Vegetarian no more...

well, at least in Portugal. It is no surprise that all of our activities are being surrounded by food. When in Portugal...you got to eat!! Grandma and all the granddaughters wake up every morning and have a wonderful breakfast, minus the coffee--to quote Grandma, "The coffee is just so BAD! It is so BAD!" Who would have thought there would be bad coffee in Portugal. As everyone in NYC knows...I don't eat a lot of meat, but being a vegetarian in Portugal is pretty much an impossible task. It is like saying you don't eat meat and then they look at you puzzled and they say..."OK, I cook lamb." To begin I have been way too excited about presumto (the very finely sliced pork). It reminds me of Spain when my host mother would give me jamon serano. We eat it here with either white melon or pine apple.

Lunch is huge and that is an under statement. Today we had lunch in the hotel and it was beautiful!

The hotel had a 360 window

view of Lisbon on the eighth floor. From the window we could see some of the ruins left over from the earthquake in

1755. On each table there was a small basil plant that looked like little bushes in clay pots. The fragrance was beautiful! We each ate a plato (plate) that was large enough to feed four people! The waiters are so nice and shower us with cod fish cakes. They are almost better than our Grandmother's but not quite. The bucalhou is remarkable, but again doesn't compare to Grandma's. Who would have thought...we were raised more Portugues than we even realized! Growing up we ate when going to Grandma's house: Hot chocolate for breakfast, cod fish balls for New Years and Christmas, Bucalhou (cod fish) for Christmas Eve and plenty of caldo verde soup and caldeirada a typical cod fish stew.

After lunch we got together with our cousins that still live in Portugal. We were introduced to Grandmother's first cousin who is the son of our Great Grandfather's sister. His name is Ulisses. He came with his wife Custodio, daughter Margarita and two Grandsons named Ricardo and Andre. We plan to meet more cousins next week. It is so nice to have family from different parts of the world. How refreshing to speak portuguese! :)

Ice cream seems to be our dinner treat. Today Rachel, SG and I walked to our favorite gelato place. On the way we could hear the mass service in the streets. It was a holy day called Corpus Criste (the body of Christ) and the mass was being broadcasted through speakers all over Lisbon. It was like a public mass. People were sitting in the streets listening to the broadcast. We got our ice cream and with a wink the man behind the counter said, "See you all tomorrow!" Rachel echoed back, "I hope so!"

When we returned to the streets the church bells began to ring and there was a procession! Large white horses were coming down the streets followed by priests, a cardinal and a large figure of Christ. Flowers were being thrown in the air in front of the figure. The streets were completely packed with people. It was quite amazing how we came upon this great spectacle. We decided to return home to Grandma. We needed to get home to take a nap and then wake up to have dinner. :) Tomorrow we are leaving Lisbon and seeing Fatima. I guess this procession was a great introduction of what we are about to encounter in the holy place of Fatima. We are also going to visit Coimbra one of the oldest Universities in the world! Our Grandmother told us that back in the day they used to wear capes just like Harry Potter. I hope they still do! She says they do! Ate logo!