Little Fuzzy

Lagos at sunset just after we arrived. It was all downhill after that.

Braved a dark underground tunnel and came out at the bottom of this well. Spiraled to the top and this is the view at where we came from. If you visit this place, bring a headlamp. Spoooooky.

The palace in Sintra. A few pictures down aub is on the roof terrace on the upper left of the palace.

Hazen navigating the stones in the pond at the palace grounds. He had to turn back because the cave he wanted to explore was far too dark.

On top of the palace in Sintra. Note the two other castles up on the ridge.

Castle overlooking Lisbon.

Aub enjoying her first ever juice box wine. Quite tasty.

Wind isn´t cooperating with aubs hair as we explore the castel above Lisbon.

Players addressing the crowd from the balcony. Quick history on the building they are in:

Originally built in 1790 as a post office

Franco used it as a police headquarters and many prisoners jumped to their death trying to escape.

The war on Napolean began in front of this building.

And now it is a government building that hosts special events.

Kinda Crazy.

Celebration for Real Madrid in the main square.

Giant Cathedral in Madrid. The Real Madrid players are inside being blessed.

We are a bit delerious from taking a night train last night so bear with us. Here is what we have been up to. On our last post we mentioned that the weather was cloudy but not raining. However, from the moment we left the internet station after that post until yesterday it rained on us; a lot! No big deal we got out our umbrellas and pretended it was fall in Seattle.

Left Lagos for the equally not sunny Lisbon. We enjoyed Lisbon quite a bit even though we had some bad experiences. On a trip to see the local castel we jumped a tram and were immediately greeted by a couple pickpockets. We gave them some nasty looks and that was all it took. They left us alone after fondeling our goods. They moved to the back of the tram and all we could hear was people yelling out ¨pickpockets¨ from people trying to warn others.

The highlight of Lisbon was a suburb called Belem. They have a huge Monestary and a famous pastry shop. The best pastries of our trip so far. Vasco de Gama was buried in the Monestary. Forgot to mention we saw the tomb of Columbus as well. So we are on quite the explorer kick lately.

Spent a day trip to Sintra. A small town outside of Lisbon. It has six castels scattered around the town. This area was a hotbed of royal activity back in the day. We were not disappointed and spent two hours exploring the grounds of a magnificant palace. It was like Disneyland for adults. Except without the crowds. Our imaginations ran wild as we explored very dark underground passageways and hidden rooms of the palace. Definately a must see in Portugal.

Decided to take the night train from Lisbon to Madrid to save time. If you get the chance to take that train pass on that. We bought tickets one day in advance but all second class was full so we got stuck in first class. When Hazen asked if first class meant free drinks the ticket agent replied that there is no difference between first and second class except price. That bastard is lucky he was behind plexiglass.


When the ten hour train ride screeched to a halt, we stumbled out to ironically make reservations for another night train (san sebastian to Paris) that we GET to take in about a week. Then we had to try to find a place to sleep tonight. Both equally stressful events. To top it off we had to try to figure out how to use the metro system in city of 4 MILLION people. Definately the most confusing we have seen yet. Figured it out and made it to our room just in time to take a 3 hour nap.

When we awoke from our hibernation, we headed to the main square. The place was a mess. Real Madrid (soccer team) had won the league championship last night and they we setting up for the medal ceremony. At the time we had no idea what was going on but grabbed a spot on the barriers to wait and see. About an hour later and thousands of fans behind us the real madrid team arrived in their team bus. They headed into the government building with ¨we are the champions¨ blaring through the loud speakers. Quite a bit of fun listening to the chanting, singing and all out celebration. Saw a couple young kids get taken away as it looked like they had heat exhaustion. Really neat event and probably as close as we will get to a major soccer match. Tickets for last nights event were going for 600 us dollars each. Planning on walking around and relaxing the rest of the evening before heading to Toledo tomorrow. After a night there we will head north to San Sebastian. We are hoping to lay on the beach for three days or so but we will see if the weather will cooperate.