Really, that's just the only word to describe today. Barf. We were woken up at 1:30 a.m. to the sound of Ava throwing up. Actually, it was me that heard it, that weird capability of a mother to hear and distinguish noises while deep sleeping. She was around the corner and down the hall, but yet I woke up with a jolt when I heard her throwing up and then I threw my arm around and smacked John awake with a loud, "it's Ava!!" The pasta carbonara was more than just rich, apparently it was laced with Ebola. Ok, maybe not Ebola, but some crazy strong virus. She had felt sick to her stomach but fell asleep and had been fully sleeping, bolted up and then leaned over the bed and threw up all over the place. It was a granite floor, so it bounced all over the place, including her open suitcase laying on the floor.
So in the middle of the night John and I got wide awake real quick and cleaned up the mess which took a long time because we were super paranoid that this was the start of a Costa Rica circa 2017 when the entire family went down domino style and two kids ended up in the hospital they were so bad off. So we sprayed everything, cleaned up everything, got Ava back to bed, and then we went back to quasi-sleep. I say quasi because Romeo came in three times, Ava called out a few times, and it was a night filled with broken bits of sleep. For everyone really. Lucia slept on the couch because she didn't want to be near Ava, Romeo wanted to sleep with us but the bed was small so we just kept redirecting him back to his bed, and Ava was back and forth to the bathroom 30 times and got no sleep.
Our goal for departure had been 9 a.m., but we woke up at 8:30 a.m. and barely got out of the apartment by 11:00 a.m. Ava couldn't get out of bed, and Gia started in on "I don't feel well" at about 9:00 a.m. Now, it's well known that Gia's tolerance for any kind of discomfort or pain is shockingly low. She was literally moaning and crying. (real tears) by 9:30 a.m. and she would tell us every 5 minutes she didn't feel well. I love her to death but she is, hands down, the worst sick person to be around in the world. The idea of quietly working thru her pain simply isn't an option for her. She thinks she is going to die every time she has any illness whatsoever. I'll fast forward and just tell you that despite all the moaning, crying and complaining, she actually never threw up and she seemed perfectly fine later in the afternoon. I think she was sick at the thought of being sick.
We got everything packed up and in the car, but not until I had to go with John to the parking garage and direct him out of the space we were parked in. We were so wedged in that it was a real close call whether we could get out. It took 4,000 micro turns to maneuver out. Our car is fairly large, and everything in Europe is fairly small. Eventually we were off, and we drove the pretty boring 5 hours to Cascais Portugal (with scenery that wasn't anything to talk about), arriving in one piece by 4:00 p.m. Long day sums it up, and it was only 4 p.m.
Our place here is great though, modern, spacious apartment right in the middle of all the action. There was parking across from the apartment and a grocery store across as well so we had everything we needed in the immediate sense. We bought groceries, fed the kids the simple foods they all wanted to eat, and then they all showered and were in jammies by 8:30 p.m. We only realized late in the evening that there was actually a time change and it was one hour earlier so it was really 9:30 by our old clocks.
John and I walked around a bit, and got a quick lay of the land. Cascais is darling. A small little town right on the ocean, a quaint "tourist fishing" type village. There seem to be a lot of expatriates from Britain, there were British style restaurants, and Irish style bars (and we heard more Brits than normal speaking in the streets.). It's darling. Prices for restaurants are more expensive than most of Portugal I'm guessing, it's definitely a vacation destination, but the groceries seemed less expensive than Spain so we have a feeling that when you aren't in a city like Cascais restaurants are less expensive too. I'm sure this place is an absolute madhouse in the summer when it's warmer. It's mid-70's and overcast right now which feels good for a change.
Hoping that tomorrow everyone feels tip top and we can enjoy this city!
Signed, ME {lv}
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