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Monday, January 11, 2016

The Portuguese Way


I've fallen behind (as usual) on my exploits as I was submerged in Portuguese culture once Mauricio picked us up to stay at his place . It took a bit but eventually he showed up at our hotel and we were on our way to seeing what Portuguese culture is all about . Honestly just visiting a place and doing all the tourist stuff has to be done but you really don't experience the culture until you go stay with a local family ! As soon as he picked us up he started giving us the tour which honestly I know for a fact there was no chance of experiencing this without a local driving us around :) 


First thing we did was head over to the elevator tower that Eiffel built here in Lisbon ... We didn't go up it but drove around to see the view from the top ourselves and wow was it beautiful . Not even the non stop rain could ruin this . Soon after we were back in the car and starte to do the hockey tour . First stop was near the Tower of Belem where apparently the guys used to play inline hockey and while we were there we saw the tower but didn't go in ... It was really busy and we decided to go eat instead and then went to drop our bags . This is when we met Mauricio's lovely wife Rose along with their super cool dog Shiku ( hope I spelled it right ) . Rose owns a salon Le Chic and Kathleen is dying for a haircut ... How much better does it get eh ? We had to go drop Rose off and Kathleen stayed to chop her hair and we hung around with Shiku who was going insane running through big puddles ... It was really funny :) 


Kathleen was over the moon about her haircut which is always a good thing . Gotta keep your lady happy if you know what I mean :) after that we went for some Portuguese custard in Belem and headed over to one of the malls to check out one of the Ice rinks ... More like ice cubes hahaha ! There are a couple really small ice pads that people can just ice skate on ... I forgot to mention that before going to the salon we checked out another ice rink at another mall and we ate lunch there ... I had a wicked steak YUM ! Mall food is quite different here with almost gourmet options and the mall  culture is thriving . Malls are ginormous in Portugal ... No joke . 


I didn't do any skating this day as we cruised around doing the ice rink tour , we ended up in the square where the outdoor rink was ... Comercio do Praca (?) my memory is shot trying to write about something that happened 3 days ago lol ! This is the rink we were planning to have an ice hockey match on ... The plan was for Saturday but the weather was not helping so they had to put a tent up over it . The ice was still not in great shape but we stayed positive :) 


We headed back to Mairicio's place and Rose made us a lovely dinner and we drank some Caiprinha's which were wicked strong :) we all had a good buzz but at the end it was just myself and Mauricio watching the Habs game ... Hockey was the main topic for the rest of the night :) Mauricio is a huge Habs fan so I did my best not to be rude towards his club but we both know I'm a Leafs fan LOL ... What a great first day with Mauricio . Thank you my friend ! 

I'm on a bus writing this now and I will try to do some more writing later but I can't promise anything as hockey rules my day today ! As usual ...



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