Coimbra.

It is Sunday. Where are all the people? I mean, you'd think, that if the day is of rest, they'd come out of their homes and hang out somewhere, right?

Looks like desert town here. Even though Coimbra is about as big as San Francisco.

Anyway, most of today I simply hung out, was way too tired to do any serious sightseeing or hill climbing (by the way, the cool thing about many of these Portuguese mountain cities is that they have conveniently-located elevators and funiculars all over the place! A lot of fun to ride, too. And my legs were thankful. :) So what if you think I'm a Warmduscher/lazy bum? I wanna see you after 100 kms of uphills!). Read a bit, even went to the movies (saw "The Insider". Cool movie about some bank robbers--my favorite kind. I've always wanted to rob a bank you know. So nice to see movies about the career you would've chosen had you had a bit less scrupules--or more freedom of choice, however you want to see it. :P). Saw a bit of the University--quite pretty, too.

Highlight of the day was probably the Octopus rice I had for dinner. Pretty good.

Tomorrow: Day trip to Tomar before I get too far along north to make it practical.

Oh, finally found out where all the people hang out on Sundays, too! Why, they're at the mall!! And near the mall there was an indoor soccer field, where the finals of some championship were being held. That's where all the kids, men and women up until the age of 40-ish were. They buy these long knit scarf thingies that they tie around all over where someone can tie things to one's body: neck, arms, waist, legs, you name it. Then they go wild calling out the name of the teams. Cool, huh? This time I think it was Benfica vs Pombal. Since I was wearing a red polo shirt that day, I think I was rooting for Benfica by default. Not sure if they won, though. After I came out from the movies the Benfica fans were moping around looking kind of dejected, so...

{shrug}