A Day In The Life

Woke up,
Got outta bed,
Dragged a razor across my head.

Apologies to John and Paul.

Despite going to bed quite late last night, Brenda and I woke up fairly early and lazed around in our room until about 10:00, talking about our trip so far and plotting our path through the rest of Portugal.

The public market is always at the top of our places to see in any new city we visit, so, after we groomed and I shined up the dome, that's exactly where we headed. We were a little disappointed with the market as the usual hustle and bustle we've come to expect was sorely lacking. Of course, that may have been because our lazy asses didn't arrive there until after noon and half the stalls were already closed. You snooze, you lose. We did, however manage to buy almost 700 grams of beautiful, perfectly ripe strawberries that we decided would be our lunch's dessert.

We had a delicious lunch at Ki Macrobiotica and then found ourselves a sun drenched bench in a wide open plaza where we sat and devoured our bounty of strawberries.

With our bellies full and happy, we spent the rest of the afternoon simply wandering the narrow cobbled streets of Aveiro, doing a little window shopping and taking in the sights. One of the main shopping drags had a fishing net hung over the street with all sort of macrame denizen of the deep hanging from it. Very Portuguese.

In our travels we had picked up a notice of an a Capella concert at the Museu de Aveiro that was taking place tonight. Despite being a little tired, we decided we should do something a little cultural, and it was free, so we headed off to the museum for the 9:30 concert. As it turns out, the museum is housed in what was once a convent, complete with a church, known as Igreja de Jesus. I've been to Notre Dame in Paris, Westminster in London and even St-Paul's at the Vatican and none of them are anywhere near as ornate as this little chapel. OK, it was a little over the top for my taste, but I had to admire the workmanship.

Now for the concert. Normally when I think a Capella, the Nylons, Manhattan Transfer and Girl From New York City come to mind. Oooh ah, oooh ah, come on kitty, talkin' 'bout the girl from New York City. Tonight, however, was a whole other ball game with a set list consisting of religious hymn's greatest hits. I gotta admit, while reading the program as we were sitting there waiting for the singing to start, I was fearful I'd be asking Brenda to leave after a couple of numbers. But as soon as I heard the lush harmonies and beautiful voices emanating from these eight singers, I was in for the long haul. In the end, when the sixty minute concert was over, I was hoping there would be an encore. Alas, the singers came out for a curtain call, but no more notes were sounded.

We walked back to our room from the church and turned in for the night.

And that's pretty much a day in my life these days.

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