Tracy's Thoughts on Portugal.

I just wanted to add a couple of things that Gavin didn't mention in his blog posts on Portugal.

Gavin seemed to do really well with the language. I know he hasn't had many chances since his mission to speak it, and he was really worried that he wouldn't be able to speak well. From what I can tell and from what a couple of people have told me, Gavin was speaking fluently, like he never left.

Gavin was speaking so fluently that he actually started speaking to me in Portuguese. Then he would stare at me like I was an idiot for a minute before I would finally tell him to speak English. This happened more than Gavin would care to admit.

When he was writing his blog posts, he actually wrote parts of it in Portuguese.

One funny moment was when I wanted to buy a hand painted baking dish and the lady selling it didn't speak English and I didn't speak Portuguese. I would ask her a question, then look at Gavin to translate for me, then she would answer me, then look at Gavin to translate for her. Took a little bit, but we finally made it.

The bolos were amazing!

While walking around, we met a little gatinha (baby kitty). Her mom was sitting on a fence and we stopped to pet her. Her owner came out and started talking to us. Gavin told him that we thought she was really cute, but he said he had cuter ones. Then the baby kitty came out to say hi.

I was the one who told Gavin the little boy at the church was scamming us. He was ready to pay him. ;)

My favorite part was meeting the people from his mission and seeing how much they loved him. Even after ten years, they still remembered him and spoke of what a wonderful missionary he was. A couple of people even spoke about him during testimony meeting about how much the appreciated Elder Verde not just because he was a missionary, but because he showed an interest in them as people and their culture. They kept making references to him wanted to learn how to make a traditional soup recipe. Even those I met who had no interest in the church talked about how much they enjoyed talking with Gavin because he showed a genuine interest in them.

It was really neat to see a place so important to Gavin. It was such a beautiful place filled with wonderful people.

Portugal - O Final

Here is a shot of the city from our hotel during the day.

We headed over to church in the morning. We passed by the baixa again on our way. This is a view from the other side. This is the large cathedral which sits in a big open plaza. As missionaries, we would often do contacts here and would sing near the fountain and hand out pamphlets.

Church was great. It was sooo good to see all the members again, and plenty of new ones that I did not recognize. It was our testimony meeting and I was translating for Tracy the whole time. They are really strong members here. The church isn’t just something they do, their entire lives are based around the gospel. It was great to see the people doing so well. We stayed after to speak with a lot of them. Irmao Armando Do Vale was the ward mission leader when I was here. His nickname is “brincalhao” (The Joker) cuz he is never serious. He is constantly playing around. It was great to sit and talk with him for a while.

We were invited to lunch with a few of them but had to pass cuz we wanted to see a few things before we left. We headed a little further south to Leiria. It was one of my favorite castles. It is on a huge hill in the middle of the city.

Just chillin on the front porch

View Below

Having fun walking along the outer wall.

View of the interior castle.

View of an inner gathering place

Some of the ruins

It is a fun castle to walk around. The part below reminds me of Robin Hood (The Kevin Costner Version) There are a lot of trees and living areas where you could imagine life as it was back in those times.

Then we drove on over to Batalha. This place is enormous. It sticks out at you from the freeway.

Front View

Back Side

Side Shot. We about walked into the side door and there was this kid that stood in front of me and held out his hand. He pretended not to speak English or Portuguese. I asked “how much to get in?” He said “1 euro” So I about handed him 1 euro, and he said “each.” I scowled at him and walked away. It turns out he was just hanging out by the door asking people to pay him to enter the cathedral. We entered the front for FREE, and ended up coming out that side, and I glared at him again.

Interior – this is probably the tallest and cleanest I have ever seen. It was simple, and beautiful. It was not ornate with decoration and intricate work everywhere, just long smooth surfaces and clean lines. The entire structure was in the shape of a cross. The bottom left section of the lower case “t” had some cloisters and a small garden. We have come to find out that many of the cathedrals and churches we have been visiting have this same design. It is very pretty.

The stained-glass windows were simple, but beautiful.

We left there to head down to Fatima. I don’t even know where to begin to explain this one. Many years ago, Nossa Senhora de Fatima (Our Lady of Fatima), the Virgin Mary came down and visited these three young pastorinhos (field workers) and revealed unto them 3 secrets. Ever since, the area has been considered sacred ground. Many people come here to worship. They have since built a gigantic memorial of the event. It is a beautiful area. The weather sure helped.

In this image facing the other direction, you can see a large wooden artistic rendition of Christ on the cross. Some people come all the way here on their knees to show their faith as seen on the right hand side.

Many people gather by this large fire pit to light candles. They burn them as a symbol of the inner light they have. We spoke to someone there about the ritual, and she didn’t even know exactly why they do it, other than it was a tradition and an exercise of showing their faith.

We had to eventually leave Portugal, so we drove back up to Porto, and hung out by the Riverside. It was much more lively on Sunday evening. There were people everywhere, and street vendors and musicians. The weather had been slightly cloudy and sprinkling all day which made for a beautiful sunset. We wish we could have stayed longer and just relaxed by the river, but we needed to go home. Well, back to the hotel in Bristol, which has technically been deemed our new home.

Portumatecca dia dois

So, we wake up the next morning and had another couple of bolos for breakfast when Tracy starts laughing. Sure enough, there are gigantic sperm lights hanging from the ceiling. We liked the hotel.


We headed south to Coimbra, but decided to stop along the way at Ovar. I was only there for the last month of my mission. So… I don’t have a ton of memories from it, but after we started driving around, everything started coming back to me. It was cool to just drive through the small town and see a lot of the stupid little stuff like a brick wall or tall apartment building that brought on tons of unique memories. Even the tiny little cube rocks they used for most of the sidewalks and walkways were cool to walk on again. Oh how I hated them at the time.

Ovar was near the beach, so we drove out there first to check it out. The waves were still crazy, just not beating up on stuff in their path.

This is the walkway down to the beach. Pretty typical view. Apartment buildings all the way down and little shops on the ground floor.

You get pretty used to all of the churches around since they are everywhere. This was the central church in Ovar. We walked by it way to many times to get anywhere in the city.

Right near the church are fairgrounds where they hold flea markets every week. I have purchased some shoes, slippers, belt, lunch, or any other number of things there. It gets so crowded with everyone just shoving through to get where they want. Like Black Friday, but all day.

This is the tallest building in the city square where we used to live. It was the one next to the end on the fifth floor. We used to hang our clothes out there to dry as well.

So we headed on down to Coimbra and the drive was pretty sweet. The weather was just perfect. The clouds were quite surreal as they hung up, almost fake. The picture doesn’t do it justice, but the lighting and shape of each one was very detailed and dramatic. We hit 120 mph at one point (without Tracy’s approval). We averaged around 100 and still had a lot of people pass us pretty regularly.

We got to Coimbra and went straight to the house of one of my favorite people in the world, Sandra with her husband Edmundo, and son Jose Pedro because they were insistent we ate lunch with them.

They took us up to the church of the Coimbra 2^nd ward, which has a great view of the city. This sight is typical for almost every city you go to, with large predios (apartment buildings) all over with the orange tile on every roof.

We are cute.

This is the front of the church. It was an old mansion that was converted forever ago into a chapel. It is pretty big and 3 stories tall. The bottom floor is where the sacrament room is, with a couple of other salas (rooms). We walked into one that has azulejo (tile) everywhere. It is where we held all of our district meetings when I first arrived in the country. One of my most memorable experiences is singing “Brilha Meiga Luz” (Lead Kindly Light) in there with the other 5 elders with the echo ringing throughout. The song still gives me chills, as did the room.

From there, we headed over to the University which overlooks the city. The architecture is very European with a classic Portuguese style.

It is old and has the second oldest library in the world, next to one in Rome.



You can’t really see the view of the city from here, but again, the clouds looked so fake, it felt like I could reach up and touch a painting in the sky, it was amazing.

The students would often wear these traditional robes around campus and around the city. Not all the time, so I am pretty sure it was only during special events, but still cool.

We walked around a bit to just check out the city. This was one of my favorite walks. We followed the Roman Aqueducts for a distance to get to district meetings each week. We didn’t look as good as my wife does there though.

There is a jardim (garden) that is always well trimmed.

Then there are the Stairs from Hell, officially titled by the missionaries. We had to climb up each week to get to the meetings, and climb back down to get back, which wasn’t any easier. The stairs go on forever, and each step is twice as steep as a regular stair. Oh, how I hate them.

This is one of my favorite views of Santa Clara. We are on the Coimbra side of the river looking at the area where I actually served. You can see that the river is the low point and everything climbs quickly on either side. There were way too many hills in this place. This city owes me at least one pair of shoes.

At the bottom of the hill at the entrance of the bridge, we hung out in an area called “the baixa” (the low-down). It is a cool street with a lot of shops and cafes.

Of course we had to stop to get a couple more bolos, which were even more amazing than the others.

After hanging out there for a while, we got in the car to drive through Santa Clara. It was so great to drive up the road that I walked every day. Because it was so hilly, it was pretty exhausting. We had a bolo shop about halfway up that we would stop at regularly. I stopped in to get another couple of bolos. I recognized the owner and we talked for a little bit. It hadn’t changed a bit.

My first house was a little off the beaten path. We would take a bus up and down through Santa Clara, then get off on the last stop, then walk through these houses and a small footpath to get to our house. These houses are the essence of how I saw Portugal. Small homes made out of brick and plaster all built next to each other with a small cobblestone street. I love it.

We visited the house I stayed at, which is actually behind a much larger house. The owner saw us wander back there and came out to greet us. He let us in and we talked for a while. He misses having the missionaries there. He showed us around his house to show Tracy what a traditional Portuguese home looks like. He was a really sweet guy.

In the other direction, we used to walk down this long dirt road that had bushes and shrubs on either side. In the fall, there were millions of fireflies buzzing around everywhere. We would walk a ways down and pass through an Aquaduct that had been torn down at one point to stop water from arriving to the enemy. You could actually climb up the hill and get into the aquaduct passageway. Well, here’s a nice shot of our nice quaint walk. I guess it is good to see growth.

We drove around again for a while just finding members houses and where the church used to be. Since the branches combined to form a ward, they didn’t need the old church in Santa Clara. It took me a few turns around the block, but I eventually remembered where it was. It is the base floor of a large predio (apartment building), and on the other side were the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

It was getting late, so we started to head to the hotel. This is a view of the Coimbra side from Santa Clara. That group of large buildings is the University towering over everything

Here are a couple of night views from our hotel. That bridge is new since I left. It is really pretty.

Palm Tree.

We decided to drive over that bridge to Continente to check out where we used to go shopping. It is a lot like a Walmart, but it was like an American Mecca to me when I first arrived. It was hard to do the shopping in the neighborhood mom’n’pop stores, so we would come here. It is sad to see these big shops taking over the small economy, but at the same time, I love em.

Tracy was hungry, so we went to the Continente pizza place and Tracy got the chicken banana slice. It was a regular menu item, not a special order. I love this place.

Right behind the Continente is the other Coimbra chapel. It was specifically built by the church and has a gate all the way around cuz it is a “busy” neighborhood. It is a big church that has a small outdoor futbol court that we used regularly. Most of the baptisms were held in the font in this chapel.

Sandra invited us over again for a bacalhau dish that night that was amazing. I am going to try and get Tracy to try out the recipe. They are such an incredible family. It was so great to spend so much time with them. We had such a mix of speaking English and Portuguese that I am not sure how much Tracy really picked up. We were good for a while, but after a while, I just started thinking in Portuguese.

That night, we decided to push the beds together.