Angra do Hiroismo

Let me just start by saying that, we have been here a week and already we have a group of people to hang out with. It's amazing, the camaraderie and the extent of friendship that we have been lucky enough to be offered here. I can't speak for the entire Air Force, but this AF Family has certainly welcomed us to the fullest extent!
So, today we and about 20 or so people went to hang out in Angra Do Hiroismo, which is a town about 15 minutes from base on the southern coast of the island. The town was founded in 1451, and was the original Capitol of the Azores chain. It is now one of three regional capitols and is the cite of the seat of the catholic church here, the judicial branch of the government, and has the population of about 35,000 people, out of about 40,000 on the island as a whole. There is a funny story about the local cows that I read about!
So apparently sometime ago, the Spanish decided to take over the Islands, because of their importance in controlling the trade with West Indies, and so decided to storm the city of Angra in a surprise attack. One of the local monks, Father Pedro, decided that he was going to help resist in any way possible, and so rounded up about a thousand head of cattle and drove the cows straight at the Spanish forces. Within hours, most of the Spaniards were either trampled or driven into the sea and drowned trying to swim back to their ships. I believe it, because you literally can not go 100 feet in any direction without running into cows. It's one of two main sources of income here, the other being fishing:)



The city itself is amazing! It's one of those places you see in romantic French movies and on Samantha Brown. Narrow, cobblestone streets, tiny European cars (oddly enough we decided to get ourselves one as well! So for nearly nothing, we got our old Peugeot, or as we affectionately call it - The Goat:)), and cafes with .50 euro coffees. We're in love with this place already.



Our trip started with a visit to a Chinese restaurant, with real Chinese people, serving real and amazing Chinese food. Only I found out later that apparently Portugal had or has a colony in China, and so the Chinese people at the restaurant speak fluent Chinese and Portugese....bizarre. The food was delish, but since we all know and love chinese, I will simply leave it at that.My husband thought he was safe from the chinese food addiction here, but alas...No such luck:)



Afterward, we all took a walk around town and ended up in a park behind Angra's Art Museum. As you see in the pictures, the weather was beautiful on the way there, but very quickly turned into apocalyptic rain and wind. Everything weather related is 'psychotic' here as I'm told. The rainbow was so vivid, that you could literally see every single color, like purple and green and orange! Then, by the time we made it to the park, the horizon turned a steel gray and wind had picked up so much I almost lost my sunglasses off my head. The sunny days are gorgeous, the rain is always intense, and the wind is always 50 miles an hour (no exaggeration, by the way). And you can have all existing weather conditions in the span of an hour; hence the psychosis:)