complete opposite side of the country. Corroios is in the south while Porto is in the north. Still, the archives are in Lisbon, which we needed to visit, so it isn't a complete waste!

We dedicated the day to visiting the archives of Lisbon, or the Torra de Tombo. I had sandwiches and goodies packed the night before but we slept in until about 10:00am so we weren't out the door until 11:00am. We walked towards the train station and attempted to use the machine to reload our Zapping cards or whatever, but we couldn't figure it out so we has to see the ticket attendant. She was super nice and told us on the way back that we had to tap into the machine identical to the one's we used here before we left the Lisbon station. Seemed simple enough so off we went! We rode the Roma-Areeiro - Sebtual towards Roma-Areeiro (which we only knew to do because the lady told us to go to Line 2) and rode 4 stops until we got to Entrecampos. There we were supposed to take a metro from Campo Pequeno to Cidade Universitaria but the walk was only 10-20 minutes and we came to Portugal to see Portugal, not the metro. We had a lovely stroll across the street from a park we decided to walk through on our way back and actually managed to not get lost on our way to the archives!

When we got there there were people hanging around the doors so we thought they were either locked or the wrong doors and went to find another entrance. Upon finding none we realized we were being silly and walked past the people huddled around the door to enter the building. A security guard inside got us sorted out, checking our ID's and giving us a paper pass to use the archives. He also gave us a key to the lockers because bags and purses aren't permitted. We happily obliged, taking only Jessica's phone for notes, and followed his directions up the stairs with two rights to speak with the reference workers. There was a language barrier there but the woman we spoke to helped us to use a website that locates documents in the archives. We only found one item of use listed, a set of letters between the Count and Countess and requested a Consoltation with the item. That meant we had to take another slip and go to a room on the other side of the building where they locate the document(s) and give them to you to look at and study at a desk. Jess and I were seated at desk 65 and waited about 30 minutes for the letters to be found and brought to our desk.

'Letters' is the correct term to use, but only barely. 4,000 miles of travel, several thousand dollars spent, and we were presented with 2 letters. One from the count and one from the countess, neither to each other. Still, 2 letters is something so we transcribed the two short letters as best we could given that the count's letter was written in Portuguese. Elizabeth's letter was from her American home congratulating someone on their choice of person for hire, meanwhile Alexio's we didn't transcribe yet, but does mention John B. Stetson Jr. which is of interest! That being done we handed the letters back and exited the building, quite proud of a job well done! The Torra de Tombo is right next to a university so Jess and I took a walk before finding somewhere to sit and eat our sandwiches. We discussed full-volume what the letters meant, literally and in terms of the research, while contemplating visiting the physical castle in the coming days.

Following our quaint meal we walked back through the park which was just darling! There was a climbable Spider Pyramid we both just had to play on and an assortment of sculptures which were total Kodak moments! It was nice to get out of the house and exlore a little of Portugal and we both appriciated the fresh air! Eventually we found our way back to the train station where we got a little confused once again about the correct line to take. We'd taken the Line 2 in, but Line 4 said it was going to Coina which I remembered from our first day arriving had been the direction we needed to go. We ended up tapping our Zapping cards twice when we switched lines which I hoped didn't matter as we switched lines. We chose the Coina one and it was the correct train, learning at the Corroios station that the lines are different at all the station and what was Line 4 at Entrecampos was Line 2 in Corroios!

  When we left the train, however, we ran into the same problen as our first day with the tickets not letting us out! An attendant came to help us and did the same thing the last attendant had to let us in. When we got through we checked our balance and saw we'd both lost 2 more euro than we were supposed to. The friendly woman from the morning was still there though and asked us what Verification stand we had tapped in at. We said the green one and she told us that was for the wrong line. The ones identical to the machines at the station were the ones we needed to tap into. We felt very silly even though she said it happens all the time to native Portuguese people, but we were still out 4 euros for our foolishness.

Not overly bummed about it Jess and I hit the shop again on the way home to pick up some more food (we'd run out of bread because of all the toast) then returned to our usual pattern of dividing the house into our own spaces. Dinnertime I made the rest of the pizza on the stove and more peas and we watched Modern Family while we sorted the next days castle trip out. A snafu occurred then though. We discovered there are no trains or metros listed that take people from Lisbon to Porto but the Paco de Gloria website claims trains and metros basically arrive on the property. Confused by the whole matter Jess elected to call the Paco de Gloria the following day to see if they had any information to offer her. That being handled we returned to watching our programs in seperate rooms until we both fell asleep! A job well done for the day, even if we did pay 4 extra euros to get just 2 letters. Thats research for you though!