Demolition Duo...

Tomorrow my wife and I are going on a triple date with the demolition duo and their dates. #66 is married, and #76 is going on a date with some girl from up here. I was talking to the crow the other day and we were discussing how funny it is that #76 is 34, unmarried, making loads of money, and living a bachelor lifestyle. He bought himself a BMW, goes on trips, and dates a lot. Even though part of my would love to have the freedom that he enjoys, another part of me knows that it would be lonely. I remember when I returned to Portugal in 1998 for Expo 98. I couldn't get any of my friends to go with me, so went alone. Although it was nice to see the country again, it was an extremely lonely time. I was there for nearly 3 weeks and hardly talked to anyone that entire time. Most of the people I was close to on my mission, had moved to the USA. I did visit some of the people I baptized in Setubal in the Camarinha, but it was somewhat depressing. The one 16-year-old daughter was living with her boyfriend, the 18-year-old daughter was not really with the family anymore, the mother had recently had a baby out-of -wedlock and didn't feel comfortable going to church anymore, and the twin boys were still just as rambunctious as ever and didn't go to church either. I tried to visit another woman that I knew. She woudl do our laundry for us every week, feed us hot chocolate with honey mixed in, and always make us laugh. Her name was Irma Aurora and she was from Beja. Unfortunately, she seemed senile when I went to visit her (she was probably in her 80s), and when she didn't recognize me, I apologized for bothering her and left. One of the scary things that happened was when a gypsy approached me in Lisbon trying to sell me Rolex replicas. He kept assuming I had money and I told him I didn't. I almost pulled out my wallet to show thim I only had a debit card, but I think he would have stolen it if I had...I had a huge backpack on and could never have gotten the card back. Portugal had changed when I retuned. Everyone had a cellphone and there were twice as many cars in the narrow cobblestone streets. If you thinik parking around here is bad, move to Lisbon. Many neighborhoods had been torn down and replaced with more modern apartments. I got to visit the town of Evora and thought it was amazing. I will have to blog about the Chapel of bones sometime... I even took a jaunt over to Sevilla Spain one afternoon and thought that city was amazing. I was surprised that Spain was so much differnt than Portugal. Especially the cathedrals and churches. The churches in Portugal are short and squatty, whereas the ones in spain had tall, narrow spires that were beautiful. Expo 98 was lame...kind of like a carnival with lots of displays on various countries and their culture. Not sure how I got from talking about the twins to discussing my trip to Portugal, but maybe I will blog more about it later. I am looking forward to our date this weekend. It should be fun, and a way to create more good memories.