This current government shutdown has probably left a lot of folks trapped in homes all across the nation, timidly drawing back one tiny corner of the drapes as they fearfully await the riots and chaos (that will in no doubt ensue). With no PBS to watch or National Parks beckoning, many will be lost as to how to productively spend their days. **
I will fight the urge to say, "I told you so".
I told everyone not to let their blogs die.
I cried out against Face-lessbook's "declaration of nothing" status style: "Worst day ever", "My kid did it again!" "Well THAT was disappointing" (which leaves most of us wondering what the heck the poster is even going on about) and Tweeter's fly-in-and-out conversation style: "Wolf at the door", "Some cookie guy just ran by", "doing the congo behind some dude playing a flute #inatrance #wherearewegoinganyway? "
You lot are lucky I stuck around and didn't succumb to the blog-killing, story-teller silencing social networks. Stories and/or photos = Tax-FREE entertainment.
You're welcome.
What's not free is gasoline. Although our island is very small, we somehow manage to go through quite a bit on our little weekend jaunts, and since starting and stopping eats more gas, I take a lot of photos on the run (I am not above sticking my slightly expensive and very heavy camera out the window and shooting blindly).
Today, I present for your government shutdown entertainment,
free of charge,
Terceira Island, drive-by style:
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| The well-trained husband took the roundabout nice and slow for this one. One must say "Moooo!" when passing a vaca. |
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| These ladies were awesome for being so conveniently placed! |
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| Coming up on a Holy Ghost house. Must photograph every one- doesn't matter if the photo isn't any good. |
"Festa da Nossa Senhora dos Milagres" is held in September. People walk miles along the coastal road towards the village of Serreta to participate in the festivities centering around ‘Our Lady of the Miracles’.
We were lucky that one of our friendly commisario workers had told us it would be on, so we didn't have to wonder why there was a mass exodus occurring (especially since everyone was walking back toward the way we had just come).
There's a little too much "zombie viewing" in our house, so it doesn't take too much to get our minds rolling in an unnatural direction.
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| Ooooooh, ahhhhhhh |
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| cobbled street of Angra |
Truth is, the theory of any safe place went to pot with World War Z.
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| As many times as I pass this church, I will never again get a drive-by where the sun is perfectly placed |
A few years back when Portugal made the horrible decision to join the EU and change it's currency to euros, a lot of money was dumped into the island for "improvements". Some of those improvements were to pave a lot of these beautiful, hand-laid roads.
Why am I never consulted about these kinds of changes?
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| Cobbled roads of a village |
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| More churches and ugly paved roads |
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| Traffic jam (now you say it, "Mooooo") |
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| Yes, the camera is out the window, facing behind us. I don't care. It's Terceira's tallest church |
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| Another camera-out- the-window-behind-us shot of Sao Mateus |
wait, where are you going?
I was just getting ready to tell you about the bullfights!
Até outro dia.
**before anyone whips out their poison pen to berate me for being flippant about something that is SERIOUSLY affecting a lot of good people, please keep in mind that we are military. Also know that even though the POTS so proudly stated that we will get our paychecks this month, there are other ways we feel the cuts, the shutdowns, the whole craptasticness of it all- and have been for a very long time. October 1st didn't mark anything new.
