Elvis and I had talked about taking a walk down the the Boca do Inferno. We've never seen it in the rain before, and that's when it's supposed to be at it's best, with big crashing waves and eerie moans and howls.

Did I ever mention that we live about a fifteen minute walk from the Mouth of Hell?

In any case, not today. My hamstrings and lower back are absolutely killing me, from all the bending over and hauling stuff around I did yesterday. I went to feed the cat, and I almost did myself in just trying to pick up her bowl from the floor. Ouch.

And there's always tomorrow. This rain is supposed to continue through Wednesday.

Guess that means summer is over, eh?

Aside from the legs, I feel fine. Better than I have a right to, I suspect, after last night's proceedings.

We went for dinner at Gonçalves, which we've been meaning to try for a while now. It was either that, or the nasty Chinese that Elvis likes and everyone else hates. The restaurant is pretty basic, almost a dump, and it always seems to be doing good business among the locals. The owner and his wife look like they eat well, and have been doing so for a long time. She spent most of the evening gossiping with a Portuguese family a few tables away from us.

We both ordered cabrito, which in this case turned out to be lamb. It can also be goat, but usually it is lamb. The cook is obviously a member of the hack and slay school of butchery. Most Portuguese seem to be. What they do is take the meat, bones intact, lay it out and go wap wap wap wap with the cleaver, like it was a carrot or something. The result is very difficult to eat, because each piece has some bone or gristle in it, and there tend to be bone shards clinging to the meat and floating in the sauce. It's tricky and requires careful attention.

The cabrito was good though, basically a stew of lamb in a rich greasy sauce with several boiled potatoes thrown in for good measure. Initially, I thought they'd used a hell of a lot of garlic, but that turned out to be bone shards. Tasty, even though I got tired of picking through all the bone shards and so forth. Meat and potatoes: Elvis was in heaven.

All the same, next time I think I'll try the giant shish kebabs. They bring a tall stand to the table with hook in the top, and hang the kebab from that. I think it's a Madeiran thing.

After that, we went to the pub and played darts while drinking many beers. Saw some of our friends there, and met a new dart player I'll call Mr. Anal. He's a nice enough guy, and a decent player, but my Lord is he serious when it comes to darts. For example, he castigated his wife for talking to me while Elvis and I were playing against him and his partner. Not because I was the enemy, mind you, but because she was "disrupting the rhythm of the game." Right-o. Lighten up, buddy.

We stayed at the pub until two-thirty or so when they shut and kicked us all out. Then Elvis and I stopped at the after hours bar, where we ran into more people we know, and met some new ones, and consumed more beers. One of the guys we were introduced to invited us to a party at his house tonight. I don't know if we'll go-- it's in Monte Estoril and it's pretty nasty to be walking. And, since it is in Monte Estoril, I'm pretty sure hills will be involved and my legs won't like that at all.

Who am I kidding? No matter where we go, there are hills involved. We even live at the top of one, although there's really no place to live that isn't at the top, the bottom, or the middle of a hill. The best you can hope for is to avoid too much steepness. Downtown Lisbon's even worse: the entire city is one great big stairmaster.

I think we should go, get to know more people. We can always take a taxi, which will involve only a ten minute walk downhill to the taxi stand.

So, we stayed at the after hours place until I honestly don't know when. They shut at five, so sometime before that. The crowd was thinning but they weren't actually closing. And at that point, I didn't want to know, just weaved my way up the hill to home.

I got up around one-thirty, two. Elvis got up at four. We both seem to be in relatively good condition, considering. I just don't feel very sociable today, but I'm sure that would change once we got there. Always does.