Partiu a perna, e agora tem duas canadianas

Or, the punchline to my favourite (and only) Portuguese joke

Another week has flown by - yesterday I reached the milestone of one month at work, which is hard to believe. There's still not that much to tell you about from the office - the people are friendly, the work is interesting. On Thursday I had the excitement of a trip to the Salão Imobiliário de Lisboa (think Ideal Homes but more Portuguese) to chat to some estate agents, which was entertaining, and it was fun to go round with Chris, our press officer, wearing 'Professional' lanyards.

Just a little snapshot of SIL

Otherwise, lots more desk-based web research - I sometimes feel like I'm reading and digesting a measurable percentage of the internet every day, which is clearly not the case.

Anyway, back to the fun stuff, i.e. weekends and evenings! Last weekend was fabulous. On Saturday I went down to the rowing club and finally sorted out my registration (everything except the Sport Medical Examination which I'm currently ignoring in the hope that the club will forget about it...). Then I got the train to Estoril (on the coast west of Lisbon) where I met Carly, who had adopted a group of tourists in Lisbon for the half-marathon. We had a lovely afternoon on the beach - swimming, eating ice cream and generally enjoying the sunshine, feeling smug that it was October and still beach weather. Then we went back into Lisbon and made our way to the Miradouro da Senhora do Monte, a perfect place to watch the sunset.

Photo credit to Carly :-)

On Sunday I just made it to church on time, having left about 15 minutes before the harvest festival service was meant to begin, and under normal circumstances it's at least a 25 minute walk... yes, I ran some of the way (obviously falling back into my Merton habit of arriving at Chapel slightly out of breath at 5.44 for the 5.45 service). And after the service there was the unexpected pleasure of a free lunch (provided by Feyikemi and friends) which was delicious - also got talking to the new locum vicar and his wife, who were both very nice. Carly and I then did a bit of sightseeing by tram, and ended up at Outjazz in the Tapada de Necessidades, which was really fun - essentially a very relaxed outdoor concert-festival type thing. We had dinner at her flat too afterwards.

On a slightly crowded tram... and at Outjazz
Photo credits to Carly again.

Monday and Wednesday evenings I went down to the rowing club to refine my boaty Portuguese vocabulary, if not my rowing technique - Filipe, the cox/coach, remarked that when the river is choppy, which it definitely was on Wednesday, you don't learn, you 'desaprende' (unlearn). It's still super fun though, and there's never a dull moment, what with the constant amazing landmarks (sadly impossible to photograph while rowing!), and sharing the river with car-ferries and container-ships, amongst other vessels.

Tuesday and Thursday were more relaxed, and on Friday I went swimming, which was fun, before having a great family conversation on Google hangouts - good to see my brother enjoying life in Oxford. I sadly had to miss out on Saturday's rowing session after feeling ill in the night and when I woke up, and spent a lot of the day resting. I did make it to the Casa Fernando Pessoa, though, which was fun for a quick look around! I was also very pleased to see the huge flag at the top of the Parque Eduardo VII has been reinstated - not sure why it has been missing for the last few weeks. 

Not much of a sense of scale - believe me, it's enormous.

Oh yes, now let me explain the joke.

It's about 'um menino que não tinha namorada' (a boy who didn't have a girlfriend). The punchline means 'he broke his leg, and now he has two Canadian-f.pl. (i.e. two Canadian girlfriends) OR two crutches'. I'm very proud of knowing this joke, even if it's pretty atrocious.

Extra photos of pretty bits of Lisbon

Thank you for reading!