My Grandparent's Visit

When my mother was a kid, she, along with my grandparents and my two uncles, lived in Portugal. My grandparents returned recently for 10 days—the 10 days I’ve most looked forward to during the whole first half of our stay.

They arrived on a Saturday that we spent wandering around downtown. We eventually made our way up to the Castelo, for the view. My mom used to go there with my grandparents when she was little. I told my grandpa the Martim Moniz story. Kati, Isaac, my mom, and my grandpa went up on the castle wall, but my grandma stayed down in the courtyard, listening to the guy playing Portuguese guitar. I stayed down too, because I’m not so sure I like how high it is up there. Isaac fell twice in the mud and once on the castle wall (but don’t worry, he didn’t fall off the wall).



On the first Sunday, we went to one of the churches that they used to go to. Everybody was very excited to see them again (for some reason everyone’s voice kept getting higher and louder as they talked). We went to another church on the next Sunday. At the end of the service, my grandpa talked a little bit. He said that he remembered everyone when they were younger, like the preacher was 11 when they first came. And then he said that a man with gray hair used to have black hair, and my grandma said to my grandpa, “You used to HAVE hair!”

I took them back to one of my favorite places, the Museu da Marioneta, a couple days later. My grandma did puppetry when she lived in Lisboa, and my grandpa, who is a woodcarver, has also designed tree houses, gigantic sling shots, and puppet theaters. A school group was there, crowded around the creepy creatures from Malasia, so we started at the back so as to avoid them. My grandma said that it was a wonderful museum. She was amazed at the buffalo skin shadow puppets.

That same afternoon, I went on an outing with my grandma. We went to the doll hospital where my grandma used to buy miniatures for my mom and we ate pastries at the Confeitaria Nacional (which used to make pastries for the monarchy), displaying every sugary, eggy, edible thing you can imagine. My choices: um coelhinho (a little bunny) and thick hot cocoa. We were supposed to be back by 6:00, and my watch said 2:30. But it was getting dark already, so we asked someone what time it was. He said, “São cinco e meia (it’s five thirty)!” We both gasped at the same time, and I thought my mom might eat us alive if we weren’t back to eat her dinner.

On our outings, my grandpa (who is a woodcarver) kept getting distracted. He likes to talk to every guy who looks interesting—street sweepers, grounds keepers, poets who write about trees (really, he ran into one while he was trimming branches. She came up to him and started the conversation, “I like clover.”) He ALWAYS talked to any guy cutting branches, even if he didn’t look interesting. Ike thought my grandpa was really interesting. He sat next to him on the metro, on walls, on castles....




We visited ancient castles and monasteries, the modern expo, the thieves' market, and lots of cafés...



We also went to the beach. It was too cold to swim or wade, so we just walked along the shore. My grandma told me that she used to take my mom there almost every day. I discovered that sand that has just been covered by a wave makes interesting footprints, but, unfortunately, I wasn’t quick enough getting away when the next wave came and I got soaked.



Speaking of soaking, I couldn’t seem to soak in enough time with my grandparents. You know, even if they were here for 9 months, 29 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds out of the 10 months we are staying here, it wouldn’t be any closer to being enough than the 10 days they stayed here. But, I think we all had fun.