Well, I am happy to say, there is new stuff going on all the time. I spent most of the day learning to navigate the local city bus system. There are three lines which overlap at a few points. All the major landmarks (hospital, mall, waterfront, etc. ) have their own stops, but the lines also go into neighbourhoods I have not explored on either of my two previous trips to the island. But it is also the journey which delightfully surprised me. At each bus stop I was encouraged to go first; never was there any question that people would leave their seats and offer them to me; several people offered to help me in or out of the minibus; the drivers, even with limited english, answered my questions as best they could; and in many cases, people made comments or tried to converse, but my portuguese is non-existant, and their english quite poor. (The difficult part for me is that portuguese looks very much like spanish, but hearing it, it is impossible to discern even the few words I recognize when written.)
I can't get a monthly or weekly pass as I do not have the local photo ID, but I can buy a seniors' 10 ride card for 2.50 euro. A great deal! So I rode the minibuses, getting off at the mall to browse looking for a embroidery hoop which I think might make my other new adventure a little easier.
23 kg is a good sized suitcase with lots of capacity in terms of volume and weight, unless you are thinking of taking enough knitting to keep one occupied for 2.5 weeks. I don't do the fancy patterned stuff -- I churn out scarves and hats in wild colour and yarn combinations and donate them to the local charity. As such, I can usually do a hat in one evening and a scarf takes maybe too. Lots of yarn used up which is great when I have lots of bits at home, but not good when I am taking enough for mass knitting. So, I ordered a cross-stitch from Mary Maxim a few weeks ago, knowing this was a much slower handicraft than my knitting. But I had NO idea how intricate and complicated it is to count the stitches and transfer a pattern from a paper to the aida cloth. The paper pattern is bigger than my cloth! I spent as much time undoing wrong stitches, wrong colours, and knots on the back as I did doing proper stitches. I think it works best when one hand works above and cloth and the other below. Intense concentration is necessary, so doing the cross stitch while watching TV is impossible for me. I hope my brain learn quickly. Below you can see what three hours work looks like!
I am quite tired at the end of the day. I have not walked kilometer upon kilometer, but my walking has been at a much higher awareness and caution state that normal walking -- that's tiring! And standing is particularly difficult -- almost like standing on one leg for an extended period. I am not related to a flamingo!
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