An attactive glimpse of the lake, somewhat different view from a previous visit-Aguia Do Sarilhao.
The 'look' from the time before. How nature varies its expressions.
"Will U2 cut that out. We run a decent park out in the wilds, if you will."
Calm, serene and delightful.
Always keep the head up. Jen spots the waterfall in the distance between the long grass blades. Now one can understand the reason she wears colorful caps.
"I feel kinda distinctive," a tree was reputed to whisper one foggy evening.
A little mossy in there.
No issue for Jenni.
Find the gap, reap the reward.
'Every mountain climb begins with a small step'...best way I could express it, my Jen.
A fascinating set of experiences we’ve enjoyed over the years is that of coincidences. It happens so often and is further enhanced when it occurs in strange lands. Actually, none of the land is strange; more likely it’s us. Nevertheless, things happen; yet one could never foresee such occurrences. We have mentioned many over the years but not recently. After having a few difficulties upon arriving in Lisbon and traveling toward the north, we reached Geres and were close to our apartment as directed by the GPS. Unfortunately, the buildings have 2 numbers, one on the outside wall and another close to the door but not displayed for a passing motorist to notice. Of course, we were searching for the inside number on the outside wall. Two women were standing at the doorway. We approached and asked for assistance. Turns out we had arrived, the two women being the cleaners of the apartment. They showed us around which was a first—a guided tour.
We had reserved for 3 weeks and as the owner provides a weekly service, we remained in contact with the women. We decided to extend but as the apartment was reserved, moved next door to the owner’s other unit for a further week. It was the shortest move we’ve ever undertaken. Even the internet worked in both places on either access. We were 'not enjoying' ourselves so we decided to extend again but were only able to obtain 5 days for this occasion. Not only had I the task of finding a place to rent but a far more difficult task undertaken was in convincing Jenni that although Portugal is not a small country, there was a dire need to experience more of Geres.
We looked around for alternate accommodation and finally found something suitable that appeared similar to what we had. We studied the photograph of the unit on the website and noticed something familiar about it. We deduced the apartment was in the same building as our previous two. Our building has two entrances thus we suspected the unit would have a different entry. Turned out that the entrance was also the same. Our fourth booking was for a further eight days—Jen was most liberal with my desire to remain. Obviously, it’s going to cost plenty down the road, but I believe it will be a small price to pay. Hear (read) that, Jen.
The day before our third move but fourth contract, we were returning from a hike and walked past Irene, the senior cleaner. We stopped to chat and she confirmed we would be departing the next day and asked whether we wished to extend. We were most surprised.
‘How is that possible?’ we exclaimed. 'We had asked Rui the week before about a longer stay but he had no vacancies,' we explained. She mentioned that she had access to apartments herself; one was available. A little business on the side. She herded us to the first floor through the second entrance and showed us around. We were exasperated. Why did we not know about it? Who would have thought to ask Irene instead of a landlord? We explained we had re-re-renewed and where. Our new apartment would be directly above the current unit. She smiled and pulled out the phone showing us our details for the next eight days. She and her colleague were also the cleaners for the unit. By the way, her colleague lives in the next-door apartment which we found out a couple of weeks earlier when we required some electrical assistance. We’re not the bright sparks we thought we were.
We arranged to move early in the day from downstairs as the upper-apartment was empty—a great advantage as 4pm is the usual arrival time. Irene allowed us to enter before 11am, another advantage. We have now moved into 3 apartments, each one linked physically (sharing walls and ceilings/floors with the others). Talk about close proximity. We were thinking of undertaking a world tour of say a month stay per location or perhaps, rather a month in each apartment of the building.
Closing with favorite reflections.
Cheers,
Jenni and Jeffrey
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