Lisbon, It Was Nice To Meet You

Last weekend we went to Lisbon, Portugal. It is one of those random places that was never on the top of my travel list, and I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it's just that Portugal is such a small country, or that in Europe there are so many "must-see" places like Paris, London, Barcelona, etc. After having been to Lisbon though, I think it definitely deserves a spot up top with the big boys.  Lisbon is what you would get if you combined Paris (the cafes, bookstores, and overall adorableness), Madrid (the cheap prices, some grunge, good art) and San Francisco (the hills, colorful houses, restaurants).

I think it is only natural that new places you visit will remind you of places you've been before, but when we first arrived, I think the San Francisco feel of Lisbon was especially surprising.  We didn't expect to take an hour-long flight from Madrid and be reminded so much of home! I mean, they have a big red bridge, a bay, hills, and even cable cars. And in addition to all that, they have delicious food, and eclectic buildings. 

Flying into Lisbon I was able to snap this photo of the Ponte 25 de Abril (25th of April Bridge). It actually has two towers like the Golden Gate Bridge, but I couldn't get both in the picture:  

On the way into town on the airport bus we got to see some of the city, including this awesome bull-fighting ring (the ring is awesome, not the fighting of bulls): 

After checking into our swanky hotel (the Sheraton, which was having a 40th anniversary sale, so our room was only €40 a night instead of €160! Thanks to WP's internet deal-finding skills!) we started walking toward the old part of town and ended up seeing some cool murals along the way: 

We also stumbled upon one of the cable cars in the city, called the Elevador da Gloria, and after it filled up with (mostly) tourists, we took it up a pretty steep hill. Here's the cable car: 

When we got to the top of the hill there were some pretty cool views of the city, including the old Moorish castle on the hill across from us: 

That evening we ate some Japanese food and then walked down to the center of the city to check out some more historic buildings. There was actually a big soccer match between Sporting (a Lisbon team) and Atletico Bilbao (a Spanish team from the Basque country), so the downtown area was totally deserted. On the flight from Madrid we were on the plane with a bunch of Bilbao supporters who were all dressed up in red and white jerseys and as soon as we touched down in Lisbon erupted into pro-Bilbao cheers. We assume they were all flying in to actually attend the match, which Portugal ended up winning with two goals late in the game. Here's one of the big empty plazas lit up at night:

On Friday we did some sightseeing around the city, starting with the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, a pretty big monastery in the part of town called Belém. Here's the main cathedral: 

And the outdoor courtyard of the monastery: 

The stone work was really cool-looking, with lots of spirals and small arches: 

We also happened to be touring alongside a high-school group, which ended up having its benefits. They were learning the history of the monastery from some actors who kept changing costumes and singing songs. They were speaking Portuguese, so we couldn't understand a lot of what they were saying, but from the costumes we gathered it had something to do with an angel and a devil (one guy's face was painted red): 

Inside the monastery and actually, all over Lisbon, we kept seeing beautiful painted tiles. There were tiles with all different colors and patterns, and I really liked these ones from inside the monastery: 

After checking out the church, we kept walking along the water to see a couple more famous monuments. Padão dos Descobrimentos, or the Discovery Monument, is located right on the water where numerous ships departed for India, the Far East, and the New World during Portugal's "Age of Discovery" in the 15th and 16th centuries. Here's the front of the monument, a giant sword (photo pose thanks to a very determined WP who had to lie on the ground to get this shot): 

And carved into the side there are a bunch of explorers:

From the Discovery Monument we also got a pretty good view of Lisbon's Golden Gate:

You can tell we didn't have the best weather, but at least it was just cloudy most the time and not raining on us! 

A little ways town from the bridge and monument is the famous Belém Tower, built in the 16th century during the "Age of Discovery": 

After seeing all these monuments we had to stop off at Pastéis de Belém, a bakery founded in 1837 that specializes in these delicious custard-filled flaky pastries, pastéis de nata. These treats are sold in most bakeries and cafes in Lisbon, so we had the pleasure of getting to try them a few different times. Here they are, topped with cinnamon and powdered sugar: 

Three mornings in a row we ate breakfast at Cafe Versailles, a really cool old restaurant and pastry shop that was near our hotel. The inside of the building was beautiful and it was full of Portuguese people, always a good sign. The waiters were pretty patient with us trying to order in Portuguese. We found that reading the menus wasn't too bad since many words are similar to Spanish, but speaking was a whole different matter. For the most part people in Lisbon spoke really good English though, and would immediately switch if we tried to say anything in Portuguese. On our last morning we stopped by the cafe to pick up some food to go. Just to try something new, I decided to order our food in Spanish with some Portuguese words that I had learned over the weekend. The pastry man understood me and responded in Portuguese, correcting my pronunciation of the word for "two", dois, which sounds like "doh-eesh". I know that a lot of Spanish people travel to Portugal for their beaches, so maybe they are used to hearing Spanish. Before we went we were also told by Spaniards that "all Portuguese people understand Spanish," so I'm guessing the Spanish don't try too hard to adapt when they cross the border. Here's WP getting ready for some breakfast:

Once we tried their pão de leite, there was no going back. The name technically translates to "milk bread" but it is basically what we call Portuguese sweet bread in the States, or Hawaiian sweet rolls (like the little guys that come in 24-packs). At Cafe Versailles we ordered the pão de leite with cheese and a little butter. Versailles also had an awesome tea selection and fresh orange juice, and the prices were a little cheaper than what they would have been in Spain. For both of us to eat breakfast it was around seven euros. I wish we could take this place home to Ciudad Real! 

After breakfast on our second morning we headed back toward the center of town to check out some old book shops. We were amazed by the number of new and antique book stores in Lisbon, and had a great morning leafing through prints, maps, and old fruit-box labels at an outdoor book fair and in some shops. Along the way we saw the Elevador Santa Justa, a Gothic metal elevator designed by an apprentice of Gustave Eiffel (the tower guy) that is used to take people from the lower neighborhood to a higher one. It began operating in 1902 and was originally powered by steam. Pretty nuts that the city is so hilly that they need an elevator! 

Here's another one of the cable cars, this one looks even more like the cable cars in SF: 

After some more walking around we ended up at the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto, the official home of port wine in Lisbon! They had hundreds of ports on the menu and very reasonable prices, so we were able to try a few different types. The tasting area was very relaxed and felt more like being in someone's living room than a tasting room. They maybe made it a little too comfortable though; I saw an older couple taking a little nap in their chairs between glasses of port!

After our port tasting we went over to a nearby church that was having a free organ concert. The church was beautiful inside with a painted wooden ceiling (including fake domes painted in perspective; look at the row of "windows") and lots of intricate gold work. 

We were surprised that churches in Portugal look so different from Spanish ones. They have some similarities of course, but we noticed a lot of them have more detailed chapels on the sides of the main hall, and the art includes more exotic animals like elephants. We figured maybe this is due to Portugal's colonial connection to India. Here's a shot of some of the arched chapels on the side of the hall: 

The organ concert was amazing! We got to hear six songs that lasted about 45 minutes. The organ pipes were up on the second floor balcony in the back of the church:

I took a quick video of the concert. You can really tell how loud the organ was and get a good idea the impressive painted ceiling:

After the concert we started exploring a little more and found some crazy things in this church! First of all, they have human arm bones on display. Here's one up close: 

And just to give you an idea how many arm bones there were, here's the whole window full of them: 

On the other side of the alter there was a display case the same size full of human skulls and small busts of various people, it was so weird! I guess these must have been some pretty special people to make it into the church display case...

Despite the weird bone discovery, Lisbon was such a fun trip! We came home with sore legs from walking up and down all those hills (should have taken the elevator...) and full bellies from sweet bread and custard pastries. And this weekend? Switzerland! We head off to Zurich tomorrow evening to visit Will's cousin Josh and his wife Davnah. Looking forward to pretzels, wine-tasting, chocolate, fondue, hiking, and more!

Oktoberfest in April

If there's one thing I've learned in Spain, it's that at any given moment there is probably something bizarre, fun, and hilarious happening right under our noses. I'm not saying Ciudad Real is always bustling with things to do, just that now and then they hit the sweet spot. The latest installment in "what is happening, where are we?" came to us in the form of Oktoberfest. 

Yep, it's April 18th, and Ciudad Real is right in the middle of a ten-day celebration of German beer, food and to some extent, music. Other cities wait till, well, October, to have Oktoberfest, but not Ciudad Real. Maybe they like being several months ahead (or behind, depending on how you look at it) or maybe the German band charges fewer euros in April. We'll never know why it came about, but one thing's for sure, we're happy about it. 

We even went on opening night to check out the liters of beer and to celebrate our friend Jenna's birthday. Here are Jenna and Jessica with some mighty big beers:

The Oktoberfest organizers erected a big tent in one of the main plazas in town and decked it out with German beer signs and banners that look suspiciously like they're leftover from St. Patrick's Day celebrations (is orange a particularly "German" color?) They also have a bunch of tables set up beer-garden style and on the first night they had a German-speaking Bavarian Orchestra. 

Since that first night we've been back once (on "Day of the Pig", free-sausage night) and there were considerably fewer Spanish people hanging out and instead of the live band we got to enjoy disco-era and 80's hits coming from a laptop. Nothing like hearing some American hits while drinking a half-liter of hefeweizen in small-town Spain. 

Here are a few of our friends; Erica, Mariana, and Jenna:

This isn't the world's best photo, but I wanted to show y'all the advertisements for Oktoberfest that are all over town. The ads feature a pretty (and quite busty) lady with her pretzel and beer. Also note that if you attend Oktoberfest, they are advertising "máxima diversión", or "maximum fun":

In addition to beer they have plenty of German sausages, some pretty dry pretzels, pastries and cheese for sale. Here's WP with the giant wheels of queso:

And to prove my point about random things happening all over Spain, I'd like to direct your attention to the video below. On our last day in Barcelona, my family had already left for their plane, and Will and I were wandering the streets looking for anything that was open. Our last day was Easter Monday, a big holiday in Spain, so very few stores were open. After going several blocks seeing only a few people, we stumbled upon this plaza with a huge crowd. Of course, we had walked into a Swing Dancing festival in Barcelona. They had an awesome junior high band playing swing tunes and a bunch of people were showing off their dance skills. 

We had a good time watching the dancers and then ended up finding a Mexican restaurant with decent food. I never thought I'd be so happy to eat chilaquiles verdes, a chip/green salsa/cheese/sour cream/avocado plate that had been a staple in SF life. 

Tomorrow morning we fly to Lisbon, Portugal where we have grand plans to try local pastries, see some cool castles, and taste port wine! I'm sure we'll get into some adventures along the way...xoxo!

Miguel Angel on Food

Since I last wrote about my student Miguel Angel (see previous post here), I've gotten a few more private class students, including a couple of dynamic brother/sister duos and an adorable English-speaking three-year-old. Miguel Angel, however, continues to be my most entertaining student. I see most of my students on a weekly basis, but with Miguel Angel and his brother, Jesus, I come twice a week for a couple hours. I feel like I know a lot about them now - like Jesus' love of fantasy novels (especially ones that involve time travel), or how Miguel Angel likes chorizo and ham, but not bacon, and how he loves all types of cheese, even though he can't name any of them besides Manchego.  

Today while studying for an English test, Miguel Angel came up with some pretty amazing drawings:

Just a few things I'd like to point out: 

1. The face at the top is "Food-Man." As the name indicates, he is a man made entirely of food. Those are "biscuits" (or cookies, in American English) for ears, lettuce for hair, eggs for eyes, bacon for nose, ketchup for mouth, and an ice cream cone as a body.

2. In the bottom right corner, you'll see a Martian holding cheese and bacon. Enough said.

3. Towards the bottom of the list of foods on the left you can see Miguel Angel's first attempts at writing "juice." The first one is "chus" (him trying to sound it out) and the second "lluasi" (him trying to write letters that I pronounced in English; J-U-I-C-E became LL-U-A-S-I). English is hard! 

4. See the ham? He draws a pretty mean ham.

After the drawing and writing practice we played Hangman and then sang a couple rounds of "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" just for good measure. On days like this I think I have a pretty fun job. Thanks Miguel Angel! 

Semana Santa - Andalucía & Barcelona

My dad, stepmom Ann, and little sister Emily came to visit us in Spain last week. We lucked out because Emily's school vacation aligned perfectly with my Easter break and we were able to travel around to a lot of places in Spain, including several cities in the southern region of Andalusia, and Barcelona, which we have been looking forward to visit since arriving here. 

The Barhams arrived in Madrid and drove straight to Ciudad Real, where they spent a night getting to know our little home base. We showed them a couple of the plazas here in CR and then took them to our favorite restaurant (Miami Gastro) to have some delicious modern tapas for dinner. After a tasty breakfast at the Silken Alfonso hotel the next morning, we set off on our road trip down south to Andalusia!

Our first stop was Córdoba, where we ran into the first Semana Santa procession of the trip. Some background: during Holy Week (Semana Santa) here in Spain, a lot of cities and villages throughout Spain (but especially in Andalusia) put on elaborate parades or procesiones to tell the story of Jesus' death and resurrection. Each day the participants walk through the city wearing costumes and holding pasos, or platforms, that show a part of the story. They also have huge marching bands taking part, and sometimes ladies wearing mantillas, or lace scarfs on their heads. Usually the processions start at a plaza or church and end up at another church. In Córdoba, we happened to be walking by the main Cathedral just when the procession arrived. 

Here they are coming through the gate into the Cathedral courtyard:

Some of the people in the procession wear Nazareño costumes, easy to spot because of their long pointy hoods. In this procession there were hundreds of people in the black hoods: 

And here's the paso, showing Jesus in the front with some other Biblical characters behind him:

And the crew taking the platform into the church: 

Usually after the platform showing a scene from Jesus' life, they come through with another platform holding the Virgin Mary. We saw this same kind a few times in different places, but the first one was in Cordoba. It is a little hard to see her face because of all those tall candles in front, but she's there!

The pasos are amazing because they are all made of wood and look very heavy, and are being held up by a group of people who walk in unison under the platform. In the picture above, you can see some feet sticking out under the red draping. As the pasos go by, members of the audience will walk up to touch them, say a little prayer, and cross themselves. The man in the bottom right of the picture above is paying his respects. 

The next day we got to actually go inside the Cathedral, which used to be a mosque before the Christians took over, and is still known as the Mezquita. The result of this mixing of Christianity and Islam is a pretty eclectic monument with symbols and art from both religions. 

Here we are with the famous red and white striped Islamic arches inside the Cathedral: 

Here's another shot of the arches, so beautiful! 

Emily and I also enjoyed the treasury, with lots of pure gold and silver items, some made from some of the first shipments of gold that made it back from the New World!  

Also, as an aside, why are there always skull and crossbones in churches? We keep seeing this around Spain, and every time it makes me feel like we're waiting in line at Disneyland for Pirates of the Caribbean:  

Córdoba is a beautiful city. So much of the old city wall and other big monuments are intact, and as we walked around the springtime smell of orange blossoms was everywhere (the fruit is too bitter to eat, though). We had a good time just wandering around to check it all out: 

  

After finishing up in Córdoba, we hopped back in the car to drive to our next destination, Jerez de la Frontera. By the time we made it into the center of Jerez to look for some dinner, it was already procession o'clock. This procession was HUGE and made it impossible for us to actually make it into the city center (they had the street completely blocked off with wooden bleachers for a few miles, so we couldn't cross). In the end we found a place to eat and got to see some more cool Jesus platforms and costumes: 

After some more walking around we eventually headed back to the hotel and on the way actually ended up having to jump into a procession and walk with them for awhile to cross the street. Luckily there are parts of the procession where normal people without costumes are walking along, so we weren't that out of place, and it was pretty fun to be part of the group for a minute. 

One of the things the Andalusia region is known for besides Flamenco music and sherry wine is their trained horses. They have a special way of training the horses so they actually look like they are dancing and hopping along (check out a video here). We went to see the horse show in Jerez at the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Arts. It was pretty cool, but they didn't let me take pictures during the show. Here's Em in front of the performance arena: 

The actual Equestrian School grounds were also very beautiful, with manicured gardens, museums in old mansions, and stables. We liked this pretty purple tree a lot: 

"Vino de Jerez" is the Spanish word for sherry (the British pronunciation of Jerez) and Jerez de la Frontera is the sherry-making region in Spain, so after the horse show we headed next door to the Sandeman winery for a tour. The tour was pretty adorable (it included a video, projection of fake flames to simulate a fire in the cellar and a tour guide dressed up in cape and hat), but the real highlight, especially for the sherry drinkers in our group, was the tasting after the guided visit. Ann and WP got the reserve tasting of "old and rare" sherries: 

Of course they sent us out through the gift shop and we all ended up with sherry to take home. :)

The next night we drove about 20 minutes from Jerez to El Puerto de Santa María to have dinner.  Puerto de Santa María is the town from which Columbus set sail when he discovered America (the town lent its name to one of his ships). Pretty awesome. We thought we had chosen an Italian restaurant on a nice, quiet street for dinner, but then the Easter processions struck again! This time we had front row seats and could see the whole thing through the window of the restaurant. 

Here's Dad and Ann with the red-hooded procession people in the background: 

I ran outside to take this one of the hooded Nazareños and the approaching paso with Jesus on the cross: 

During the processions there were often times when everyone would stop for a few minutes to let the people holding the heavy platform catch up. During those times the members of the marching bands would pop into bars to use the restroom, and the little kids would take advantage of the Nazareños with candles. We noticed in Puerto de Santa María that a bunch of kids were working on making balls of wax. Each day the people in the processions have different colored candles, so we assume these kids work on their wax balls all week. Here's a little girl getting some more red wax from one of the people in the parade: 

The back of the Virgin Mary paso was really beautiful in this procession. Here's her long cloak hanging down off the edge of the platform, embroidered with golden thread: 

The next day we continued our road trip and set out for Granada. On the way we stopped in Ronda, a town up in the mountains that has some pretty dramatic views and buildings perched on the edges of a steep gorge. Here we are on a balcony that hangs out over the edge of a cliff. This was enough to give even the bravest among us a little vertigo: 

Our next stop on the way to Granada was to see a couple big Stone Age dolmens. Archaeologists have excavated some pretty cool old caves made of stones that are so large they don't know how the ancient peoples could have erected them. 

The bigger of the two dolmens faced this really cool rock formation across the valley. Do you see the face? Archeologists have decided that the reason this dolmen faces a different direction than most other examples is because of this remarkable view of what might have looked like a fallen giant to them.

We got back on the road for a little bit, and about 30 kilometers outside Granada had our next unexpected adventure - the rental car clutch completely failed while we were on the highway. With no clutch, shifting gears is impossible, so Ann very calmly and safely pulled off at the nearest exit, where she parked the car. We were lucky that an exit came up only a few seconds after Ann realized there was an issue. 

Here we are hanging out on the off-ramp, Dad getting his safety vest ready: 

Here's the view looking back on the off-ramp:

After a call to the 24-hour roadside assistance, the tow truck man showed up within 30 minutes, and a few minutes later the van taxi arrived to take us into Granada to our hotel. It actually worked out pretty well that we didn't have a car to drive into the city - with the Semana Santa processions it might have been pretty tough to drive through the city center and get to a parking spot. We went to the rental office the next morning to pick up a new car for our last day of driving, so it all ended up working out. 

After the couple hour delay getting into Granada we got to see the city a little before heading up for our night tour of the Alhambra, the Moorish palaces located in Granada. WP and I saw the palaces during the day back in November when Will's parents were visiting, but it was cool to see it again at nighttime. If you're interested in day time photos, check them out here.   

Before heading in for our tour we had some tea at the Parador that is located within the Alhambra grounds. In one of the courtyards at the hotel we even found this cool painting of cherubs having some watermelon. They should have gone for the seedless: 

Next door to the Moorish palaces there is the Palace of Charles V, a really neat circular building from the Renaissance that has a Roman Coliseum feel to it. We spent some time walking through the corridors under the light of the full moon (the light behind the clouds in this photo): 

The morning after our Alhambra tour we picked up the new rental car and drove to Málaga to catch our flight to Barcelona. We drove along the coast for part of the ride and even got to hop out and touch the Mediterranean. The water was actually pretty warm, which bodes well for our beach trip with friends coming up in a few weeks!

Our first night in Barcelona, we walked around our neighborhood and got to see some of Gaudí's works. Gaudí is a famous Spanish Catalan architect with a really distinctive style and whose buildings draw tons of tourists to Barcelona. I'm sure I'm not the first to say it, but most of his buildings look edible to me - like cakes with colorful icing! Here's the first one we saw on a busy shopping street in Barcelona:

Gaudí's most famous design is still a work in progress, the Sagrada Família church:

They have been working on it since 1882 and expect to be done around 2028. Apparently the end date was moved up after the 1992 Barcelona Olympics when people saw it and Barcelona received additional funding for the project. There is a lot of information about the Sagrada Família online and better photos of the outside are definitely available if you want to check it out, go here. 

We were amazed by how beautiful the inside of the church is, and they haven't even finished all the stained glass yet! 

Here's a unique version of Jesus hanging above the alter. Gaudí used this same design (with the umbrella-like part on top) for the Cathedral in Mallorca that we got to see with Jimmy a few months ago (see this post for more about that trip).

This photo is taken looking down the main corridor of the church toward the alter. The four reddish columns are larger than the other ones in the main hall and have stained glass pieces representing Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The stained glass is lit from the inside of the columns, so inventive! 

We only had one day of rainy weather in Barcelona, and the rest of the time we were able to walk around and enjoy the sun! 

On our second-to-last night we met up with one of Dad's business contacts, Francesco, who was nice enough to take us to a fútbol (soccer) match! We saw Espanyol (Catalan for "Spanish," one of the main teams from Barcelona) vs. Real Sociedad (a team from San Sebastian, up in the Basque country). We had some pretty great seats, only about 10 rows from the field! 

The game ended as a tie, but each team scored 2 goals, so we were happy to get to see some action! 

After the fútbol game we went out to dinner with Francesco and got to meet his three very lovely (and multi-lingual!) kids and his wife. I wish I had remembered to take a photo, especially when his youngest, Bruno the nine-year old, showed us his hip-hop dance moves. It was pretty impressive. 

The four nights we spent in Barcelona were pretty relaxing, and we got to stay in a really nice B&B-style apartment in a good neighborhood. Here's the entryway with some cool pieces of art and brightly colored walls:

On Easter Sunday we decided to make the trek to Park Güell, a large park on the side of a steep hill which was also designed by Gaudí.  Here's Em in the parabola corridor:

 And WP with Gaudí's palm leaves:

It was super crowded so instead of shoving our way through the throngs of people to take a photo with the famous tiled lizard, I snapped a quick photo of this cute little girl with the statue: 

Here we are with the two big Gaudí buildings in the background. Don't they look like gingerbread houses? You can really tell how many people were at the park on Sunday; it was nuts. 

After making our way out of Park Güell, we headed toward the center of the old city to have Easter lunch at a delicious restaurant called Origens. We had a bunch of food (with a lots of vegetarian choices!) and also had some cava to celebrate the holiday. After lunch we went down to one of the beaches in Barcelona and hung out on some lounge chairs for a while. I was surprised how much the beach felt like places in Mexico, with people constantly coming by to sell you temporary tattoos, drinks, massages, braids, and scarfs. There was even an Indian guy coming through with samosas for sale! We didn't feel the need to purchase any of these items, and it was nice just to soak up the sun for awhile. 

We had such a great trip and it was fun to get to spend time with family. Thank you Ann, Dad and Emily for coming to Spain and for making our Semana Santa adventure so fun! You're a good crew and we miss you already. After so much travel recently though, it is nice to be home for a week of downtime before we head to Lisbon, Portugal! Stay tuned...