This has been a great week so far. We finally got our phones set up, so it has been great having working cell phones. We went to Vodafone and got a prepaid SIM card. One month of service cost 20 euro for two phones. We already have unlocked iphones, so we’re able to continue using those. Once we get an apartment we’ll get a phone contract. They offer budles, so we want to see what those are like before we commit. Now we just need to get ahold of Tmobile to cancel our US phones.
I can’t even remember everything we have done over the past few days. We went to the zoo a few days ago. It was big and we didn’t even see all of it in one visit. There is a really awesome ride there. You stand up in a cart type thing and go over the zoo and a bunch of cages. It’s a long ride, somewhere around 20 minutes maybe. The walls are nice and tall, so I didn’t have to worry about my kids falling or jumping out. I went with Sofia and Kyle took Leo. The ride goes over the lion cages, and gives some nice views of the city. I am deathly afraid of heights, but even I was able to enjoy the ride because it was so different than anything I have ever done.
Yesterday we went on one of those super touristy hop on hop off bus rides, although we were never able to hop off because the stops weren’t long enough 🤣 Kyle tried once, but the bus started moving again before he could even get to the stairs, It was a really nice break to be able to sit down for a while. The kids did good, though they did start to get restless. We all did at some point. The loop was just under two hours, which is more than we have sat for a while now. My butt hurt from sitting by the end. The tour made us realize just how little of Lisbon we have seen. We have come up with a plan for what to do for the rest of our time here, but we’ll see if we have the energy.
We are definitely starting to run out of steam. We’ve been in vacation mode since we got here, so we don’t really have a schedule and we’re running around all the time. It has been tons of fun, but we’re ready to slow things down a bit and get a routine going. We have already outgrown our Airbnb. It’s a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom. It’s in a great location, so the apartment size is, of course, on the smaller side. The biggest problem though is that there just isn’t any organization, so our things are just kind of laying around. We don’t have a pantry, so we have been putting our food on top of the stove, which obviously makes cooking a pain. We are making do though, and plan on enjoying our last week in Lisbon.
Tomorrow or Friday we want to go check out the Belem area. I loved it on the tour yesterday. We have been wanting to get pastel de natas from Pasteis de Belem, so we can kill two birds with one stone. I still want to check out Time Out market at some point, but we might run out of time for that. I really want to go to Cascais while the weather is still nice, and the kids would love that too. I know we can do that from Sintra, but there is a train from Lisbon and it seems easier. Hopefully we can fit that in this weekend. We’re running out of time in Lisbon, but I keep reminding myself that we’re going to live pretty close. It’s not like we’re going back to the states next week. We’re going a half hour away…
Growing Up Expat 