Last Few Days in Portgual

Katy started back with her research at the museum on Monday, so we haven’t been out and about like the previous days. She is working M-F from 9-5, so most of our activities are going to be on the weekends now. We have a trip planned up into the mountainous, central region of Portugal for this weekend, so we'll have plenty of pictures to post afterwards. The area we are heading to is the tallest point in Portugal, and offers some great climbing, as well as, several quaint towns to explore. Katy is really excited to visit a cave that has drawings dating back 20,000 years ago...a real treat for an anthropologist! Yesterday, I was able to travel to a nearby town and get some climbing in. If you're interested, a few pictures are available on my climbing blog. It was a beautiful location, right on the edge of the sea, that had plenty of routes to keep me busy for the day. We are planning on eating dinner with a few other visiting anthropologist tonight, and I'm gonna play "house husband" until then...I never mind doing the cleaning and shopping though. There are small, family owned, markets on almost every corner or street, so you don’t have to go far for groceries. They have the freshest fruits and vegetables, as well as, incredible fresh baked bread and delicious cheeses. There are also plenty of small cafes, on almost every street, that offer the best and freshest pastries, desserts, espressos and some of the best food you could ever want to eat! The Portuguese eat more fish than almost any country, so there is always a big variety of fish dishes, as well as, a lot of chicken and pork dishes. It's really nice that this is the fast food around here, and the typical fast food restaurant is almost nonexistent. Everyone uses public transportation (bus, metro/subway, train, & boat) and they walk everywhere else...we walk about 3-5 miles a day around the city. This, paired with all the readily available healthy food, makes for a pretty healthy population, with very few obese people. I wish it was more like this back home! Its not even been a week over here yet, but I already feel healthier and trimmer. The Portuguese people are very nice and even in the big city of Lisbon, we never have felt threatened or uncomfortable. Much of this is due to the socialist governing...there are no major separations and classes over here, which tend to fuel crime and violence in other countries, including the US. Universal health care keeps the population healthy, and living wages for what we would consider to be a "bad" job, help everyone to live a fuller life. Another important factor that keeps the crime down is the fact that people cant own guns...and it has been pointed out, over and over, that countries that have legalized guns also have a tremendous jump in violent crimes. There are generally less homicides in Lisbon, the largest city in Portugal, every year, than in the town of Greenville every month! I know...it sounds too good to be true, but its not! About the only thing I miss, besides our family of course, are the NBA playoffs and the Simpsons everyday:)