Birthdays and Weddings
My birthday was very nice. We scouted Braganca until we were exhausted,
then returned to Azibo to rest. After recovering, we went out and found
a random little restaurant in Podence and it was delightful. We ordered
way too much food. Joy's veal chop showed up and I demonstrated my 
antiquity by saying it would tip over Fred Flinstone's car (it ended
up providing us three meals), had very nice drinks, and indulged in
dessert (I had a chestnut pudding, delicious, rich and somewhat bitter.)

The day after my birthday we ended up deciding to rest. We'd settled on
shooting the eclipse from Azibo, and so we enjoyed the very very hot
day by staying either in our air conditioned room, or in our air
conditioned rental car. 

One fun thing was that since we hadn't gone out, we got to see a local
wedding take place at the church ten steps from our front door. Holy MOLY
it was hot, and watching everyone in their fancy wedding duds really made
me appreciate not having to do any of that. It was a local wedding in
the local church, so felt like a little slice of rural Portuguese life.

I waited outside our hotel with my camera to get a photo of the bride,
and of course just as the bride was (finally) about to emerge from the
chapel, three things happened. First, a mangy local dog decided to 
check out the excitement; second, some kid in a crappy little car
decided he had to drive past the front of the church RIGHT NOW; 
third, some fat old sunburned dude wearing nothing but shorts and
flipflops decided to check out the excitement. So my big wedding photos 
were largely spoiled. Basically everything I wanted to shoot this week
was impinged upon by old sunburned tourists. I kind of felt bad for
the bride whose wedding was interrupted by a kid who just COULD NOT
wait to drive past the church (spoiler: there's nothing past the church
but a few residences and a scenic overlook at the end of the road.)

But that was some excitement in an otherwise restful, uneventful day.