We went on a trip

Last month we went on a trip.

We went to Italy (surprise!), Portugal, and France.

Now, I've had a lot of neighbors ask me things like, "Where did you go again?"

I tell them about Italy and France. They nod their heads. Then I mention Portugal.

That's when they look confused.

Portugal?

I get it, Portugal isn't a country that's on everyone's must visit bucket list. But it should be. Because Marco and I want to go back to Portugal and stay. Or at least visit for several weeks.

We looooved Portugal. We loved Lisbon and we loved LOVED Sintra.

When your kids take your photos you get what you get and you don't throw a fit.

One of the things I loved about Portugal were all the tiles. You guys, I now want to tile my whole house. At least, I did. Then I thought about how long it would take to grout an entire house full of tile and I changed my mind.

But seriously, look at these tiles!

All these tiles were from the Pena Palace, in Sintra.

K, google Pena Palace right now. You're welcome.

When I'd researched Portugal, I kept coming across people talking about Piri Piri chicken. People kept talking about it but I didn't understand the hype.

Guys, I understand the hype now. Portuguese Piri Piri chicken is amazing. As in, I think it's my new love language.

So, one of the things Marco and I learned really fast was that finding a kid-friendly European restaurant is hard. Between the three-year-old who was tired from walking all day to the 12-year-old who takes a long time deciding what she wants to eat, to the baby who just wants to sleep, take-out is the way to go!

So one night, after coming back from a long day sight-seeing, I told Marco I wanted to be the one to get dinner (the three-year-old can kind of be a monster sometimes). He sent me down the block to a restaurant with amazing ratings.

With my two oldest, we set out.

Only to find that this particular place had a great menu all in Portuguese.

Note: I don't speak Portuguese. I mean, I'd picked up "obrigada" (thank you) pretty fast, but that's about it.

So I looked that menu over and blindly picked three things. I hoped they were good.

They were amazing.

Piri Piri Chicken in Lisbon

K, let's look at more tiles.

The thing about Portugal tiles is they're everywhere! On stores, in metros, randomly on dilapidated houses. They're gorgeous!

This was the bathroom in the airbnb we stayed in:

Now THAT's tile!

 Okay, so the bathroom was a little much. Especially in such a small space. But still, the ambiance!

 Even the manhole covers in Lisbon were pretty:

And the people were even friendlier than I'd read about. Honestly, I thought the online travelers had been exaggerating Portuguese hospitality. But they weren't.

While not all Portuguese speak English, they all seem to know one word: family. Everywhere we went we'd hear, "hey, family!" "Hey, family! Do you want a ride?" "Hey, family! Want to come into our restaurant?" Family! Want to buy an umbrella?" It was so funny. 

So here's the thing: originally we hadn't planned on Portugal at all. We'd actually wanted to go to Spain. But, after continually reading about all the Catalonia drama going on (a section of Spain wants to secede and the Spanish government has issues with that), we decided hauling our five kids to a potential political hot spot wasn't such a good idea.

Okay, I could talk about Portugal all day long. But I might break blogger.

France. Look at the cute stairway in our Paris airbnb!

Some people have questioned why we do airbnbs instead of hotels.

SEVEN PEOPLE! In order to fit our whole family into a hotel we'd need at least two rooms. That means we'd be separated. Also, renting from AirBnB is usually a bit cheaper and it means we have our own washing machine. Being able to wash our clothes and then have them dry while we're out and about (dryers in Europe are rare), means we can pack pretty light. And we like to pack light in the luggage department because we're already packing heavy in the kid department.

Note to friends: Paris in March is super cold. I don't recommend it. However, it's still adventurous.

Our French AirBnB didn't have a crib. So Marco invested in this camping crib which was pretty cool.

He's putting wax on the zipper because that dang thing was LOUD! I'd get the baby to sleep then she'd wake up when I zipped her crib closed. Not ideal.

Italy. Our stay in Italy wasn't much of a sight-seeing trip. Instead, we wanted to visit with Marco's last remaining grandparent. So, while we did spend an afternoon in Venice, all the rest of our time was spent in Udine.

Udine is NOT a touristy place. I think we were probably the only tourists in the whole city. We were also the only ones there with more than two kids. So we got a lot, A LOT, of looks.

We don't have moss in Utah, so we thought the whole, plants growing all over the place thing, was pretty fascinating.

Spending time with Nonno Franco (Marco's grandfather) was the highlight of our trip. Our six-year-old got pretty emotional when it was time to go.

She's still emotional. Two days after we left Italy we got word that Nonno Franco had experienced a stroke. He's still in the hospital and expected to die very soon.

Italian humor

He's 89 and has lived a good life. When we were at his home he kept telling us not to make beds, do dishes, and he wanted to do all our laundry! I kept protesting and doing things when he finally explained that the days were long for a widower like himself. He liked having us there keeping him busy. He liked cleaning up after our five kids because it gave him something to do.

It's never too cold for gelato

So, while I did almost all the laundry at the AirBnB, I did give him a few things to wash, to appease him.

I'm so glad we were able to spend time with Nonno Franco while he was still mobile, while he was still able to talk, and while he was able to bond with our kids.

Sintra and Paris were fun, but spending time with my kids' great-grandfather was the best part of our whole trip.

I will admit though, we DID have to buy an extra suitcase on our return trip to hold all the chocolate I bought.

It was for my friends!