Everyone slept well at Elsa’s apartment. It may be my imagination, but it sure seemed like everyone breathed a sigh of relief to be someplace familiar, and this extended to everyone getting a good night’s rest. Eilidh woke up happy and was content to snuggle in our bed for a bit this morning, while the big kids also happily started their days.
Ever true to himself, Brian honored “vacation mode” eating by obtaining some Pastéis de Nata for our consumption this morning. Everyone was excited to see Eilidh going to town on the more-dessert-than-breakfast custard tart. The kids happily sprawled on the floor of the apartment playing with the toys Elsa provided and, due to the absence of the downstairs neighbor who slid “be quiet” notes under the door for each new guest, Brian and I didn’t need to worry about the noise created by their towers of blocks crashing down.
At 10:00 we set off on foot for the morning’s activity. As this is our 3rd trip to Lisbon, we have seen many of the most sought-after tourist sites. While digging deeper, Brian was able to book an Airbnb experience that I thought all 3 kids would really enjoy. It was a 3-hour-long mosaic class which would allow each of us to make two mosaic sardines, and take them home as souvenirs!
Eileen is a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, native who initially came to Lisbon for a 9-month work contract. That was over 25 years ago. Eileen now creates art and teaches art classes in a small Lisbon studio, which was a 20-minute walk from where we were staying.
Eileen welcomed us warmly, and we were quickly able to get our creative juices flowing. Initially resistant to the idea of participating, Eilidh was intrigued by being allowed to pick out her material and tiles and she suddenly was very excited about her project! She needed a bit of help cutting a few pieces to fit onto her wooden sardine pattern, but she enjoyed laying out her tiles.
Each participant was given safety glasses, two sardine bases, a bowl for tile pieces, and a tile cutter.
Emmie was drawn to using pretty pinks, purples, oranges, and pale blue colors for her sardine, while Noah’s attention to detail was admirable as he attended to his red tile and mirrored fish. The kids laughed when they realized Brian had predictably constructed fish with Oakland A’s colors. My creation was colorful and striped. Eilidh warmed slightly to Eileen’s assistance with the introduction of the glue and seemed to have a great time transferring her pieces to their final resting place on another fish cutout.
Noah loved using the hammer to break up larger tiles for his sardine.
Once our first group of sardines was completed and warming on Eileen’s grill, we all enjoyed some tea and more Pastéis de Natas on the front steps of the shop before it was back to work on our second round. Noah stuck to his red-and-mirrored theme for his second sardine, and Emmie likewise stuck to picking more beautifully complimenting colors for hers. Eilidh and Brian went bright and colorful on their second rounds, while I settled on a blue theme. We then scraped our dried sardines of extra glue. Emmie was placed in charge of the grout mixing, a decision that Eileen may have regretted slightly after Emmie sloshed a bunch of black grout onto her chair and the floor.
Noah’s finished putting the black grout on his first fish.
After a brief cleanup, we grouted our fish. Eilidh had started to lose attention at this point but was able to run around in the courtyard in front of the shop while we finished up. The big kids took turned running around with Eilidh, and Eileen assisted whoever needed assistance at any given time. Eileen kindly let us pick out a Portuguese greeting card from a line that she and her husband have created, we packed up our sardines, and we were on our way.
Once Emmie was done with her sardines, she decorated her box for the sardine.
Our collection of mosaic sardines.
It was raining lightly by this time so we ordered an Uber for the 15 minutes ride to Time Out Market. We had hoped that by 1:30/2:00 that the market would not be as packed at it is during regular lunchtime on Saturday, but we were mistaken. After a stressful wait with three kids as Brian went to put food orders in, I was finally able to snag 4 chairs in the family-style eating area as another family left. The big kids enjoyed pizza, Brian and Eilidh split a dish of scalloped salted cod, and I had fish and chips. Eilidh also managed to eat two pieces of pizza, one of my fish pieces, and a scoop of Santini’s chocolate ice cream.
We returned to Uber for a ride to Belém Tower. Brian was carrying a sleeping Eilidh on his back in the Tula and the wonderful family-friendly Portuguese culture once again came in handy as a worker swooped in, pulled us out of the rain and the long entrance line in order to deposit us right at the ticket desk. After wandering around the tower and taking in the views we left for a stop at the most famous spot for Pastéis de Nata in Belém.
Noah, 2019.
Noah, 2018.
Noah, 2017.
After another Uber ride home, I stayed with Noah and Eilidh while Brian and Emmie went out on the town. He wrote about their evening together.
Emmie had originally planned to go out with Noah and me on Friday night, but as the evening unfolded, she was showing all of the signs of needing a good night of sleep. So, I promised I’d make sure Saturday night would be set aside for her date night, and we’d go back to a mall we had visited together two years ago. But, first, we needed to find something for dinner. Pasta sounded good to Emmie, so after looking together at ratings and photos on Google maps, we landed on La Tagliatella, which was just a few blocks from the mall.
The mall was completely decked out in Christmas decorations.
It was a fun restaurant for dinner, as we were surrounded by locals dining out instead of tourists. It felt like a Portuguese Olive Garden, albeit with food I presume is far superior. I was especially impressed with my truffle pasta, and Emmie was happy with her plain pasta covered with olive oil and parmesan cheese.
My truffle pasta.
We followed dinner with a stop at Starbucks and some shopping at the mall. Emmie was set on getting Amanda a gift. Amanda suggested to me she liked the pajamas at H&M, and Emmie’s favorite from the store’s varied selection was a pair of Disney-themed pajamas. She was happy to have those purchased before we did any other shopping.
Emmie with Amanda’s new pajamas.
Emmie picked out a new elephant necklace at a mall kiosk, but not before she tried on two other necklaces to determine which she liked best.
We spent the bulk of our time at the Continente hypermarket, where the only items on our list had been more pull-ups and a new water cup for Eilidh, as we’d left her Peppa Pig cup at the Time Out Market earlier in the afternoon. Our big purchase was a new suitcase, which we did as a way to avoid checking a third bag and paying an outrageous last-minute checked baggage fee on our flight to Chicago. We also picked up new coloring stuff for Emmie and a few more unique-to-Europe candy bars since we had newfound space from the new suitcase.
Emmie tried to convince me to buy the giant stuffed unicorn. We didn’t.
Many displays in the store were filled with intriguing holiday candy assortments.
Emmie was a big help taking the new suitcase and our shopping bags on the return Metro ride, which included a line transfer along the way. We made the final climb up the steep hills to our place for an arrival a shade after 11:00.
Emmie couldn’t wait to try out her new colors… she was coloring on the subway.
