Julie

So, do you fancy a Carnivale parade?  Well, it's not quite Rio, but it was done with as much heart and soul as any!!  It took place on a lovely Tuesday afternoon in celebration of carnivale in the town of Odiexere, which is about a 10-15 minute drive from where I am in Luz.  First, some floats:

 

 

 

 

 

That's it for now...more to come! :)

Well, here's the final posting of my walk and my class setting.


  Last leg of the journey! :)  The villa is there on the left.

Here it is. 

One of our tables in our classroom. BUT...

It's also GREAT to give and receive massage outside!!

  Can't beat the view!!

Oh..and the pool is nice too!  But it's way to cold to use right now.  Still, it's pretty and nice to dip a toe in once in a while.

So, that's it for now.  I have some interesting pics from a nice small carnivale parade I went to on Tuesday in a small town called Odiexe.  I'll have to download them from the camera and share them next time! 

Here's more along the red path.  Oddly enough in the pictures you probably can't see the color shift and keenly as you can in person.  But it's definitely different.


Rocky path leading upwards...guess that's my shadow there at the bottom!

And up....

Stopping and turning around to see the view behind me. Still a very pretty ocean there!

 

Heading into a greener part of my journey.  Here's some lovely flora:

 

  Aren't they pretty.

  Parts of my walk are very green.

 

Almost to the top.
Up that incline is the beginning of the final road.

But I"ll leave that for another day.  I'll show you the final stages of the walk and then the house where our classes are held!

It really doesn't take me as long to walk this path as it has taken me to post it!! :)  It takes me about 25-30 minutes to walk it..depending on how I feel.  

But here are some more of my daily journey.  We're starting the sandy part of the walk.

  Campers often park next to these cliffs...and they are cliffs that go down to rocks and/or sea.  It's a beautiful walk.

  And we're walking.....


And walking....

and we're coming to where the road shifts slightly...into sort of a red clay type sand and very rocky and we sort of head up a hilly path.

and up we go.  But I'm going to have to end it here for now as I"m running out of time for this online session.  But I'll be back with the rest soon! :)

Here are the next pics of my walk:

Walking behind the bus shelter.  That green awning signifies the Ali Supermercado where I sometimes shop for groceries.

I think this street is Rua do Calheta.  The building on the left right there is The Bull a restaurant and pub.  Serves a nice ham & cheese tostI!! :)

Walking down past the Bull there is another bar called Kelly's. I haven't been in there yet.

Just past Kelly's is The Dolphin, a restaurant.  I haven't been in there either. You can now see the road I walk down straight ahead there.

   Can't beat the view on my left most of the way now.  All ocean, rocks, green, etc.  It's lovely!!!

An more road to walk.

And now we come to the dirt road portion.  But before we move on to that, let's look at more of the view:

 

Next time, we'll see the dirt road and what it has to offer!

So, I thought I would take pictures of my walk to class every morning and afternoon.  It's just the walk out...but reverse it and you basically have the walk home! LOL!  There are quite a few pics...so hang in there!!

My back door.  I walk up these steps and then down to the end of our apartment building and then

Down this street which is on the side of our apartment building.  When you get down to the bottom and look over to the left, there is a fantastic view of part of the beach and cliffs:


  Up Ruo do Poco...that's Poco with the c that has the funny tail at the bottom.  So, I think it's pronounced POSO.

And around the corner up to the bus stop:

  Okay...that's the first part of my journey.  It always seems the hardest
because it's a hill...and frankly, either up or down...it's a bit of a hill! :)

I'll post the next part of my trek in my next post. There's probably 4 or 5 distinct parts of the journey and best to break it up into several posts.

As promised, here are a few more pictures of some of my surroundings...the beach and the church.

I think it's called Our Lady of the Light church!  We walk past it every day to/from class.






 

I'm sharing a three bedroom apartment with 3 other students.  I have my own room which is nice because I like to spread out!


My bedroom.  Yes, it's cold enough for an extra blanket...no central heating!  Behind the curtains is a set of french doors that open onto a small deck/patio where we hang our wash.

  One of our bathrooms with a tub and shower and, of course, bidet! 

  The stairs going up to our living space.  Our bedrooms and bathrooms are on the bottom floor and these stairs lead up to our living room, dining room and kitchen...and our top patio.

  This is the top of the stairs.

 
Our living room and the door that opens on to the patio or balcony or whatever you call it.  Yes...that is the ociean!  That is the view from our apartment!  Sweet!!!

  Here's a better view of our patio.  Just behind that white building in the background is beach.  We're about 2 stories up or so.



 

  These are pics of our kitchen. It's small but functional.

And finally, our street sign: 

Next time, I'll post a few more of the beach and the church nearby! :)
 

I took these pics on my first morning venture out here in Luz, Portugal last Tuesday.

  The beach is just less than a block away straight down our street. In fact, it ends at the beach!

Here's the boardwalk by the beach.

Tree-lined, of course! :)

In about 30 minutes we'll be off to Boston to spend the night near the airport and then tomorrow morning I board a plane to London. I'll be spending a few days in London and then on Monday, my adventure to Portugal begins.  It feels great to have everything packed and ready to go.

It's both exciting and bittersweet.  It's a long time to be separated from hubby...but he'll be visiting in March and that's something to look forward to.  And I'm looking forward to learning about massage therapy and starting my path to a new career!

Keep your fingers crossed for me for a gentle journey!! :)