Jonathan, Emily, and Daniel (and one more) to Portugal and Italy: Day 7 Sunday, Lisbon

Daniel is working on a poop tonight just before we put him to bed. It's been 2 days. We keep offering him things like “do you want to sit on the potty?” or “do you want to read a book while you poop?” and he keeps saying “no, no, no...” and sometimes he says “owie”. Then he got smart and combined them and said “nowie nowie nowie....” But the poop came out and I think he'll feel a lot better in the morning.

We took the train to Lisbon today. It was really cheap (2.65 euros), really fast (40 mins), it was direct, and it took us to the center of all the action in Lisbon. On the way we met a nice German man who we talked to for most of the train trip. We did a lot of walking around Lisbon. We walked to a big plaza against the river and for lunch had cheese stuffed mushrooms, banana and bacon pizza, and gelato for dessert. You're asking why we had Italian food in Portugal... well, Emily was tired and over-hot, so we picked something nearby. It was good and one of the waitresses fell in love with Daniel and they bonded. Then we walked up to the top of a big hill in the center of Lisbon and walked around a huge castle. Its floors and ceilings are gone, but they've developed it with gift shops, cobblestone sidewalks, bathrooms etc. So it's ruined, but not rustic. The castle is really fun because you can walk all along the tops of the walls and go up the towers. We've learned that Daniel does not have a fear of heights. The views of Lisbon were really great.

We walked down, hung out in a plaza for a little bit letting Daniel run around with his bee. He attracted quite a crowd of admiring children, and he enjoyed leading them around and having them copy what he did. We had food, finally some bacalhau com natas (cod with cream). It was pretty good.

We took the train back to Sintra, and now we're going to bed. On the train Daniel was so tired, but really happy and silly. He was meeting all of the people on the train. He can say “Olá!” and “ciao!”. Then he always lifts up his foot, points to it, and says “shoes!” (sounds like “choose!”). One guy gave him a big piece of cake. Another guy tried speaking to us in Dutch.