Some Anecdotes to Share

We had a few interesting experiences that don’t really fit into the day-to-day blog. Like the story of my teeth and Spencer’s little accident.

The story of my teeth: 

My teeth have always been my achilles heal health wise. I have a partial denture and have recurring problems with it. On this trip, Gayle had bought what looked like cookies but were really biscuits to soak in coffee. So they were very hard. Gayle warned me not to eat them, but of course, I didn’t listen. On my second one, I broke my denture. I didn’t know how I would make it through the rest of the trip as it was. Earlier that day, quite fortuitously, Gayle had noticed a dentist at the end of our street. When she mentioned it I had a premonition that it would be an important observation. Sure enough, I now needed them.

So about 5:30 pm I walked down to the dentist office to see what could be done. They had a sign on the door saying that they were only open from 10-12 O’clock. But had a number to call for emergencies. So I took a picture of the sign and went back to the apartment and called. Somehow I mumbled through a Portuguese conversation and managed to explain my predicament and to set an appointment for the next day at 9:30 am. He just happened to be the kind of dentist that did fixtures and had his own lab. He examined my teeth and then said to come back at 11:30 am to pick them up. When I returned, he did a little bit of fitting and then I was on my way, only set back 30 euros. I will have a little time adjusting to the new fit, but it works perfectly and keeps the denture in. What a miracle that we had the right kind of dentist at the end of our street and that he was able to repair it so effortlessly. Truly amazing!

The story of Spencer’s Little Accident:

After the fiasco in Furnas where I had taken our little group for a circular walk to nowhere, we decided to have a little snack. As Spencer was parking the van, he backed up to get closer to the car behind us. He thought the van was equipped with a rear detection system and kept waiting for it to warn him when he was close. Unfortunately, it had been switched off, so the warning came in the sound of a crunch. I let out a little explicative and we jumped out to see the damage. Fortunately there wasn’t a scratch on the van and the car behind us only had a  dangling license plate but no damage to the vehicle itself. What another miracle.

We had a Peugeot van for our stay in the Azores. It was nine passenger and quite serviceable for a large group. Other than poor ventilation in the back seats, it was very comfortable. Since the weather was so mild, we were able to rectify the ventilation with a couple fo cracked windows. It got amazing mileage and the joke because that the gas gauge had not moved at all the whole time we used it. The reality was that it had moved a little and I put 20 euros of diesel in and that was it for the six day we drove it all over the island. The other reality is that Sao Miguel is only 39 miles long and 10 miles wide, so though it took us a while on windy roads, we didn’t really travel very far. 

The apartment we stayed in was another marvel. It was well situated, only a few minutes drive from

the main marina where we spent a lot of time, and we finally figured out how to park for very little money. It had 4 bedrooms, which had two in the first, 2 in the second, 1 in the third and 1 in the fourth. So it was quite comfortable, though definitely not fancy or extravagant. It had a full kitchen though we only used it mostly for breakfast and snacking, except for our feast, and it had a barbecue that we were able to use out on the patio. The living room served us  well though the couches and chairs were a bit uncomfortable, it gave us a place to all meet together. We had a couple of great little family meetings. I had put the family tree up on the wall as well as a small map of Sao Miguel that had the names of our ancestors next to where they were from.