Shopping in Angra

Because Chris never has to work a full week here, we had a free day on Friday to do some touring of the island. We decided to drive to Angra, the largest city on the island and check out the shopping. We were on a mission for Christmas gifts!

The morning started off incredibly foggy making it very difficult to get to Angra – maybe we should have taken it as a sign and stayed home! Our first stop was at Megaloja, a Wal-Mart type store, where we picked up some awesome party hats for our friend Alyson’s birthday celebration. We also ventured into a home improvement store and an electronics store called Radio Popular, located near Megaloja. The next stop on our list was the “big” Modelo. Modelo is a grocery store that also carries some non-grocery items like pet supplies and a very good selection of books (random, I know). There are two on the island, one in Praia, near our house, and one in Angra.

We spent the next hour or more driving around Angra trying to find Modelo before finally giving up. Every road we tried turned us around and took us right back to the city center, so we decided to just go with it and browse the smaller shops in downtown. The trip into downtown was somewhat successful… I have been looking for a bookstore since we arrived, and we found two located within just a couple blocks of each other! They are now marked in our GPS so we can find them back later. We weren’t able to find anything else that really jumped out at us for Christmas gifts, though. :( We did walk past a Poinsettia tree (yes you read that correctly, tree!). Anna – you told me these existed, but seeing them in person was too weird.

While in the city center, we stopped and had some pizza cones for lunch. They were basically slices of pizza rolled into the shape of an ice cream cone. They had a lot of cheese and not a lot of anything else! We walked along the ocean while we ate our cones to wind down from the craziness of the city and our drive around it.

We decided to give finding Modelo one more try before heading back home, mostly defeated. On the last round-about before our turn to home, we saw a HUGE sign about 20 feet off the road. How we missed it the 4 other times we’d driven by that morning, I’ll never know! The “big” Modelo lived up to all the hype. The store was fantastic and had a better book selection than either of the actual books stores we stopped at, in addition to a lots of grocery items that aren’t available at the Modelo near our house. Very handy knowledge when the Commissary on base is open limited days and hours.

The rest of the Christmas shopping had to wait until Saturday, though, because we were exhausted by the time we got home at 4pm! We were much more successful on Saturday. We ended up at a shop I’ve been in many times, so I knew going in what I was going to get. The best part of the day was when the shop owner insisted that he wrap all of the gifts we bought. Be prepared for the FULL Portuguese gift experience, strange wrapping included!

More pictures have been posted in the ‘Pictures’ tab. Check them out. I have also been looking into doing a Mediterranean cruise (not sure of the exact route yet). So far, I have found cruises by Holland American, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian Cruise Lines. Anyone have any experiences, good or bad, with these companies? Any thoughts on why type of room you would recommend (do we want one with a window/balcony, or is not worth the extra money)? Any thoughts on the shore excursions offered by the cruise lines?