Welcome back Sister Donkin!

From the Azores we flew back to Lisbon, rented a car, and drove the 200 Km or so to Coimbra, an area where Jackie spent about half of her mission. As you will see, Coimbra is a lovely town with all of that old, European charm. The biggest attraction there is the University of Coimbra, one of the oldest universities in the world today. It was started in 1290 by Dom Dinis, moved between Coimbra and Lisbon and then finally settled permantely in Coimbra in 1537. Two other places we went that you'll see pictures down below include Portugal dos Pequinitos (Little Portugal) and Quinta das Lagrimas. Portugal dos Pequinitos is a theme park where they have shrunk all of Portugal's famous buildings and statues and put them in a park. It also includes little sections of all of the different countries that Portugal establish around the world. Quinta das lagrimas is the place where one of the craziest stories in the world took place, hands down. I'll explain the story through the pictures.

Here is the family we stayed with in Coimbra. They are an amazing and wonderful family. They absolutely love "Sister Donkin". Beatriz, the mother, called me "Elder" for most of the time we spent there. Thanks for letting us stay at your house, the bed, the food, everything. Foi muito bom!

The ladies of the house didn't let "Sister Donkin" out of their sight. Not your typical honeymoon, I guess.

An old church on campus

A street Sister Donkin used to walk down a lot

The old plaza, or in other words, Pass-a-long card central

A corner in the Pass-a-long card central, where Jackie is reenacting a scene from her mission. (A bird pooped right on top of her head in this spot)

Jackie on the cell we borrowed for those days in Coimbra. This is the campus square at the University of Coimbra.

King Joao, who moved the school to Coimbra permantely

What time is it?

Jackie, just chillin in the school's dungeon

"Honey, people want me to take a picture without my sunglasses, let's try"

That's more like it

If you go inside the old library, don't take pictures. Oops.

Here's the door to get inside the library

Here's the door to get inside the library at Portugal dos Pequinitos

Here I am at real the University

Here I am at Portugal dos Pequinitos. Sweet, huh?

Knock, knock

Chillin in the African section at the theme park

"And if there was more world, there we would arrive" They sure are proud of all of their discoveries.

Little Azores. We were just there!

"Where in the World is, Carmen San Diego?"

Here we arrive at Quinta das Lagrimas. They charge to go here now, like one Euro a person but we were out of cash so we had to sneak in when the guy at the gate was distracted. The quick story goes like this: Prince Pedro was married to a woman but fell in love with the maid, Ines de Castro. The picture below shows a little stream where Pedro and Ines supposedly sent love letters in the stream. The forbidden love was discovered by his dad, the King, to which he had Ines killed.

Supposedly she was killed here, and that is why the rocks are red in some parts. Anyways, Prince Pedro turned into Pedro the cruel and killed his father and anyone who had something to do with Ines' death. So, he became King, and now is where it gets crazy. He had Ines de Castro dug up from her grave and removed. He claimed to have married her and then required that everyone in the court come and swear allegiance to the proper queen by kissing her hand. (Yuuchkk!)

Here we are at the waters of Luso. There is a natural spring here where people will come from nearby to fill up their water bottles, as seen by this family. I didn't want to take a straight up picture of them so I had Jackie pose and then I snuck this picture.

Filling up the bottle

Let me at it!

On the drive back to Lisbon, we stopped by some ruins that date back to six or 700 hundred years before Christ. I'm guessing this is the old school jacuzzi.

An old entrance way

The Roman influence. Tiled floor

Thanks Azores, It Was Fun

Our little bed and breakfast room

The portrait of the lady above the bed kind of scared meWe got up Sunday morning and decided to take a drive around the island. We were going to go on a little hike but it took us forever to find the start of the trail and by that time, we decided to just take a drive all the way around the island.

Here's Jackie in front of the "fake trail". We hiked up it for about 15 minutes until the road ended

These flowers were all over the island. I liked them a lot

This hill was amazing when we came around the corner and saw it. I turned around to come back and take this picture

(Sunset)

On our last day we had to go visit the last big lake on the island, Lagoa do Fogo. After that we had to go to the last thermal hot spring swimming area and then we spent the second part of the day on the beach. Nice relaxing day.

More brown water to swim in

I felt a little weird in my "American swimsuit"

But not as weird trying to body surf the little waves

Vampire romance

More From the Azores

We awoke on our second full day and headed East on the Island

We came to this little island place. They call it "Anel da Princesa" (Ring of the Princess). It's right off of the city, Vila Campo do Franca. We took a boat out to go swim in the middle of the ring.

It's a truly beautiful place. There's a little lagoon on the island with clear, crisp water. Nice for snorkeling, no mask needed.

Bring water shoes because it is rocky in there

View from the Island

After swimming and hanging out at that island, we hopped back into our little orange car and headed to the city of Furnas, land of the hot springs.

"Stinky!"

Check this pool out. They pump hot thermal springs water into the pool so it was about 85-90 degrees.

The Island in the pool. It was a mellow island.

Leap frog

Here's another thermal hot springs swimming area. Don't wear a white bathing suit, unless you're lucky to turn it brown

"Chillin out maxin' relaxin' all cool..."

"Brrr, I mean HOT!"

Lagoa das Furnas

Town of Furnas

Let's Go LOTOJA

Lotoja 2008 is in the books and I could not be happier. All of that extra time it ate up training, and even worse, all of that extra time I felt bad that I wasn't training when I should have been. When it came down to either training or doing something else, I always chose the alternative (i.e. tennis, wiffleball, chick flicks). In the end, I was able to ride about 650 miles before my big 206 mile race. Here is a picture of the course from 2007, which was the exact same this year.


To give some of the highlights of the race, I've decided to do it in interview format. I've always talked to myself so I figure, why not interview myself.

Interviewer: Well Brian, first off, congratulations on finishing your third Lotoja race!
Brian: Thank you. Wow, you said third...I mean, I can't believe I keep doing this thing.


Interviewer: What was the main difference between this year's race and of one's goneby?
Brian: I didn't need a potty break before reaching Preston...(under breath) let alone two

Interviewer: Now, you finished in 11 hours and 37 minutes, a little bit slower than your pace last year. What happened?
Brian: Well, you see, last year I wasn't a married man. I was just starting my courtship with Jackie so I felt a lot of pressure to impress. Simply put, I wanted to look good in front of the girl, you know, show her how awesome I was. We tied knot earlier this summer so that means she's stuck with me no matter what. She has to take me as I am.


Interviewer: What was your favorite part?
Brian: Anytime I saw the following sign:

It reinvigorated my soul everytime. Especially after the third mountain pass. (under breath again) dang Salt River!

Interviewer: Where did you really give it all you had, you know, went the fastest?
Brian: Probably down my Grandma's street in Logan. I realized I was about 3 minutes away with only a couple of minutes before my start time. I pulled up to the start line with 6 seconds to spare. After that sprint I decided the only way to recover was to not take any pulls within the first 100 miles of the race.

Interviewer: You didn't take any pulls until 100 miles!?
Brian: Well, I compromised and did my first one around mile 95. In between Geneva and Salt River.


Interviewer: Ok, so what was the scariest moment?
Brian: On the way into Preston, the guy in front of me tapped his brakes, I hit my brakes hard, but the guy right behind me wasn't ready. He brakes, swerves, and goes down hard. He made the loudest "Ughhh" sound I have ever heard before he even hit the ground. When he did hit the ground, it sounded like a shotgun. I spent the next 30 minutes convinced that I had just helped in killing someone. It wasn't until the next group caught us and I found out that the guy was actually pretty lucky. I guess he completely taco'd his wheel though.

Interviewer: When was the happiest part of the ride?
Brian: I saw this sign with about a mile or so to go:

I saw and all that ran through my head was, "You're dang right. You better believe I'm prepared to stop."

Interviewer: What about the worst part?
Brian: (suddenly angry face) Probably the idiot who didn't move to the side to clear his nose...twice! The second time I got sprayed pretty good and that's when I told him "come on man!" or something like that. All he could say was, "oh, did I get you?" I stopped riding with that guy.

Interviewer: Sorry about that.
Brian: Oh, it's not your fault.

Interviewer: Well, any last words?
Brian: Congrats to everyone that did it! I know it's not easy.