Toto, I don't think we're in Freetown anymore.

What's different? Everything.

Like the fact that the @, ?, and ' are all in the wrong spot on this keyboard so if you don't understand what I'm typing I apologize in advance.

I arrived in Portugal three days ago. It's been pretty crazy. Getting here was nuts to start with. It seems I was supposed to fly out last Thursday NOT last Friday when I showed up at the airport. Oops. I don't think this one was my fault though, everything I'd received told me that the 15th was my departure day. Anyway, I was able to spend some extra time with friends in Atlanta (Thanks Faye and Jeff) and made it onto the Saturday flight.

I made it to the airport in Lisbon with little complication. That was nice. Then my school director picked me up, showed me to the hotel, and informed me that even though I'd been up for the past umpteen hours and had flown over a giant body of water I ought to go apartment hunting that afternoon. So after a quick shower I was off.

It was actually a lot of fun looking at apartments. It is absolutely beautiful here. In a different way than Freetown though. I commented on how brown everything here is and was told some other teachers who have just taught in Kuwait for the past several years were marveling at how green everything is. Perspectives. Anyway, I found a place relatively quickly. It was packed with old grandma knick-knacks, which I was able to look beyond and see a great three bedroom (lots of room for visitors... hint hint) place with an exceptional view of the ocean. I spent a lot of yesterday throwing... I mean placing carefully, old grandma stuff in closets. I need to get some sticky stuff for the walls so I can redecorate a bit, but it's starting to feel a lot more like home already. (Home being a very non-concrete concept for me)

I've spent a lot of time walking up and down the boardwalk, which is actually made of tiles. I've resumed my morning Bible reading and working out schedule, which is nice. I hear there are places to take yoga here so I may start that up again depending on how things go once school starts. I've already started talking to a few people about getting a bike to ride to school and have had a few places recommended. Yesterday I bought a phone that was too expensive for me but is really nice, taking pictures, which is good since I don't have a camera, and playing music, which is nice cause I don't have an i-pod.

Other than that things are kind of just moving along. I met my co-teacher today. He is new to the school also and comes from the British system so I think there will be a bit of a blind leading the blind mentality for the first little while. It does give us the, "We didn't know that's how it was supposed to work", excuse for a while. I think our director is pretty cool though and will be very supportive.

So that's the news from here. I'll throw some pictures up here once I figure out how to get them off my phone.

Random thoughts: Dogs on cups with cups in their mouths begging for change make good companions to accordian players lying in the street, Portuguese women really are as beautiful as people keep saying they are, there is a castle five minutes from my house and people talk about it like it's no big deal, roundabouts shouldn't have stoplights.