American Food

Over the Christmas holiday, I went home to spend time with family and friends. I arrived back in Portugal on the 3rd of January. I never realized how the time difference can truly mess with your body. Because I was in the States for the two weeks, my body had time to adjust. Now being back I feel so tired. I’m sure in the next week or so I will be back to normal. Being back in the States wasn’t as strange as I thought it might be. I didn’t experience culture shock like I expected.

One thing that did take me back was when I went into the grocery store in Aledo. In comparison, the grocery stores here are similar in size, just different in variety of products. Here in Lisbon, there is an overflowing variety of cheeses. Now I like cheese but the thing that gets me is how do I go about testing one when it will cost me 10 Euros to purchase it and try it out? That just isn’t in my budget. Another abundance that is here is obviously seafood but also surprisingly, yogurt. There is a huge aisle filled with yogurt, all sorts of yogurt.

So after getting used to the variety in these areas, it took me back when I found numerous amounts of different types of salsas, barbeque sauces and sodas. I was extremely envious of all the deliciousness that lined the shelves.

All in all it was a great trip home but am glad to be back getting into the swing of things again. Please do continue to keep me in your prayers that I don’t get over anxious to go back to Texas but that I do truly enjoy and put everything into the last of my time here as well as speaking Portuguese and all that goes along with living in a foreign country.

Thoughts of the week

Some thoughts:
1. Hairballs in the Metro are absolutely sick
2. I think I'm about to demolish this bag of Peanut M&Ms my mom sent me today.
3. I've become a professional at ripping open packages. My apartment is a football fields length from the post office and when I receive a package, its demolished by the time I get home.
4. Went running this morning and forgot how out of shape I'm actually in.
5. Something I love about Portugal is the fact that I am walking distance from a restaurant where I can get skewers of meat brought to my table for crazy cheap, relatively speaking.
6. After living here in my apartment alone, I greatly appreciate stay at home moms because it is insanely difficult to keep this place clean, and I feel that cooking just takes up way too much time.
7. I believe that I'm obsessed with coffee. The real problem is that the caffeine no longer affects me. That's not good to be able to drink espresso shots and not be phased by a bolt of energy.

Saying Goodbyes...

After a great week of spending time away with old and new friends, I feel refreshed, but feel a sense of sadness. Ever since high school it feels as though I have simply been saying goodbye to people. I know what you are probably thinking, “Craig, this is just the way life is.” But to tell you the truth I don’t like it. I don’t like the feeling of becoming friends with people and then having life change on me. It’s part of life of course but I don’t like it. The problem that I have come to realize is that through this I have begun to put up a shield, not allowing people to come in very easily. Over the past week I feel that I might have done that some and I greatly apologize if I have done this to you. Not being open and honest is the last thing that I want about myself. Distancing myself from people is not showing the love of Christ in any form or fashion. I want Christ’s love to pour out of me. I want to be open and real with people daily no matter if I am not going to get the privilege of spending much more time with them. Two things I can take from all of this is the realization of my fault as well as the greatness of Christ’s love for us. He never leaves, and His peace and comfort and friendship are always there through all that we go through. Through my time in training back in the States, a man gave me a passage which sums it all up – Psalm 139. So through all of the goodbyes, we can know that Christ has always been there, is there, and always will be there with us.

Is asking for help really that difficult?

I think it’s funny how things work out. In the past several years I have been very independent, feeling able to do everything without the assistance of friends and family. Asking for help has been something that I have been working on since living here but is a constant struggle still. A colleague gave me several bags of food because they were headed back to the States. As I was being dropped off by him, he asked if I needed help carrying the many bags of groceries as well as a coffee maker. The amount of goods would be large loads for two people, but instead of receiving help I struggled to grip everything as I trudged up to my apartment. Ridiculous.

Here I am today, one good ankle. Been on crutches since last Friday and will be until tomorrow. Asking for help is mandatory. Had to ask someone to go to the grocery store with me because of my lack of ability to carry the basket. I had a football meeting a few days ago and was required to make it be in a location close to my apartment. I hate doing stuff like that, making someone go the extra mile because of me whether that be helping me out or meeting up somewhere out of the way for the other person. It isn’t that I feel that I could do things better. I am simply insanely stubborn and do not want to put the burden on someone else. But in the long run, it ends up keeping people away from me. People want to help whether that has to do with a sprained ankle or without. I do not allow this to happen. I guess what has really hit me is how I heard before that you aren’t able to help unless you allow people to help you. Now this could be stretched into something a little much but I do see some validity in the statement. I need to ask for help. I need to allow people to see that I truly am not able to do it on my own.

Bikes

Something I saw while in Germany as well as in Austria were bikes. Bikes were everywhere. Now not motorcycles, but bicycles. It would be crazy easy to ride a bike there because bike lanes were everywhere. I'd love to get a bike for here in Lisbon but am a tad bit afraid of getting ran over. I have almost been ran over twice now by the "cautious" Lisbon drivers while just walking across the street. What's up with that? Is there a sign on my back that says "American-knock me out." Ok, back to bicycles. But seriously I'd love to be able to ride here. We stayed in a small town in Germany for several days. I walked into the town two different days and was always overwhelmed by how many people I saw on bikes. Talk about going green. They all had their little baskets ready to go get their groceries. Just a very cool feel to the cities.

Trip to Salzburg, Austria

Last week I returned from Germany and also from spending three days in Salzburg, Austria. The city is beautiful. If you ever get a chance to make it there, I would highly recommend it. Here are some pictures from Salzburg.

Never know what you are going to get…

All in all, there can be no complaints about the food in Portugal, but over my time here I have come across some interesting plates. Not too long ago I ordered a plate from a restaurant of what I thought was going to be fried fish from the picture display. Upon receiving my lunch, I found out that I did not order fish but calamari. I thought to myself, ‘Ok, no problem. I’ve eaten calamari back in the States and have really enjoyed it.’ As I attempted to cut into it I had a problem. It was hard as a rock. Finally making my way through it, I took a bite and felt like I was chewing on a rubber ball. Quickly I grabbed the Tabasco Sauce and downed a few pieces but called it quits as my jaw became exhausted. This is only one of few meal choice disasters, but these little rubber pieces of squid made a lasting impression on my choice of ordering seafood.