Real hospitality

Sintra, Portugal

This is going to be a quick one again. My apologies. I will go into an Internet cafe soon and write a proper (as the Brits say) blog entry.

But the short story is that I'm currently at a new friend's office in Sintra checking my email -- trying to finalize plans for meeting up with Jason tomorrow. So yesterday I came to Sintra to visit this magical little village outside of Lisbon that was supposedly really cool because of the palaces here. I hopped on a commuter train and was here in the early afternoon. I was famished and decided to hit up this Chinese restaurant just outside the train station. Again, the short version is that I meet a native born Brazilian but actually Belgian citizen (although never been to Belgian) with an American mother and thus an American accent. Catherine lives here in Sintra and runs a company called Cycling through the Centuries. After a brief intro, Catherine offers to show me around, and by the end of the day I'm sitting in a fabulous restaurant on the Atlantic Coast eating seabass with her and her boyfriend Martin. This after an unbelievable day of touring around scenic Sintra, which really does seem to be nothing but palaces. I also made it out to the western most point in Europe. Now I understand why all those Portuguese sailors were so excited/enthuastic to sail around the world. Quite majestic. In the end, it was a truly amazing day and yet another experience that showed me how kind and giving humans can be. What a great travel experience.

Imran got in early this morning, and we did a bit of sightseeing around Lisbon. Then we came out to Sintra again for another fabulous day in this lovely little village. Gotta run for a dinner in Lisbon but more later. Jason gets here tomorrow and we're off to Lagos (probably).

A few shout outs: Congrats to Grant for getting engaged a few weeks ago, and to my boy Willie for getting engaged last week! Also, happy birthday to old head Adam Newcomer!