Lisbon part 2

After wandering around a little bit on day one, we were trying to stay out a little longer before going and checking into our hotel.  I know from past experiences that the temptation is too great to go check into a hotel and take a nap and then sleep your whole first day away.   Kathy suggested going to find this place that she had read about.  It was a church that was ruined in the earthquake of 1755, which we knew nothing about when we got to Lisbon, but learned a lot about during our stay.  The earthquake happened on All Saints Day when most of the population was in church.  It caused many of the churches and buildings to collapse.  After the earthquake, there was a tsunami and later fires broke out in the city.  Much of the city was destroyed, and obviously lots of people were also killed.

Here are the remains of the Convent of our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Inside the museum attached to the convent.

A mummy of a child.  

Day two, we took the train to a part of town called Belem (I'll get to that later).  When we got back to the Alfama district (the old part of town), we tried to find the Saint George Castle, which is above the city on a big hill.   

Several years ago, one of the Bachelorettes went to this castle on a date, which was when I first decided I wanted to go to Portugal.  

We literally wandered around for hours, trying to follow the directions on our phone's GPS, which could not figure out the winding streets any better than we could.  It seems like it would be easy to find because you just see it on the hill and walk there, but it wasn't.  We saw a couple of other tourists doing the same thing.  Sometimes GPS will take you to the closest entrance, which might be a driveway in the back of a building and then you have to start over.  When we stumbled across this homemade sign, we knew lots of tourists over the years must have been lost, too.

Even though we were lost and getting frustrated, the neighborhood where we were walking was so beautiful, it turned out to be one of our favorite parts of the trip.

On the outside of one of the buildings, someone had hung photographs of some of the local people.  

Here is inside the castle.  

We read about a traditional drink made from sour cherries that is served in these little chocolate cups.  We found a little stand right outside the castle and tried it.  It was one of my favorite things I had during my trip.  

 View from the top

Lisbon part 1

This is going to be epic!  I have a million pictures of Portugal, and it's going to take a million years to get through it.  Stop number one was Lisbon.

I slept maybe an hour or two on the plane (took off from NYC at 8:20 pm and landed in Lisbon at 8:00 am).  We dropped off our luggage at the hotel and then pushed through to see the city.  We walked over 8 miles that day.  The first picture I took was of these little kids in their school uniforms.

This is Rossio Square.  These stone mosaic patterns are all over the city.

We rode this tram.  Mostly tourists take them.

One of many churches.

Here is the Commercial Square.  (too many tourists are in my pictures.)

This beach is opposite the Commercial Square.  

Aerial view (stolen from Wikipedia)

here are a few of the stores in town

The blue tiles are on many of the buildings throughout Portugal.  We loved them!

This is the oldest bookstore in the world, Livraria Bertrand.

More to come!

quick trip

I went out to Ohio to see my sis and her family.  On saturday, we got to go a Girl Scout meeting in the morning for kid #2, basketball game for kid #3 in the afternoon and school play for kid #1 in the evening. 

Here is Kid #1 in the background as a bartender in Havana.

Here he is, ready for his closeup.

Sunday we went for a little hike.  It rained all day on Saturday, so it was pretty muddy.

I've never seen a vending machine for library books, but I saw a couple of these a the Rec center.  is this a thing?  

Flashback to the 80's

Her outfit reminded me of Punky Brewster

Christmas 2017

I am a little late, but here are some pics from Christmas.

decorating cookies.  she wanted pink gingerbread men.  

Enjoying her Christmas presents

On Christmas day, one of my friends flew in and we had fun exploring the city.  Here is the ice skating rink in Bryant Park.  The line was super long and it was 9 degrees.  We did not skate.

View from the top of the Empire State Building.  I may have gone all the way up the 102nd floor in the past, but I don't remember.  It was very cool! 

Grand Central Station decorated for Christmas

The next week, we got a "bomb cyclone" snow storm.  We didn't get a lot of accumulation, but the wind was so strong that it blew snow all the way down into the subway station.

Thanksgiving

Milena and her kids decided to come north for the holiday.  The night before Thanksgiving, we were planning to go to watch the balloons be inflated.  They apparently stop at 8 pm and then close off all the roads, and we got there at 9:00, so we couldn't walk by.  But we could see some of the balloons from across the street.

The next morning, we got up early and walked over to Central Park West.  We were able to see the inflated balloons still tied down and getting ready for the parade.  

Here they are starting to get them ready to join the parade.

We found a spot right at the beginning of the parade and heard the announcer say "Join the Parade!" for each float, band and balloon.  

Before the parade started, here are some participants getting their picture taken by the press.

I don't know what any of these characters are named :)

Viking clowns

Sesame Street float

Trolls

 Paw Patrol 

Mt. Rushmore (or Count Rushmore, if you are Joey Tribiani) on the South Dakota float with Smokey Robinson 

98 degrees.  Milena yelled out "HI NICK!" 

Jimmy Fallon was taking pictures of us with his phone

I invited LT to come with us to the parade, but then she scored some tickets to watch from the bleachers. She took this great picture and sent it to me.

Pictures from my trip to CO

Playing at the playground

At the library

Eating ice cream, right out of the pint, as it should be!