Subject: Bom Dia... de Portugal
Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2001 16:23:41 -0700

Hello, Everyone!

We made it. Whew. Unfortunately, nothing interesting to report yet.
Still, let me answer most of the questions we´ve received...

Austin and I have spent the last 3 days scrubbing every inch of the
apartment. That´s an improvement. Drex has been spending the money he
saved for Portugal: new roller blades and a hula hoop. Jordan has been
working very little at the jobsite, in order to help us settle in. Next
week, he´s back to work fulltime -- so we´ll soon discover our new routines.

The flight was blessedly uneventful. The Beloved Cat never made a sound nor
a mess. A camera crew from Portuguese national television met us at the
airport to film Jordan´s "return to Portugal," in connection with the
MadeiraExiles website. Really, this is not a sick joke. A TV crew met us
at the airport. Up front and personal.

This TV station is doing a documentary about Jordan´s religious exile
ancestors and our "return" was "just the action" they needed to wrap things
up. However, in our exhausted state I do not think we provided much action.
The cameraman and journalist also crowded into our car for the 45 minute
drive to Braga to continue interviewing us. (You´d have to see the car to
understand why this is so very funny.) At one point, I opened my eyes to
find the cameraman filming me while I held a sleeping Drex. Yawn.

BUT the cameraman did help Jordan push our car around the airport parking
lot to get it started. And then he again helped Jordan push it out of a
tollbooth halfway to Braga. (We think we got that little problem fixed
today. Jordan may be able to just push a car around a bit to start it...
but me?) The car is a zippy little red go-cart and I hope it keeps running
while we are here. The last Habitat construction manager abandoned it here
last March when he went to Korea.

So, hmmm, what else? We arrived at the apartment mid-afternoon on
Wednesday, bought a few groceries for dinner, unpacked a bit, and then slept
until 3pm Thursday. Guess we were tired. (Flying this direction, you lose
a night´s sleep. Somehow we got up Tuesday morning in Seattle and went to
bed Wednesday night in Braga.) I think we´re mostly adjusted by now: it´s
just past midnight, Sunday morning, and I´m ready to head home. (Austin and
I walked over to the Habitat office to use the internet connection.)

Tomorrow we will finally get out of the (clean) apartment, go to church,
wander around and enjoy the city.

Sorry to be so dull. We love and miss you all. Please keep us in your
prayers as we start the first real week of our new life.

(FYI, in creating this email list from memory I will have forgotten someone
and-or their email will bounce back, so please forward as appropriate.)

Much love to all,
debk e familia