Fado, Sausage, and Sardines

A crowded bar, my back is the backrest of the man at the table behind me. An older gentleman sits one table over and seems to know everyone. The ceilings are low and the walls are covered with hoosits and whatsits. The crowd greats each other with two kisses and talks loudly over carafes of wine and traditional Portuguese soup of the green variety. My word that soup is the best we have ever tasted, and it should be, they have been making it for a 100 years! A simple medley of potato broth, kale, and sausage seeps into your taste buds and flows straight into your heart. The lights go soft and the room falls silent. A women who is leaning casually against a pilar begins to sing and my attention is tunneled only to her. How is it that a language I don't understand can cause me to feel so much. This place, this culture, makes me jealous. I want to experience this place that causes such vulnerability in it's people. The older gentleman claps just before the end of every song, it is obvious he is there every night, a part of a larger family that is Lisboa. 

This is just a snippet of our spontaneous Christmastime in Portugal. 

Merry Christmas form us and Happy New Year!

Not for the faint of heart

You hear travel stories that have airport woes all the time. You hope it doesnt happen to you and then.... you wake up the day of your trip to a voice mail from the airline. This is what it said,
"Hello, this is American Airlines, your flight has been canceled, sorry for the inconvienience."
WHAT?!
Without even an expaination we were then calling airlines all morning and only talking to robots, helpful. We were eventually booked with a new flight going through London, which we were ecstatic due to British Airways treated us like royalty. It wasn't untill our 1 1/2 hour flight transfer in London that we found ourself in our second, almost catastrophe, moment of the day.
Now, one would think when the airline rebooks your flight for you there would have enough time to switched planes. Alas, although we were flying out of the same terminal we were required to exit and enter through security again. Oh no.
At DIA we could have made it, however we were not in the US anymore. We all know that at home things move quickly. We wouldn't normally have been annoyed by a slower pace, exept in airline security. It took an average of 3 minutes per person, 3....minutes.... by the time we were waiting in the third line after being ushered forward twice there was 20 minutes till the gate closed. We watched time tick down and were grabbing out bags and shoes from the belt at 3 minutes too late and sprinting through the airport and..... the flight was delayed by an hour.
Thank God

After that saga we have found ourselves in madrid happily with Ryan and Tracy exporing the area and learning to order food in spanish. Now we get to see how two small town moutain folk do in the big city. stay tuned.....

A case for simplicity: or at least an attempt

Perusing the travel blogs you find yourself reading the same thing over and over again, simplicity is key. Everyone says you should pack half of what you think you should and throw everything else away. I'm sure that when the trip is over i'll be a a new women living off of  cliff bars and love but who am I kidding... I have a long way to go.

Picking just the essentials for travel is hard for me. I find myself struggling with an internal battle of whether any of this is a good idea.

Lets be honest, at first glance I am the last person who should live out of a back pack in foreign countries. I have a fear of sickness, am paranoid about food quality, and like my bed... a lot. I find myself laying in bed thinking about why on earth i would want to not sleep in my bed for a year. I didn't like sleepovers when I was little, and I've always been happy to over pack for weekend gateways. 

But something happens when you marry a man who came here from Hawaii with just two small back packs of stuff. You move into a tiny apartment and realize you five or six times the amount of stuff he does. So you decide to do an epic trip and pack up everything, selling all your furniture in the process, (don't worry, he let me keep the bed!). You start to pack up only the essentials and still find yourself at Target buying a new cardigan, and journals.... and new headbands. BUT here's where we make a pledge, that I will live with only what I need, i guess there is no other choice. 

Cheers to new beginnings. 

also I cut off my long mane of hair..... simplicity right?