For Carys Marderosian and Ms. Adair's 1st grade class
Henry Barnard School, Providence RI
Dear Carys and Miss Adair’s class:
As you know, I love reading about the world and its history and people. But traveling to see a new place or do something new is a different way to learn.
It has been a fun and interesting trip so far and I wanted to share some of the places I have gone while visiting Portugal. After a short trip to the Azores, I flew to Lisbon, the capitol city of Portugal to visit with Carys’ Tio Miguel, Tia Jes, cousin Luka and Tita the cat.
TRIP ITINERARY FELIX
Hop from Boston to São Miguel, Azores - Plane
Hop from São Miguel Azores to Faial Azores - Plane
Hop from Faial Azores to Pico Azores - Boat
Hop from Pico Azores to Lisbon - Plane
Hop around Lisbon - Car, Electrico, hopping
Lisbon to Boston Plane
Lisbon, or Lisboa as it is called in Portugal, is on the westernmost part of Europe.
I like to think of it though, not as the west coast of Europe but as the Eastern coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Sometimes we are connected across oceans and bodies of water as much as we are across the land.
I left Boston at night and traveled for 5 hours on a plane, landing in the Azores.
The Azores are small islands pretty much in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Many of my friends in Rhode Island come from the Azores and other places where Portuguese is spoken including Cabo Verde, Madeira, continental Portugal, Brazil and several countries in Africa. I am excited to come to Portugal to see where some of them are from.
The Azores are nine peaks of underwater volcanoes.
Like Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean, there was so much lava underwater that it burst out from the sea and built up enough land for people to live on.
I took a boat to Pico island, which is a massive volcano that erupted from the sea to make a massive mountain. The peak of Pico is 1500 feet bigger than Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, the largest mountain in New England.
These pictures show Pico from the boat, and two from the land.
You can see the village of Madalena from the water in the first picture.
In the other pictures, do you see how the dried lava colors the earth and the stones on Pico?
I also went to another volcano on São Miguel which only barely rose out of the ocean, making just the tips of a lava cone into a small little island or ilheu as it is called in Portuguese.
The Ilheu of Vila Franca.
The ilheu was made from a volcano eruption only 150 years ago.
You can take a boat out to the volcano and swim in the cone.
In the cone, the water feels warmer like a bath that is still being heated by the cooling of the lava.
There are many other natural features in the Azores related to volcanos, like caldeiras, hot sulfur springs that bubble out of the earth and lakes made at the tops of old volcanoes.
I would like to spend more time here, because this is where Cary’s mother family was from before they moved to Rhode Island and Massachusetts. But I am excited to see Tio Miguel in Lisbon.
Goodbye Azores! See you again some day!