Train to Lisbon

October 26th

The next day, all the girls and I wanted to do was go to the beach. Be lazy and soak up the sun's glorious rays of heat. However, I wanted desperately to run as well.

I got up early and headed out. First I ran around the resort and saw some of the golf course. This place is known for it's beautiful golf courses. To bad MB couldn't be here to play them. The pain sank in as I pondered the idea and wished he could have seen it.
After the course, I wasn't done running. I decided to run down to the beach. When I got there I kicked off my shoes and ran along the waters edge. Back and forth, I did approx. 8 full rounds. I was tired and my feet were hurting, but I didn't want to stop. It was so beautiful and I knew that these opportunities don't happen very often. The last beach I ran on was in Maui. The tide was low. Fisherman were standing in the tide pools trying to catch something. I don't know what.

Later, the girls and I came back down to the beach. Soon after my dad showed up. He told me that him and Toni were going to take the 3pm train up to Lisbon and get a hotel room. That's fine. It was the plan. However, we wanted to stay longer, so I told him that me and the girls would take the later train at 6.
Well as it turned out because I didn't have a watch, we ended up getting back to the resort before my dad and Toni left. If we hurried, we could still make the 3pm train.

We rushed like mad to pack our things. Toni and my dad left for the station. We had to take seperate cabs anyway since we can't all fit in one.
Well, the girls and I showed up to the station with approx 20 minutes to spare. The train up to Lisbon cost a little bit more than when we came down because it is a faster, newer train. I'll say! It only a little over 2 hours instead of the 3.5 it took on the old train. But for some reason, I prefered the way the old train felt. The older model was more comfortable and brighter.

Once in Lisbon, we needed to find the hotel. It turned out to be only a few blocks away. However, it sure was difficult to roll our luggage across those cobble stone sidewalks all that distance. I worried that I'd break one of my tires! I put a lot of miles on those babies!

The hotel we stayed at was called "VIP Executive Arts" It was modern and fancy. The first thing you see when you walk in is a very large entrance with chairs that look like eggs. The rooms all have hardwood floors and 15 foot ceilings with extremely large automatic curtains. It was nice...but I hated it.
No coffee pots (no surprise) but of course a complimentary toothbrush and razor.
The closets were so large that I actually used one of them to change my clothes in since the bathroom was taken. Yes, we all shared one room.
How did we get away with that, you ask?
Easy. I passed for one of the children! Oh, how embarrassing! But we saved money. It was $200.00 American dollars a night. We needed 2 nights.

You'd think this would be enough for one day, but we were hungry. I was hoping to find something in the hotel, but no such luck.
We footed it back down to the train station were we knew there was a large mall right across the street. Once we found the food court, I was the only one who didn't bolt for the nearest familiar crap Burger King. If I had to waste my money on some foreign thing I'd never heard of, I was determined to try something new. I could sense that my dad wanted to follow my lead, but the death stare he got from Toni was clear. Come with me or else!
Sorry dad. I thought to myself...I better order extra so he can try it!

I was so impressed with their selection. It far exceeds ours. The healthy choices were endless! Some places just had salads. ALL kinds of salads from fruit to lettuce. Most were decorated in bright colors and displayed large pictures of fruit. I was tempted to buy that, but I needed something more substantial. I considered a place that only served soup and another spot that I couldn't quite figure out what it was?? I ended up ordering a plate of steak, rice and beans. It helped that there was an employee who could speak English to me. It was absolutely delicious! It was also reasonably priced.
My dad loved it too. Oh yeah, the drink I ordered was their idea of juice. However, it was more like a smoothie. I could taste kewi and oranges. It was thick, sweet and had seeds. I let everyone try it and it didn't last long.

After dinner, Dad and Toni walked back to the hotel while me and the girls checked out some of the shops in the mall. The mall was 3 levels high. They have a much stronger sense of style than we do. Everywhere you look were shops for clothes. But not just clothes...every shop had the whole outfits available from the hat to the boots and everything inbetween. One shop started with womens clothes, then maternity clothes, followed by baby clothes and then toys for the tots! I found many shops had progressions like this.
We made a couple purchases with my favorite being the toothbrush dispenser in the bathroom. Gotta love it!