Sunglasses and São Vicente de Fora Monastery...

My language exercise for yesterday was...to walk into a store near my apartment that sells glasses and sunglasses and ask someone to "tighten" the screws on my sunglasses so they would stay on better. So, I looked up the word "tighten" and in Portuguese, it is "apertar"...(which I have already forgotten and just had to go look up again...). So, I went in and asked the woman optometrist there: Se faz favor, pode aperta meus óculos de sol ? Actually, I probably got as far as "pode aperta" and then said "estes" or just gestured, and she got it and took my glasses and went to tighten them. So, I started to look at sunglasses in the shop and saw some I liked and when she came back, I asked her, in Portuguese, if she had a certain style in black. Something like, "voce tem em preto" ? And, here is where things always get difficult...people will often answer my question with a long answer (or even a short answer) which I don't understand. But, this time, she used the word "crianças" which means children and I was able to understand that one word and the idea that they don't make children's sunglasses in black which we both laughed about. So, I thanked her and left and felt very proud of being able to understand the response to my question. Of course, the next person I spoke to in the wine shop and asked if they had "espumante" or sparkling wine, said no and gave me a long explanation why...of which I understood nothing. So, I just said "thanks and see you next time"...and left quickly. I need to go back and have that conversation again...and learn to be more honest about saying, I don't understand.


After those two stops, I decided to be a tourist and visit the castle and a famous and a very beautiful monastery here. A "monastery" is place where a group of religious people live (the men are called "monks" and the women are called "nuns"). Usually, there are "cloisters", a type of building where the monks or nuns live, attached to a church. The word "cloister" means to separate and live separately from other non-religious people within enclosed walls.The monastery I visited in Lisbon is called Sao Vicente de Fora. It is famous for its cloisters which have a lot of beautiful blue and white tiles that decorate it and show pictures of its history.

Here are some photos of the monastery and the wonderful views from the roof or bell tower.

Looking down into the cloisters:

A very nice view of Lisboa - you can see part of the castle to the right among the trees on the hill:

Here is the bell tower - I got to hear the 3:00 bells !

Here is an example of the tile work there:

Here is one more pic to show a better view of the cloisters: