Anyone who has clicked on the link to this blog is, no doubt, aware that I just moved to Portugal. Since international calling plans are expensive, and I am cheap.. I mean poor, I have decided to make a blog to help people share in my adventure. Now, I want to start things off on the right foot, so I think it's best that I be honest from the start. I'm a lazy person, and if this blog happens once every six months, I'll be impressed with myself. Let's hope, and there is a chance, that it happens more often than that. But I make no promises.
With that taken care of, let's talk a little about Portugal. If you are like most of America, you don't know the state capitals of America, much less where the heck the Iberian peninsula is. I have done a little bit of research in order to bring you up to speed on the basics of Portuguese geography.
Look for the Mediterranean sea, to the west of it you will see a mostly green blob that is the Iberian peninsula. That green blob is Spain, but if look carefully you will notice that some sneaky people have taken almost all of the coastline bordering the Atlantic ocean and turned it into a different country. That peach colored strip along the Atlantic coast is Portugal.
Now look at the other side of the ocean and try to see what part of the US matches up with Portugal. You might be surprised to see that it doesn't look like it's all that far off from NY. In fact, the latitude of Lisbon is 38.7 N compared to NYC at 40.7 N. A better match up would be Atlantic City, although technically its somewhere south of that. So, if anyone was wondering if it's winter here now, the answer is, no. Portugal is in the northern hemisphere, it's the end of summer, and it's pretty stinkin' hot.
The weather, in general, is pretty good. Wikipedia says:
"In the coldest month - January - the high temperature during the day typically ranges from 52 to 66F, the low temperature ranges from 37 to 55 F. In the warmest month - August - the high temperature during the day typically ranges from 79 to 93F, the low temperature at night ranges from 61 to 70 F and the average sea temperature is 68 F."
So, keep that in mind when you are planning what time of year you want to come visit me. If you like sun and beaches, July or August is going to be best for you. But, you really could come anywhere from June through September. You'd get the off season prices if you came outside of the core summer. And if you come in the winter, well I'm sure highs in the 60's is better than wherever you live right now. There are lots of museums, castles, palaces, and cheese factories here, for those not so hot months. Again, you'd get those off season rates, plus, you wouldn't be overrun by all those other pesky tourists. So it seems like there's really not a bad time of year to be visiting Lisbon. ... just some food for thought.
Now, a little about the economy of Lisbon and Portugal. Before investigating the matter, my original thoughts on the issue were something like this: Portugal, as a country, deserves the worlds' praise as a pioneer in maritime exploring. Heck, they use to be the rulers of the whole world. But, their heyday passed sometime in the 1500's and they have been living off the vestiges of their erstwhile greatness for about 500 years now. While there may be at least a shred of truth to that, don't let it be the basis for your overall opinion of Portugal, or at least not Lisbon. Again I will cite a few facts from the ever reliable Wikipedia.
Lisbon is the 9th most populous city in the European Union. It is the 7th most visited city in southern Europe (preceded by cities including Rome, Madrid, Athens, and Milan). It is the tenth richest metropolitan area by CDP on the continent, with a per capita 40% higher than the average in the EU. It ranks 32nd in highest gross earnings in the world. It was ranked 25th most livable city in the world by some magazine somewhere. And, not related to finance but still talking facts about lisbon, it is one of the oldest cities in the world, predating London, Paris, and Rome by hundreds of years. If your still curious, just visit the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisbon
So, don't be fooled into thinking that just because Portugal doesn't rule the world, that it is an incredibly poor country. It holds its own. That said, they are not doing financially great at the moment. Portugal has been one of the countries hit hardest by the Euro crisis. Austerity measures are in effect. If I were to describe the general feeling here, from the 1 week I have seen, I would say that as a country they know they are on hard times, but they are not obsessed with it. They acknowledge the financial difficulties, but they can forget about them too.
Well, I daresay that's enough words for one blog. Nobody likes to see a page full of words. So here are a few pictures to catalog the beginning of my Portuguese adventure.
My one true friend
Here is a picture of my appt. building. I am living with an older lady from the church who's kids have all grown up. The apartment is in a pretty nice part of town. The lot actually sits directly next to the US embassy on one side and the Brasilian embassy on the other.
This is the view from the balcony behind my room. If you look carefully you'll realize I wake up in view of an American flag every morning. Bless the USA.
The apartment where I am staying is actually pretty nice. To prove it, here is a picture taken in the parking garage under my apartment. Yeah. That's a ferarri.
This is a finely crafted porcelain statue that I saw in my house. Marie, I recommend you make this your new facebook picture.
I live right next to the Lisbon zoo. They painted all the highway posts with animals for a while down this road. Put this around reason 264 to visit Lisbon.
Some of those silly locals had some fun with the paint job on this one. Silly lisbonites. Put this at reason 263. It actually took me a few days of walking past this to realize it was vandalism and not the original. I'm not sure how this got on my camera roll, but oh well.
My school. The técnico, as they call it. This is taken from park just in front of the school. The school is the two black towers, and everything in between. You can't see the whole campus from here. My office is half way up the right tower.
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Sunset at the Técnico
Julia Vernon, or should I say, Sister Vernon, is a missionary serving in Lisboa from my home ward. I ran in to her at a big multi-stake conference they had here to officially announce the Lisbon temple to the people here, and help get them ready for it. They are pretty excited to be getting a temple. The ground has been purchased, but the building permits are not ready yet, and they still have not given any tentative construction dates.
Feel free to leave some comments, it'll make me feel like i'm loved. And then maybe I'll write something sooner than 6 months from now.
