finally, some new stuff! here’s a bit of tavira (our new hometown), to kickstart this series. :)
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Category: in portugal
moving right along to june!
june had a brilliant start, celebrating postcrossing’s 30,000,000 postcards, having friends over, a new macbook (finally!) and a weekend trip to sevilla… but then p’s mom caught pneumonia all of a sudden and we travelled north to give a hand in her recovery for some weeks. she’s better now, but all these comings and goings in the first half of the year have left us somewhat restless and eager to find a quiet balance. the search goes on.
so… yeah… where were we? back in may, was it? here it is:
in may, everything was new. we worked on the house, opened a p.o. box, explored our surroundings a little, saw the the slovenian stamp come to life, did another trip north for the race… and then things started to go a bit south with all the postponed work. *sigh* still trying to catch up on that.
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running in douro vinhateiro
a couple of weekends ago, we drove all the way north to run in douro vinhateiro’s annual race. we’d been talking about it for over a year now, the seductive idea of running along the douro river and feasting our eyes on hills upon hills of luscious vineyards in one of the prettiest unesco heritage sites of the country…
so we booked the trip, laced our running shoes and headed off to régua, converging on top of the bagaúste dam with thousands of other early risers. while my brother and i did the 6km race at a leisurely pace, taking the time to stop along the way to take photos and enjoy the views and blue skies, p. sweated his ass off on the half-marathon with the pros.
as an extra motivation, and being on portugal’s most famous wine region, wine tastings were taking place during (!) and after the race, and many people stopped to enjoy the free drinks! :D
i’m not a big fan of wine, but luckily one of the race sponsors was fruut, makers of all-fruit dehydrated snacks. they even had my favourite flavour! :)
in the end, p. crossed the finish line up after 1h31m, exhausted from the effort and especially from the unforgiving heat… but proudly wearing the neatest medal yet!
sadly, no medals for us… but we got something nice too, that brought back some sweet memories. i’ll tell you about it on another post! :)
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postlude
and just like that, with a flick of a switch, we turned a page on this electricity drama and moved in.
it’s hard to feel excited after months of anxiously waiting and battling… i think we’re mostly relieved to reach the end of the tunnel and enjoying the stillness. it took a while for it to sink in, but now this land of sunshine and blue skies is starting to feel like our new home and the exploring can finally begin. i’m looking forward to that.
we’re not bitter though — if anything, this situation has left us determined: we won’t be them. we won’t be the incompetent lot, refusing to apologize or to assume our own faults, hiding behind excuses. we won’t be the postponers, stuck waiting for things to magically happen somehow. in our lives and in our own terms, we shall be hustlers, doers, finishers.
i guess that’s the lesson we took home. oh! and always check that your landlord has aaaaaaaaaall the papers he needs to rent a house. *sigh*