April 2008 of James, 4 years, Sydney 6 Years

From BilingualWiki

April 4-20, 2008

Stephen and I are on a trip with some friends we know from Australia. They live in Southhampton, England so we're flying into London, spending some time with them, then going to Scotland, and then on to Portugal. I've been the one planning the Portugal part of the trip. It'll be interesting to see how the Continental Portuguese differs...I've heard it's so different that Brazilians who use their movies have subtitles. Not a good sign. I'll be sending emails to friends about the trip and will paste them below.

Email 1

Hello all, I'm writing from the isle of skye in Scotland. lots of natural beauty and people who talk out of the sides of their mouths. We've laughed heaps today. lots of driving, thruogh half of Scotland and then tomorrow on to Edinburgh. Saw sheep and lamb, amazing coastlines, an old castle, and huge waterfall. Our B and B the last 2 nights was pretty poor. We called the owner, 'brown fang' (long story, but I think I mentioned his need of dental work in my previous email). He was a nervous man straight out of some Mr Bean skit. I made a movie of him just to docunent he wasn't a figment of our imagination.

Our B and B tonght is reall cute.

Stephen says to tell the kids we're crazy about them and that we send a hug through the internet (that one may take some explaining).

Email 2

We made it to edinburgh after much driving. Just beautiful and the food's great. tomorrow we'll tour the edinburgh castle and maybe catch a museum and some tasty food.

i'm gonna try to call the kids now. this message will end abruptly b/c the time just cuts off.

i miss the kids heaps and wish i had time to respond to al the messages you all have written but there will be time for that. it's dark and rainy here now. we have moved up in 'class' of hotel. the first one was pretty rough, then last night's was ok (water pressure and such) and tonight is an actual hotel (not a b and b) and it's swanky. it's fun just to hear people talk. today i heard the first american talking i've heard since we left. i didn't say hi. we toured a whiskey distillery of the best scotch whiskey th ewhorld has to offer (that's what they said, balking at my comment about jack daniels...which is a bourbon whiskey and apparently not in their minds, in the same league.

People here have been really helpful and nice to us. i sleep alot in the car. poor mikey's been doing the driving through the country b/c reneye's license ran out and stephen's afraid to drive on the left side of the road. I wouldn't do it, even to help a friend...it'd be deadly, I fear. So sometimes he naps in the car while the 3 of us are touring things.

Stephen has run out of clothes too. we looked into laundry at the hotel, but it's better just to buy something. went to our first fancy resutaurant (mike and reneye went their separate ways for a romantic evening...stephen and mike made that happen to surprize reneye an dme) called 'The Scotsman' tonight and he was wearing his long underwear shirt under a zip down pile. i was still looking stunning in my black tennis shoes and the pair of black jeans that i'm sure can walk around by themselves.

tomorrow evening we fly out from glascow so we need to drive there. Then the next day (sat) we go to portugal. the keyboard is different here so i'm giving up on capital letters. it's hard to find the @ because the £ sign is in it's place. If we think in american money, it's just too painful. Really pricey.

We've tried some new foods-- usually without knowing what they are whenwe try. Mincemeat is big here and cream cream cream. I love the tea.

i was kidding about the ring

Email 3

We drove from edinburgh after touring castles. So pretty. One had held prisoners of war duringj the war of independene and had old hammocks where the guys statyed.Saw queen jewels. tooik a million pics. Ran into 2 guys speaking Portuguese but they had ea funny accent so I assumed they were portuguese. Turns out they were brazilian. i asked them in portuguese where they were from and when i found out it was Brazil, i said,'But you talk so weird' They were like, WE' talk weird?' It was a moment.

Loads of rain. Returned rental car and flew back to London on the worst plane i've ever travelled. It's really really cheap which should have been a warning. you cfan only bring half a bag when traveling as a couple (mike arranged this so i'm sure you could pay extra for your own check on but he didn't give us that as an option,sayingmthe4y don't like you to do that b/c the plane is small). So at the beginning of the ride, disco music was BLARING from above our heads. Then they sold food from little servers then sold lottery tickets the WHOLE flight. it was scratchin all around. the stewardess were all barely 20 and were trained in Las Vegas night clubs. Then, The worst landing ever. I half expecdted the flight to go spinning out of control. Then before we'd even stopped, this hallaluh type music, 'Da da da...da.da da da da' loudly played as it was announced that yet another Ryan flight had arrived on time. i wondered if we were on ccandid camera.

More driving. He was dead from being the only driver and at one point was yelling at us all. one example-- when we first got in the car, he got mad about 'all the movin' about' we were doing. I yelled in his face (very lady like), 'We're putting on our seatbelts!!!' He's always really apolgetic after he's been mean and you can't help but forgive him. There really was too much driving. But hey, we're still going! In 2 hours we drive back to the airport (it's about an hour) and fly to Lisbon. We'll be in Portugal until Saturday.Can't wait! Actualy i can because nmy laundry's still drying. Stephen was so excited to get his clean undies back, he said, 'Yippie! I'm gonna put them all on at one time!'

That's probably more info than you really needed to know. sausages are cooking in the kithen with some strong tea so i'm off. love you all!!

April 24, 2008

Looking back on the trip, I realized that I'd thought Portuguese people would be like Brazilians-- open, fun, accepting, loving tourists. Wrong on all counts. They don't even kiss as a greeting. By the end of the trip, I got a little confrontation and would ask, "What you said to us seemed rude to me. Have I done something to offend you?" At one place the waiter bringing over the port (usually free after the meal) was so obnoxious, that I told him to keep the port and bring the bill. Seriously weird.

There was lots of waiting time...on buses, trains, etc. So while we waited, we video taped reinactments of our trip. It was great fun. No one could play themselves. We also video taped an interview with the guy living in his car in Sintra. His car was parked outside the mayor's building with a "On Hunger Strike" sign. It'll be on YOUTUBE soon.

April 26, 2008

I was pleased to see Sydney identify with Brazilian culture. Her school is hosting an international day. Their class was assigned to Kenya. I've learned more than I really cared to know about Rhinos this week. But when it came to what type of food to bring as international, she said she wanted something Brazilian. I got Cheenies because I'm not much of a Brazilian cook. She was so pleased.