Can I post...

I'm not sure if I am breaking my own rules here because when I started this blog, it was meant as a trial to see how my perspective on life would change while not drinking wine.  Well, it's holiday season, and I sure as hell ain't putting down the bottle just yet, however, I thought I should dust off the ol' blog and blog about something.  So, here goes...

The last blog post was way back in February after I put in an order for yet another car that was yet another FIAT.  In that blog, I talked about how it would arrive 6-8 weeks later.  It turns out that it arrived on June 28th.  I will tell you something.  Ordering a car is a true test in patience. 

Lil' Nicky

Anyway, the new car is killer.  It's tiny, it's fast, and I swear this is the one I will keep until the next obsession in automobile manufacture comes my way.  And I gotta tell you, I don't see anything on the horizon just yet.  This may be a sigh of relief for some.

I can't afford this.  And it's not in the US of A yet. But if it were...Ok.  So it's an Alfa Romeo called the 4C, and it has a rear mounted engine and it competes with...wait!!!  Like I said earlier.  Nothing is on the horizon.

I went to Portugal this summer.  Curtis, Katy, Suzette and myself took a nice little road trip to Lisbon, Sintra, the Algarve, Gibraltar, Seville, Evora, and then back up to the village.  Let's break this down, shall we:

In Lisbon, we stayed at this neat hotel where I had stayed before.  It was right in the thick of it all, as long as "the thick of it" is the touristy Biaxa part of town.  There was absolutely no parking, and garages were out of the question as we were all broke, except maybe Katy.  Suzette secures us a spot in a loading zone for two days.  We all crossed our fingers and trusted her "good" judgement.  When we left to go to Sintra the next day, the car was still there thank god.  

Dinner on the first night was at this amazing restaurant that Rick Steves suggested in his travel book.  Katy was super excited to check it out as I had convinced her that Rick Steves was the best tour guide when travelling Europe.  Bottom line, it sucked, however that chicken was the butt of many jokes from here on out and so we were thankful for that.  The restaurant was in the middle of the tourist area, which here's my bit of advice for anyone travelling and eating.  Leave the tourist area.  When was the last time anyone was like, "Hey, let's check out that amazing restaurant in Fisherman's Wharf".  Ok, Ok, I admit it.  WHEN Hooters was still around in San Francisco (weird, right?), I would make friends go out to eat in Fisherman's Wharf to go there. But now that it's gone, there is nothing worthwhile over there.  

Hooters.

We then went to see a Fado at, hands down, probably the best Fado house in Lisboa.  We saw a few performers, including one that may have been a drag queen.  Curtis bought the drag queen's CD and she signed it.  She wasn't really a drag queen, however no amount of make up can make that look either female or young.  Katy made us listen to Fado in the car for the next few jaunts.  She also bought a few CD's herself so we had plenty of depressing music to listen to while on vacation.

After the Fado, we ended up going out to the bars.  I don't ever remember having that much fun bar hopping and stealing glassware.  

The next day, Curtis and Katy bought shoes.  We also finally rode the Santa Justa Elevator.  I've been meaning to do this since I first went to Lisbon in 2006.  A word of advice to anyone who has a fear of heights and climbing rickety, narrow, spiral staircases: you might like to Elevator from the ground floor.  Ooo, I just remembered.  While on top of the Elevator, there was this family of Swedes? who are having their kids pose as if they were models.  They had some pretty professional photography equipment with them, so maybe it was legit.  All I can remember was that they had abnormally blond hair, weren't albino, and probably weighed 100 pounds between the two of them.

This is a photo from 2006.  I can't believe I don't have a more recent photo of my obsession in Lisboa.

That afternoon we drove to Sintra to check out a really big house and some really cool grounds and undergrounds.  Suzette snuck us in, which it turns out that you can pretty much sneak into any attraction in Portugal if you are willing to tour, minus the map.  Well in this case, we needed the map.  I didn't know what for at first, but Sue knew.  So we ended up following a family from Italy who we cleverly called "The Italians", who foolishly had paid admission, and therefore had a map.  The young guy with that group was wearing white, see-through capris and you could see his underwear coming through the white fabric.  That would become our marker for following the correct family of capri-wearing Italians.  Following The Italians, we made it to the top of this hill.  I still had no idea what we were doing.  I thought we were just walking around some cool grounds with paths to nowhere.  At the top of this hill was a spiral staircase that led down into the ground for like 200 feet.  This was our destination.  Thank you, The Italians.

The Staircase.

You walk down the staircase all the way to the bottom where there is only one path.  At first, the path was decently lit, but then they either ran out of money or wanted to freak people out.  It was pitch black dark and everyone was using their cell phones to find their way through the labyrinth of tunnels. I still have no clue what the tunnels were about.  I suppose if we had paid admission, that information would have been included - along with the map.