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.