Picture Blog - Lisbon

As we told you in our last post, we had a couple of friends from Slovakia visiting recently. While they were here, we did a lot of "touristy" stuff in and around Lisbon. It was great for Jen and me since we still had not seen much of the city. We are now much more familiar with the public transportation and much more familiar with the layout of the city. As usual, I took a ton of pictures! Here are a few :-)

Stanley getting ready for his first trip to the center of Lisbon. For those of you who don't know the story, there is a children's book called 'Flat Stanley' in which a boy named Stanley is flattened by a bulletin board. He then goes on many adventures (flying like a kite, getting mailed to California, etc.). Anyways, someone I know teaches elementary school and mailed this 'Flat Stanley' to me so that his adventures can continue. You're supposed to take pictures and then send it back to the class so they can see everything that Stanley did on his "trip." :-)

Stanley's first bus ride. The bus driver was nice enough to let us take a picture :-)

Marques de Pombal

Katka, me, and Jen

Katka, Jen, and Marek

Marek came prepared with a guidebook

After getting a muffin from Starbucks. Jen has been eyeing those muffins for months!

In Portugal, they have a famous genre of music called Fado, and Amalia is one of the most famous Fado singers. This picture was taken in honor of our friend Amalia from Slovakia :-) We miss you! :-)

An elevator in the center of Lisbon...we were trying to take a creative picture :-)

Me, Marek, and Stanley

After walking for about an hour, Jen and I finally saw something that looked familiar :-)

We're pretty sure they put this red carpet here to welcome our Slovak guests :-)

Hanging out by the water on a beautiful day!

Starting to get tired from all the walking

On our way to Lisbon again to go to Mass. Things didn't really work out the way we planned. We all ended up making it to Mass but not at the same time and not at the same church...

Taking the metro

Following our "tour guide" Marek to St. Mary Magdalene Church for Mass in English - or so we thought!

Pretty lost at this point

Still lost...

After not being able to find St. Mary Magdalene, I said that I was going to go look at the Cathedral to see if they were going to have Mass soon. Since it was almost 7:00, I ran ahead (Jen wants me to clarify that I wasn't actually running....just doing my normal speed walking, but I was really moving!) of the group so that we wouldn't waste any time. I'm not exactly sure what the confusion was, but I arrived at the Cathedral just in time for Mass. I figured that the rest of the group would be joining me shortly. About ten minutes later, Marek came in and sat next to me. I didn't really understand why he was alone, but I figured the girls would be coming. Long story short, Mass ended, and we were getting ready to leave. I figured Jen and Katka would be waiting outside for us. Marek informed me that they had gone to Mass at a different church. I didn't understand why they wouldn't just come to the Cathedral since that's where I said I was going. We waited around for about 45 minutes thinking they would show up. Finally, Marek and I just decided to go home since nobody had cell phones to get a hold of each other. I can't even explain the confusion of this story, but when we got home, Jen and Katka were there waiting. It turns out that they had gone to Mass at a church about 30 feet from the Cathedral. They seemed to think that they were at the Cathedral. Jen promises that she never even saw the HUGE church (I'm not sure how she could have missed it, but I guess she did). Anyways, it was a little irritating at the time, but it was pretty funny to hear how every person had a different account of what actually happened and whose fault it was.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

Good friends...my legs were super tired so they were helping me up the hill :-)

Overlooking Lisbon

Marek in front of an old convent

November So Far...

Hey everyone,

First of all, sorry for the long delay since our last blog post. We had been doing a pretty good job of writing consistently, but this time, we got a little behind :-) Please forgive us :-)

A lot has happened since our last post so we will be using this week to write short updates about some of our many adventures that we have had in November.

Concerning basketball, we are now in 1st place in the league after a big game yesterday so that's exciting. We have 4 more games before we head home for Christmas, so we need to finish off this part of the season strong.

We have done and seen a lot in Portugal the past few weeks. Two of our friends from Slovakia came to visit us from the 8th until the 16th so we explored Lisbon and some of the surrounding areas together. It was great having them here, and it was great getting more familiar with the city that we're in. We also took a one day trip/pilgrimage to Fatima and Santarem - INCREDIBLE! More on that later...

Anyways, we just wanted you all to know that things are going well over here. Like I said, we will write little updates throughout this week to get you caught up on our adventures in Portugal :-) God bless all of you. Enjoy your week!

Love,

Jen and Tina

We Won Super Bowl XXVII!!!

As I mentioned in the last blog, we had a big game on Sunday. And we won!!! It was a championship game called the Super Cup (Jen and I read an article today that was translated from Portuguese into English, and it said something about our team winning Super Bowl XXVII so we thought that was kind of funny). It's a game in which the team who won the league championship from the previous year plays the team who won the Portuguese Cup. Anyways, we knew it was a very important game, and we are really happy that we won. Our team played hard, and people stepped up and made big plays at important points in the game. Jen was named the MVP during the awards ceremony after the game (she was 2 rebounds away from a triple double: 10 points, 10 assists, and 8 rebounds + 3 steals). They gave her a gold basketball so that's kind of cool :-) We had a good time celebrating with our teammates in the locker room after the game with some champagne and cake. After we got all cleaned up, we drove back to Alges and went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. It was a fun day/night, and we are looking forward to many more wins :-)

Getting ready to take a team picture after Jen got our coach wet

Super Bowl XXVII Champs! :-)

Bringing out the victory cake!

Me and my buddy Susana :-)

Ana, Joana, and Ba

Ana (again), Joana, Sara, and Duca

Susan, Ana (again), and Catarina

Ana (again), Sofia, and Jen

Me, Jen, and Alfredo

Random Adventures

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

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 :-)

Happy Birthday, Mom!!!

Parabéns!!!

Today is my Mom's birthday! Mom, I wish that I could be there to celebrate your birthday with you. I would clean the house, comb your hair, make dinner, and tell the twins to make cookies (since you know that my cookies just don't compare anymore)! I hope everyone at home makes you feel extra special on your birthday, and even though I can't be there, know that there are a couple of people in Portugal hoping and praying that you have a wonderful day! :-) I love you!

Here's some pictures of my beautiful Mom! :-)

I LOVE YOU, MOM! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! :-)

Playing With Kids

(Jen): On Thursday we went to another school to play with kids and promote our club. We had three different groups of kids come and learn a few basketball skills from us. When we got there the first group was ready for us, but we didn't have any basketballs! Tina and I improvised by organizing a race against the kids. Just want you guys to know that I'm undefeated. Yes, they were 7 years old, but I'm a competitor, and I don't like to lose. Anyways...I love playing with kids. It is truly amazing how you can play with kids of all ages from any part of the world. Why? Because kids just want to have fun. They love to play games, run, and laugh. While we were waiting for another group of kids to come outside, Sofia and I started playing soccer with some boys. I played goalie and blocked a few shots. Then we both hit a few goals. It was a lot of fun. I wish soccer was a little more popular in America. Hopefully in the near future, Tina and I can go see our first professional soccer game!

We have a game later today so we are going to eat, get some rest, and then head to the gym in a bit. We hope everyone has a great weekend!

Love,

Jen and Tina

P.S.

(Tina): Today is the Feast day of Blessed John Paul II. Jen and I had the amazing opportunity (along with my Dad) of attending his beatification last May in the Vatican so we are both very excited about today. He left behind and amazing legacy of what it truly means to live for Christ and to proclaim the Gospel to the world. Blessed John Paul II, pray for us!

“Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.” -JPII

Jen getting ready to race the kids

Ana and Jen

Group picture with the first class of kids

Jen and Sofia taking a break from basketball

GOAL! :-)

Jen hanging out with some new friends

Teaching the kids some simple skills

I don't know how to spell her name, but this little girl was so sweet. She couldn't play because she has a broken arm so I sat with her and had a surprisingly good conversation. She's only 9 years old, but her English is quite impressive :-)

Group picture :-)