Sorry for the silence guys... the internet is a little thin on the ground here in Portugal. Internet cafes don´t let you upload files, so no pictures and no real blog entries until I can get wifi. It´s even a bit of a pain in the arse in Lisbon - to get wifi I´ve got to haul the laptop across the city. :(
Right now I´m in the beautiful small city of Viseu, and we return to Lisbon this evening. I´ll be there for the next couple of weeks - one more week of site touring, then a weeklong charrette where we are doing a project with some local students.
Love you all, miss you all,
Joannie
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Sandra eats more pastries.
February 19, 2006
Back to Lisbon
Woke up late in the morning and had a quick bit of Muesli for breakfast with the girls. Some went off to do sketching for classes I’m not taking, so Sandra and I braved the rainy weather (fortified by roast chestnuts that we bought on the way) to go see the legendary Capella dos Ossos. As we walked through town, we collected other PortCitians (in this case, Francois and Brady) to go see this chapel. It’s attached to the church of Sao Francisco and is a meditation space to help people go beyond materiality etc. etc. etc. In modern terms, imagine a room with an exquisite painted ceiling, and walls papered in bones. The bones of 5000 monks, to be exact. It is morbid, grotesque, and wonderful. It is beautifully constructed, and apart from the desiccated body nailed to the wall, isn’t disgusting in the slightest. There’s even a charming saying “We bones who are here await yours”.
After that uplifting experience we walked back through town to find the aquaduct and ran into more PortCitians (Lynn this time, we’d left the boys behind after the bone adventure). It promptly started raining dats and cogs, so we stopped into a coffee shop for sustenance.
We wandered off (picking up more PortCitians on the way, this time it was Teresa and Teigen) and took some more pictures of the aquaduct after we traced it through town.
Shortly thereafter we had a cobbly walk back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and head off to the bus to return to Lisbon. On the way back to Lisbon we stopped at a vineyard for a bit of a tour and a mini tasting. Very yum and very pretty indeed.
Back to town, laundry, and a meal in an Indian restaurant.
Funny thing – this was the first full Sunday that we’d been in Portugal, and it was rather fun to watch all the people scrambling because they discovered the shops weren’t open. I’d been expecting it all along and was surprised at how many shops were indeed open. Hehe. Welcome to Europe, kids.
February 20, 2006
Woke, had breadfast, yadda yadda yadda. We were supposed to tour a black box theater on the other side of Lisbon but it got cancelled since they didn’t have the insurance necessary to let groups in yet. Hm. Interesting.
Instead, our landscape architecture Prof (Lance) took those of us who were interested (basically, all the landscape students) to a nearby city via the metro and the train. The city is called Sintra and is the hilly town where the wealthy Lisboans and royalty had their summer homes. It is hilly and gorgeous, and I liked it even more than Evora. There are picturesque Moorish castles on the hill, and tons of hilly gardens. We got to tour one of them called Monserrate that was mainly built by a series of homesick and worldly Englishmen with more money than sense. It was wonderful, and the tour was led by Gerald, a nice expat who works there as a Landscape Architect. We tossed around the idea of doing a series of projects to help reclaim the site and protect the ecology that has sprung up since the site was abandoned in the 1974 revolution. I’m considering rolling this into my final project for my degree, but we’d have to see how the logistics pan out. ;)
February 21, 2006
Breadfast as usual, then we went to some lectures over at the literary center. Afterwards, we were to meet in front of the hotel at 2:30 to get the tram over to the other side of town to look at the aquaduct’s terminus at the ‘mother of waters’ building. Lance took the MLA students early (whoops, missed lunch) and we walked up there instead, stopping by the most excellent botanical gardens. When we finally ended up at the mother of waters, it was a really cool room. Big, and vaulted, with a massive and very deep, very clear pool in it. It was being used as a gallery, with lots of wall hangings. There was a dock in the pool that you could walk out onto, and the light coming in through the very small windows made these awesome tubes of light in the water – luckily they photographed well. There’s a fountain that originally carried the aquaduct water into the space at one end, and it has been completely covered by mineral deposits so that it’s starting to develop into a massive rock of its own right – similar to those at Yellowstone.
Sandra and I took off a little early to walk back to the hotel and had a great time navigating our way through town. We had a little hilarity too, and she’s gonna kill me for telling you. We walked by one of the city’s many excellent liquor stores that had a large display of port in the window. Sandra must always stop and look at the these since she loves the vile stuff and even researched it as part of our pre departure study. One of the things that she found out was that only 23 or so years of port production have been designated ‘vintage’ for their excellence. Thus, the word on the street is that vintage port is very very expensive, and very very rare. Well… it turns out from our survey of liquor stores, that vintage port is in almost every store, and is not that expensive (though certainly not cheap). Hm, this is an awful lot of setup for a bad joke, oh well. Sandra and I walk on by the shop, and she remarks in a rather flustered way “Hm, they seem to have a lot of Vinto Portage around here.” Well I just about died laughing, and she dived rather unexpectedly up a side street. Apparently she got all tongue twisted and rattled by a man soiling himself right in front of us. Bleach. Glad I didn’t see that.
Dinner was a simple affair – we drank a bottle of the wine we got in the Alentejo region up in Sandra’s room with various friends and colleagues stopping by. Then we headed down to the Baixa district for a bite to eat, avoiding the rowdy and inebriated Liverpool United fans who were thronging the city and trying to pickle themselves.
My meal was charcoal grilled sardines, and it was excellent – but the were large and gave me four of the damn things. Only managed to wind my way through two of them before we gave up the good fight and picked our way through the meandering throngs to the hotel for some well deserved rest.
February 22, 2006
Lisbon
Ugh. I have a disease. Seems to be a cold. Lynn, Bret, and Erica all have it too. We’re taking the bus up north tomorrow for a five day trip, so I imagine we’ll all sit in a row and infect the rest of the bus. Charming. Aren’t we going to be popular?
Also, in other bad news, I have to announce the untimely demise of a faithful yet short lived power adapter. It is impressively melted, and has blown a series of fuses – indicating that it is ready for the big dump truck in the sky. Luckily, the only thing I need it for is my camera charger, and many other people on the trip are happy enough to tuck my batteries in with theirs for their nightly rejuvenation. This is also made easier by the fact that we are all taking a lot fewer pictures these days – we’re down from averaging 400 pictures a day, to about 40. I can’t imagine doing this trip with film.
So, today, we went with our diseases on the metro up to the Lisbon City Museum, that tracks the development of the city from the original Phoenecian settlement close to Sao Jorge all the way through the Romans, Moors, Christians, etc. It was very very good and when you all come to Lisbon, it’s well worth a visit (take the Metro Blue Line to Campo Grande and it’s about a five minute walk).
After that we went with our diseases, plus some less infectious friends too, to walk to the next site. Since we had about two hours to kill, and we figured it was about an hour’s walk to the next stop, we walked it. Lynn and I just about died with our snuffling, sneezing, and itchy noses, but we did finally make it. After a brief and satisfactory repast (I had bacalhau do casa – or salt cod of the house, imagine fish and chips where the chips are crisp shaped, the fish is rehydrated salt cod, and it all has an odd onion sauce over it) we went on to the Gulbenkian Foundation.
The Gulbenkian is a large and wealthy foundation supporting the arts and sciences, and they have a really nice building that was designed and built in the sixties. There’s a great garden around it, and we got to meet the original landscape architect as he led us on a tour. It was marvelous, and they just did a rehabilitiation/rejuvenation of the garden. It was so good that at the end of it we all applauded the guy (we couldn’t talk to him as he spoke about as much English as we speak Portuguese).
I’ve learnt enough of the language and local sign language to be able to order in restaurants, get the kind of coffee I want (sometimes bica/espresso, sometimes café dupplo, sometimes café con leite) and the particular fizzy water that I love (agua con limao … agua frize). I’m good at the sign language for “just looking thanks” as well as “please bring the bill” “how much is that” “do you have this shoe in a 42?” “no I won’t give you a Euro for juggling fire”. Well, actually I can say the last one in English because the dude is from Manchester.
Most people do speak a bit of English, and politely suffer through a few minutes of painful Portuguese before they break down and start speaking English to us.
Yesterday, I was dying for a loo and couldn’t face the long climb to our hotel at the top of the hill. Sandra and I ducked into a café that had a WC prominently displayed at the back (well, the *door* was prominently displayed). Since it was such a small place, we felt we should order something in return for my desecration of their loo. As we walked in I said to Sandra “order something” and told her to buy me an orange as they had a large display of them handy. If the display had been of squid beaks, I’m sure that’s what I would have told her to get for me. As I made a beeline through the little café to the back, I locked eyes with the owner, pointed to the loo, and raised my eyebrows. It must have been pretty obvious that I was desperate because he gave me the tiniest of nods, as if to say “go ahead love”. I dove in, did my business, and left much refreshed to find Sandra rolling with laughter sitting down eating a pastry (man, can that girl pack away the pastries!). She did not, however, have an orange near her. Apparently, when she asked where the orange was (that she had ordered by pointing at the pile of oranges and saing ‘una’) they had made a sort of squeezing twisting motion with their hands. Aha, the oranges are for juice! They brought the juice through, and I had to have Sandra help me with it because I’m turning into my father and am having more trouble eating fruit as I get older – no matter how sweet it is, it’s often painfully sour. I’m not kidding about the ‘painfully’ bit either – pineapple eats through my skin and my lips flake right off. Well, we gave the hand-on-heart thank-you bow as we left chanting a little chorus of “obrigada”. Dude said “your welcome”. Rrg. We could have spoken English! Heh.
Back to Lisbon
Woke up late in the morning and had a quick bit of Muesli for breakfast with the girls. Some went off to do sketching for classes I’m not taking, so Sandra and I braved the rainy weather (fortified by roast chestnuts that we bought on the way) to go see the legendary Capella dos Ossos. As we walked through town, we collected other PortCitians (in this case, Francois and Brady) to go see this chapel. It’s attached to the church of Sao Francisco and is a meditation space to help people go beyond materiality etc. etc. etc. In modern terms, imagine a room with an exquisite painted ceiling, and walls papered in bones. The bones of 5000 monks, to be exact. It is morbid, grotesque, and wonderful. It is beautifully constructed, and apart from the desiccated body nailed to the wall, isn’t disgusting in the slightest. There’s even a charming saying “We bones who are here await yours”.
After that uplifting experience we walked back through town to find the aquaduct and ran into more PortCitians (Lynn this time, we’d left the boys behind after the bone adventure). It promptly started raining dats and cogs, so we stopped into a coffee shop for sustenance.
We wandered off (picking up more PortCitians on the way, this time it was Teresa and Teigen) and took some more pictures of the aquaduct after we traced it through town.
Shortly thereafter we had a cobbly walk back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and head off to the bus to return to Lisbon. On the way back to Lisbon we stopped at a vineyard for a bit of a tour and a mini tasting. Very yum and very pretty indeed.
Back to town, laundry, and a meal in an Indian restaurant.
Funny thing – this was the first full Sunday that we’d been in Portugal, and it was rather fun to watch all the people scrambling because they discovered the shops weren’t open. I’d been expecting it all along and was surprised at how many shops were indeed open. Hehe. Welcome to Europe, kids.
February 20, 2006
Woke, had breadfast, yadda yadda yadda. We were supposed to tour a black box theater on the other side of Lisbon but it got cancelled since they didn’t have the insurance necessary to let groups in yet. Hm. Interesting.
Instead, our landscape architecture Prof (Lance) took those of us who were interested (basically, all the landscape students) to a nearby city via the metro and the train. The city is called Sintra and is the hilly town where the wealthy Lisboans and royalty had their summer homes. It is hilly and gorgeous, and I liked it even more than Evora. There are picturesque Moorish castles on the hill, and tons of hilly gardens. We got to tour one of them called Monserrate that was mainly built by a series of homesick and worldly Englishmen with more money than sense. It was wonderful, and the tour was led by Gerald, a nice expat who works there as a Landscape Architect. We tossed around the idea of doing a series of projects to help reclaim the site and protect the ecology that has sprung up since the site was abandoned in the 1974 revolution. I’m considering rolling this into my final project for my degree, but we’d have to see how the logistics pan out. ;)
February 21, 2006
Breadfast as usual, then we went to some lectures over at the literary center. Afterwards, we were to meet in front of the hotel at 2:30 to get the tram over to the other side of town to look at the aquaduct’s terminus at the ‘mother of waters’ building. Lance took the MLA students early (whoops, missed lunch) and we walked up there instead, stopping by the most excellent botanical gardens. When we finally ended up at the mother of waters, it was a really cool room. Big, and vaulted, with a massive and very deep, very clear pool in it. It was being used as a gallery, with lots of wall hangings. There was a dock in the pool that you could walk out onto, and the light coming in through the very small windows made these awesome tubes of light in the water – luckily they photographed well. There’s a fountain that originally carried the aquaduct water into the space at one end, and it has been completely covered by mineral deposits so that it’s starting to develop into a massive rock of its own right – similar to those at Yellowstone.
Sandra and I took off a little early to walk back to the hotel and had a great time navigating our way through town. We had a little hilarity too, and she’s gonna kill me for telling you. We walked by one of the city’s many excellent liquor stores that had a large display of port in the window. Sandra must always stop and look at the these since she loves the vile stuff and even researched it as part of our pre departure study. One of the things that she found out was that only 23 or so years of port production have been designated ‘vintage’ for their excellence. Thus, the word on the street is that vintage port is very very expensive, and very very rare. Well… it turns out from our survey of liquor stores, that vintage port is in almost every store, and is not that expensive (though certainly not cheap). Hm, this is an awful lot of setup for a bad joke, oh well. Sandra and I walk on by the shop, and she remarks in a rather flustered way “Hm, they seem to have a lot of Vinto Portage around here.” Well I just about died laughing, and she dived rather unexpectedly up a side street. Apparently she got all tongue twisted and rattled by a man soiling himself right in front of us. Bleach. Glad I didn’t see that.
Dinner was a simple affair – we drank a bottle of the wine we got in the Alentejo region up in Sandra’s room with various friends and colleagues stopping by. Then we headed down to the Baixa district for a bite to eat, avoiding the rowdy and inebriated Liverpool United fans who were thronging the city and trying to pickle themselves.
My meal was charcoal grilled sardines, and it was excellent – but the were large and gave me four of the damn things. Only managed to wind my way through two of them before we gave up the good fight and picked our way through the meandering throngs to the hotel for some well deserved rest.
February 22, 2006
Lisbon
Ugh. I have a disease. Seems to be a cold. Lynn, Bret, and Erica all have it too. We’re taking the bus up north tomorrow for a five day trip, so I imagine we’ll all sit in a row and infect the rest of the bus. Charming. Aren’t we going to be popular?
Also, in other bad news, I have to announce the untimely demise of a faithful yet short lived power adapter. It is impressively melted, and has blown a series of fuses – indicating that it is ready for the big dump truck in the sky. Luckily, the only thing I need it for is my camera charger, and many other people on the trip are happy enough to tuck my batteries in with theirs for their nightly rejuvenation. This is also made easier by the fact that we are all taking a lot fewer pictures these days – we’re down from averaging 400 pictures a day, to about 40. I can’t imagine doing this trip with film.
So, today, we went with our diseases on the metro up to the Lisbon City Museum, that tracks the development of the city from the original Phoenecian settlement close to Sao Jorge all the way through the Romans, Moors, Christians, etc. It was very very good and when you all come to Lisbon, it’s well worth a visit (take the Metro Blue Line to Campo Grande and it’s about a five minute walk).
After that we went with our diseases, plus some less infectious friends too, to walk to the next site. Since we had about two hours to kill, and we figured it was about an hour’s walk to the next stop, we walked it. Lynn and I just about died with our snuffling, sneezing, and itchy noses, but we did finally make it. After a brief and satisfactory repast (I had bacalhau do casa – or salt cod of the house, imagine fish and chips where the chips are crisp shaped, the fish is rehydrated salt cod, and it all has an odd onion sauce over it) we went on to the Gulbenkian Foundation.
The Gulbenkian is a large and wealthy foundation supporting the arts and sciences, and they have a really nice building that was designed and built in the sixties. There’s a great garden around it, and we got to meet the original landscape architect as he led us on a tour. It was marvelous, and they just did a rehabilitiation/rejuvenation of the garden. It was so good that at the end of it we all applauded the guy (we couldn’t talk to him as he spoke about as much English as we speak Portuguese).
I’ve learnt enough of the language and local sign language to be able to order in restaurants, get the kind of coffee I want (sometimes bica/espresso, sometimes café dupplo, sometimes café con leite) and the particular fizzy water that I love (agua con limao … agua frize). I’m good at the sign language for “just looking thanks” as well as “please bring the bill” “how much is that” “do you have this shoe in a 42?” “no I won’t give you a Euro for juggling fire”. Well, actually I can say the last one in English because the dude is from Manchester.
Most people do speak a bit of English, and politely suffer through a few minutes of painful Portuguese before they break down and start speaking English to us.
Yesterday, I was dying for a loo and couldn’t face the long climb to our hotel at the top of the hill. Sandra and I ducked into a café that had a WC prominently displayed at the back (well, the *door* was prominently displayed). Since it was such a small place, we felt we should order something in return for my desecration of their loo. As we walked in I said to Sandra “order something” and told her to buy me an orange as they had a large display of them handy. If the display had been of squid beaks, I’m sure that’s what I would have told her to get for me. As I made a beeline through the little café to the back, I locked eyes with the owner, pointed to the loo, and raised my eyebrows. It must have been pretty obvious that I was desperate because he gave me the tiniest of nods, as if to say “go ahead love”. I dove in, did my business, and left much refreshed to find Sandra rolling with laughter sitting down eating a pastry (man, can that girl pack away the pastries!). She did not, however, have an orange near her. Apparently, when she asked where the orange was (that she had ordered by pointing at the pile of oranges and saing ‘una’) they had made a sort of squeezing twisting motion with their hands. Aha, the oranges are for juice! They brought the juice through, and I had to have Sandra help me with it because I’m turning into my father and am having more trouble eating fruit as I get older – no matter how sweet it is, it’s often painfully sour. I’m not kidding about the ‘painfully’ bit either – pineapple eats through my skin and my lips flake right off. Well, we gave the hand-on-heart thank-you bow as we left chanting a little chorus of “obrigada”. Dude said “your welcome”. Rrg. We could have spoken English! Heh.
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Evora and surrounding area
February 17, Friday
Evora
Today was a bit rough – lack of sleep and a burgeoning cold made the day’s activities more taxing than expected.
We started with breakfast – thankfully there was more selection than bread here, though the coffee is not as good. We’re staying at the Solar Monafalim in the medieval walled city of Evora.
We staggered down to the buses and set off for Monseraz (monserazh), a rustic medieval walled village on a hilltop about 5km from Spain. We only spent an hour there, but it was windy and cold so we were happy to get back to the buses. Monseraz is right by a reservoir that was dammed up about 4 years ago – it is about 60% full so far, so it makes an interesting landscape of little islands with old abandoned structures and roads on them. The reservoir only flooded out one town, called Luz.
We visited Luz (loozh) next. It was redesigned by a notorious architect about 2km from the old flooded town and it completely lacks charm and warmth. It’s very modern, and photographs well, but I did not care for it. There were excellent views of the Alentejo countryside, full of cows, sheep, and wildflowers.
After that we went to Moura for lunch where we ended up in a restaurant that served rustic soups. We had the choice between Stone Soup (mixed meats, bones, garbanzo beans, and broth), Chorizo and beans (my choice, and excellent fart food), and shark soup.
On our way back to Evora, we stopped by a place whose name escapes me at the moment. It used to be a bishop’s holding, and had an interesting combination of terraces, reservoirs, aquaducts, and gardens.
On our way home, we stopped by a grocery store (Mercado – mercadoo) for provisions (wine, the regional ewe cheese, and cream crackers) so we could picnic at the hotel. After the picnic, by the fireplace in the parlor, off to bed. I’m sleeping in a trundle bed which is a pull-out drawer with similar proportions to a sleeping bag. It’s a very firm bed and I’m sleeping very well in it. Romey – I think the reason I can’t sleep at home is because our bed is too soft :( I’ve been sleeping like a champ here on beds of alarming firmness and lumpitude.
February 18, 2006
Evora
Woke, breakfasted, and set off for the day feeling much better than yesterday.
First stop was yet another hilltop medieval town called Estremoz (estremoozh). Charming as usual, excellent views as usual, chilly and windy as usual. *yawn* Well… it wasn’t boring at all, but it’s amazing to me how quickly it becomes normal.
Next stop was Villa Vicosa, where the dude who became the king of Portugal lived back in the day. The villa had an unremarkable, yet elegant renaissance façade and a clunky plaza out front. We were sneaky when we went in to go to the loo and got a look around the cloister gardens – they were excellent. There are lots of orange trees and lemon trees all over the place – I could certainly get used to this! One of our number has been known to pilfer the occasional orange off a public tree (names have been changed to protect the guilty).
We drove around a bit after that, admiring the spectacular countryside and ended up in *another* medieval walled city. Here, we had the first of our “drunk lunches” catered by a local restaurant for all of us. Here is a rundown of what we ate – hope you’re not hungry! All of this was consumed with generous lashings of the local Alentejo wine (it’s apparently an excellent year – the drought has been good for the wine). When I say “generous lashings” I mean that our table of 8 people had 5 bottles. I’m finding that the wine here doesn’t poison me the way wine in America does. In the U.S., after two glasses I’m anybody’s – here, well, it seems like I can just keep on glugging the stuff down with nary an ill effect.
Appetizers:
Bread
Stinky runny local ewe’s cheese – you’re always served this first in the restaurant, but this is the first time it has been runny. It’s outstanding, and I will miss it when we leave.
Shredded braised Rabbit in a vinegar and cilantro dressing
Fried pigs ears – Good, but very rich
Braised pig skin, I think. It was rubbery, and gray, like very chewy calamari. I didn’t eat much, but it was mild, fishy, and in a vinegar and cilantro dressing.
Roasted red peppers
Head Cheese (pork brain and bits terrine - quite good actually)
First course:
Shark soup with bread in the soup
Second course:
Pork loin? In a spicy orange sauce
Pork trotters – I couldn’t bring myself to try these, it was all bone, skin, fat, and gristle. Smelled nice though.
Pork ribs in an Alentejo barbecue dressing
Bread stuffing that tasted of chorizo and smoke.
Homemade potato crisps
Dessert:
A sort of rolled sopapilla – fried thin dough with Alentejo honey
Orange colored pie
Cream colored pie with local plums
Green melon
2nd Dessert:
Coffee – like espresso, but stronger.
3rd Dessert:
Grappa
This was all family style, so they’d bring out large dishes and we’d divvy it all up. We kept asking Pedro, our guide, what things were. When we asked him what the orange and cream colored pies were he pointed to one and said “Eggs and sugar”, then pointed to the other and said “Sugar and eggs”. The man’s a born comedian. Roman would like the food here, a large part of the cuisine is based on eggs.
After a stiff legged stagger back to the bus, we drove off to our next destination. We were all loaded so we were carrying on in rare form. Our professors promptly started snoring away at the front of the bus, much to our liquid hilarity.
The last stop was something called a Pasouda called Arraiolos. They’re a chain of very ritzy hotels through Portugal who consider it their duty to celebrate and uphold Portuguese cuisine and culture. This place was outstanding – in a beautiful valley of cork trees and sheep and pigs and cows (they alternate grazing them beneath the corks), below a medieval fortification on the hill. The hotel was recently redone with a very well done modern additions Details are here: http://www.pousadasofportugal.com/portugal/arraiolos.html Note that it’s pretty affordable in the off season (this *is* a five-star hotel after all).
Now, we’re back at the hotel having a light picnic of the food people have been ferreting away in their hotel rooms. Love you all, miss you all!
Xxoo J.
Evora
Today was a bit rough – lack of sleep and a burgeoning cold made the day’s activities more taxing than expected.
We started with breakfast – thankfully there was more selection than bread here, though the coffee is not as good. We’re staying at the Solar Monafalim in the medieval walled city of Evora.
We staggered down to the buses and set off for Monseraz (monserazh), a rustic medieval walled village on a hilltop about 5km from Spain. We only spent an hour there, but it was windy and cold so we were happy to get back to the buses. Monseraz is right by a reservoir that was dammed up about 4 years ago – it is about 60% full so far, so it makes an interesting landscape of little islands with old abandoned structures and roads on them. The reservoir only flooded out one town, called Luz.
We visited Luz (loozh) next. It was redesigned by a notorious architect about 2km from the old flooded town and it completely lacks charm and warmth. It’s very modern, and photographs well, but I did not care for it. There were excellent views of the Alentejo countryside, full of cows, sheep, and wildflowers.
After that we went to Moura for lunch where we ended up in a restaurant that served rustic soups. We had the choice between Stone Soup (mixed meats, bones, garbanzo beans, and broth), Chorizo and beans (my choice, and excellent fart food), and shark soup.
On our way back to Evora, we stopped by a place whose name escapes me at the moment. It used to be a bishop’s holding, and had an interesting combination of terraces, reservoirs, aquaducts, and gardens.
On our way home, we stopped by a grocery store (Mercado – mercadoo) for provisions (wine, the regional ewe cheese, and cream crackers) so we could picnic at the hotel. After the picnic, by the fireplace in the parlor, off to bed. I’m sleeping in a trundle bed which is a pull-out drawer with similar proportions to a sleeping bag. It’s a very firm bed and I’m sleeping very well in it. Romey – I think the reason I can’t sleep at home is because our bed is too soft :( I’ve been sleeping like a champ here on beds of alarming firmness and lumpitude.
February 18, 2006
Evora
Woke, breakfasted, and set off for the day feeling much better than yesterday.
First stop was yet another hilltop medieval town called Estremoz (estremoozh). Charming as usual, excellent views as usual, chilly and windy as usual. *yawn* Well… it wasn’t boring at all, but it’s amazing to me how quickly it becomes normal.
Next stop was Villa Vicosa, where the dude who became the king of Portugal lived back in the day. The villa had an unremarkable, yet elegant renaissance façade and a clunky plaza out front. We were sneaky when we went in to go to the loo and got a look around the cloister gardens – they were excellent. There are lots of orange trees and lemon trees all over the place – I could certainly get used to this! One of our number has been known to pilfer the occasional orange off a public tree (names have been changed to protect the guilty).
We drove around a bit after that, admiring the spectacular countryside and ended up in *another* medieval walled city. Here, we had the first of our “drunk lunches” catered by a local restaurant for all of us. Here is a rundown of what we ate – hope you’re not hungry! All of this was consumed with generous lashings of the local Alentejo wine (it’s apparently an excellent year – the drought has been good for the wine). When I say “generous lashings” I mean that our table of 8 people had 5 bottles. I’m finding that the wine here doesn’t poison me the way wine in America does. In the U.S., after two glasses I’m anybody’s – here, well, it seems like I can just keep on glugging the stuff down with nary an ill effect.
Appetizers:
Bread
Stinky runny local ewe’s cheese – you’re always served this first in the restaurant, but this is the first time it has been runny. It’s outstanding, and I will miss it when we leave.
Shredded braised Rabbit in a vinegar and cilantro dressing
Fried pigs ears – Good, but very rich
Braised pig skin, I think. It was rubbery, and gray, like very chewy calamari. I didn’t eat much, but it was mild, fishy, and in a vinegar and cilantro dressing.
Roasted red peppers
Head Cheese (pork brain and bits terrine - quite good actually)
First course:
Shark soup with bread in the soup
Second course:
Pork loin? In a spicy orange sauce
Pork trotters – I couldn’t bring myself to try these, it was all bone, skin, fat, and gristle. Smelled nice though.
Pork ribs in an Alentejo barbecue dressing
Bread stuffing that tasted of chorizo and smoke.
Homemade potato crisps
Dessert:
A sort of rolled sopapilla – fried thin dough with Alentejo honey
Orange colored pie
Cream colored pie with local plums
Green melon
2nd Dessert:
Coffee – like espresso, but stronger.
3rd Dessert:
Grappa
This was all family style, so they’d bring out large dishes and we’d divvy it all up. We kept asking Pedro, our guide, what things were. When we asked him what the orange and cream colored pies were he pointed to one and said “Eggs and sugar”, then pointed to the other and said “Sugar and eggs”. The man’s a born comedian. Roman would like the food here, a large part of the cuisine is based on eggs.
After a stiff legged stagger back to the bus, we drove off to our next destination. We were all loaded so we were carrying on in rare form. Our professors promptly started snoring away at the front of the bus, much to our liquid hilarity.
The last stop was something called a Pasouda called Arraiolos. They’re a chain of very ritzy hotels through Portugal who consider it their duty to celebrate and uphold Portuguese cuisine and culture. This place was outstanding – in a beautiful valley of cork trees and sheep and pigs and cows (they alternate grazing them beneath the corks), below a medieval fortification on the hill. The hotel was recently redone with a very well done modern additions Details are here: http://www.pousadasofportugal.com/portugal/arraiolos.html Note that it’s pretty affordable in the off season (this *is* a five-star hotel after all).
Now, we’re back at the hotel having a light picnic of the food people have been ferreting away in their hotel rooms. Love you all, miss you all!
Xxoo J.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Hello all!
I finally got connected - get ready to be bored out of your sculls. As part of the project over here, I'm keeping a journal thing. Rather than write up two summaries of what is happening, I'm just posting the journal thing directly for you. Please excuse the typos and awful grammar - I blame the wine.
You'll notice that we're missing today's entry. I'll probably get to that tomorrow - battery is dead tonight, and only have limited time. So we begin...
February 13, 2006
Lisbon, Portugal
Well, this has been one helluva long day. Woke up in Minnesota, what seems like years ago, and am just getting ready for bed in Lisbon. Estimates differ, but we are fairly sure that it took 26 hours of travel to get from our homes to the hotel here. Once we arrived here we were dragged (yes, dragged) on a 4 hour walking tour of this very hilly (seven of them to be exact) city.
All of you. Right now. Drop what you are doing and come to Lisbon. It is wonderful! It is charming and seedy, elegant and decrepit, cosmopolitan and naïve. It is gorgeous. Imagine West Texas, Bombay, New Orleans, and San Francisco all whirled together then get the natives to speak a language that sounds like a thoroughly chewed Russian/Spanish/French patois. It is simply charming, and you must all come here for a visit. Stay in the Hotel Borges (google it) in the Chiado district. Nice hotel – not fancy, but excellently situated near very good restaurants, and is clean and comfortable.
During the tour (and the brief adventure where I and three of my comrades got separated from the group for a highly enjoyable hour) we roamed all over the oldest parts of Lisbon – parts that burned down in the 1980’s only to be rebuilt by the famous Portuguese architect Silva. We saw the parts of the city that survived (or shortly followed) the big earthquake of hmhmmhmhmph (it’s also a vitamin) [Edit – turns out the earthquake was in 1755], and other bits that are 2000 years old.
For tomorrow, we are challenged with having to find our way across the city (keep the water on the left) on the 15 tram line, to the something or another after the Geronimos (zhayronimoosh) that is purported to be interesting.
February 14, 2006
Lisbon
Today was fun. The weather has been amazing – about 55 degrees and sunny. We were expecting 45 degrees and drizzly – all in all I think we won the weather lottery. I’m even just a little bit sunburned (don’t tell my dad).
We woke up at 6:30 (thank you, jet lag) and headed down to the continental breakfast that the hotel provides. Basically it’s bread and jam, and coffee. The bread was really quite good (if weird to eat for breakfast), however the amazing thing was the coffee. It’s a totally automated espresso machine and it is amazing. Hit a button, get an espresso in your cup, hit another and you get a doppio, or a cappuccino (with weird shelf-stable milk), or milky coffee, or tea, or chai, or chocolate, or chocolate-coffee, or hot milk. Mmm… I was quite restrained and only had three coffees (doppio, espresso, and cappuccino). Hannah had four.
Suitable refreshed, we set off for the other side of town. We were to head three miles up the river (chanting the mantra “keep the water on the left”) on the 15 tram line. We trundled along and got off at the Maritime Museum. After a bit of wandering around and snapping photos we headed on into the dusty depths and saw all manner of sextants, astrolabes (why do both of those sound naughty?), and statues. Many of these items were reproductions, and many of the originals were still in Goa (pity we didn’t go there, dad). Mum, there were lots of good oil paintings too, but their murky brownness did not photo well in the gloomy museum – I’ll keep trying.
After that we wandered around outside admiring the mosaic plaza. Everthing here is mosaic – tiled buildings, chert mosaic sidewalks and plazas in all manner of creative designs.
Then, on to Jeronimos (zhayronimoosh), the monastery. We saw the large church (hope to have pictures posted soon). It is large, damp, and at the same time crudely chiseled and delicately detailed. It is a monumental space. My two favorite things were the piped in Gregorian chant, and the faint traces on the walls that were used as patterns for the church as it was being built so the stone masons could check their work.
We went on in to the cloister too – there are no words to describe it. It was less than an acre in size, and was made of this yellow stone lace-froth. Again, too amazing to describe – must see pictures.
After that, we wandered over to the cultural center for lunch (veggie quiche) and gelato (I had nocciolato – hazelnut chocolate). Yum.
Much more wandering around later (to the discovery monument, and through a Moorish garden) we stopped by a famous spot for a hot custard tart called a Pesteis de Beleim (payshtaysh dey belaym). Imagine custard meets crème brulee.
We then hiked up the hill puff-puff-puff to look at the tropical botanical gardens, were briefly stalked by weird ducks, then headed back on into the Chiado (shee-ah-doo) on the infamous and stinky (urine?) tram.
We ran a couple of errands (getting cash, and a cell phone) then gathered a group of people to go for a meal. You don’t eat dinner until 9:00 here, so we had to wait a bit (hiking up and down hills, again) for the restaurants to open. A plate of grilled calamari and two glasses of white wine later and we headed back to the hotel.
On of my friends has an excellent room here that has windows that open up onto the Rua Garrett – the pedestrian only street in front of the hotel. We hung out the window for half an hour chatting and yelling down to people we knew, then headed on to bed and writing out the notes for the day.
I do apologize if you find the details in this tedious – these are my notes for the day and I’m being exceedingly lazy by just cut-and-pasting them here for you.
Tomorrow, we have two pretty high priorities – find an internet café so I can upload this and hopefully some pictures, and buy me some sunglasses.
February 15, 2006
Quick entry tonight I’m afraid – it is late and tomorrow we go to Evora, in southern Portugal. Not that far actually, since Portugal is approximately the size of Indiana.
Today, we started with breakfast as usual (bread, urgh…) and went for a walk up and down the steepest hills we could find. Well, that wasn’t the goal, but that certainly was the result. We were looking for internet cafes, and sunglass shops, but got too easily distracted and ended up just wandering.
We then went to a couple of lectures by the local faculty in the Literary Club – cool old building with felt wallpaper. We were served coffee – the coffee here in Lisbon is usually espresso, and always excellent.
Afterwards, we wandered back to the hotel to grab a sandwich then we walked over to Castelo Sao Jorge. It is the old fortress/castle/thingummy and consequently is at the top of a large hill. Our hotel is also at the top of a hill, but unfortunately – a different one. We walked to the castelo down and up tremendous hills and through very interesting neighborhoods. The castelo is very cool – a big old ruin with awesome nooks and crannies.
After a few hours, we took the tram back, ran a couple of errands (laundry, reading homework, etc.) and then went for a group dinner at a restaurant just off the Placa Rossio. We were served a local small shark in onions, and something called Black Pig (a local breed, I believe). It was delicious, as always.
Off to sleep now – been a long long day – we climbed half the hills of Lisbon today, and definitely the tallest one. ;) View was worth it though.
Oops.. still haven’t managed to upload this – will do this soon.
February 16, 2006
Thursday
Have got to make this quick again – it looks like running on no sleep will become the norm. I already feel behind in homework, such is life.
Woke up bleary and early, went down for breadfast (that’s getting old, rapidly) and climbed on a bus to go to Evora in southern Portugal. Along the way, we made some stops and had hilarious commentary from Pedro, our token Portuguese faculty.
We had a brief stop for espresso, to revive ourselves, and I had a tast of a local pastry that is a soft eggy cake wrapped around an almond cream. It was delicious, but I was glad that I only had a couple of small mouthfuls – it was very sweet.
First stop was Cape Espichel, a church where someone built it as a monument to a vision of Mary. It had some attached dormitories, and was charming and semi ruined. The weather was wuthering wonderfully – blowing fog (it was very very windy) and drizzling. The church is set high up on a promontory, and if you get brave enough to peek a nose over the cliff you can get impressive views of the sea, and cars that have gone over the edge. Yikes.
Next stop was a convent and church (in the Manueline style) in Setubal. We met with an archeaologist who’s restoring it to conventyness from hospitalyness.
Lunch was eaten in a little place on the main strip by the sea again. Guess what I had! Calamari again. I had to this time, it was the specialty of the house. Yum.
Bus bus bus again over to Evora (named Ebora by the Romans, like Eboracum – later York) where we checked into a charming hotel. Don’t actually know the name of it – Solar something or another. It’s a very very very nice hotel, and is inside the medieval walled city.
We went for a walk around, because the restaurants don’t open for dinner until about 8 or 8:30. We saw the aqueduct, the Roman temple, countless churches to this that and the other saint, and a few feral dogs. The dogs decided we were a pack too, and joined us on our tour. One in particular walked with us for a long time, so I named him Cujo. Others in the class called him Siza, after a Portuguese architect.
Sandra, Hannah, Lynn and I ducked into a little place for dinner only on the recommendation of the marvelous aroma out in the street. We were a bit worried since some of the tables were reserved, but they let us in and asked if we wanted Fado (the Portuguese folk blues music). We said yes please, and were seated to an excellent meal. Cheese, olives, ceviche for an appetizer, Black Pork for dinner (the pigs fed on cork oak acorns – Portugal produces 90% of the world’s cork and the trees are everywhere down here with olives, oranges, lemons, almonds, vines, and umbrella pines). It was followed by chocolate mousse (naughty naughty) with a shot of whiskey on top. Mmm.
All this, plus three other dinners for the other ladies, plus two bottles of wine, for less than 80 Euros. Very very good!
Then came the Fado – the band (two guitars and a singer) set up right next to us and started singing. This continued, with brief breaks for wine (wine that was made by the owner of the restaurant called the Café Alentejo) and to swap singers. It was an amazing concert and as time went by they made more and more of a fuss of us. There were maybe 40 people in the room, and we were the only tourist types. The businessmen at the next table kept up a lively banter with us, and even gave us phone numbers (whoo!). Then, the band came over to say hi, so we chatted with them, then the owner sent over four shots of a minty liquor. Needless to say, we were having a marvelous time, and I highly recommend you find some Fado music and listen to it. Since we were trapped in the back, we stayed a bit longer than we had planned, but well worth it. The assembled company was fascinated with Sandra’s sketchbook, and much fuss was made – to our delight.
When we finally got our giddy and overfed selves back to the hotel (bit of a lucky find, if you ask me) we ran into one of our professors. He knew the restaurant well and approved highly of our evening’s entertainment.
I finally got connected - get ready to be bored out of your sculls. As part of the project over here, I'm keeping a journal thing. Rather than write up two summaries of what is happening, I'm just posting the journal thing directly for you. Please excuse the typos and awful grammar - I blame the wine.
You'll notice that we're missing today's entry. I'll probably get to that tomorrow - battery is dead tonight, and only have limited time. So we begin...
February 13, 2006
Lisbon, Portugal
Well, this has been one helluva long day. Woke up in Minnesota, what seems like years ago, and am just getting ready for bed in Lisbon. Estimates differ, but we are fairly sure that it took 26 hours of travel to get from our homes to the hotel here. Once we arrived here we were dragged (yes, dragged) on a 4 hour walking tour of this very hilly (seven of them to be exact) city.
All of you. Right now. Drop what you are doing and come to Lisbon. It is wonderful! It is charming and seedy, elegant and decrepit, cosmopolitan and naïve. It is gorgeous. Imagine West Texas, Bombay, New Orleans, and San Francisco all whirled together then get the natives to speak a language that sounds like a thoroughly chewed Russian/Spanish/French patois. It is simply charming, and you must all come here for a visit. Stay in the Hotel Borges (google it) in the Chiado district. Nice hotel – not fancy, but excellently situated near very good restaurants, and is clean and comfortable.
During the tour (and the brief adventure where I and three of my comrades got separated from the group for a highly enjoyable hour) we roamed all over the oldest parts of Lisbon – parts that burned down in the 1980’s only to be rebuilt by the famous Portuguese architect Silva. We saw the parts of the city that survived (or shortly followed) the big earthquake of hmhmmhmhmph (it’s also a vitamin) [Edit – turns out the earthquake was in 1755], and other bits that are 2000 years old.
For tomorrow, we are challenged with having to find our way across the city (keep the water on the left) on the 15 tram line, to the something or another after the Geronimos (zhayronimoosh) that is purported to be interesting.
February 14, 2006
Lisbon
Today was fun. The weather has been amazing – about 55 degrees and sunny. We were expecting 45 degrees and drizzly – all in all I think we won the weather lottery. I’m even just a little bit sunburned (don’t tell my dad).
We woke up at 6:30 (thank you, jet lag) and headed down to the continental breakfast that the hotel provides. Basically it’s bread and jam, and coffee. The bread was really quite good (if weird to eat for breakfast), however the amazing thing was the coffee. It’s a totally automated espresso machine and it is amazing. Hit a button, get an espresso in your cup, hit another and you get a doppio, or a cappuccino (with weird shelf-stable milk), or milky coffee, or tea, or chai, or chocolate, or chocolate-coffee, or hot milk. Mmm… I was quite restrained and only had three coffees (doppio, espresso, and cappuccino). Hannah had four.
Suitable refreshed, we set off for the other side of town. We were to head three miles up the river (chanting the mantra “keep the water on the left”) on the 15 tram line. We trundled along and got off at the Maritime Museum. After a bit of wandering around and snapping photos we headed on into the dusty depths and saw all manner of sextants, astrolabes (why do both of those sound naughty?), and statues. Many of these items were reproductions, and many of the originals were still in Goa (pity we didn’t go there, dad). Mum, there were lots of good oil paintings too, but their murky brownness did not photo well in the gloomy museum – I’ll keep trying.
After that we wandered around outside admiring the mosaic plaza. Everthing here is mosaic – tiled buildings, chert mosaic sidewalks and plazas in all manner of creative designs.
Then, on to Jeronimos (zhayronimoosh), the monastery. We saw the large church (hope to have pictures posted soon). It is large, damp, and at the same time crudely chiseled and delicately detailed. It is a monumental space. My two favorite things were the piped in Gregorian chant, and the faint traces on the walls that were used as patterns for the church as it was being built so the stone masons could check their work.
We went on in to the cloister too – there are no words to describe it. It was less than an acre in size, and was made of this yellow stone lace-froth. Again, too amazing to describe – must see pictures.
After that, we wandered over to the cultural center for lunch (veggie quiche) and gelato (I had nocciolato – hazelnut chocolate). Yum.
Much more wandering around later (to the discovery monument, and through a Moorish garden) we stopped by a famous spot for a hot custard tart called a Pesteis de Beleim (payshtaysh dey belaym). Imagine custard meets crème brulee.
We then hiked up the hill puff-puff-puff to look at the tropical botanical gardens, were briefly stalked by weird ducks, then headed back on into the Chiado (shee-ah-doo) on the infamous and stinky (urine?) tram.
We ran a couple of errands (getting cash, and a cell phone) then gathered a group of people to go for a meal. You don’t eat dinner until 9:00 here, so we had to wait a bit (hiking up and down hills, again) for the restaurants to open. A plate of grilled calamari and two glasses of white wine later and we headed back to the hotel.
On of my friends has an excellent room here that has windows that open up onto the Rua Garrett – the pedestrian only street in front of the hotel. We hung out the window for half an hour chatting and yelling down to people we knew, then headed on to bed and writing out the notes for the day.
I do apologize if you find the details in this tedious – these are my notes for the day and I’m being exceedingly lazy by just cut-and-pasting them here for you.
Tomorrow, we have two pretty high priorities – find an internet café so I can upload this and hopefully some pictures, and buy me some sunglasses.
February 15, 2006
Quick entry tonight I’m afraid – it is late and tomorrow we go to Evora, in southern Portugal. Not that far actually, since Portugal is approximately the size of Indiana.
Today, we started with breakfast as usual (bread, urgh…) and went for a walk up and down the steepest hills we could find. Well, that wasn’t the goal, but that certainly was the result. We were looking for internet cafes, and sunglass shops, but got too easily distracted and ended up just wandering.
We then went to a couple of lectures by the local faculty in the Literary Club – cool old building with felt wallpaper. We were served coffee – the coffee here in Lisbon is usually espresso, and always excellent.
Afterwards, we wandered back to the hotel to grab a sandwich then we walked over to Castelo Sao Jorge. It is the old fortress/castle/thingummy and consequently is at the top of a large hill. Our hotel is also at the top of a hill, but unfortunately – a different one. We walked to the castelo down and up tremendous hills and through very interesting neighborhoods. The castelo is very cool – a big old ruin with awesome nooks and crannies.
After a few hours, we took the tram back, ran a couple of errands (laundry, reading homework, etc.) and then went for a group dinner at a restaurant just off the Placa Rossio. We were served a local small shark in onions, and something called Black Pig (a local breed, I believe). It was delicious, as always.
Off to sleep now – been a long long day – we climbed half the hills of Lisbon today, and definitely the tallest one. ;) View was worth it though.
Oops.. still haven’t managed to upload this – will do this soon.
February 16, 2006
Thursday
Have got to make this quick again – it looks like running on no sleep will become the norm. I already feel behind in homework, such is life.
Woke up bleary and early, went down for breadfast (that’s getting old, rapidly) and climbed on a bus to go to Evora in southern Portugal. Along the way, we made some stops and had hilarious commentary from Pedro, our token Portuguese faculty.
We had a brief stop for espresso, to revive ourselves, and I had a tast of a local pastry that is a soft eggy cake wrapped around an almond cream. It was delicious, but I was glad that I only had a couple of small mouthfuls – it was very sweet.
First stop was Cape Espichel, a church where someone built it as a monument to a vision of Mary. It had some attached dormitories, and was charming and semi ruined. The weather was wuthering wonderfully – blowing fog (it was very very windy) and drizzling. The church is set high up on a promontory, and if you get brave enough to peek a nose over the cliff you can get impressive views of the sea, and cars that have gone over the edge. Yikes.
Next stop was a convent and church (in the Manueline style) in Setubal. We met with an archeaologist who’s restoring it to conventyness from hospitalyness.
Lunch was eaten in a little place on the main strip by the sea again. Guess what I had! Calamari again. I had to this time, it was the specialty of the house. Yum.
Bus bus bus again over to Evora (named Ebora by the Romans, like Eboracum – later York) where we checked into a charming hotel. Don’t actually know the name of it – Solar something or another. It’s a very very very nice hotel, and is inside the medieval walled city.
We went for a walk around, because the restaurants don’t open for dinner until about 8 or 8:30. We saw the aqueduct, the Roman temple, countless churches to this that and the other saint, and a few feral dogs. The dogs decided we were a pack too, and joined us on our tour. One in particular walked with us for a long time, so I named him Cujo. Others in the class called him Siza, after a Portuguese architect.
Sandra, Hannah, Lynn and I ducked into a little place for dinner only on the recommendation of the marvelous aroma out in the street. We were a bit worried since some of the tables were reserved, but they let us in and asked if we wanted Fado (the Portuguese folk blues music). We said yes please, and were seated to an excellent meal. Cheese, olives, ceviche for an appetizer, Black Pork for dinner (the pigs fed on cork oak acorns – Portugal produces 90% of the world’s cork and the trees are everywhere down here with olives, oranges, lemons, almonds, vines, and umbrella pines). It was followed by chocolate mousse (naughty naughty) with a shot of whiskey on top. Mmm.
All this, plus three other dinners for the other ladies, plus two bottles of wine, for less than 80 Euros. Very very good!
Then came the Fado – the band (two guitars and a singer) set up right next to us and started singing. This continued, with brief breaks for wine (wine that was made by the owner of the restaurant called the Café Alentejo) and to swap singers. It was an amazing concert and as time went by they made more and more of a fuss of us. There were maybe 40 people in the room, and we were the only tourist types. The businessmen at the next table kept up a lively banter with us, and even gave us phone numbers (whoo!). Then, the band came over to say hi, so we chatted with them, then the owner sent over four shots of a minty liquor. Needless to say, we were having a marvelous time, and I highly recommend you find some Fado music and listen to it. Since we were trapped in the back, we stayed a bit longer than we had planned, but well worth it. The assembled company was fascinated with Sandra’s sketchbook, and much fuss was made – to our delight.
When we finally got our giddy and overfed selves back to the hotel (bit of a lucky find, if you ask me) we ran into one of our professors. He knew the restaurant well and approved highly of our evening’s entertainment.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
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