#kurrentleigh

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Bali Bound

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Struggles for Shirley

Or - Hamburg street signs

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Hamburg

We were lucky enough to find a housesit in Hamburg for just about a month. This wound up being the second longest stay of the trip. The place was a one bedroom apartment on the 5th story with no elevator smack dab in the middle of the  (not sure what the correct word is really) riot prone area. We had two cats and a snake in our charge. 

We (I) may have overindulged slightly our first night which meant our first day was spent napping off the hangover at a beautiful nearby park. I cannot even begin to describe how crazy it was to see grass that I recognized. Proof yet again, that it’s all about the little things. 

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Peace out Portugal

Our way out of Portugal was fairly uneventful excepting a stop at this lovely restaurant. We can in at 7 and of course were the only customers on account of it being about 3 hours until normal Portuguese dinner time. 

But the food! 

Oh, the food. So good. So so good. 

Tuna

Steak

Probably a “you had to be there” moment. But Kali and I could not get over the excessive distance we had to walk to get onto the overpass. Probably would have been faster to just climb the post!

Till next time Portugal. 

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Silves (housesit 1)

And what an intro to housesitting it was... Our hosts were a middle-aged British couple who had moved to Portugal after traveling extensively with three kids in a remodeled gypsy style camper. Their airbnb postings state that naturalists are welcome and they were very proud of their eco-friendliness. Shame that friendliness didn’t extend to people who weren’t British but nobody is perfect.

Their water heating was solar. Which meant the expectation was that we take short showers (5 minutes), twice a day to bleed off the excess heat and had to continuously monitor the temperature of the tank. They also had about 40 acres and three outdoor dogs. Said dogs had to be taken on two hour long walks per day as (apparently) they couldn’t be bothered to get enough exercise while wandering around on their 40 acres all day every day... They frequently run small camps on the land so they had a few outbuildings. Mainly one bedroom set up, a kitchen and shower. While our hosts were there they had us staying in said outbuildings but did not want us using their guestroom in the house until they left. 

All that (and several other minor complaints aside) it was lovely. There were oranges, we were out of the city, I had an actual kitchen, and the airbnd guests we had were great fun. 

Lots of wildflowers.

Also, there was the lone chicken. We weren’t really allowed to eat the eggs (our host refused to eat store bought and wanted to make sure she had eggs upon her return). Every evening through the chicken hopped up and started to peck at the kitchen window until we shut her in her cage. 

the Vista. 

A view of Silves at night. Long story that I can’t manage to tell without a few unkind words about our hosts so I’ll just leave it out for now. 

Looking towards Silves. 

Silves at night.

Waiting for the train

There were lots of little lakes tucked into the valleys of the hills. The lines that look like trails are actually fire breaks. Portugal takes their fire risk very seriously and the fine for starting a fire outside is 6000E. 

The terracing is mostly eucalyptus trees. Which I believe are now illegal to farm as they tend to be invasive. 

One of the pups. Baby. 

This was “hammock island” in the middle of the orange grove. We happily lost many afternoons here. 

Baby after a long night spent chatting with our new friends. They were a newlywed couple from (somewhere northeast Europe), about our age and lovely to hang out with. 

I don’t remember this fluffs name, unfortunately. But this was the oldest dog, who had a nasty weeping ulcer on her neck (not something we were told about beforehand). Despite smelling a bit like death she really was very sweet. 

This was our swimming lake. You’d hop out feeling a might scuzzy but so worth it when it got really hot. 

Kali emerging from exploring the wilderness (ask him about his boar wound!). 

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The Southern Coast of Portugal

Of which we saw too many times. 

Basically, after leaving Baro de (already forgot again) we headed to our first housesit. We were in the southwest corner and had to drop our car off in basically the southeast. So along we drove, dropped of the car, hopped on the train to go about halfway back west to meet our hosts. 

Except we missed our stop. 

And wound up basically where we’d started, on the last train of the night, with no means of contacting our hosts or a room for the night. 

Yaaaaaaaaay. I may have had a little breakdown here. 

Kali saved the day by finding us a Pizza Hut which had wifi so we were able to let our (only slightly angry) hosts know what had happened. From there we wandered about till we found a cheap hostel then tried to make the best of a Friday night in Portugal. 

The next morning we hopped on the first train east - again. 

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Lisbon to Baro

Baro de....something? I’ll probably look it up at a later point and add it in. Anyways! We’re now in Portugal! And we have a car! 

So we stopped for breakfast

A delicious if not slightly confusing situation. This is me pre-coffee.

Got stuck in traffic, of course, but at long last we were free to make our way out f the city and down the coast, stopping wherever looked interesting and/or pretty. 

We stopped for lunch at Cafe Dani. Where the owner spoke not a word of English and seem delighted at our presence. The baked goods were delicious and sweet and exactly the blood sugar boost we needed. Before we left he handed Kali this to take. 

I kept it :) 

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Lisbon

In which we explore a boat museum and get stuck in traffic. 

Dude was not impessed. 

I should elaborate on the “stuck in traffic” thing. 

The lesson learned is check what roadsigns mean before driving in a country. Otherwise, you may find yourself accidentally driving along a pedestrian only road with no exit options other than idling with said pedestrians at a crosswalk, watiting for the walk sign so you can carefully thread your way into actual traffic while despreratly avoiding eye contact with locals.