Night 6 (I think lol)

Got some shopping done today. Couple of things for friends who asked me to get them something in particular. A few things for myself.

Got a beautiful silver bracelet from my favourite jewellery store in montalegre, I've had things given to me from there since I was a kid so it's nice to know a business like that is still operating today after all this time.....

Went to see the construction of a new old people's home that tia lola is building. A guy met us there with his mum, the mum is also a partner in the new business. The guy was pretty cute so it was nice to have some eye candy close by for half hour or so..... After we finished and were about to head off he was telling me a few phrases he still knew in English after living in Germany for a year... had to double take at one point when I was sure he said "I love you" as one of his English phrases lol I think he said he was 28 so not too bad of an age lol

Started to feel a bit worse health this morning. Woke up being barely able to talk from a very scratchy throat and I had a splitting headache driving me insane..... certainly felt like a hangover even though I hadn't had alcohol for a couple days lol

So most of the days until we head home are pretty much sorted out now, including a couple days in Lisbon (hopefully a trip to sintra.....), visiting relatives on mum's side in Porto, spending a bit more time with auntie edina monsoon and uncle mick molloy on Friday...... Alex has an old friend coming to visit on the weekend.....

Hopefully I can boot this illness quickly.... don't like being sick, especially on holidays!

Meanwhile I'm thinking of buying a t shirt that says "I'm not her husband" written in Portuguese with an arrow pointing to my sister...... certainly make introductions slightly less embarrassing for me lol

I mean, do they really think that if I were to ever get married (which I wouldn't) that the best I could score was my sister?!?!!!? LOL

Today was THE day

Wow.

I've been part of a truly amazing and historic day in my family's history.

My grandmother, avó Emilia, turned the big 100 today.

A fair turnout for the celebratory lunch of I think around 30-40 people.

Caught up with relatives I hadn't seen for many years, others I had never met before and may not see again, but given the circumstances of the day in question, everyone treated everyone as though they had just spoken yesterday.

Took a bundle of pictures, a few videos, ate lots of food and laughed like there was no tomorrow.

I really did struggle a few times to hold back the tears just seeing the look on avó's face, just wasn't quite sure if she knew exactly what was going on around her but I think deep down she knew what the fuss was about :-)

Got to have a great catch up with my cousin Paula who I hadn't seen for many years. She's done this amazing research on our family tree and produced booklets covering the generations of those under avó Emilia.

Also got to have a good d&m with her about coming out to dad etc as she was expecting a bad reaction from him towards me as well. She was very supportive and that made me feel really great too.

All in all it's been a terrific day. I'm so lucky I could've been here to take part in it.

I certainly feel more a part of a family than I have in a long long time, if not, for the first time.

Parabens avó Emilia. Muitos feliçidades para voçe xoxox

Night 4

Today ended much better than yesterday.....

I'm staying at tia marianna and tio guerreiro's house on the banks of the biggest dam in the country.

They are so lovely and cool.

Tia reminds me of Eddie from absolutely fabulous with her slightly eccentric fashion sense

Tio reminds me a bit of a bear and he was calling me his little boy since I haven't seen them since I was 6 back in 1990

I just feel comfortable around them even in spite of the language barrier. With people like them, I make more of an effort to try to communicate cause I really like em.

It helps after last night's events to actually feel like I am indeed related to parts of this family and not so much of an imported adoptee lol

Went to visit grandma again this afternoon with mum for a few minutes. She pointed at mum as if she knew who she was but then said she couldn't remember where from or mum's name. So mum reminded her again who she and I were and it slowly came back to her.

So big celebration tomorrow. Be interesting to see what happens and how I'll handle it all.

Tio said tonight that if I'm not good in crowds that it's going to be a lot worse tomorrow. I said that I had prepared for tomorrow being full of people though I hadn't planned for every other day to be full of people lol

Got to talk about my job to them. About stuff in general. Kangaroos being roadkill. The story of me telling vin that the beaches in Portugal are full of rocks instead of sand and described how vin demonstrated someone putting down a beach towel on rocks to sunbath on a rocky beach lol

wrote vin a postcard to send to work. Hope he gets a laugh from the picture :-)

Went to montalegre today with mum, Alex and Jack. I love that place. So pretty and lovely little castle on the hill to explore.

Hoping to go back again this week when the shops are open. They have great quality traditional Portuguese homewares. Saw a great dessert serving set in a shop window..... and my favourite jewellery shop is still there and I'd love to score a good quality chunky chain for my neck and/or wrist

I'm looking forward to the view in the morning when I wake up so i best sleep to get there sooner :-)

Day 3

Was nice to watch some love footy this morning

Caught the first half of the west coast v Carlton game

Interesting that it was commentated fully in Portuguese although they still used English words including spoil, behind and were very good at the players names and the run through of round 6 scores so far

Went to braga for a day trip. Didn't get anything from the shops for myself.

Visited tia gentil for a quick catch up and stocked up on some supplies in her supermarket before coming back up to Pisões

And dinner was a bit of a shocker for me. I had to leave soon after finishing the little I ate for dinner (since I stuffed my guts a massive treat at lunch anyway).

Mum came into my room to ask if everything was ok and why I had left. I couldn't explain too much apart from feeling incredibly left out at a loud table of 15 all conversing Portuguese like crazy town and I didn't really know who anyone was and I couldn't follow the conversation so I had to leave cause I couldn't handle being there.

She said I could've at least stayed and just smiled along with the conversations. I said I couldn't deal with it.

So it reminded me of my blog from 1st March. Which meant I really wanted to cry. But I didn't. And I won't.

Just made me really feel like I wished I stayed home alone after experiencing nights like tonight.

Hopefully tomorrow is a better day with less driving.

The road between Pisões and braga is like 40-50kms worth of macquarie pass and it seems to be an endless journey. Twists and turns galore....

Night 2

6.15pm

Dinner time is about 8pm - that's about normal in this part of the world

Slept about 14 hours last night with a couple of wake ups throughout

The bed isn't the best.... It's as hard as mine but this one is hard cause it's old and you can feel each and every spring in it lol

The crazy weird dreams came back.....

The first part of the dream was me at work getting abused by one of the guys in showroom at the front service counter (which was setup like a bunnings front counter in which it protruded the store more so than ours) about the fact that I was getting special or preferential treatment from suppliers for some unknown reason.....

The second part of the dream was describing the abovementioned first part dream to the actual person who was abusing me in that part of the dream, even to the point of describing the front counter in comparison to bunnings store layout.....

Third part of the dream was involving someone I used to work with and her husband and we were hanging out with Bailey and apparently Bailey was telling them how much he missed "my man" and the couple said to me that Bailey told them all about me etc after they drove off I chased them wanting to know what Bailey had said about me but they didn't hear me

After which point I had enough of the crazy shit going on so I woke up to stop it - I certainly didn't want to experience Bailey back in my life, let alone dream about it lol

Went for a long drive to visit silva and his wife for lunch.... hadn't seen him since he left Australia around 1997-98... His left arm has no feeling and minimal feeling in his left leg due to a stroke he had a few years back poor bugger. Mum said it was sad for something like that to happen to such a good person. That's life unfortunately :-(

Then on the way back to Pisões we stopped at tia lola's nursing home where avó lives now. She's obviously a lot more older than when I saw her ten years ago. Her hearing is going and her memory isn't the best either but when you're 3 days from turning 100, that's expected I guess.

It was great to see her though even if she didn't really remember who I was this time.... she didn't know who dad was when he first visited her this morning either...

Tomorrow we're going into braga to go shopping and have lunch.... Hopefully a little less oily than today's lunch lol

It's difficult for me to deal with kids..... even when I was a kid I wasn't comfortable around them...

When I was here in 1990 with mum and Alex, I remember going to a café with mum's side of the family. There was this kid, probably about my age or younger (I was 6 at the time) and he was a bit of an annoying sort and I just didn't want to be near him.

Towards the end of the gathering we went outside for a big group photo. Whilst setting things up, this kid threw a bit of junk paper on the ground at my feet. I tried to get rid of it but he kept on bringing it back.

The group was about ready to have the shot taken when the kid again threw this bit of paper at my feet. I really didn't want the paper there cause it was like having rubbish in the way of a family photo.

And then *click*

And to this day I still think of that photo with me on the end trying to push away the paper while this kid is pointing and laughing at me and the rest of the group just smiling for the camera....

Just hoping that if we do visit one of dad's sisters in Porto that she doesn't point and talk about the locations I used to fight with my cousin. Not the sort of conversion I enjoy hearing about. lol

Night 1

It's coming up to 7pm Thursday night and I've bailed on dinner. I'm knackered well and truly

Didn't help that I kept waking up every half hour during the Singapore to frankfurt leg of the trip - it's always the hardest part of the trip being about 12 hours long....

I didn't quite realise how far away from oporto airport we would be coming to today

Was a good couple hours drive into the mountains

Beautiful views though.... I'll have to take some pictures from out the front of where we're basing ourselves for the fortnight - "headquarters" as dad put it lol

My god the quality of driving (or lack of) is unbelievable.... I was not surprised when we passed two pretty bad looking accidents on the freeway after leaving the airport

It's as if the signs and lane markings are there purely for decorations only, as are the use of indicators!

So the lunch stop we made was at a place called cafe bigode "cafe moustache" directly translated.... sorta reminded me of something out of an asterix book :-)

Grub was great though - roast pork, rice, fried potatoes, shredded carrot, lettuce, tomato and onion all on a plate and endless bread rolls and wine - about 5 euros a head..... I ate all mine and most of mum's too since she wasn't hungry and I downed 3 bread rolls and a glass of wine.....

So onwards from there and once again dad started talking to me about me moving over here.... I'd like to spend more time over here alone to travel around a bit, but I don't think I'd want to live here. I still love my home in Ballan too much....

Well I've been up since 7am Wednesday aussie time and I think it's close to 4am Friday aussie time and I've probably had the equivalent of about 5 hours sleep so I'm gonna zonk now I reckon....

Hopefully dream about the sexy german men in customs I saw this morning including one at border passport control who looked at my passport then slowly looked up to my face (with a serious expiration on him) at which point I gave him a massive smile and he smiled back and was nice to me afterwards :-)

Try again

3 hours into the flight, somewhere over w.a. I think

Bit of turbulence, nothing exciting though....

I've had a glass of red wine, cab sav I think, and a vodka orange juice with dinner

Beautiful wok fried chicken with rice and veggies..... deeeeeelish!!!!! :-)

Meanwhile I'm feeling a bit tiddly now which is nice :-)

Oh there was a drumstick ice cream for dessert too and a cup of tea

I'm loving the flight. It's the first international flight I've had with the TV screens in the seat - watched Murphy brown (devil in a blue dress - from season 1), Mr bean and currently watching family guy :-)

*this is the life*

It really is like having servants in your home

Singapore Airlines deserves the title of being one of the best airlines in the world!!!! :-)

Can't wait to see what lufthansa has to offer :-)

*sigh of relaxation*

Oh I've added a knife and fork to my collection of airline cutlery :-)

Up up and away!

Sitting in the quiet area of gate 16...

Decent view of one of the run l runways and my plane is to my left. ..

I love Melbourne airport. It's like being on a farm. Paddocks as far as the eye can see..... sorta reminds me of being at Jon's place in little river hehehe just beautiful....

The new (well it's probably 6-8 years old by now but I haven't flown international from Melbourne in a decade) part of the international terminal is lovely. Large open space with open ceiling so you can see the glass facade of the mezzanine level.......

This is the closest I've been to an a380 and soon I'll be able to go inside one! What an amazing feat of engineering it is - just incredible.....

I wanted to get 2 little bottles of vodka at duty free but apparently the rules at frankfurt are quite strict with travelling with liquids so I just got the little skull brand bottle... I'll get more on my return home if I can afford it....

Yeah I got here a few hours early but I like to be no later than the first in line for check in when it's an international flight.... The safety in knowing you are one of the first to check in means I can relax the rest of the way forward......

I told teddy to make sure he doesn't mess the house while I'm gone, especially if he lets the girls come in and play up lol

About half hour to go and then boarding will commence

Top deck.... back row.... window seat..... will have to tell the sexy cub I got top deck like he sideways l suggested.... he'll be happy for me hehehe

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3.....

So I figured since I'm going to be mobile shortly, I should learn to do a blog on the mobile phone.....

Not as free flowing as a keyboard but that's ok..... I'll get used to it lol

So holidays start in just over 2 hours so I'm a bit excited about time off work, although I'm not yet excited about the trip - still got a few things to check off the "to do" list before I can tackle the "to pack" list.....

That'll do for a test blog......