Happy 2010 everyone! We hope you had a great New Years. Our New Year's was very interesting/different/fun/exhausting. A couple of Dan's teammates told us awhile back that they rented out a "farm" for a big New Year's party and asked if we wanted to join. Having no idea what this meant, we still agreed. The "farm" turned out to be a HUGE, beautiful home. The guys looked at us like we were crazy when we brought our portable heater... we told them that farm's are usually cold, and also.. this is not a farm. Once again, lost in translation. So we arrived on the eve of New Year's Eve and had seafood rice with about 15 of their friends for a normal midnight dinner. I learned that our "cheers" before you drink is a little different because we don't chug our drink after. However, the Portuguese say something that translates to "To your best!" when they cheers (which is about 10 times at this particular dinner) and you are supposed to do your best, aka chug your glass of wine. So at 5 am I was falling asleep at the table and went to bed... what a party pooper. Everyone else went to bed at 7am. Then New Year's Eve rolls around and there are about 50 people that came to the party. Food included rice with duck, crab patee, melon with presunto, vegetable soup, shrimp with shells still on, and some other deep fried meats and fish, with the drink of choice being homemade champagne Sangria. Yes, I am obsessed with Sangria now and also know how to make it! Well, this particular kind had tons of chopped up fruit, champagne, whiskey, and port wine. There was a DJ playing techno the whole night in one room, karaoke in the other (good times listening to non-English speakers sing English songs), and more cigarettes smoked than I ever thought possible. Dan and I were literally the only ones that did not smoke a cigarette. What losers we are. When it was getting close to midnight, it was weird not to have the TV on to watch the ball fall in Times Square. We are pretty sure they just guessed when it was officially midnight. They handed out champagne and twelve raisins (for twelve wishes for the new year). At "midnight" it just turned to complete chaos of chanting, confetti bombs, raisin eating, champagne chugging, and a lot of double kisses to each others cheeks. Good times. I am not sure what time the night ended, but I remember falling asleep to the sound of techno around 6 am. Happy 2010!!
Over the New Year's weekend, Dan and I were taking the metro into Porto. We saw a sign on the metro for the "Circo" (circus). So what better to do than see the circus.. especially when you have no other plans! Yes, it was really fun. Acrobatics, seals, crazy Portuguese speaking clowns,and magic tricks. The most random part was a man walking around in the audience holding an adorable baby lion. He would hold the lion as it sat on your lap and a lady would take a picture. So yes, we decided to do it! However, the adorable lion smelled so bad and started growling very intensely when it started to sit on my lap. I was pretty much afraid for my life and we opted out of buying one picture for 25 euro ($40 equivalent). It is very humbling when the 4 year old sitting next to us starting cracking up at the clowns jokes and we have no idea what is going on... but we just decided to laugh whenever the kids laughed so that we would fit in :)
Oh P.S., it snowed here. Yup, that's right. Everyone keeps saying how it is the coldest winter they have had in a long time. But what just boggles my mind is that we drove about 30 minutes inland to one of Dan's games this past weekend and as I sat there watching it snow outside of the gym window and the OPEN gym door to let people in, I realized this was going to be a long game as the gym had zero heat... yup, no heaters. It was MISERABLE. The players were even freezing during the entire game. The good news is that I got a picture with all the kids I have fallen in love with here and Afonso (coaches son) scribbled me a good-bye picture. This picture is taken inside the gym... notice the layers of clothes on. Aren't the kids cute? From the left is Afonso (coaches son), then Joao (God-son of one of the players), and Katarina (Joao's big sister).
This past Saturday, we went to dinner with Rui, Lia, and Elsa to an Indian restaurant as a farewell dinner (I am leaving tomorrow....). It was a beautiful restaurant on the Douro river. After dinner we went to the Moroccan restaurant for some tea... finishing up the night early at 1:30 am.I hope Dan keeps up with the blog when I leave! I can't believe I have been here for 15 weeks already... time flies when you are having fun :)
Love,
Alli
