Ugh, spent the last 4 days lying/sitting at home being bored beyond belief. Am at work today but still have a sore throat, coughing plenty and going through tissues fast.
I hope it will be fully gone before Friday when I fly back to the NL. And hopefully I won't get sick from the big temperature difference, it's still 21 Celsius here compared to freezing -2 Celsius in NL.
Good times... :-S

Got sick on Thursday evening, sore throat which now developed into full-blown flu. Rather be sick now then during the 2 weeks in the Netherlands with Asnida though.
Weather will also pose a nice challenge, overall a difference of about 20 Celsius between Funchal and Netherlands.
Back to dealing with snot haha.

stormy times

It's been storming a lot the past 4 or 5 days. The wind is blowing so hard the window panes of my bedroom crack and moan during the night. Also, one of my balcony chairs was blown all over the balcony a few times so I had to secure it to avoid the wind stealing it.
Good times in Funchal!

Flying back to NL next Friday (December 17), hoping the weather will calm down a bit so I'll make it out of here. I'll worry about the winter weather in NL once I catch the connection in Lisbon haha.

Yesterday was a holiday (Indepence Day) and I hooked up with some colleagues to do a bit of sightseeing on this island.
Turned out we were out and about for 7 hours. I didn't bring a jacket which I should have. We went to Caniçal for lunch, I had the swordfish with banana. Then we went to the eastern-most point of Madeira: Baia de Abra / Ponta de S. Lourenço. After that we went to Portela to have a view over the Penha de Aguia, and then further upwards to Ribeiro Frio.
I wasn't expecting us to do a levada walk but we did one (about 30min each way) called Balcões. After the levada walk we went for a drink, alcoholic drink called ponche (punch) which is made of lemon, rum and honey. It was ok, didn't warm me up though despite what they told me :-)

I got home shortly after 7pm, caught "Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban" on TV after which I hit the sack.

Next Wednesday is also a holiday to celebrate the Immaculate Conception. Obviously any Steelers fan will turn that into a celebration for the Immaculate Reception ;-)
Speaking of the Steelers, this Sunday at 1:30am local time they play against the Baltimore Ravens again. Should be a good game!