Praia, Angra, and Tile Jesus

So, I have a little bit of time and I thought I would update you on some of the goings on in this part of the world.

First of all, I have to describe the general mood I have been in since arriving. I know I have not been the most agreeable, but then, when I am in a good mood my mom and sister usually get really annoyed with me. I tend to come out feeling better about my relationship with them, maybe not particularly about myself, if I keep to myself. So I have been very reserved and try not to talk too much. I always sit in the back seat, don't really contribute much to conversation, and don't comment much. My mom has actually been rather enjoyable. I have brought up to her just a few times that she is speaking to us very rudely, but we have avoided all confrontation. Meghan, on the otherhand, is being a total brat. Anything I do provokes her. Like today I came downstairs after I got dressed and her reaction was "You look like a crazy person." Yes, apparently you can identify crazy people these days by their strict uniform of jeans, t-shirts, and hoodies. My choice to not react to her just makes her call me a bitch and pout. I don't know, I just would rather sulk a little bit until she leaves then have a real row with her.

But enough about these other people, let's get to the good stuff. I haven't really felt like taking pictures at all. I feel like we haven't really seen a whole lot yet and I'd much rather see it all than experience my vacation from behind the viewfinder. My sister has taken the other route, so at least I can steal some of her pictures.

To start, this place is absolutely gorgeous. Even though I wish the weather were a bit warmer, you can tell the impact all the rain has on the scenery.

This is just up the road from my mom's house. These rock walls are everywhere, EVERYWHERE. They break up the entire island into little pastures. This one was empty; actually it seems like most of them are vacant at any given time. From the way my mom described it, it seems most farmers own many of them and rotate the fields that they graze their cows in. Makes sense to me.

We have visited a few of the many towns along the coast. The first day we were here, we went to the nearest "city" to my mom's house, Praia. It was quaint, but lovely.

This is me walking along one of the fancy roads in Praia. It's bigger than I thought it would. The cobblestones are all decorated throughout town. Oh, and they are crazy about their tiles. Bat shit crazy. The street names are on tiles. I have seen some houses completely covered in ceramic tiles. In fact, today we went to a really cool tile shop my mom frequents. I bought some cool (cheap) ceramic things, and the nice lady gave us an impromptu tour.

This is a tile they were making special for somebody who really loved Jesus; and that could be anybody because they are even more bat shit crazy about Jesus here than they are about ceramic tiles.

This is one of the tiles up in Praia. It's really cool, along their "walking street" and boardwalk they have these up with quotations and illustrations of Portuguese poets. These are about what the street signs look like too. It says some stuff that looks deceivingly like Spanish, but sounds more like "sshhh sshhh shhh sh sh shsssshhh."

Today, we went to a really cool town called Angra. Like every other town here, it's on the water. But it is bigger than Praia and had a much more European feel to it. For being so small, Terceira actually has a lot. It apparently has a university with a great ecology program, according to my mom's landlord. Angra is on the other side of the island from us (I'm not exactly sure what side, but it's different than here) and they don't have a lot of sandy beaches. What they do instead is build concrete beaches along the rocks for sunbathers, and then create swimming pool like structures in the water that protect swimmers from the waves and undertow. It's very cool. We went to a nice one today, but it was kind of chilly and there were lots of hooligans in the water, so Meghan and mom were scared. We got down close to the water though, and it was absolutely beautiful.

See what I mean?

Well, I should be off to bed. Tomorrow, we get to go back on the Portuguese air base to get me a new military ID card and then we're off the a town with a really weird name to see some caves! Maybe there will be some underground mutant people in them that I can feed Meghan to. But, before I go, here is small treat (small because this isn't the best picture I hope to have come out of this trip) but here is the greatest person to ever walk the world and grace my life with her beautiful presence:

Topaz.

She loves chilling out with the girls.

I hope to hear more about your adventures soon. Starcraft at a baseball game sounds amazing, and I have a feeling that if nothing else could, it made your trip worthwhile.

I love you,

Malicestory