We're Home!

I admit this post is not as timely as it could be, but we are back, safe and sound, and reunited with friends and family that have been so supportive during our trip. I must say the 8 hour plane ride followed by some delays in Philadelphia (in part thanks to the remnants of Hannah greeting us there) forced us to be about two hours late getting home and somewhere in there I converted back to a Portuguese time zone and found myself dead asleep at ten thirty last night (about 3:30 a.m. in Portugal) and not even stirring until 10 this morning. But I feel much better now.
During the next few days we will be processing the trip and sharing our thoughts and insights with you through the blog. Right now I think it is safe to say that this experience has touched each of us, and changed the ways that we look at things. Hopefully it will allow all of us to keep open minds and be more open to accepting other cultures and differences and allow us to help others.
We hope that this exchange will result in a future exchange with our Portuguese colleagues visiting us. No matter what happens we will carry with us all that we have learned and will continue to embrace the kindness and warmth that was shared with us by so many during this visit. E-mail will allow us to continue to develop the relationships we started and we are looking forward to seeing being able to host our friends and colleagues here and introducing them all to you.