Week two with Stan and Lana

Rule number one: never rent a car in Europe. It's perfectly fine until you get lost or turned around or miss an exit. However one of those three is guaranteed to happen approximately every 15 minutes. This is what Stan, Lana, and I experienced when we made our trip to Portugal. However, I did enjoy Portugal very much even though a daily pepto bismal was required on days spent driving so that I wouldn't get severe heart burn.

After arriving to our destination in Lisboa (Lisbon), Portugal we were pleased to find that the Holiday Inn was up to our standards. We walked around a got a taste of some of the night air before retiring for the evening. We had an early start the next morning. Sunday morning we first saw a little flea market where I found a porcelain bowl for 5 Euros. From there we climbed up to see the Castle of Saint George and see breath taking views over the Atlantic. The Castle wasn't that big, but my mom really enjoyed the guitar player in the middle of the court yard. The entire city was very hilly and a mixture of old and new buildings because there had been an earthquake in the early 20th century. We made our way down and saw a beautiful cathedral. It was Palm Sunday so we got a chance to see their version of a procession into church to celebrate the beginning of holy week. At this point we weren't thrilled yet until we went to restaurant for some traditional Portuguese food with Fado music. The best place to hear this is in the Barrio Alto. We spent a 3 hour meal listening to different music that was beautiful. The women singing had low cut shirts and intense makeup. It is nothing like the Flamenco I have seen in Spain. Our waiter spoke 5 languages and advised us well. However on the taxi ride home we nearly died because the driver thought it would be a funny joke to pretend to run over some locals. We freaked and he advised us they were his friends. Next he asked us where we were from. We said, “Chicago” and he responded with gun gestures and said Al Capone. We laughed because the Capone has been dead for about 70 years, but everywhere you go people still think the same about Chicago.

Monday was our spiritual journey to Fatima, Portugal. This is the location where three Portuguese children saw visions of the Virgin Mary. We thought the sight would be more compelling, but it was a tad bit commercialized with all the chapels and churches built on the sight. The other people around us where from all over the world. Many took the journey on their knees by crawling and praying to the chapel where the visions where scene. It was quite intense to see how others practice their faith, yet awakening for us three all at the same time.

After Fatima we had half a day left and decided to go see the Lisbon summer get away city, Sintra. This city is the real Disney World. Every single engineer of Disney World had to of been to Sintra to copy the natural romance of the city. This town is the home of the old royal family’s summer castle. This castle has views of all of Lisbon as well as the Atlantic Ocean. The castle was placed on top of the mountain and painted with different colors and the rest of the city trickling down the mountain side. Our first day there Stan drove up the mountain to get a view of the castle. We nearly saw our deaths when we tried to make a three point turn and full turn around on a one way road that was parallel to the mountain. The driving over this whole trip had been more than stressful and enough to make anyone need a strong drink. All in all that is one city we decided we have to make it back to, we loved it so much that we went back the next day and left for Spain much later than planned.

It might not have been such a good idea to leave so late cause we did not get into Sevilla, Spain until 8:30 pm. Then there we didn’t get to our hotel until 1:30 am. The whole city was impossible to get around because of the religious processions going on. It also didn’t help that every street was one way too. I spent the whole night going back and forth in English with my parents and Spanish with the locals to get the correct directions since our mapquest was no longer useful with the processions on every street. These religious processions are known to be the best of all of Spain in Sevilla. Brotherhoods from churches all over carry different statues of Jesus, Mary, and different scenes from the Stations of the Cross. Usually 20-30 men carry these statues in a precise choreographed manner. There clothes consist of outfits that have hats that resemble the same style from the klu klux klan

Im assuming now that the kkk has a derivative from this type of religious brotherhood but the two types are not related today. They can’t even see in front of them, but are directed instead. Training is required for months to perform this and the whole city comes out to see it. Along with the procession local orchestras accompany with intense music and drums that put the fear of God in you. When we returned to Granada we saw processions that were almost the same. My parents rented apartment was right next to a church that hosted some of the processions. From our balcony we could see these fabulous processions everyday for the rest of holy week. The bells and drums never got old. For Easter we went to church in Cathedral of Granada where Ferdinand and Isabel are buried. My mother made homemade tomato sauce with pasta to celebrate my parent’s anniversary and Easter all in one day. It was nice for us to celebrate it this way because Good Friday is more celebrated in Spain than Easter Sunday itself. So for us it was one last mommy meal to hold me off until my arrival home.