Jen and I had a good week last week. We ventured out a little more on our own so that was fun :)
A couple of weeks ago, our teammate, Ba, told us that there was a church closer to where we live. She drew us a nice little map on the back of a receipt and gave it to us. This past weekend we decided to try to go to Mass there. I think we successfully followed the route on the map for about 5 minutes, but then we must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. In very broken Portuguese, we were able to ask a couple of people for directions, and we eventually made it to the church! It's a big church, and it seems like there's a lot going on there. Unfortunately, what was not going on there when we arrived was Mass. We thought that Mass was at 10 am, but it turns out it's actually at 11:30 :-) We stayed for a little bit, and then decided to just go to Mass at Cristo Rei (the church we have been going to). As we were walking back to our apartment, we realized that our walk to the new church took us about 25 or 30 minutes, and our walk home took us about 10! I think we may have found a slightly more direct route for next weekend :-)
After Mass, we went to lunch and then went to the gym to shoot for a little bit. Then, we went home and relaxed for a little while. Around 7, Ba picked us up to take us to her house. Her mom's birthday was on Friday, and Ba had planned a little surprise party for her mom. It was fun. We got to meet Ba's aunts, uncles, and grandparents - very sweet people. We also got to hang out with Ba's 3 year old little sister, Rafaela. She is our new little buddy. Sometime soon, I think we are going to plan a Beauty and the Beast movie night or something :-)
We didn't have morning practice on Monday so Jen and I slept in and had a lazy first half of the day. We went to practice early so that we could lift before. After practice, we decided to try a Mexican restaurant that we kept hearing about. The restaurant that we normally eat at is closed on Mondays so Monday is our day to try other restaurants. It was good. Mexican food is definitely one of our favorites, and it's one of the foods I crave the most when I'm overseas
Wednesday after our morning practice, we went with Sara (our manager) and Ze (our coach) to some place to file some legal paperwork about the fact that we are living in Portugal. After that we went to a big sports store called Decatholon (it's similar to Sports Authority or Dick's Sporting Goods). Jen and I tried on some basketball shoes (just for fun) and really liked them. Shoes in Europe are sooooo expensive. These shoes were 150 euros which is probably somewhere around 200 dollars. I could never pay that much for a pair of basketball shoes!
We didn't have shooting on Thursday morning so Jen and I decided to take a trip to downtown Lisbon. This was our first time going there by ourselves. We had talked to some of our teammates about where we wanted to go so they explained the different forms of public transportation that we would need to take. First, we needed to catch bus 11. We got on the bus, and we were expecting it to take us to the center of Lisbon. We drove for about 5 minutes, and then the bus driver stopped and told us that we were at the last stop. We were clearly not in the center of Lisbon! :-) We got off the bus right as it started to rain - perfect! :-) We found a woman and tried to ask her some questions, but she spoke too fast for us to understand. Then, Jen saw a police car driving by, and she flagged it down. They were very helpful! He helped us get back on bus 11, and told us that we had taken the bus the wrong direction! Haha! Once we got on the right bus going in the right direction, we were good to go. We successfully made it to Marques de Pombal - a huge monument dedicated to the prime minister who was responsible for rebuilding Lisbon after it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1755. We got on the subway and took it a few stops to our destination: El Corte Ingles. El Corte Ingles is a huge store from Spain. It has about 7 floors (supermarket, food court, movie theater, clothing stores, electronics, etc.). We looked around for a while, but we were mainly there to go to the supermarket. They carry a lot of different kinds of food that you can't find in some of the normal grocery stores. It was fun looking around. We didn't get much, but it's nice to know what they have just in case we are ever really craving something! :-)
There is a lot more that we want to see and do in Lisbon, but it was kind of a cold/rainy day so we didn't feel like walking around very much. Now that we know how easy it is to go downtown, I'm sure we will go much more often :-)
We have a big game today (the Super Cup)! It's against the team who won the Portuguese national championship last year! We're excited. Gotta go get ready.
Love,
Jen and Tina
A couple of weeks ago, our teammate, Ba, told us that there was a church closer to where we live. She drew us a nice little map on the back of a receipt and gave it to us. This past weekend we decided to try to go to Mass there. I think we successfully followed the route on the map for about 5 minutes, but then we must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. In very broken Portuguese, we were able to ask a couple of people for directions, and we eventually made it to the church! It's a big church, and it seems like there's a lot going on there. Unfortunately, what was not going on there when we arrived was Mass. We thought that Mass was at 10 am, but it turns out it's actually at 11:30 :-) We stayed for a little bit, and then decided to just go to Mass at Cristo Rei (the church we have been going to). As we were walking back to our apartment, we realized that our walk to the new church took us about 25 or 30 minutes, and our walk home took us about 10! I think we may have found a slightly more direct route for next weekend :-)
After Mass, we went to lunch and then went to the gym to shoot for a little bit. Then, we went home and relaxed for a little while. Around 7, Ba picked us up to take us to her house. Her mom's birthday was on Friday, and Ba had planned a little surprise party for her mom. It was fun. We got to meet Ba's aunts, uncles, and grandparents - very sweet people. We also got to hang out with Ba's 3 year old little sister, Rafaela. She is our new little buddy. Sometime soon, I think we are going to plan a Beauty and the Beast movie night or something :-)
We didn't have morning practice on Monday so Jen and I slept in and had a lazy first half of the day. We went to practice early so that we could lift before. After practice, we decided to try a Mexican restaurant that we kept hearing about. The restaurant that we normally eat at is closed on Mondays so Monday is our day to try other restaurants. It was good. Mexican food is definitely one of our favorites, and it's one of the foods I crave the most when I'm overseas
Wednesday after our morning practice, we went with Sara (our manager) and Ze (our coach) to some place to file some legal paperwork about the fact that we are living in Portugal. After that we went to a big sports store called Decatholon (it's similar to Sports Authority or Dick's Sporting Goods). Jen and I tried on some basketball shoes (just for fun) and really liked them. Shoes in Europe are sooooo expensive. These shoes were 150 euros which is probably somewhere around 200 dollars. I could never pay that much for a pair of basketball shoes!
We didn't have shooting on Thursday morning so Jen and I decided to take a trip to downtown Lisbon. This was our first time going there by ourselves. We had talked to some of our teammates about where we wanted to go so they explained the different forms of public transportation that we would need to take. First, we needed to catch bus 11. We got on the bus, and we were expecting it to take us to the center of Lisbon. We drove for about 5 minutes, and then the bus driver stopped and told us that we were at the last stop. We were clearly not in the center of Lisbon! :-) We got off the bus right as it started to rain - perfect! :-) We found a woman and tried to ask her some questions, but she spoke too fast for us to understand. Then, Jen saw a police car driving by, and she flagged it down. They were very helpful! He helped us get back on bus 11, and told us that we had taken the bus the wrong direction! Haha! Once we got on the right bus going in the right direction, we were good to go. We successfully made it to Marques de Pombal - a huge monument dedicated to the prime minister who was responsible for rebuilding Lisbon after it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1755. We got on the subway and took it a few stops to our destination: El Corte Ingles. El Corte Ingles is a huge store from Spain. It has about 7 floors (supermarket, food court, movie theater, clothing stores, electronics, etc.). We looked around for a while, but we were mainly there to go to the supermarket. They carry a lot of different kinds of food that you can't find in some of the normal grocery stores. It was fun looking around. We didn't get much, but it's nice to know what they have just in case we are ever really craving something! :-)
There is a lot more that we want to see and do in Lisbon, but it was kind of a cold/rainy day so we didn't feel like walking around very much. Now that we know how easy it is to go downtown, I'm sure we will go much more often :-)
We have a big game today (the Super Cup)! It's against the team who won the Portuguese national championship last year! We're excited. Gotta go get ready.
Love,
Jen and Tina
The new church that we tried to go to last weekend - I don't know the name of it
Ba and Rafaela
Siesta!
In Decatholon trying on shoes
Sara helping Jen - such a good little sister :-)
Hyperdunks 2011
Jen trying out some ab thing
Beginning of our adventure to downtown Lisbon
We took the bus the wrong direction, had to get off, and then it started raining :-)
Back on the bus! Woooo!
Marques de Pombal
We made it!
About to take the subway
El Corte Ingles
Jen taking a few minutes to practice guitar. Peter Kremen, you would have been proud! :-)
Waiting for the bus to go home :-)
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