{"id":12251,"date":"2017-11-13T04:37:35","date_gmt":"2017-11-13T09:37:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/?p=12251"},"modified":"2017-11-14T15:45:18","modified_gmt":"2017-11-14T20:45:18","slug":"the-beach-in-cascais-portugal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/2017\/11\/13\/the-beach-in-cascais-portugal\/","title":{"rendered":"The Long Road to the Ocean"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we started planning our trip to Portugal, a few things were important to me. One\u00a0was that was it wouldn’t rain, as November actually begins the rainy season in Lisbon. The second thing was that we could find a beach nearby that I could visit.<\/p>\n

At first, I wasn’t sure if it was possible geographically. Everyone I asked about the beach prior to visiting Portugal looked at me like I was crazy. A beach in November? I had to convince them that the weather was going to be great in order for them to hear me out. I can’t explain in enough words what being down by the ocean does for me. This year being so tough on me, it was all I wanted to do – walk down by the ocean and heal. After trying so hard<\/a>, it looked like it was never going to happen. So when I lucked out with great weather in Portugal, the first thing I started looking for was a beach. I was determined to go even if the nearest beach was miles and miles away. If that didn’t work, I had already started asking about the closest beach to Paris – again receiving crazy looks from people.<\/em><\/p>\n

The morning we planned our trip to Sintra<\/strong> and the fisherman village in Cascais<\/strong>, it was still unclear to us if we were actually going to be by the beach or down by a small river. It got lost in translation when we asked around, so I only had to hold my breath that whatever was beyond Lisbon, in Sintra, would be what I needed.\"My<\/p>\n

The first directions we received were from a tourism officer who misled us to a harbor – I had already started to panic that that was all there was. But I found comfort in the beautiful relaxed town of Cascais which reminded me so much of Miami – I took it all in and enjoyed every moment of the peaceful calm neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Before completely giving up on a beach, I asked an old man I met at an Ice Cream stand.\u00a0\"My\"My<\/p>\n

His first suggestion was to take a train. I already felt hopeless – it was really close to sunset, and we were losing precious light. Who knows if he even understood what I meant by “beach.” Heck, even the tourism officer had misunderstood me! I was tempted to sit by the harbor and take what I could. But then the smiling old man\u00a0came up with another suggestion, “you shouldn’t take the train you should walk,” He said through a gapped smile. “You will stop by three beaches, but the prettiest is in Estoril. Walk! because it is so beautiful”<\/p>\n

\"My<\/p>\n

I followed his direction with faith, through the\u00a0calm village which now reminded me of more of Greece than it did Miami. I confirmed with other locals along the way – some said to keep walking – others shrugged.\u00a0\"My\"My \"My\"My<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And there it was, the most beautiful blue waters I’ve ever seen. And my heart, it was swollen with joy, my eyes glistened in the light. I get a little emotional as I write this because it did mean so much to be at the ocean.<\/h1>\n

\"My\"My \"My\"My\"My \"My\"My<\/p>\n

Staring into the waters that I believed would bring much comfort, I realized how much healing had already happened. Somehow, I had gathered strength along the way, in quiet moments when I didn’t know. Standing in front of the ocean in Estoril, became instead for me a moment of reflection – I was so much stronger, happier, and in a far better place than the girl who was yearning to be by the ocean a month ago. I’m at peace.<\/p>\n

\"My\"My\"My \"My<\/p>\n

One funny thing I realized while I was there was that I had never been to a beach in Europe. I had never seen waters so clear and blue and an ocean more beautiful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It meant everything to be here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,112],"tags":[550,1265,1266,1261,717],"class_list":["post-12251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature","category-postcards","tag-beach","tag-cascais","tag-estoril","tag-portugal","tag-the-beach"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12251"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12285,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12251\/revisions\/12285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}