A view of an hotel restaurant.

Very, VERY, full week! A few days were holidays in the country, both national and local, meaning no work for movieStar, no kindergarten for tinyMovieStar. We moved around a bit.

  • 🍜 Start of this new chapter/week with a visit to a ramen place (Portuguese review) that was on our bucket list for a while. A curious place: a Nepalese chef, with many years spent working in Japan, decided to open a ramen spot in the city. He didn’t change the decor of the place that much, so it looks like a typical Portuguese tasca, with yummy noodles on the menu. People rave about this place, ever since it opened, so it was time for us to go. We did not come away disappointed.

  • πŸ₯ We then left the city earlier than usual. I was not feeling well, so I went to the pharmacy as soon as we made it to my in-laws. I needed to get my illness under control. The pharmacist thought I might have high blood pressure, from quitting smoking. We measured it, and it was quite high, but dropped after a couple of minutes. It was fine the next days, so no idea what caused the peak.

  • πŸ’₯ June is the first month of Village Parties, a tradition in the country. Most villages have their party in August, when the emigrants are back for the summer, but the one where the in-laws live had theirs this past weekend. That means fireworks at all times, night (3AM) included. It’s stupid. Animals go crazy, kids won’t sleep, it’s wild.

  • 🐟 Santos. Lisbon has it’s holiday in June as well. It’s a mess of sardines, beer, crazy dancing, and crowds. I go once every ten years. More than enough, as far as I’m concerned. People go crazy with this, I just don’t get it. It’s a mess, food is wildly overpriced (and mostly quite bad), beer costs the same as in Denmark for a couple of days! It’s just silly. movieStar insisted, the little one had to see it. We got together with my brother-in-law and wife, and went. Hopefully a decade will go by until I have to go again.

  • πŸŠβ€β™€οΈ Trip to Γ‰vora. tinyMovieStar loves pools, but it was still cold outside. We needed an indoor pool. movieStar loves hotels. We needed an hotel with an indoor pool. We ended up in Γ‰vora, a couple of hours outside the city. It was a really nice day. The road is beautiful, and the hotel is brilliant. They have an assortment of pools that will make everyone happy, nice food, and the most wonderful staff. Also an amazing hotel for kids, with dedicated areas for them, and everyone always looking out for them. Not a kid’s hotel, but one that has spent a lot of time thinking about them. tinyMovieStar got a tent in the room, special bath kit, robe, and her own tiny plush bear. She was thrilled. We as well. Bonus: the hotel’s manager is my wedding godfather, he used to be the GM at one of the island’s hotels!

  • πŸ¦„ Speaking of godfathers, tinyMovieStar’s Godmother came over for a visit. She’s in town for a couple of days, over from London and, as usual, she came prepared. This time around she carried a huge dress over, just so she could wear it when picking up the little one from kindergarten. It was awesome. The huge pink thing turned heads all the way to school, a few in there, and on the walk back to our place, with a stop at the ice cream spot.

  • 🧸 Thursday night was also Pajama Party Day at the Library. Libraries have a ton of activities for kids, and today we experienced another one. Mask making, dancing, movies, and dinner. It was packed. It was, again, free. The little one woke up excited about the party, talked about nothing else all day, and had a great time in the evening.

  • πŸ“Ί D.P. finished. Now I’d like to find some other Korean thing to watch. In the meantime, still trying (and failing) to finish Unstable. I’ll probably drop it. Started watching The Righteous Gemstones. Smartless On The Road was added to the list, as I love the podcast.

  • πŸ’» Testing tinylytics.app, the new service from Vincent. Simple analytics, just getting started. If you’d like to have analytics on your blog/website, and don’t mind help testing it while in Beta, feel free to sign up. It’s looking good already, as everything Vincent does.