Back dating - number tres - does anyone know what time it is?
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We woke up at 8:30am according to the oven clock we had set the night before - we'd set it using the time on our iPods that had automatically updated last in Baltimore. We added 4 hours and set the time. 8:30am seemed pretty triumphant. We got this, we thought. We can do this time change thing! 8:30am was the supposed "local" time, but there was NO telling what time our body clocks were telling us. Something early. You should be asleep, kind of early. I don't remember that first day all that much. I remember walking all the boardwalk by the water. I remember thinking the trees were weird, that the ocean was a little more violent than Id grown accustomed to in Florida. I remember thinking that lava rock has NO mercy when fallen upon.
We walked around the corner to the Kitsteiner's house to borrow something. I have no idea what. We noticed we were feeling a little hungry so we asked what time it was - he said almost 2pm. We both laughed and then looked at each other, very confused. He then filled us in that any clock connected to a power source other than batteries here would not hold time. Turns out, these couple weeks of watching that oven clock - it loses an hour of time about every 20 minutes or so. Sometimes more sometimes less, depending on how consistent the power supply is to our house.
The boys laid down for naps after a quick lunch. Everything felt more thrown off than it did before. We now knew the time - or at least a generalized time. We had stayed and talked for a few minutes after asking the time, then walked home, THEN set our iPods. The minutes were still off. We were late everywhere for several days.
I had been under the impression that Josh didn't have to report until his "report date" that Wed the 31st. That was the adjusted report date. The one that so gracious and wonderfully allowed this whole process to happen to us as a family, instead of to me as a single, pregnant mother. I can NOT imagine having done that without him. That process was utterly insane, hurried, exhausting and very difficult!
We ate dinner at Buzius (boo gee o's) that night. That place that is quite literally directly out our back gate. Best.calamari.ever! I was naturally worried about avoiding something that would send me into a 3 or 4 day "glutened" recovery. I handed my Celiac Association card to the lady and she knew exactly what it was all about. Complete relief. And no sickness!
I found out late that Sunday night that he would be going to work with John in the morning. A bit of panic set in as I scrambled words together in my "its not even nap time to me" state of mind. He left for work and didn't come back until 6:30pm. It was a messy day. Carla was there for me. Carla the lifesaver friend of Wendi that knew just how to keep me from feeling desperate. We spent some time at Kitsteiner's pool. I think that was Monday. I had no way to get ahold of Josh. No phone. No internet. No car and no sense of direction even if I DID have a car. The day took forever and I was in a heap of tears when we walked through the door much later than expected that night.
I cried that night about how the curtains that I'd purchased and had shipped ahead of time from Amazon wouldnt fit over the giant knobs on the curtain rods. Josh helped me pry a knob off and we strung all the curtains on. It wasn't worth crying about, but I felt like I wasn't at all in control of my faucet, like an emotional child who doesn't know the correct way to process difficult information. Crying just takes precedence. I cried when I turned on the shower, because the shower head holder was busted and the shower head just sank downward. And it was all too loud when turned on. The water hit the bottom of the tub like a ton of bricks. And our ceilings ARE the boys floorboards. There is NOTHING in between. They had just FINALLY fallen asleep. At between 11pm and 12am - whatever time it was locally. 5 or 6 their body time. The boards we see down here are the boards they are walking on up there.
Tuesday Carla came over (I THINK it was Tuesday...) and we all loaded up and took Josh to work - all in one van - her and her two boys with us. She had me drive around base to get oriented. It was tiny and weird and I was tired of seeing the ocean every time I turned around. Tired of seeing the ocean - a weary mind that had fought to sleep despite to constant sound of volatile waves pounding the jagged black rock along the shoreline.
She took me to the commissary to load up on groceries while my boys played with hers at the park down the street. A short list is what I showed her. A cart that I could barely push is what she walked in and saw when she returned with the boys. For every 3 isles at the Eglin commissary, there is ONE isle at this commissary. More room in the cooler section for carbonated beverages than for meat, more things frozen than I was used to seeing anywhere (like hotdogs and ALL loaves of bread) and the teeniest deli counter known to man. We wanted different - we wanted change, expansion of minds, flexibility forcing circumstances. Being flexible at somewhere around lunchtime while your body is telling you its still time to be asleep is a challenge, indeed. I manhandled my HUGE cart around the corner into a check-out line and had a moment of sheer panic when I realized the baggers standing there. Were they portuguese?! Did they work for tips here like they did at home?! I DON'T HAVE EUROS! Will they take 'merican money?! John, like a beacon of saving light, came around the corner and waylaid my fears.
My bagger was American. She laughed at my panic when I told her of it and thanked me for my American money tip. I cried on Tuesday night as well, but I don't remember what about.
Wednesday night I didn't cry. I do remember that.
Friday evening John took us to the big milk processing place up on the top of the mountain. The drive was stunning and healing for my stingy, weary eyes and hurting heart. It may be small, but its a mountain. We ate, talked, had the most incredible ice cream we've experienced, shopped and headed home.
Saturday we went to Praia Fest, in Praia da Vitoria. It wasn't what we expected. We wandered, ate some dinner at a restaurant that was way more expensive than we had anticipated and came home at 9:30pm. People from all over the islands and mainland Portugal come for this festival. I'm still not sure why. It seems to be a sort of Mardi Gras. All week long, from one weekend through the next. Lots of drinking, concerts and staying up until 6 in the morning, just to crash and do it all over again that night. We were not their target audience. So we didn't see reason to go back.
It had been a week. A week since we'd landed. I cried about it being a week. I didn't want anymore than a week.