This morning we woke up in Ribeira Grande and had a quick perfect breakfast of natas and some other tart (a milk tart). The natas were out of this world. The outside wasn’t nearly as chewy as the ones back home. It had the combination of perfect chew and perfect crispity flakey crust. The custard wasn’t overly sweet like back home and the “burnt” parts added a whole other depth of flavour. It was amazing.

Bruno took us to the airport and we flew to Faial. This island is gorgeous and we haven’t even left the main town yet (Horta). We spent the day walking up and down the steep streets, eating more pastries, and sitting by the harbour. In the distance is Pico, an island with a giant volcano on it. They apparently make very good wine there.Faial is a very busy marina full of people doing crazy long boat rides across the ocean. It’s a place where they come get supplies and have a nice meal before heading off somewhere else. We’ve seen the most tourists here by far, but most of them seem to have arrived by boat.For lunch, we went to Casa de Cha, a vegetarian restaurant slash tea garden which was very nice. The staff were really friendly and we sat outside sipping tea (mine was some mystery tea, Michael’s was iced tea with passion fruit). We finished in about an hour and the staff made fun of us for being so quick. I guess we’re not used to the European and island way of life yet. We had lasagna and moussaka which we split (no surprise there).For a snack, we had more pastries – something that tasted like a chewy toaster strudel with meringue on top, a mystery tart that tasted like some sort of regional queijada, and something with coconut that tasted like a Passover macaroon (in a fantastic way). The picture doesn’t do these things justice, sorry… (to the pastries I guess?)For dinner (yes, all we did today was sit and eat) we went to a restaurant called Principe. It was the best meal we’ve had all trip. We ordered a plate of local cheese, olives, and fruit (turned out to be apple sauce?), and a “salad” of octopus, pineapple, and caviar. Michael had never had caviar before and really liked it! Then he tried to squish one between his teeth and it splattered on his white shirt. He’s very entertaining!Look at this octopus. Look at how tender it is. It’s absolutely bananas. How do they make it like this???

We split a main course which was mashed potatoes, delicious braised beef from happy cows, and fried stringy thingies.I accidentally ordered the wrong dessert (my brain said “cake made with Azores tea” and my mouth said “ice cream” for some reason), but it was amazing! Coconut and lime ice cream with the same delicious milk from the island. I don’t have a photo because I was so embarrassed that I messed up ordering dessert that I just dug in, hoping it would be ok (and it was!).After dinner, we went to Peter Cafe Sport, a legendary institution in Horta. They say if you haven’t been there, you haven’t been to Horta. It’s been around for generations, and has the largest scrimshaw (art made from whale bones) museum in the world. The place was packed, but they let us order some of their famous homemade passion fruit gin and tonic and drink it outside overlooking the marina. Pico had a funny cloud hat on top of it!The marina is covered in paintings made by boaters that have come through over the years:Jupiter is so bright tonight and I’m hopeful that the clouds hold off so we can see the stars! Tomorrow we go on a tour of the island, and then we are going to rent a scooter and drive around a bit.