A Thing of Beauty

That's what I thought of today as I was walking through the mall and I saw a girl walk out of a coffee shop carrying her coffee in a paper coffee cup as she continued on her way to wherever she was going. You see, this isn't something I see very often. Actually I NEVER see this. I have ONCE before this in the 2 years we've lived here seen someone walking and carrying a paper coffee cup (or any other kind of food or beverage for that matter). Well, this was no ordinary day in no ordinary week. You see, this week the very first Starbucks cafe opened in Portugal. And so this girl walking through the mall taking her coffee with her (possibly a flavored coffee - gasp!) was doing something that up till now very few Portuguese people have done. Eat and run. Wow. Culture is being turned upside down. So today was no ordinary day because I took my first trip to Starbucks, Portugal.

Let me tell you, it was lovely. I had a tall, decaf, iced caramel macchiato and a raspberry yogurt muffin. Did you read that??? A MUFFIN! That I didn't bake myself! The things you miss when you can't get them...


It's kind of funny that I'm so excited about this. I have never been a major Starbucks person and I didn't even like coffee before moving here. But it's amazing how nice it feels to have some things that are familiar when so many things are not. Of course, they're much more familiar now than they were 2 years ago but still, I've lived in California a lot longer than I've lived in Portugal! So, today I am very thankful for coffee, specifically the iced flavored kind. Yippee!

By the way, this picture was taken by a nice American girl teaching at a school outside of Lisbon. I met her and her two fellow teachers as we were leaving. It was nice to share the, "wow, isn't this great?!" with someone who really understood.