#2208: Sunday, December 30: Food, and Faro in the afternoon

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Post 2208
- 7 years and 364 days since I started this blog -

  

Journal
(written 12/20/18)

Read this once (it won't change for the rest of the trip(s): I'll be linking this post to Facebook. If that's how you got here, here's some background: About 8 years ago I started this blog as a food journal. I had a medical situation and needed to lose weight. Initially, that's all I did here: Journal my food intake and my weight. It contributed to helping me lose 20+% of my body weight in 6 months, and continuing has kept me on track since then. I started adding commentary after a while, but lately it has become infrequent. 

While I'm traveling, I let go of the weight-tracking and food journaling, except for the occasional food shot when I've eaten something interesting. And that's where we find ourselves now.

My time in the Algarve has been quiet, and that's more than all right - it's good.

It's been centered around the tiny town of Montenegro (also, it seems, called Monte Negro in some places), which is part of the city of Faro, the capital of the Algarve state. The Algarve state is geographically the nearly horizontal Southern coast of Portugal. It is the kind of vacation place Florida is to the Northeast US.

But Winter here is definitely off-season, with temperatures topping out in the low sixties. The giant water park in Faro is closed. Around this time of year, Portuguese families stay home.

Which is awesome, for me.

While there's nothing to do in Montenegro, Faro, with its large-ish population, is still open for business, even if some seasonal businesses aren't. That's okay, I'm not interested in businesses related to vacations or tourism (and there are still plenty of these open, anyway).

Not that I ignore all the sights. But the cultural aspect of Portugal that's been most available to me has been Portuguese food.

My normal diet at home is based on non-starchy vegetables and protein, mostly from animal sources. I generally avoid 'empty' carbs and grains. A typical day almost always includes a really large salad and I'm big on eggs as well - probably my most frequent source of protein.

Not here.

As far as I can tell, in Portugal, vegetables are an after-thought. When requested, a salad is likely to be small and uninteresting. Even salad main dishes seem to emphasize the protein ingredient: Tuna dominating a tuna salad. In Lisbon, when I needed vegetables (and I felt I did), I resorted to Indian restaurants (always a section with vegetable dishes), but the vegetables were, of course cooked.

I don't feel like I'm suffering, but the large amount of rice, potatoes, and bread I've been eating, and the small amount of leafy greens is pretty much one-hundred-eighty degrees from my norm.

And then, there are the pastries. In Lisbon, there's at least one pastry-shop on every block. At least. I pass three on my three-block walk to Rodas from my AirBnB. And, man, these pastries are beautiful and tempting. The national dish of Portugal is a small custard tart or pie, called pastels de nata. People get into fights over who makes the best the way we do over pizza here (or bagels in New York City). I have never been big on custard, and I have been holding off on trying these out (even while I have a short list of contenders to compare for when I get back to Lisbon and the hold is off).

But... in the center of Montenegro, pointed out to me as we drove past the first time I came to my AirBnB here, is an epic pasteleria: Doce Sabor (Sweet Knowledge). It is larger than most of the shops I've seen, and it also serves great sandwiches. And espresso. It is an every day stop for me.

Mocha creme layers and cappuccino from Doce Sabor.

I've been trying, with the exception of my vegetable-seeking Indian food forays, to eat Portuguese, mainly fish and seafood, for which Portugal is renowned. It has been very rewarding. I love the octopus they eat in Europe. It is different-tasting than what I can get at home, when I can get it in the states. In Chiang Mai, there wasn't so much octopus as squid, and that was good. Here, there's not much squid, but lots of cuttlefish. I don't think, as far as the eating goes, there's much of a difference.

Anyway, I've had octopus a couple of times and it's been great. I've also had lamb. And really, really good chorizo sausage: On its own at Jam Club, and as part of a mixed grill, something I have seen at every Portuguese restaurant I've eaten at. And I can't forget the salt cod I had on Christmas Eve - that was splendid.

I've dined out at four different restaurants since I got to Faro, and haven't had a bad meal yet. Three have been within walking distance of my AirBnB apartment. Last night's octopus rice at MN Restaurante was excellent. More on that later.

I took a ramble through Faro (it's a big enough city for me to say I only covered a small percentage) armed with very little in the way of knowledge about what was on offer. The knowledge I did have, though, paid off.

My Uber ride in was interesting - as was the fact that I had to take an Uber in the first place. Faro center isn't that far from Montenegro. But there is no direct walking path through a river and some marsh land that separate the places. If there were, it would be a nice half-hour walk. Since there isn't, it is 2-1/2 hours!

My driver spoke excellent English, and he was very much an ambassador for Faro, the Algarve and Portugal. We ended up discussing why octopus is so good, and favcored, here, and not popular at all in North America, even though it is available. He explained to me how he used to work in a restaurant in St. Luzia, about a half-hour from Faro. This was known as the octopus capital of the world. At one time, he said, 60% of the octopus eaten in Europe came from St. Luzia!

No, I'm not going to fact-check him on that. I like the myth just fine, true or not.

I got out next to the Igreja do Carmo (Church of Our Lady of Carmo), notable for a few things. One, it was built in the eighteenth century on the exploitation of Brazilian gold mines, and everything that isn't solid gold is hammered gold leaf or gilding over intricately carved wood, and there's an astonishing amount of it. The other is a chapel made of the skulls and bones of over a thousand monks, Cappel do Ossos (Chapel of Bones). This is one of a few in Portugal, but it is the one in the best condition.

Igreja do Carmo

The church itself is pretty spectacular. There are many intricately carved altars, and I was surprised by just how intricate - rivaling the kind of thing I saw in Chiang Mai, Thailand, although stylistically completely different. And comparable in size to the largest wats I visited there. The dark wood and burnished gold interiors also gave off an opposite feeling from the Buddhist temples in Thailand, which were often filled with super-saturated color, and, in general, better lit.

Behind the church proper, is a little garden containing an open chapel opposite the main building. To the left of that, there's a small nursery and childcare center. Directly to the left as you walk out the main building is the Chapel of Bones. That is the big tourist draw, and it had the biggest concentration of tourists I saw all day (which, to be honest, wasn't all that big, this being off-season).

Cappel do Ossos (Chapel of Bones)

It wasn't as creepy as I expected. It was really interesting and the vibe was, well, what it felt like to me was ultimate commitment. None of the thousands of monks whose bones create the chapel knew this was the fate of their remains. It turns out, this was kind of a 'thing' in the European religious community in the 18th century, exhume the bones of monks and use them to build a new place of devotion. During this time, many of these things were built. Today, Portugal has the two best preserved, and the one in Faro is smaller and better-kept. I hear the other one has had most of the skulls ripped off by souvenir hunters, and also suffers from unsightly graffiti. (Which is a big problem in Lisbon).

Anyway, to me, it was just interesting. Obviously, very unusual. What was creepy was all the Anguish of the Passion on display in the main cathedral. This bloody iconography, which included a life-size Jesus, down from the cross, every wound detailed and bleeding, while a well-lit Mary is reflected from above, as is a statue of Him on the cross, again, with Tarantino-level bloodiness. That, my friends, I found creepy.

Leaving there, my walk took me to the marina. On the way I stopped for a beer and sat at a table looking out on a small town square. The day was beautiful. The marina, and the area around it were very pretty. People were strolling. Couples of all ages hand-in-hand, families walking together. Something of a novelty to me. You see this sometimes in a park back home, but this seemed somehow more the norm here.

Just off the marina is the entrance to Cidade Velha: Faro Old Town. You enter through arches, passing through about 10 yards of stone walls that have been there for more than twelve hundred years. 

Entrance to Cidade Velha

The stones in these walls were set 1300 years ago. They've survived an earthquake that leveled the rest of Faro.

The cobblestone streets lead to a network of narrow alleys (streets) that seem to all end up at the Cathedral of Faro. aka Sé. I don't know why. I come through another stone arch and find a long row of fruited orange trees lining the square opposite the cathedral. 

The cathedral itself is pretty intense looking. I can see people taking photos from the bell tower, with its exposed bells and carillon works. I spend about a half hour in the Cathedral museum. The thing I like best is the red pipe organ. Make me some music!

Pipe organ of the Cathedral of Faro.

I take some pics of the intricate baroque pulpits (there are three), then make my way up the four flights of narrow and very steep stairs, having to stop and turn sideways and inhale to let people coming down pass me.

The view from the bell tower is pretty spectacular. The bells are camera-bait as well. 

When the sun starts to set, the good view becomes breath-taking.

Once the sun sets, it is as if somebody announced a sale at the Gap. In five minutes, I am the only person left on the bell-tower. Which is crazy, because dusk is equally beautiful from this vantage point.

But then I'm done. I walk back to the marina, where I now see a giant box made of little white and blue and red lights I hadn't noticed before. 

This leads to the nicely decorated shopping/tourist/restaurant area of Faro. It is kind of attractive, with clothing stores, shoe stores, hat stores, all of which seem to be right next to one or two pastry cafés, and/or gelato slingers, but I'm not really hungry or in the market for, well, anything. I've been on my feet for about five hours, had my pic taken surrounded by human remains, seen a gorgeous sunset from the best vantage point, and I'm done.

I am tired. I queue up my Uber, and thanks to a minor car accident, the twelve-minute ride home takes forty-five minutes instead.

I get back to my room, tired and happy.

And grateful for the good day I've had.

Food Comment

Next night, I found the MN Restaurante, only two blocks from my apartment. The restaurant has great, friendly service, and very good food. I had  sardine paté and olives on home-baked bread,  vegetable soup, octopus rice (pictured above). a carafe of the house red wine, and a vanilla cream pie with an espresso. All very good to excellent. It was 14 hours before I thought about eating again.

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#2207: Wednesday, December 26: A week in Lisbon, and out

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Post 2207
- 7 years and 360 days since I started this blog -

  

Journal
(written 12/26/18)

Read this once (it won't change for the rest of the trip(s): I'll be linking this post to Facebook. If that's how you got here, here's some background: About 8 years ago I started this blog as a food journal. I had a medical situation and needed to lose weight. Initially, that's all I did here: Journal my food intake and my weight. It contributed to helping me lose 20+% of my body weight in 6 months, and continuing has kept me on track since then. I started adding commentary after a while, but lately it has become infrequent. 

While I'm traveling, I let go of the weight-tracking and food journaling, except for the occasional food shot when I've eaten something interesting. And that's where we find ourselves now.

Note: I apologize for the lack of photos in the Lisbon part. It just happened that way.

We left off last Saturday afternoon, after doing a street deal to get some (perfectly legal) CBD oil for my sore knees. I had to figure out an effective dose, as relief wasn't immediate, but after the second time I took it, with a larger dose, it definitely had a positive, noticeable effect. I'm a fan, now.

Still, there was enough soreness, and I decided it was in my best interest not to keep on aggravating my knees, for me to Uber over to Jam Club about eight o'clock, in time to have a bite to eat before any playing began. As opposed to my first visit, when I was invited to back up a usually solo performance by a guitarist/singer, this was an open mic night, with a regular bass player. I didn't really know exactly what to expect.

I was warmly greeted by Joao, the other male owner of the club (it turns out, Paolo, the cook I met on Tuesday night, was just that: the cook, and I got his name wrong).

Joao is quite the character. He had friended me on Facebook after Tuesday night and invited me to come back on Saturday. I take it my first visit had been detailed extensively, he seemed to know the whole story, and recognized me from the pics of that night.

He greeted me like a long-lost friend, ushered me inside, and proceeded to introduce me to everybody in the bar, one table at a time. I was appropriately embarrassed by his praise, and did my best to deflect, but, to be honest, I don't think most of the customers had enough English to understand either Joao (who speaks fluent English) or myself.

Taking a seat at a small corner table, I asked for a recommendation from the small menu (I'd enjoyed the chorizo toast from the tapas menu last time). He guided me to the 'Jam-burger' - a double-patty with cheese and fixings - saying if I didn't like it, he'd take it back and give me something else, no problem. I asked if the meat was frozen, and he said absolutely not, they ground it themselves and made the patties. So, all right - after all, I was there for the people and the music - not so much for the food, although I'd been very happy with everything I'd had before.

The burger, served with home-made chips, was actually quite good, and considering what I've been paying for food here, a bargain. Just as I finished, James, the host, came in, accompanied by his open mic partner, bassist Robby. At Robby's insistence, we shared bass duties about equally, and it was great fun. While I wasn't playing, I was deep in conversation with Joao, and the first American(!) I've met on the trip, Aron from Brooklyn, as well as English speakers from Sweden and Germany.

It is a splendid time. Nobody has left the bar since the music started, and it is a roomful of smiles. Closing time comes, and everybody says good-bye to everybody else. Joao buys me a shot of Jameson's, and wants me to justify my position that Gone With the Wind is a trash movie (and book). He wants me to name a good, no better, movie about the South. With no hesitation, I name To Kill a Mockingbird, and every Tennessee Williams flick.

He is delighted. Claudia, the nearly-silent, smiling third partner in the bar, who has been the cook and co-host the whole night, spontaneously offers me a massage, as there are only the four of us left (with James, the guitarist). She's good. I ask her if she has training - no, she doesn't. Then, I offer to return the favor. I have a feeling she's better at it than me, but she is grateful and kisses both cheeks good-night when I finally leave.

Next night, still nursing my slightly sore knee, I go to the nearest restaurant to my apartment, directly across the street. It is the Ganesh Palace, an Indian-Italian restaurant. It is actually very well-liked on TripAdvisor and Yelp!, although we know that those reviews must always be taken with a grain of salt. There is no hint of Italian in the very attractive, very Indian decor- and the staff seems to be Indian, as well. I am handed two menus, I don't ever open the Italian one.

I take a seat in one of the small tables, and a woman the next table over, seeing me alone, invites me to share her table. I immediately agree, thinking how courageous she must be to take a chance on grizzled old me, thirty or forty years her senior.

The dinner is very good and Verica is a very interesting companion. She is curious and asks many questions about me, and is equally at ease telling her own story, far more interesting than mine. She is a refugee from Bosnia-Herzegovena, from the Serbian-Bosnian war of the late eighties-early nineties. She went to France as a sixteen-year-old, then England to learn English, and now, recently, lives and works in Lisbon. She does Customer Service for AirBnB.

We have a wide-ranging conversation, touching on philosophy and economics. She does not like her job. She wants to try tapas, and hear fado. We exchange info to maybe make that happen, but an email glitch forces us to put it off until after my Algarve trip.

I am invited to Christmas Eve dinner by Maria, my AirBnB host, and it is lovely. A genuine three-generation traditional Portuguese affair. After a traditional cheese, ham and crackers with wine (white port, new to me), I try salt cod (something I had wrongly avoided in the past, it turns out), three kinds of potatoes and cabbage. Then, before dessert, a many-years-old fruited port made by the grandfather (my age, LOL) is served to the adults.

Then comes dessert, which apparently is the main feature of the evening. There is a fruit cake (but with fresh fruit in addition to the candied fruit). I am told this is often called English cake. Hah! Then there are many delicious variations of fried dough, none of it heavy, much of it with cinnamon (I love cinnamon) added to the sugar. It turns out there's a story behind that: My host's ex-husband hated cinnamon. The table is full of desserts, a veritable Vienna table of pastries, redolent of dough, honey, cinnamon. I am already full, but can't stop eating.

Due to my lack of Portuguese, conversation is minimal, mostly smiles and pointing, thumbs-up signals between grandpa and me, and a bit of translated gratitude on my behalf.

The preteen daughters are antsy to get away from the table, are all excited for their presents, and when the dinner collapses into family snuggling in front of the television, at around eleven-thirty, I take my leave, stuffed and thinking of fasting on Christmas day. And maybe the day after.

Which is almost the case, because when I check for open restaurants on Christmas afternoon, I end up back at Ganesha Palace, for Indian food, all that seems available on Christmas day - an interesting variation on the 'Chinese at Christmas' New York tradition.

 The place is rocking, fully packed with people who are having family celebrations or smaller groups of those who just don't want to cook, and me - this time, the only single in the restaurant. I have the closest thing I can get to breakfast, fried rice with egg, and lentil soup.

That night, I'm back at a much quieter evening at Jam Club. It's Tuesday, but James has the night off. While I'm eating (the chorizo again), Marco comes in with his wife and tiny new-born baby girl, who is angelically fast asleep. He brings box upon box of home-made cakes, giving them out to all the customers, then leaving a pile on the bar counter.

I play a bit, well, all right, I play to the point where I'm having trouble remembering which songs I haven't played. As the night's only entertainment, I am warmly received. I quit, the better to speak with the bar's other customers. I have a conversation about Jimi Hendrix with a couple from Sardinia, who have been singing along with many of my songs. I thank a Japanese woman who seems to have been enjoying a night out alone as she leaves. I meet an American, doing graduate work in Lisbon, who is from LA, specifically Sherman Oaks, which is where my son lives now. He is being visited by a friend, a former undergraduate classmate, who is a software engineer, like I was. The conversation is long and deep, with many pointed questions about work and careers, and, of course, music.

An espresso night-cap, and I go home to pack for tomorrow's trip to the Algarve.

My Uber takes me across Lisbon to the bus station, passing through parts I've never seen, including parks, empty lots, what I assume is a business district and more. I am impressed with the amount of Lisbon I've had my back to so far this trip, where all attention has been towards the river. Lisbon is big.

Arriving at the bus station, with only minutes to spare, I find out I have bought a ticket on a bus that left at one in the morning, twelve hours ago, not one in the afternoon as I had thought. That's a twenty euro mistake. Luckily, the bus driver who informed me holds the bus (same as the original one, twelve hours later) a couple of minutes for my re-ticketing. The bus station is actually very beautiful, but I've had no time for photos.

The bus is comfortable. We depart in dense fog, going over a long, low bridge where I can barely make out the water and boats we pass. 

The trip goes smoothly, and in less than twenty-five minutes the sun is out. I am, though, on the sun-in-the-window side, and the best scenery is on the other side. So, I get only a few photos, and none of the pastoral vistas I'm seeing over the passengers on the other side of the bus. I do manage a couple of shots of the countryside, before the bus pulls into the town of Albufeira, which, while pretty in its own way seems congested and not so photogenic. The bus arrives exactly on time.

I change buses for the final 25% of my trip - this bus is a bit smaller and less comfortable, and drives mostly through traffic on smaller roads. I arrive in Faro, passing a giant (closed) water park, the airport, to a dense downtown that doesn't seem to have enough room to accommodate a bus-sized vehicle, and pull into a slip in the bus station that isn't big enough to fully open the doors or the cargo bin hatches... a half-hour late.

My host, Silvia is there with teenage daughter Isabella and a friend of hers, there to translate. We pack ourselves into her tiny Renault, with much good-humored joking, for an under-ten-minute drive to the town of Montenegro. I am given the front-door combination, and even though the apartment is on the first floor, ushered into the elevator. There isn't enough room for four in the elevator, so Silvia takes the stairs. She gets there first.

My room is cute. Very feminine to me, with lots of dark pink. This isn't a surprise, it's exactly like the picture in the AirBnB.

In my room, shells, Buddha, and an anatomically correct donkey.

I am tired. I stop trying to settle in and take a nap.

At nine, I go out for some dinner, but the recommended restaurants are closed, except for one, a self-service (cafeteria). Any port, though, and I am hungry. To my relief, I find that there are many locals dining. As I've said, I take this as a good sign in a restaurant when I'm traveling.

My hostess, speaking no English, quietly sets me up with a tray and a plate and silverware. All the food has both Portuguese and English descriptions. When I've made my choices, she weighs the plate to determine the cost. Despite a great quantity of food, this is the cheapest meal I've had in Portugal. And, it all tastes very good. I'm happy.

And grateful.

Food Comment

At Restaurante Monte da Ria, lamb medallions, pig ears with vegetables, spinach pie and fish soup.

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#2206: Saturday, December 22: Ramble on

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Post 2206
- 7 years and 356 days since I started this blog -

  

Journal
(written 12/22/18)

Read this once (it won't change for the rest of the trip(s): I'll be linking this post to Facebook. If that's how you got here, here's some background: About 8 years ago I started this blog as a food journal. I had a medical situation and needed to lose weight. Initially, that's all I did here: Journal my food intake and my weight. It contributed to helping me lose 20+% of my body weight in 6 months, and continuing has kept me on track since then. I started adding commentary after a while, but lately it has become infrequent. 

While I'm traveling, I let go of the weight-tracking and food journaling, except for the occasional food shot when I've eaten something interesting. And that's where we find ourselves now.

When I finished the last post I wrote, sitting in the Copenhagen Coffee Lab, I took my longest walk of the trip. I had two goals:

First, I wanted to see more of Lisbon, and the must-see section of Lisbon is the Alfama - the oldest part of the city, right on the river. It is the commercial and cultural heart of the city and, therefore, also the main tourist destination. Taking the gad with the good, I guess.

Secondly, I wanted to go on a long walk, get a little lost, see what an unfocussed view of Lisbon would throw my way. This has always been a mode that works for me. For one thing, it is consistent with my general philosophy of being mindful and present, of lowering or eliminating my expectations of the future. For another, the adventure of it is exciting - forcing me to be adaptive, flexible - go with the flow.

To get me in the general area, I used Google Maps to locate a walking path to what looked like the main square in the Alfama - it indicated a walk of a little over half an hour. I set out at about 2:30pm.

The map must think I'm fifty years younger, or a different species (maybe goat) to navigate the route in that amount of time - and also, that I wouldn't stop every few minutes to take pictures as I went. I also misread the route a couple of times, where the map and the written directions ("Turn right in 20 meters") were at odds. All good! I have no deadline.

I walked along narrow streets, admiring the old architecture, the color contrasts between different buildings. Along this route, there were very few vistas - no overlooks - but that helped me stay focused on my footing and the immediate environment - you can't take anything for granted walking up- and downhill on the uneven footing of cobblestones, which was one hundred percent of the walk. I'm proud to say, I didn't trip once, nor walk into anyone or obstruct any other walker's progress.

There is no mistaking it when you get to the Alfama district. For one thing, there are trolley tracks. Then, trollies. The density of shops of all sizes increases, as does the density of people on the street.

The wider streets all seem to have outdoor cafes, frequently in the middle of the boulevard, seating some multiple of the people who would fit inside the usually small cafes or restaurants. I soon caught the general direction of my stroll and closed my map app.

The temperature is nineteen Celsius, about sixty-five degrees, the skies partly sunny, and in my t-shirt and woven hoodie, I feel very comfortable.

That's when I encounter my first street musicians. They're good - a familiar configuration of acoustic, electric guitars, keyboard and cajon, with a little PA, singing a big beat pop tune. After listening for a while, I step up, throw a Euro in the bucket and walk on, when I am stopped by someone pointing at me, laughing and smiling and extending a hand to shake. I smile back, not knowing what that was about, but, you know, friendly is as friendly does.

A little later, this scene repeats itself after watching a cello player accompanied by some kind of classical music-minus-one track. After listening a bit and making my donation (free music isn't free in my world), a half block later, someone points, smiles, extends a hand, pats me on the chest after our handshake. I still have no clue what's happening, but this time I take an inventory of everything I'm carrying to rule out being set up by pickpockets. What a world we live in.

But I haven't been ripped off. Now I feel a little guilty for suspecting friendliness for something less... genuine.

Looking down a street I'm crossing, I catch a glimpse of the river, and change my direction towards it. I am beginning to feel like I'm in an MC Escher engraving, where the path is mobius-like - you're walking up and down at the same time. At which point I stop for a beer and a break.

It's a tiny, white-tiled cafe. I sit, edit some of the pictures I've taken, catch up with my Facebook and Instagram notifications. I order some kind of savory pastry to go with the beer. I notice, once again, that it seems I'm the only non-Portuguese in the place. I reflect that my near-complete lack of Portuguese has not had any affect. I wonder that, so far on this trip, I have not met a single other American.

I've met a lot of Dutch. I don't know why that is, but there are a lot of Dutch people in Lisbon. I think of the irony that my non-stop flight to Lisbon was replaced unilaterally with a six-hour stopover in Amsterdam, and I didn't hear any American accents on that flight.

It's after four. I've been walking around for more than two hours. I've been up and down high-angle narrow stairs, in alleys so narrow I had to go back-to-wall to let someone pass in the opposite direction. I've seen a thousand cute shops. I've seen huge squares all Christmas'ed out and beautiful. It's the day before the Solstice, and it's getting towards sundown. Time to wind things up.

I open my map app to see where I am, and what the route back looks like, and see I am going by some more big boulevards and large squares on my way, and that the walk will take me three-quarters of an hour (Google time). Uh-oh, I think to myself: I am, right now, nearly down to sea-level - my walk will be up-hill most, if not all the way.

But, again, I'm in no hurry - I'm not hungry and I'm really enjoying myself, making mental notes about the sights, sounds and smells of this part of Lisbon.

I get a near-sunset picture of a Paul Bunyon-esque Santa Claus, found in my path, walk a few blocks past some department stores amazingly decorated for the season, and then, suddenly, it's dark out, and the temperature is dropping.

Which is fine, because I'm definitely involved in an uphill workout.

There are beautifully decorated streets and buildings, and it could be Christmas season anywhere - bustling shoppers look the same in every city.

Then my route goes off the big streets, and I'm walking through dimly-lit narrow streets, always uphill. I become aware of my knees. Very aware. I know, though, that the pain is the product of my downhill afternoon ramble, and the subsequent steep up-and-down stair climbs and descents that has aggravated old injuries. I have insulted my musculoskeletal system. Payback, as they say, is a bitch.

And the going is slow. Finally, after more than an hour of uphill walking, with only a few short moments level or downhill, I arrive at Rodas.  It's after seven pm. That sentence probably deserves an exclamation point, but I'm really, really tired at this point, and there isn't a punctuation mark for tired. I go inside, I'm warmly greeted by the waiter, waitress and grill-man (my designation - I suspect the roles in this place are completely interchangeable).

Dinner (a somewhat cream-of-spinach-like vegetable soup of the day, grilled salmon with broccoli and a mixed salad, chocolate pudding, water, house red wine, and an espresso) is delicious.

I get home after eight-thirty, mentally canceling all my evening semi-plans.

Next day, I wake up with a considerable amount of pain in my left knee. I cannot face even a short walk, knowing that there is no route out of my apartment that doesn't immediately entail going down and up some steep streets and stairways. I'm taking the day off.

It's a total rest day. I sleep on and off all day, doing a little computer-watching from bed. I spend Friday evening planning a trip to the Algarve, which is Portugal's beach playground vacation area. I get an airBnB for eight nights beginning the day after Christmas - it's a bargain, they must have had a cancellation, there's a big discount. I like that the host has named my quarters Quarto do Silêncio, that is, Silence Room.

I am going to Faro, Portugal. Specifically, the town of Montenegro. We'll see, we'll see - I've never heard of this specific part of Portugal before, and up until now Montenegro was a country in the Balkans, but it looks good. It has an airport (which, after checking the Winter holiday airfares becomes moot), seems to be a good-sized town with a lot of the same type of architecture of the buildings I've found so attractive in Lisbon, and things to do, as well as a beach (for which I'm unprepared, clothing-wise). I'm psyched.

It takes a while to determine the best way to get there, but since a bus and a train take about the same amount of time, and the bus is a third of the cost, I get bus tickets.

I spend the rest of the night - I still don't feel like going out - researching CBD oil for my knee(s). This will prove vexing, because all the leads I find are internet purchase for home delivery. No storefronts. Sigh.

Today, I continue my quest, and find a place that seems to have a storefront, is repping a name-brand of CBD oil, and has a Facebag page. I message them from there, and get a near-immediate reply. They can help! But... They've gone to Amsterdam for the holidays (WTF???) and have left their supplies with a friend so their customers are taken care. A bunch of WhatsApp group chat conversations later, and I'm meeting him at his apartment on the other side of town, after I eat 'breakfast'.

I Uber to the other side of town, seeing many new views along the way. He is a very pleasant man originally from South Africa, speaking excellent English. We chat for about fifteen minutes, I get the oil and pay him (discount!) and Uber on home. Along the way, the driver takes me along a mountaintop route, and I get some good pics.

Tonight will be more music playing at Jam Bar. I'll probably Uber both ways. Lisbon has officially gotten expensive. I'm grateful that it isn't lifestyle-changing expense, and that I'm still having an excellent time.

Food Comment

At Rodas, a nice salmon steak. Not shown: cream of spinach vegetable soup, chocolate pudding, red wine, and espresso.

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#2205::Thursday, December 20: One week in...

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Post 2205
- 7 years and 354 days since I started this blog -

  

Journal
(written 12/20/18)

Read this once (it won't change for the rest of the trip(s): I'll be linking this post to Facebook. If that's how you got here, here's some background: About 8 years ago I started this blog as a food journal. I had a medical situation and needed to lose weight. Initially, that's all I did here: Journal my food intake and my weight. It contributed to helping me lose 20+% of my body weight in 6 months, and continuing has kept me on track since then. I started adding commentary after a while, but lately it has become infrequent. 

While I'm traveling, I let go of the weight-tracking and food journaling, except for the occasional food shot when I've eaten something interesting. And that's where we find ourselves now.

The last few days of my first week in Lisbon have been... interesting. I've learned a little about the place, a little (more) about myself, especially in relation to my purpose here.

I did not come to Lisbon as a tourist. I came to assess its livability, which is far from the same thing. For twenty-five years, I have been keeping a list of places I had researched - all specific cities, as opposed to countries or regions, that checked all my boxes when it came to the lifestyle I want.

I have learned some things, and one of them is that research can only take you so far. You never know a place until you're there. Boots on the ground trumps anything you've learned second-hand. I originally meant to start my search when I retired, on my sixty-sixth birthday, but my living situation in Syracuse was so rewarding, that a few years before that birthday I decided that expatriating would be plan B. I would stay in Syracuse as long as that seemed too good to walk away from. I'm not there yet.

My first foray into checking out the places on my list was at the beginning of the year (January 2018). I went to the top place on my list, and the only location that has always been on my list, Chiang Mai, Thailand. To say my three-week visit was a success is understatement. I had the time of my life, and in only three weeks, I felt completely comfortable there. I left knowing that Chiang Mai had set the bar very high.

The human mind is a differential engine. We are attracted to movement. We tend to not see what is static. Our sense of time and space is primarily a means to tell our story to ourselves. That is, we compare the current moment to the one that came before, and in so doing, the current moment becomes the previous moment.

Sorry for the philosophizing. The point is, I make an effort to keep an open mind, to eliminate or minimize my expectations, but I am always comparing my current perceptions to those past. In Lisbon, I am comparing with Chiang Mai, Syracuse, Cary, North Carolina, San Francisco and New York City - the places I've lived before.

Checking out a place for liveability means my emphasis is not on seeing the sites, although I inevitably will. Sightseeing tells you nothing about what it is like to live in a place. Ask New Yorkers how much the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty affects their lives. What it means is my everyday, day-to-day experiences. What I do when I'm at my base home, what attracts me to leave my apartment. What problems I encounter, and how I resolve them.

For all the goodness I found there, my stay in Chiang Mai was not free of problems. Nor, in my first week in Lisbon, have I not had obstacles.

All my difficulties in Chiang Mai were fairly easily addressed. In Lisbon, I am having some difficulty coming up with satisfactory solutions. But it is so damn pleasant and charming here, and it is only the first week.

Please do not misunderstand: I am, to say the very least, enjoying myself, and I expect I will for the next three weeks. But one problem is intractable and the other is pending further investigation.

The intractable problem is terrain and geography. Lisbon is the City of Seven Hills. I am staying near the top of one. That means that not only is every venture out uphill on my return, but a steep uphill climb. And it means that the downhill walks are a little bit painful. It is not Lisbon's fault I have bad knees, but it makes walking painful in one direction and exhausting in the other. One of those checkboxes I mentioned earlier is walkability. I have unchecked that box.

The other difficulty is finding community. Community is the thing that has kept me in Syracuse nine-and-a-half years after my original expiration (I was on a one-year plan when I arrived as a total stranger).

In Syracuse and Chiang Mai, I quickly found a welcoming community of musicians and musician's friends. It is proving not so easy here. The musicians' community here seems somewhat aloof - at least, I am having difficulty in identifying the community. So far. All my past experience says there is a community of musicians here - but so far, even though I've found a place to play at, a little, it has not proven an entry-point to the larger community of musicians.

The last thing to note is that, while Lisbon may be the least expensive metropolis in Europe, it is not inexpensive. Living here might be less expensive than living in Syracuse, but it is about two to three times more expensive than Chiang Mai, the lowest-cost place on my list.

OK. Enough about the generalities, because the specifics are actually much, much more positive.

I want to tell you about last Tuesday: the night I spent at Jam Club.

I found the place through TripAdvisor, which I used a lot in Chiang Mai to help me locate places I wanted to check out. The ratings and rankings may not be all that much use, but they are searchable and the place descriptions are generally fairly accurate. It's also useful in determining what is and isn't open at any given time.

Jam Club is a little more than a fifteen minute walk from my apartment. It has a ridiculously (and, frankly, undeserved) high ranking on TripAdvisor, which is not to say it isn't excellent - it very much is a wonderful place, and I expect I will spend quite a bit of time there.

It is definitely a member of Lisbon's 'hole-in-the-wall' gang of bars and restaurants, being tiny and unprepossessing from the outside.

But it is as warm and inviting a place as you could want. You could maybe seat a couple of dozen people before you were in a standing-room-only situation. Maybe. And they might have to be good friends, at that. However, this night, those limits weren't tested. There was a good crowd, and it felt full, but in no way uncomfortable.

Jaoa and Marco were behind the bar and now you know the whole staff. They are friendly, speak good English, and their smiles made me feel right at home. So did the framed pictures of famous musicians (Louis, Sarah, Jimi, Lou Reed, Bowie, and dozens more) decorating the walls - that reminded me of Shifty's and Rooters back home - although this place was half the size.

I arrived a bit after 6pm, hungry, and asked for the day's specials. I immediately accepted the grilled chorizo toast. Thirsty from my walk/climb, I opted for a glass of sangria, and it was delicious. I needed that bit of sweetness, too.

Jaoa, who was at the grill, surprised me by putting the arc of chorizo on a small, single-plate ceramic grill, putting that on the bar, and setting it on fire. Brilliant. And, when it arrived with a bucket of toast points, delicious. A pint of Sangre beer, and I was set. I ate leisurely, and was satisfied for the rest of the night.

I started a conversation with Marco about some of the musicians pictured on the wall that I was familiar with. I told him I was trying to connect with musicians in Lisbon. "There's a musician!" he said, and I met a man who told me he had a music studio around the corner. We exchanged pleasantries, he went out for a smoke, and then he was gone.

Marco asked, so I told him I played bass. "We have a bass in the back", he said. "If you stay until ten, maybe you will play with our guitarist. He's at an audition, now." Of course, I told him I would definitely stay, marveling at my good fortune. They had a bass guitar.

I ordered another Sangre. There was a Spanish guitar hanging on the wall. With nothing really to do, and, at the moment, only a few customers, I asked if it would be okay for me to play it, and was encouraged with a smile.

So I did one of my extended acoustic open mic sets. I am never a shy performer, but unlike when I'm playing bass, I am very self-conscious soloing on guitar and vocals. So when my audience showed me some appreciation, and with no other entertainment on-hand, I was encouraged to do more. Like Bobby McGee, I sang every song I knew. Allow me to be modest: I got by on my smile more than anything else, but I guess that was enough. My drinks were paid-for for the rest of the night.

I hung the guitar back up, and the guitarist walked into the bar. Joao introduced us, he went into the back, came back with an all-in-one single speaker PA, then brought out a cheap, heavy imitation Stingray bass. While this was probably the worst bass I've ever played, it did have all four strings. In Chiang Mai, I played for about an hour on a bass that was missing a string (luckily for me, it was the G-string. If you know my playing, you know that I find that the least interesting string on a 4- or 5-string bass).

The guitarist, James was Dutch and spoke very good English. He was very receptive to having me jam along with him. Although sometimes it took me a while to figure out what he was playing (lots of jazz chords and personal arrangements, something I actually like very much) we were soon just enjoying ourselves, getting comfortable with each other, and mutually appreciative.

Fun playing strapless with James at Jam Club

Two hours of smiles later, we were done. I was on my third Jamo (Jameson's Irish whiskey, to the teetotaler out there), feeling it, and when a Dutch couple that had been there all night asked if we could play any Dylan, and James demurred, I took the acoustic guitar off the wall and led the bar in my reggae-ized version of Knockin' On Heaven's Door. That was a big hit, so I told my story of how I first heard that song in Jamaica, and it was more than two years before I tracked down the recording, and realized it was a Dylan song, and that the version I heard had Clapton on guitar. It's still my favorite version (by Arthur Louis, if you want to track it down).

Marco, Jaoa, James and I had Jameson's shots for a nightcap, as the place closed up, still about three-quarters full.

Jao, Marco, James, whoever.

I made my tipsy way home through the narrow streets and alleys, only to be confronted by that final two-hundred-meter, forty-degree climb to the street my apartment is on. I am not ashamed to say I had to pause about every hundred feet. I'd earned my weariness, and I was still drawing energy and happiness at the night.

Food Comment

Jaoa flaming my chorizo at Jam Club.

Jam Club's chorizo toast. Really, truly delicious.

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#2204 (Lisbon): Monday, December 17: The Lisbon workout

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Post 2204
- 7 years and 351 days since I started this blog -

  

Journal
(written 12/16/18)

Read this once (it won't change for the rest of the trip(s): I'll be linking this post to Facebook. If that's how you got here, here's some background: About 8 years ago I started this blog as a food journal. I had a medical situation and needed to lose weight. Initially, that's all I did here: Journal my food intake and my weight. It contributed to helping me lose 20+% of my body weight in 6 months, and continuing has kept me on track since then. I started adding commentary after a while, but lately it has become infrequent. 

While I'm traveling, I let go of the weight-tracking and food journaling, except for the occasional food shot when I've eaten something interesting. And that's where we find ourselves now.

I have some catching up to do. But I don't feel particularly linear, so I'm going to start in the middle, Sunday morning, before I mention Saturday night (because that will tie in more logically with my story arc) and come back around to Monday afternoon, when I'm writing this.

I got an early (for me) start Sunday morning - well, technically Sunday morning as it was just before noon. It was my first beautiful day in Lisbon, and I took a stroll to have some breakfast in an interesting place I'd read about. The mid-morning-to-early afternoon light is gorgeous, and it showed off Lisbon in a way that the preceding rainy-misty days and nights (how it's been since I touched down) did not. I took some photos along the way as evidence.

Before and during my stroll, I found myself thinking about the simple differences between here and home (having nothing to do with the weather). Little things, like the doors opening inward (there was never a Flatiron fire in Lisbon, I guess); and the way every shop has a decorated window display; and it seems every store that sells food has fresh produce for sale; that the elevators in my building are open on the entry and exit side, no inner door, and the ones in my building are the smallest I've ever been in: maximum capacity, 3 friendly adults, I would say.

In many ways, my observations of Lisbon remind me of New York City in the late fifties and sixties, the NYC of my youth. The types of shops: plentiful bakeries, tailor shops, cobblers, and book stores.

Now, the thing about this stroll is that the beautiful weather actually made me more aware of something I've mentioned before: the steep hilliness of Lisbon. Lisbon is known as the City of Seven Hills.

The entire first part of my walk was downhill. I've had multiple athletic and accident-related surgeries on both knees, and arthritis has recently been confirmed - but don't worry, it isn't that bad, so far, and I've had many decades to get used to it. Anybody who has had knee problems knows that walking downhill aggravates the knees more than walking uphill. I slowed my roll 'way down, thanks to the tender reminder of my condition.

Google maps says it was a twelve-minute walk. Between my slow pace and stopping for photos, it took me more than twenty minutes. That isn't a complaint: I'm in no hurry.

But, this geographic feature of Lisbon might disqualify it from consideration as a future residence, and that's exactly why I'm here. To be clear, this is not going to spoil my fun or my stay, but this is an aspect of my future life that I have to be aware of. Unless there are medical advances, this will get worse, not better, and we're talking a few years down the road for my expatriation.

The uphills, on the other hand, remind me that my mostly exercise-free lifestyle has diminished my stamina. It's always just as steep on the way up as it was on the way down, but you're fighting gravity in a different way, and it's more work. The good news? So far, it's totally do-able, and the more I do it, the easier it will be. It is good exercise. I'm game - I used to be a runner and a swimmer and a gym-rat, oh, so long ago... This is a good workout, and as long as I take care to minimize the pain on the way down, I will enjoy this aspect while I'm here. The Lisbon Workout. Maybe I need to add hand weights. Just kidding.

The goal of this walk was brunch at Copenhagen Coffee Lab, which has a reputation for excellent bread and pastries, and, of course, great coffee. I order by pointing, which turns out to be embarrassing both immediately, when I find the staff speaks excellent English, and a little later, when I find out the omelet-on-sourdough I got is warm curried chicken salad.

So it goes. And that's all I'll say about the early part of Sunday.

I feel today as though I am about two-thirds over my jet-lag and arrival exhaustion. Man, back in the day I could shake off things like this almost without noticing. But now ain't then, as the saying goes. Recovery takes a lot longer. If I'm completely acclimated in a week, that will be reason to rejoice.

Let's flip back to Saturday night. Here's a little timeline of my trip up to that point: I flew out Wednesday morning (after telling everybody I was leaving Tuesday night, due to a PM-instead-of-AM calendar error) and arrived at my airBnb Thursday afternoon, exhausted, and immediately went to bed. I slept for the next 24 hours, more or less, waking up for a couple of hours to unpack, shower, get my WiFi hooked up, let people know I'd arrived safe and sound (a 50% white lie, given my exhaustion), and then back to bed for another ten hours.

I get up and go out for my first meal, as documented in my previous post.

Saturday was a rainy day. When I woke up Saturday after noon, I started seriously researching my immediate area, when I suddenly realized I hadn't eaten a vegetable in two days (french fries don't count, and I didn't eat much of them anyway), and noticed several highly-rated Indian restaurants (I love Indian food) close by. One that struck my fancy was Olá Nepal, thanks to the ability to reserve a table on-line at an opportune time, and with a discount on my meal.

Getting to the restaurant was an easy walk (downhill) in warm, light rain. Forewarned by my wonderful host, I brought an umbrella with me.

I arrived early and found out why the reservation had been so easy: The family that runs the restaurant was unlocking the front door as I walked up to it. This gave me a chance to grampa with the infant the mother was carrying in, and also to have a period of exclusive attention from the rest of the staff. Throughout the meal, without interrupting the flow of my dining, I was able to have bits of conversation with the owner, waiter, and the chef. By the end of the meal, I knew quite a bit about them, and even tidbits about relatives still in Nepal and one in Dallas.

The food was very good. Not Chiang Mai great (I had the best Indian food of my life there), but very good, and it had one feature that separated and elevated it above any other Indian restaurant I'd ever eaten at: Before my big bowl of delicious and hearty vegetable soup was finished, the chef came out with a taste of the chicken saag (kind of like chicken florentine, but the spinach is in cream sauce) I'd ordered, to discuss the level of 'spicyness' (heat) I wanted.

The result of this was that the dish was served to me with the perfect amount of heat, and everybody was happy at my delight. Why don't all the restaurants with spicy cuisines do this? I ate leisurely, was given a complimentary small dessert and coffee after my mango lassi, and, since it was now raining harder and the temperature had dropped a little, Uber'ed the short distance back to my apartment.

Time-jump to Sunday evening: I had found a well-known local restaurant, Rodas, a four-minute walk from my apartment. On my way, I had my first encounter with an ATM, and thanks to being given a choice of languages, re-upped my supply of Euros easy-peasy.

I think it is always a good sign when you walk into a restaurant and see that the majority of the customers are local, and older. I fit right in. I don't think I've mentioned that my look (beard, ponytail, and casual clothes), is a very popular look in Lisbon (Bob Hope: "And you should see the men!" Rimshot!).

The meal that follows is excellent. Very hearty vegetable soup (not vegan, it is in chicken stock) and seafood rice. This latter has an astounding variety of tastes and textures, thanks to four different kinds of fish, shrimp, prawns, crab and clams (not sure that list is complete, and, no, I can't be more specific) mixed in and top of rice in a thick seafood gravy. The house wine (red, and I've never cared about the white-wine-with-fish thing) that I'd been recommended by Ugu, my waiter was very, very good. The dessert cake, bolos (with coffee), a mocha and cream affair that although considered a regional favorite is, according to Ugu, never the same in any two places, is a stone knockout that I had selected based on its looks (kind of like a coffde cake). As I'm getting the check, I have to ask what it is - the flavor is so complex and rich-but-not-heavy.

Okay - we're pretty much up-to-date. It's Monday afternoon here at Copenhagen Coffee Lab, where I've returned to try more of the food and join the group of young digital nomads who hang here for the good, free, WiFi and I've been writing this, catching up on Facebag and my email for the last four hours.

I am always aware of my charmed life. Lisbon, as I've said, is a charming city. Everything seems to fit, at least once I get off an incline. Now, if I can just find some musicians... I can't be more grateful, but I would have something else to be grateful for.

Food Comment

The chef at Olá Nepal took this shot of happy me.

At Olá Nepal: garlic naan, tomato-stock vegetable soup, saffron rice, and, up top, chicken saag in a small chafing dish. And Cobra beer.

At Copenhagen Coffee Lab: The egg dish that turned out to be curried chicken salad. Still delicious. Also note: You'll never see a full cup of coffee in any picture I take. 

At Restaurante Rodas: Seafood rice: (at least) four kinds of fish, crab, prawns, shrimp, clams over rice with a tomato-based seafood stock.

Back at Copenhagen Coffee Lab, my first Continental breakfast since I was last on the Continent (fifteen years ago!). Didn't disappoint.

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