This is just a quick note to let you know we have not fallen off the face of the earth. We made it to Porto, the second largest city in Portugal today. It is about 6:00 PM and we are sitting in an internet cafe cranking through our e-mail. I am finding this very difficult because the keyboard is different here. The letters are all in the same spot, but the capitalization button and the punctuation are not, so foregive all the words that start with <, which sits in the place of the left hand capitalization key.
i have been writing the blog every day but we are without a connection to the internet so they are stacking up. As soon as i can find wifi I will update you on the past few days. We have been suffering through record high temperatures of 42 degrees celsius which is scorching hot.
today is Caitieºs birthday, and if you are reading this out there Caitie, we have been trying to reach you for days and wish you a very happy birthday. you donºt seem reachable by phone, so maybe you are still in poland. i hope all is well. happy 18th from mom and dad. we love you lots.
Be back in touch as soon as we can. our best to all, mike and deanne
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Saturday July 28 Beautiful Obidos
We have moved on to a wonderful little town near the coast of central Portugal called Obidos (O-bi-DOSH) We read about this town in an English language real estate magazine which recommended it as the next up and coming place to invest. It is a walled city full of winding cobblestoned streets and whitewashed homes and shops. It took us all day yesterday (Friday) to get here. A two hour drive took 8 hours by train with four transfers. To those of you who follow in our footsteps… rent a car in Portugal, don’t do trains. The difficulty with cars is not the driving, it is the parking. The roads are good and the people seem to respect the laws (like side of the road to drive and stoplights). The problem with trains is that there is one north-south route running between the cities of Porto at the north, Lisbon in the center and Faro in the south. If you are traveling to small towns as we are, you must transfer in one of these large cities to get onto a smaller train system, then possibly transfer time and time again to get to your destination town. Obidos is in the wine country, so we had beautiful train trips getting here, but it was tiring to travel from 8:00 am until 5:00. We are burning through expensive paperback mysteries, which at $15 each chew up our budget.
Yesterday’s travel resulted in several planned and unplanned stops. We successfully traveled from Setubal to Lisbon, but got incorrect directions in Lisbon and ended up in the nearby resort town of Sintra, where an tourism information booth worker advised us to turn around and return part way back to Lisbon as we had overshot our connection on the commuter train. The little stop down the line where we had to return and await a connection required us to sit on a bench for a few hours. As it was near lunch, we decided to roll our bags, carry our backpacks and haul ourselves in search of lunch. The ticket office guy suggested the restaurant across the street where Deanne met the first of the old ladies that flocked around her all day, annoying the heck out of Mike. As we were seating ourselves in this cool restaurant, the old lady at the next table, decked out in dress and hat advised me in exuberant Portuguese just how to arrange the roller bag and backpack so as to not have them stolen from their spot against the wall. When she was not satisfied with my arrangement, she got up and redid them, grabbing my arm several times to make her point about how to do it better. When Mike got up to use the men’s room and passed me his bag to hold, the old lady once again jumped into gear explaining how to fasten the pack around my torso rather than setting it anywhere so that it would be safe. She had quite a conversation with me that was, of course, totally undecipherable. One of the waiters came by and tried to explain to her that I only spoke English. She wasn’t have any of it though, she liked me. She kept talking and he explained the bottom-line to me: she had family in England somewhere. The second old lady was begging and came by our table with her hand out. Against Mike’s advice Deanne gave her some money and then she would not go away. She sat down at the next table and wouldn’t leave. The waiters asked her to leave, but she wasn’t going. That was enough for Mike to load us up and leave. In the meantime, we had eaten a huge lunch of thin, but big ultra-rare steak and fries (Mike) and pork roast and new potatoes (me).
The train didn’t actually stop in the town we had reservations to stay in, so we stopped in the next train past town, and rather than wait in the station for a train going back forty-five minutes later, we grabbed a taxi and traveled the 8 kms to our hotel. We are staying in a beautiful converted convent that was built in 1830 with money provided by King Miguel. After three years of construction Miguel’s brother, King Pedro was in charge and he didn’t support sending the nuns to live here, so it became a private residence and finally an inn. We had a great night’s sleep in this pretty room with its own small courtyard, and a wonderful breakfast full of pastries. Last night was again laundry night, so Mike fashioned a fancy clothesline in the bathroom and we washed another three or four days of clothes.
This morning we set out to explore this beautiful little town and found it enchanting. Hopefully you will enjoy seeing us trekking up and down the town streets and the castle walls. Mike found his “people” today – a troop of scouts came through town wearing hiking boots and skirted hats just like his boots and sun protection hat. So, we have pictures of Mike with his “cool” gear along with the kids looking equally cool.
For all of those interested... we heard from Caitie. She is in Poland. Catherine's grandmother is quite ill so they both went to visit.
Yesterday’s travel resulted in several planned and unplanned stops. We successfully traveled from Setubal to Lisbon, but got incorrect directions in Lisbon and ended up in the nearby resort town of Sintra, where an tourism information booth worker advised us to turn around and return part way back to Lisbon as we had overshot our connection on the commuter train. The little stop down the line where we had to return and await a connection required us to sit on a bench for a few hours. As it was near lunch, we decided to roll our bags, carry our backpacks and haul ourselves in search of lunch. The ticket office guy suggested the restaurant across the street where Deanne met the first of the old ladies that flocked around her all day, annoying the heck out of Mike. As we were seating ourselves in this cool restaurant, the old lady at the next table, decked out in dress and hat advised me in exuberant Portuguese just how to arrange the roller bag and backpack so as to not have them stolen from their spot against the wall. When she was not satisfied with my arrangement, she got up and redid them, grabbing my arm several times to make her point about how to do it better. When Mike got up to use the men’s room and passed me his bag to hold, the old lady once again jumped into gear explaining how to fasten the pack around my torso rather than setting it anywhere so that it would be safe. She had quite a conversation with me that was, of course, totally undecipherable. One of the waiters came by and tried to explain to her that I only spoke English. She wasn’t have any of it though, she liked me. She kept talking and he explained the bottom-line to me: she had family in England somewhere. The second old lady was begging and came by our table with her hand out. Against Mike’s advice Deanne gave her some money and then she would not go away. She sat down at the next table and wouldn’t leave. The waiters asked her to leave, but she wasn’t going. That was enough for Mike to load us up and leave. In the meantime, we had eaten a huge lunch of thin, but big ultra-rare steak and fries (Mike) and pork roast and new potatoes (me).
The train didn’t actually stop in the town we had reservations to stay in, so we stopped in the next train past town, and rather than wait in the station for a train going back forty-five minutes later, we grabbed a taxi and traveled the 8 kms to our hotel. We are staying in a beautiful converted convent that was built in 1830 with money provided by King Miguel. After three years of construction Miguel’s brother, King Pedro was in charge and he didn’t support sending the nuns to live here, so it became a private residence and finally an inn. We had a great night’s sleep in this pretty room with its own small courtyard, and a wonderful breakfast full of pastries. Last night was again laundry night, so Mike fashioned a fancy clothesline in the bathroom and we washed another three or four days of clothes.
This morning we set out to explore this beautiful little town and found it enchanting. Hopefully you will enjoy seeing us trekking up and down the town streets and the castle walls. Mike found his “people” today – a troop of scouts came through town wearing hiking boots and skirted hats just like his boots and sun protection hat. So, we have pictures of Mike with his “cool” gear along with the kids looking equally cool.
For all of those interested... we heard from Caitie. She is in Poland. Catherine's grandmother is quite ill so they both went to visit.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
July 25- Wandering the Streets of Setubal
After leaving the Algarve, with reportedly the nicest beach in Portugal (which is saying something, as this is a country with lots of coastline relative to the size of the country) we headed north by train. After taking a day of buses on our last travel day we are now convinced more than ever that the trains are a great way to travel. They are convenient and comfortable and much faster than the buses. In an hour we traveled the distance that took several hours by bus.
On the local train from Tavira to Faro we met a nice young Mormon missionary from Rochester, New York who popped his head over the seat when he heard us speaking English and leaned over the seat to talk for the rest of the trip. Apparently he was as starved for voices from home as we were. He is stationed in Olhao where he is serving for six weeks of his two years in Portugal. He speaks fluent Portuguese and has found the people to be quite welcoming to him, although they are generally not fond of American politics. When we arrived in Faro, we had about eight minutes between trains. We spent the first two minutes asking several people which train was ours and making our way there only to find out that we could not board without reserved seats. Leaving our bags with Mike at the door to the train, Deanne ran into the station and bought the reservations.
We were the only people to leave the train in Setubal, a sure sign that this city we selected more or less randomly on the map was not a tourist mecca. The information/ticket staff was not English speaking. The man wanted no part of helping us, but the woman behind the counter provided us with a telephone number when we asked about taxis. In Tavira we had purchased a SIM card for Mike’s cell phone that has given us a Portuguese phone number and the ability to make and receive calls. Mike made his first local call to the taxi company and successfully got someone that drove us to our hotel. We were nervous about our 55 Euro a night hotel, but it turned out fine. We have a suite- two bedrooms each equipped with twin beds and a small kitchenette in one of the bedroom closets.
Setubal has none of the touristy charm of our previous stops, but it feels a little like we are mixing with the Portuguese more when we wander the streets. Like the other places we have stayed, the other guests in our hotel are exclusively European. The reception desk clerk is a Canadian Portuguese man that has been quite helpful in accessing the internet and finding our way around town. He advised that we would be unable to walk to a market, but after we set out walking, asking anyone we came across the way to the market we eventually found one in which to buy our daily supplies of bread, ham, cheese and fruit. We added peanut butter to our supplies as a change of pace.
Caitie had talked about the fact that the Spaniards all walk to where they are going. Commuting by car isn’t as necessary as it is for suburban Americans. We have noticed lots of elderly walkers also. It seems that the women all dress up and go walk to the shopping areas. Lots of tiny little old ladies. The old men, on the other hand, all seem to walk to the street corners where they sit with each other and drink beer. They don’t appear drunk but they certainly don’t appear as ambitious as the women. Tonight on our walk around town we saw lots of people out on the streets. We are told that eating out at the small cafes is not expensive so people eat out frequently. We have certainly found the groceries inexpensive. A bag of rolls is less than a dollar. Ham and cheese packages are less than a dollar each. A glass one liter bottle of carbonated mineral water is 35 Euro, or 45 cents.
I suppose one of the reasons everyone drives is the easy availability of public transportation. The smaller cities like this one have public buses running up and down all of the major streets with posted bus maps at the major intersections. Even with no language skills we have been able to figure out the public busses and always feel safe taking them. The larger cities have underground subways which, so far, have been clean and safe. The intercity trains are easy also, as long as you don’t try to carry along too much baggage.
On the local train from Tavira to Faro we met a nice young Mormon missionary from Rochester, New York who popped his head over the seat when he heard us speaking English and leaned over the seat to talk for the rest of the trip. Apparently he was as starved for voices from home as we were. He is stationed in Olhao where he is serving for six weeks of his two years in Portugal. He speaks fluent Portuguese and has found the people to be quite welcoming to him, although they are generally not fond of American politics. When we arrived in Faro, we had about eight minutes between trains. We spent the first two minutes asking several people which train was ours and making our way there only to find out that we could not board without reserved seats. Leaving our bags with Mike at the door to the train, Deanne ran into the station and bought the reservations.
We were the only people to leave the train in Setubal, a sure sign that this city we selected more or less randomly on the map was not a tourist mecca. The information/ticket staff was not English speaking. The man wanted no part of helping us, but the woman behind the counter provided us with a telephone number when we asked about taxis. In Tavira we had purchased a SIM card for Mike’s cell phone that has given us a Portuguese phone number and the ability to make and receive calls. Mike made his first local call to the taxi company and successfully got someone that drove us to our hotel. We were nervous about our 55 Euro a night hotel, but it turned out fine. We have a suite- two bedrooms each equipped with twin beds and a small kitchenette in one of the bedroom closets.
Setubal has none of the touristy charm of our previous stops, but it feels a little like we are mixing with the Portuguese more when we wander the streets. Like the other places we have stayed, the other guests in our hotel are exclusively European. The reception desk clerk is a Canadian Portuguese man that has been quite helpful in accessing the internet and finding our way around town. He advised that we would be unable to walk to a market, but after we set out walking, asking anyone we came across the way to the market we eventually found one in which to buy our daily supplies of bread, ham, cheese and fruit. We added peanut butter to our supplies as a change of pace.
Caitie had talked about the fact that the Spaniards all walk to where they are going. Commuting by car isn’t as necessary as it is for suburban Americans. We have noticed lots of elderly walkers also. It seems that the women all dress up and go walk to the shopping areas. Lots of tiny little old ladies. The old men, on the other hand, all seem to walk to the street corners where they sit with each other and drink beer. They don’t appear drunk but they certainly don’t appear as ambitious as the women. Tonight on our walk around town we saw lots of people out on the streets. We are told that eating out at the small cafes is not expensive so people eat out frequently. We have certainly found the groceries inexpensive. A bag of rolls is less than a dollar. Ham and cheese packages are less than a dollar each. A glass one liter bottle of carbonated mineral water is 35 Euro, or 45 cents.
I suppose one of the reasons everyone drives is the easy availability of public transportation. The smaller cities like this one have public buses running up and down all of the major streets with posted bus maps at the major intersections. Even with no language skills we have been able to figure out the public busses and always feel safe taking them. The larger cities have underground subways which, so far, have been clean and safe. The intercity trains are easy also, as long as you don’t try to carry along too much baggage.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Blog technology
Well, I think many of us are getting the hang of this blog. I think I have fixed the photos so that you can click into Picasa and see the photos. I will try to update them every few days so that you can see what we have been doing. For those of you who were on the Alaska cruise with us, I will try to put our photos on Picasa also. The good thing about that tool is that you can download any of the photos you want and keep them, which other tools don't let you do.
Some of you have sent e-mails about the blog but don't feel comfortable with commenting on the blog. It is certainly okay to do it any way you feel comfortable, but setting up a blog account so that you can leave comments is not very difficult. You set up a name you want to use when you leave your messages (mine is TravelingGypsies) and a password, then each time you leave a comment you will have to sign in with those, but that is all there is to it. No matter how you want to leave us messages, we enjoy hearing from all of you.
Love, Deanne
Some of you have sent e-mails about the blog but don't feel comfortable with commenting on the blog. It is certainly okay to do it any way you feel comfortable, but setting up a blog account so that you can leave comments is not very difficult. You set up a name you want to use when you leave your messages (mine is TravelingGypsies) and a password, then each time you leave a comment you will have to sign in with those, but that is all there is to it. No matter how you want to leave us messages, we enjoy hearing from all of you.
Love, Deanne
July 24, 2007 but making up for a missed yesterday
Yesterday was a travel day, and we have come to the conclusion that we want to change around the itinerary to shorten the travel days, even if we have to miss some of the places we see. Just to give you an idea of how taxing a travel day is (sorry, I know most of you are working today)…. We had to set a wake-up call for 7:00 am the night before with the elderly desk clerk that speaks NO English. We wrote a note out for him exactly like this: “7:45 Taxi Bus Station”. Perhaps it was the English, or maybe he is a slow reader anyway, but he read everything out loud very slowly. Pardon the butchered Portuguese, but it went something like this (read slowly for best effect): si-en-te-quat-ro-cin-co-tax-ie-o-k-tax-ie-bus?-aut-o-bus?o-k-aut-o-bus-sta-shun?-es-sta-she-on?o-k-o-k. However, it did not end there. He became quite insistent, using sign language to mimic our sleeping selves and a pretend telephone to his head and dialing to mimic himself calling us, to make sure that we understood he would wake us up. Little does he realize that Americans over the age of forty go to bed at 10:00 and are more than awake at 7:00. Nevertheless, we agreed to the call and wrote down 7:00 on his piece of paper. True to his promise, we were called promptly at 7:00. He had also promised more to us, something about coffee (café) which we had agreed to, hoping it meant they would open the breakfast room early (normal hours being 8:00 to 10:00) for us. As it worked out, we got to the front desk at 7:30 to check out and spent the next ten minutes trying unsuccessfully to get any one of our numerous credit cards to work in his machine to pay for our room. After admitting defeat and giving us some explanation that was totally lost on us, we started counting up our cash to conclude that we were twenty Euros short of two nights fare. While Mike walked to the ATM in the town plaza to get some more cash, Deanne walked the suitcases down the two flights of stairs to stack at the front door. All of this was done as fast as possible in expectation that the taxi would arrive momentarily. When Mike returned and paid for our room, our friendly clerk insisted we sit and eat some breakfast where he had indeed arranged for us to have breakfast early. As we sat down to inhale some food (if we missed the 8:30 bus we were stuck until 1:30 for the next one) we watched him call the cab. After chowing down and wrapping up a ham and cheese on a roll to go, we successfully made it to the bus station and boarded our bus for the five hour trip to the Algarve region in Southern Spain.
The southern coast of Portugal appears to be the spot for vacationing Europeans. After quiet little Evora we were surprised to see these crowded beach towns all lined up along the coast. Our bus wound through many of the towns until arriving in Faro, the largest of them. After a two hour wait in Faro, and a delicious lunch at Mickey D’s, we caught the next bus East to the town of our hotel, Tavira. Some of the towns were modern resort towns reminding us of Palm Springs, with beautiful golf courses and condos lining the greens. Other towns looked a little like Laguna Beach, small shops and small expensive homes all crowded into the strip of land close to the beach. Faro was a mixture of old town (really old, walled castle town) filled with worn down apartments and beach condos. Tavira is one of the Eastern most towns, very close to the Spanish border. It is less developed than towns we passed through, still full of olive trees and orange groves. We finally arrived in town about 4:00 to find out after waiting in the information line that our hotel was 5 km further. Apparently the place to find a cab was the town square where we hiked next. After pacing awhile and waiting for a cab to show up, Mike charmed the lady pharmacist in the town square to call a cab for us.
By 5:00PM, a full day’s travel behind us, we arrived at our hotel, a Eurotel hotel. It is a disappointment, neither close to the beach nor charming. It is instead, in Mike’s words, “a huge European Motel 6” remote from town and from the beach. As in all of our previous hotels (except the Hilton in Rome), most of the guests are European and we have no fellow Americans within earshot. Our room is huge, with two side-by-side twin beds in built-in wooden racks, about three inches apart from each other. The air-conditioning is strong and loud and quite effective, requiring extra blankets during the night. Our hotel is so far from everything else, that a cab was required to get dinner unless we wanted the fixed menu dinner offered by the hotel. Neither of us were intrigued by the posted menu, deciding instead to eat in our room. Our only remaining food item (we ate our orange on the bus) was a half box of honey nut cheerios which Mike purchased a few days ago thinking they were regular cheerios (missing the only possible non-Portuguese clue to their identity- the honeybee picture). So, we dined on dry Cheerios, went down to the bar for a night-cap of diet coke, worked on the lobby computer for an hour to check e-mail and cancel a few reservations for future hotels based on our decision to travel lesser distances on our travel days, then went to bed (s).
This morning, after a cold and frosty air conditioned night, we decided to do laundry. After a week on the road we were both down to the final assembled outfits and projected a difficult day tomorrow without clean reinforcements. At each hotel so far we had inquired at check-in about laundry facilities and learned that there appear to be no self service laundries in all of Portugal. Undaunted at the thought of hand-washing, and not willing to blow part of our budget on 2 Euro laundering per shirt, we rolled up our sleeves at took turns at the bathroom sink. We had brought along 100 feet of nylon rope (doesn’t everybody travel with rope?) so Mike rigged up a clothes line in the bathroom that zigged from the towel bar to a hook on the shower wall and over to another towel bar beside the sink. When we went to bed last night our “whites” were drying, and during the night we wound our way through the ghostly hanging shirts and undies to the toilet. This morning we put away the dry clothes and rehung out handy line out on the porch, putting those still damp thick socks outside and adding to them all of the rest of our newly cleaned laundry. We are about to catch a bus into town, hoping that the laundry hasn’t blown away in our absence. More to come on laundry.
Okay, that was 10:00 AM and now it is 6PM. I can report that the laundry dried successfully and without blowing away. I would have posted a photo, but we didn’t want to air our clean laundry to all our family and friends.
We enjoyed a warm beach day today by taking the shuttle into the town with a shopping list and a plan to take a leisurely lunch. We strolled through town and found everything on our shopping list including the toughest item, a SIM card to enable Mike’s mobile phone to take and make calls from Portugal. We now have that card and have tried unsuccessfully to call Caitie. Maybe later. We also bought another English paperback book, which at 11 Euros ($15) a piece we buy as joint investments, with both of us taking a turn reading it before leaving in our hotel room or donating to those rare English speaking people we meet. We visited the farmer’s market (Municipal Mercado) and bought bread (pau), fruit, ham and cashews for our dinner. It is becoming our staple (when we aren’t pigging out on Cheerios). Finally we found a Portugal travel guide in English, which we expect will help us find our way around better. Our lunch was spent sitting under some umbrellas in the town square eating a bad hamburger (Mike’s advice to all of you is to only eat your burgers at Mickey D’s when in Portugal) and a delicious, crusty toasted cheese and onion sandwich (Deanne’s worldwide staple sandwich) After returning to the hotel, we spent the afternoon at the hotel pool buried in our UV protective clothing hiding under an umbrella.
Tomorrow’s hotel is supposed to have free wifi, so hopefully we will be able to post all of this. Until then….
The southern coast of Portugal appears to be the spot for vacationing Europeans. After quiet little Evora we were surprised to see these crowded beach towns all lined up along the coast. Our bus wound through many of the towns until arriving in Faro, the largest of them. After a two hour wait in Faro, and a delicious lunch at Mickey D’s, we caught the next bus East to the town of our hotel, Tavira. Some of the towns were modern resort towns reminding us of Palm Springs, with beautiful golf courses and condos lining the greens. Other towns looked a little like Laguna Beach, small shops and small expensive homes all crowded into the strip of land close to the beach. Faro was a mixture of old town (really old, walled castle town) filled with worn down apartments and beach condos. Tavira is one of the Eastern most towns, very close to the Spanish border. It is less developed than towns we passed through, still full of olive trees and orange groves. We finally arrived in town about 4:00 to find out after waiting in the information line that our hotel was 5 km further. Apparently the place to find a cab was the town square where we hiked next. After pacing awhile and waiting for a cab to show up, Mike charmed the lady pharmacist in the town square to call a cab for us.
By 5:00PM, a full day’s travel behind us, we arrived at our hotel, a Eurotel hotel. It is a disappointment, neither close to the beach nor charming. It is instead, in Mike’s words, “a huge European Motel 6” remote from town and from the beach. As in all of our previous hotels (except the Hilton in Rome), most of the guests are European and we have no fellow Americans within earshot. Our room is huge, with two side-by-side twin beds in built-in wooden racks, about three inches apart from each other. The air-conditioning is strong and loud and quite effective, requiring extra blankets during the night. Our hotel is so far from everything else, that a cab was required to get dinner unless we wanted the fixed menu dinner offered by the hotel. Neither of us were intrigued by the posted menu, deciding instead to eat in our room. Our only remaining food item (we ate our orange on the bus) was a half box of honey nut cheerios which Mike purchased a few days ago thinking they were regular cheerios (missing the only possible non-Portuguese clue to their identity- the honeybee picture). So, we dined on dry Cheerios, went down to the bar for a night-cap of diet coke, worked on the lobby computer for an hour to check e-mail and cancel a few reservations for future hotels based on our decision to travel lesser distances on our travel days, then went to bed (s).
This morning, after a cold and frosty air conditioned night, we decided to do laundry. After a week on the road we were both down to the final assembled outfits and projected a difficult day tomorrow without clean reinforcements. At each hotel so far we had inquired at check-in about laundry facilities and learned that there appear to be no self service laundries in all of Portugal. Undaunted at the thought of hand-washing, and not willing to blow part of our budget on 2 Euro laundering per shirt, we rolled up our sleeves at took turns at the bathroom sink. We had brought along 100 feet of nylon rope (doesn’t everybody travel with rope?) so Mike rigged up a clothes line in the bathroom that zigged from the towel bar to a hook on the shower wall and over to another towel bar beside the sink. When we went to bed last night our “whites” were drying, and during the night we wound our way through the ghostly hanging shirts and undies to the toilet. This morning we put away the dry clothes and rehung out handy line out on the porch, putting those still damp thick socks outside and adding to them all of the rest of our newly cleaned laundry. We are about to catch a bus into town, hoping that the laundry hasn’t blown away in our absence. More to come on laundry.
Okay, that was 10:00 AM and now it is 6PM. I can report that the laundry dried successfully and without blowing away. I would have posted a photo, but we didn’t want to air our clean laundry to all our family and friends.
We enjoyed a warm beach day today by taking the shuttle into the town with a shopping list and a plan to take a leisurely lunch. We strolled through town and found everything on our shopping list including the toughest item, a SIM card to enable Mike’s mobile phone to take and make calls from Portugal. We now have that card and have tried unsuccessfully to call Caitie. Maybe later. We also bought another English paperback book, which at 11 Euros ($15) a piece we buy as joint investments, with both of us taking a turn reading it before leaving in our hotel room or donating to those rare English speaking people we meet. We visited the farmer’s market (Municipal Mercado) and bought bread (pau), fruit, ham and cashews for our dinner. It is becoming our staple (when we aren’t pigging out on Cheerios). Finally we found a Portugal travel guide in English, which we expect will help us find our way around better. Our lunch was spent sitting under some umbrellas in the town square eating a bad hamburger (Mike’s advice to all of you is to only eat your burgers at Mickey D’s when in Portugal) and a delicious, crusty toasted cheese and onion sandwich (Deanne’s worldwide staple sandwich) After returning to the hotel, we spent the afternoon at the hotel pool buried in our UV protective clothing hiding under an umbrella.
Tomorrow’s hotel is supposed to have free wifi, so hopefully we will be able to post all of this. Until then….
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Enjoying the ancient walled village of Evora
It is an awesome feeling to view ruins that were built by the Romans during their rule of this area and to sit in an active working church that has had been in existence for 500 years. It makes you re-experience just how young our history is in the US. We went for a walk last night down these narrow little cobblestone streets and you could just picture how it was years ago before electricity.
This little tiny walled city has churches everywhere. We are still so early into our trip that churches hold fascination. I've heard the stories of people that can't stand to see another BFC (Big Friggin Church), but we haven't hit that point. Although last night Mike was ready to turn off the church bells. As if in contest with each other, all of the churches in listening distance have competing bells that start ringing every fifteen minutes. They are all off synch too, so that one set starts and does its thing then the next set starts in, etc. until three or four neighboring churches have weighed in. Not bad during the day, but way too much when you are trying to sleep at 3:00 in the morning.
We have been going to bed about 10:00 or 11:00 every night after an evening of computer time and reading, but last night was Saturday so we decided to live it up. Caitie has been enjoying the Spanish night life so we decided to check out the Portuguese night life in this little town. After walking around to see the churches all lit up for the evening, we walked to the town square to be part of the scene. To get the lay of the land, we grabbed a bench and sat down to see where the action was. The town square for this little town is 500 years old, a plaza paved in small rock cobblestones surrounded by three story buildings with shops on the ground floor and aprtments above and small, one lane roads leading off the square. Because it is so old, the roads are very narrow, requiring that traffic be one-way only. So, traffic entered the sguare to our left in a single lane, drove across the road in front of us and exited the square to our right, with occasional cars going up one of the lanescoming off the square. We watched cars cruise the square just like cars cruising everywhere on a Saturday. The little Smart cars are very popular here, so imagine teenagers in these tiny little cars cruising by trying to look cool in cars that look like toys. Mostly the teenagers walked around in groups, guys and girls separated, but looking at each other while trying not to make it obvious.
In addition to crowd watching, we had live entertainment in the form of a multi-talented dude dressed in clownish clothes who alternated between building balloon animals, riding a unicycle (poorly) and juggling flaming batons. His audience seemed to mostly be the relatively large number of children in the below ten year old range who were also cruising the square at 10:00 PM. As for us, we sat for half an hour on a bench and watched all of this excitement until the 70 to 80 year old men who normally inhabit the bench, and who occupied all of the surrounding benches made us feel guilty for taking their front row seat. As we walked back to our hotel, we figured that Saturday nights in Spain must be more exciting that in Evora, Portugal to hold Caitie's attention.
Every day at 10:00 AM a walking tour of the town leaves the town square for a multilingual tour of the ancient sights. We intended to participate today, but were told by the unfriendly information desk clerk that the tour guide had called in sick today and the tour was off. So, instead he handed us a brochure for a self-guided tour (something we had asked for the previously day and not received)and we set out to see them ourselves. The first few hours of traipsing around were great, until the heat became too much (our first hot day) and we returned once again to the town square to have lunch in an outdoor cafe at an umbrella covered table.
Tomorrow we have a long bus ride to the Algarve region in the South, so we may not write in. We'll touch base later.
Deanne
This little tiny walled city has churches everywhere. We are still so early into our trip that churches hold fascination. I've heard the stories of people that can't stand to see another BFC (Big Friggin Church), but we haven't hit that point. Although last night Mike was ready to turn off the church bells. As if in contest with each other, all of the churches in listening distance have competing bells that start ringing every fifteen minutes. They are all off synch too, so that one set starts and does its thing then the next set starts in, etc. until three or four neighboring churches have weighed in. Not bad during the day, but way too much when you are trying to sleep at 3:00 in the morning.
We have been going to bed about 10:00 or 11:00 every night after an evening of computer time and reading, but last night was Saturday so we decided to live it up. Caitie has been enjoying the Spanish night life so we decided to check out the Portuguese night life in this little town. After walking around to see the churches all lit up for the evening, we walked to the town square to be part of the scene. To get the lay of the land, we grabbed a bench and sat down to see where the action was. The town square for this little town is 500 years old, a plaza paved in small rock cobblestones surrounded by three story buildings with shops on the ground floor and aprtments above and small, one lane roads leading off the square. Because it is so old, the roads are very narrow, requiring that traffic be one-way only. So, traffic entered the sguare to our left in a single lane, drove across the road in front of us and exited the square to our right, with occasional cars going up one of the lanescoming off the square. We watched cars cruise the square just like cars cruising everywhere on a Saturday. The little Smart cars are very popular here, so imagine teenagers in these tiny little cars cruising by trying to look cool in cars that look like toys. Mostly the teenagers walked around in groups, guys and girls separated, but looking at each other while trying not to make it obvious.
In addition to crowd watching, we had live entertainment in the form of a multi-talented dude dressed in clownish clothes who alternated between building balloon animals, riding a unicycle (poorly) and juggling flaming batons. His audience seemed to mostly be the relatively large number of children in the below ten year old range who were also cruising the square at 10:00 PM. As for us, we sat for half an hour on a bench and watched all of this excitement until the 70 to 80 year old men who normally inhabit the bench, and who occupied all of the surrounding benches made us feel guilty for taking their front row seat. As we walked back to our hotel, we figured that Saturday nights in Spain must be more exciting that in Evora, Portugal to hold Caitie's attention.
Every day at 10:00 AM a walking tour of the town leaves the town square for a multilingual tour of the ancient sights. We intended to participate today, but were told by the unfriendly information desk clerk that the tour guide had called in sick today and the tour was off. So, instead he handed us a brochure for a self-guided tour (something we had asked for the previously day and not received)and we set out to see them ourselves. The first few hours of traipsing around were great, until the heat became too much (our first hot day) and we returned once again to the town square to have lunch in an outdoor cafe at an umbrella covered table.
Tomorrow we have a long bus ride to the Algarve region in the South, so we may not write in. We'll touch base later.
Deanne
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Out into the Countryside!
We got an early start this morning, rising at 6:30 to shower and go upstairs for breakfast. Like most European hotels offering breakfast as part of your stay, there is a big room with a self service selection of food to start your day. After one false start (breakfast didn’t open until 7:30 so we had to wait a bit after our first attempt) we indulged in the same breakfast as yesterday; European runny scrambled eggs, cold sliced ham and cheese, breads and rolls and whole apples and oranges. The coffee is served in a big coffee dispenser like our hotels have except that there is a hot milk dispenser beside the coffee dispenser so that you can serve yourself coffee con leche. Lovely.
Mike has gotten quite adept at using his gift for gab to get us directions. Last night he spent a half hour with the front desk clerk during a slow period at 10:00 PM or so and learned how to use the metro and the bus out into the countryside. So, today armed with the maps and internet print-outs that his buddy provided, Mike led us to the metro which took us to the bus station. Like Madrid, the metro in Lisbon is wonderful. It makes me wonder why rapid transit in Seattle is so backward when these cities can do so much better. Unfortunately the trip between our hotel and the bus station involved many stairs, not all of them facilitated by escalators (note to Seattle transit planners: if you EVER do get a subway put in, use escalators for those rolling suitcases, PLEASE). We have mastered getting up and down the steps though. One of us takes the lead walking up, while the other grabs the bottom of the bag and lifts it up the stairs. Taking one bag at a time, we can get up the stairs without beating up the wheels on our bags or losing our balance. And…. It is such a good work-out to go up and down those stairs.
We saw an arrest being made in front of us while sitting on a bench at the bus station. Well, to be clear, we aren’t sure it was an arrest. A police car drove up to the front of the station very quickly and the two cops jumped from their car and hurried inside. The driver was a bit slower getting inside, and while beside our bench he was stopped by a man we later guessed was an undercover cop. This guy, dressed casually in jeans and a polo shirt shook the cop’s hand and pulled him aside. In the meantime, the other cop came back outside and the three of them walked away and came back soon with a woman in handcuffs who the plainclothes guy stuffed into the back of the policecar. Her friends or family created quite a ruckus, yelling and screaming at the cops. Eventually one of them got into the back seat of the police car with the cuffed woman. After doing a little paperwork (the same everywhere I guess), the uniformed cops drove off and the plainclothes guy walked away. Spectators seemed to be interested in the scene and disgusted with someone in the scenario. They murmured comments to each other and to us (although what they were saying will forever remain a mystery) and shook their heads in disgust. We don’t know whether the audience sided with the cops or the convicts, but it sure was entertaining.
The cops have a huge presence in Portugal. They are everywhere, usually in gangs of three to five. They seem much more casual and less formal than the cops we are used to seeing around town. They stand grouped around a car, leaning against it gabbing with people that come by. They wave to the tour bus drivers and flirt with the girls. Last night Deanne went for an hour long walk along the expensive shopping street of Lisbon (without buying anything) and saw about five parades of cars go by led by siren-running motorcycle cops with Mercedes sedans following along. It turns out that all of the sedans were parked together along the boulevard in front of an elegant hotel with masses of cops out front. They all had placards in the window with the Slovenian flag (not that we would have known that had they not also had the word Slovenia on them) so we assume we were looking at some sort of diplomatic meeting between the Portuguese and the Slovenians.
Our bus ride from Lisbon took us two hours southeast to a walled city called Evora. What a delightful town this is. Our hotel, at the wondrous rate of only 70 Euros per night (oh, the savings we will have on this!) is funky and wonderful. Built in the middle of the Sixteenth Century, Solar Monfalim belonged to a nobleman from the Royal House, D. Gonçalo de Sousa. Later, it was passed on to the Congominhos Family whose descendents lived in this manorhouse until the end of the Nineteenth Century. In 1892 Solar Monfalim received its first guest as a hotel. The cab driver dropped us at the cobblestone drive in front of the hotel and we made our way up two flights of stairs to the front desk where we checked in with a friendly English speaking receptionist. After opening our door with a huge metal key attached to a big block of wood, you must walk up a narrow flight of stairs that twist their way to a landing with a big bathroom on one side and a long and narrow bedroom on the other side. Fortunately we have perfected our stair-climbing-bag-carrying earlier in the day and found these narrow, twisting, tiled stairs to be a snap. The room is cooled with an overhead fan and darkened against the sun with blinds and black-out drapes. The bed fits in the pattern of all our Portuguese hotels (we have a sample of two now)… hard.
We dumped our stuff, grabbed our map, walked out the front door and got lost within the first five minutes. The town has many narrow cobblestone streets that aren’t named on the map, so finding out where you are is tough, but it would be hard to be lost forever here. The old town, where our hotel is, is basically a set of spaghetti-like streets all contained within the circle created by the 15th century wall. Within the walls are ancient cathedrals and a castle, all of which we are set to explore tomorrow. We found a market full of stalls for produce sales, but we arrived too late to partake of anything but a few delicious smelling peaches that we are having for dinner tonight.
Evora is the capital of the Alentjo region, so we tried the regional specialties at lunch in an ancient, thick walled, white washed restaurant. Eating at noon, just as the place opened provided us the full attention of the waiter. We didn’t even see any other diners until we were finishing up, as the Portuguese seem to eat their meals on a schedule a few hours later than us. The waiter worked on our languages skills (so far all we could say was Obrigado- or thank you). Now we can say hello (hola like the Spanish) and goodbye, and you are welcome. That one was tough, so he wrote it out for us and presented it to us with the bill. The meal was interesting and filling, but heavy. It started out with the ever present bread basket full of sliced artisan white bread and rolls. Then, the waiter brought three dishes of appetizers which looked to be a pile of mayonnaise rich tuna salad, garbanzo bean salad and pickled chili peppers. On his next trip to the table he explained that those appetizers were there on spec, if we wanted to eat them they were 3 Euros each, otherwise they went back to the kitchen for the next diners. We passed. Deanne ordered the wine (are you detecting the pattern here?) and was pleasantly surprised both that she received the size she ordered and with the quality of the local regional wine. Our waiter recommended the veal and the duck, but we settled on the veal and the pork roast, both of which were good.
Our hotel has a wonderful little room off the lobby which has free wifi, so we have been sitting here for the past hour writing this and answering e-mail. We were able to figure out the pay phones and reached Caitie in Spain this afternoon. She is doing great and we look forward to meeting up with her in the next few weeks. It is 8:00 PM and we are going to wrap up soon. More to follow tomorrow.
Deanne
Mike has gotten quite adept at using his gift for gab to get us directions. Last night he spent a half hour with the front desk clerk during a slow period at 10:00 PM or so and learned how to use the metro and the bus out into the countryside. So, today armed with the maps and internet print-outs that his buddy provided, Mike led us to the metro which took us to the bus station. Like Madrid, the metro in Lisbon is wonderful. It makes me wonder why rapid transit in Seattle is so backward when these cities can do so much better. Unfortunately the trip between our hotel and the bus station involved many stairs, not all of them facilitated by escalators (note to Seattle transit planners: if you EVER do get a subway put in, use escalators for those rolling suitcases, PLEASE). We have mastered getting up and down the steps though. One of us takes the lead walking up, while the other grabs the bottom of the bag and lifts it up the stairs. Taking one bag at a time, we can get up the stairs without beating up the wheels on our bags or losing our balance. And…. It is such a good work-out to go up and down those stairs.
We saw an arrest being made in front of us while sitting on a bench at the bus station. Well, to be clear, we aren’t sure it was an arrest. A police car drove up to the front of the station very quickly and the two cops jumped from their car and hurried inside. The driver was a bit slower getting inside, and while beside our bench he was stopped by a man we later guessed was an undercover cop. This guy, dressed casually in jeans and a polo shirt shook the cop’s hand and pulled him aside. In the meantime, the other cop came back outside and the three of them walked away and came back soon with a woman in handcuffs who the plainclothes guy stuffed into the back of the policecar. Her friends or family created quite a ruckus, yelling and screaming at the cops. Eventually one of them got into the back seat of the police car with the cuffed woman. After doing a little paperwork (the same everywhere I guess), the uniformed cops drove off and the plainclothes guy walked away. Spectators seemed to be interested in the scene and disgusted with someone in the scenario. They murmured comments to each other and to us (although what they were saying will forever remain a mystery) and shook their heads in disgust. We don’t know whether the audience sided with the cops or the convicts, but it sure was entertaining.
The cops have a huge presence in Portugal. They are everywhere, usually in gangs of three to five. They seem much more casual and less formal than the cops we are used to seeing around town. They stand grouped around a car, leaning against it gabbing with people that come by. They wave to the tour bus drivers and flirt with the girls. Last night Deanne went for an hour long walk along the expensive shopping street of Lisbon (without buying anything) and saw about five parades of cars go by led by siren-running motorcycle cops with Mercedes sedans following along. It turns out that all of the sedans were parked together along the boulevard in front of an elegant hotel with masses of cops out front. They all had placards in the window with the Slovenian flag (not that we would have known that had they not also had the word Slovenia on them) so we assume we were looking at some sort of diplomatic meeting between the Portuguese and the Slovenians.
Our bus ride from Lisbon took us two hours southeast to a walled city called Evora. What a delightful town this is. Our hotel, at the wondrous rate of only 70 Euros per night (oh, the savings we will have on this!) is funky and wonderful. Built in the middle of the Sixteenth Century, Solar Monfalim belonged to a nobleman from the Royal House, D. Gonçalo de Sousa. Later, it was passed on to the Congominhos Family whose descendents lived in this manorhouse until the end of the Nineteenth Century. In 1892 Solar Monfalim received its first guest as a hotel. The cab driver dropped us at the cobblestone drive in front of the hotel and we made our way up two flights of stairs to the front desk where we checked in with a friendly English speaking receptionist. After opening our door with a huge metal key attached to a big block of wood, you must walk up a narrow flight of stairs that twist their way to a landing with a big bathroom on one side and a long and narrow bedroom on the other side. Fortunately we have perfected our stair-climbing-bag-carrying earlier in the day and found these narrow, twisting, tiled stairs to be a snap. The room is cooled with an overhead fan and darkened against the sun with blinds and black-out drapes. The bed fits in the pattern of all our Portuguese hotels (we have a sample of two now)… hard.
We dumped our stuff, grabbed our map, walked out the front door and got lost within the first five minutes. The town has many narrow cobblestone streets that aren’t named on the map, so finding out where you are is tough, but it would be hard to be lost forever here. The old town, where our hotel is, is basically a set of spaghetti-like streets all contained within the circle created by the 15th century wall. Within the walls are ancient cathedrals and a castle, all of which we are set to explore tomorrow. We found a market full of stalls for produce sales, but we arrived too late to partake of anything but a few delicious smelling peaches that we are having for dinner tonight.
Evora is the capital of the Alentjo region, so we tried the regional specialties at lunch in an ancient, thick walled, white washed restaurant. Eating at noon, just as the place opened provided us the full attention of the waiter. We didn’t even see any other diners until we were finishing up, as the Portuguese seem to eat their meals on a schedule a few hours later than us. The waiter worked on our languages skills (so far all we could say was Obrigado- or thank you). Now we can say hello (hola like the Spanish) and goodbye, and you are welcome. That one was tough, so he wrote it out for us and presented it to us with the bill. The meal was interesting and filling, but heavy. It started out with the ever present bread basket full of sliced artisan white bread and rolls. Then, the waiter brought three dishes of appetizers which looked to be a pile of mayonnaise rich tuna salad, garbanzo bean salad and pickled chili peppers. On his next trip to the table he explained that those appetizers were there on spec, if we wanted to eat them they were 3 Euros each, otherwise they went back to the kitchen for the next diners. We passed. Deanne ordered the wine (are you detecting the pattern here?) and was pleasantly surprised both that she received the size she ordered and with the quality of the local regional wine. Our waiter recommended the veal and the duck, but we settled on the veal and the pork roast, both of which were good.
Our hotel has a wonderful little room off the lobby which has free wifi, so we have been sitting here for the past hour writing this and answering e-mail. We were able to figure out the pay phones and reached Caitie in Spain this afternoon. She is doing great and we look forward to meeting up with her in the next few weeks. It is 8:00 PM and we are going to wrap up soon. More to follow tomorrow.
Deanne
Friday, July 20, 2007
LISBON
Lisbon is great! The people are friendly, helpful and tolerant of Americans who order food not knowing what they will get...my steak wasn't that bad however the egg was a surprise:) Deanne is getting calluses on her fingertips so she is soaking her fingers in warm water preparing for tomorrow's blogging...Adriana Huffington move over! We are having a lot of fun. We don't look too out of place in cargo pants, UV shirts, hiking boots and hats. I think we will do better in the country which is tomorrow. We hit the train again tomorrow however no sleeper this time, not that we had one last time...what a trip. After two nights of no sleep, we figured we would just pass out on the train being lulled to sleep by the steady clicking of the intervals between the rails...no such luck. We screetched our way over the mountains in 100 degree heat with no ability to open a window nor the desire to leave the door open. It was so bad it was almost camp. The good news is we know we can go three days with almost no sleep, some bread and cheese and a good sense of humor. We miss you all and hope life is treating you well except for Jerry and Joe. We don't miss you at all and hope your golf gets worse than it already is:) BY the way those girls wanted to type my papers!!! :) See you all.
Mike
Mike
July 20, 2007 Lisbon Day 2
As I read through the past days worth of comments I realize I lost a day of counting somewhere. Today is Friday and it is our second day in Lisbon no matter what the previous entries are titled.
So, the things that screw you up when traveling in foregin countries are little. Like packing. We bought awesome Osprey suitcases at REI. These bags are the cadillacs of rolling suticases that convert to backpacks when you need to carry them great distances up and down the stupid stairs of train stations. They have detachable day packs that we can load up with the stuff we need for touring during the day. The only downside of these cool bags is that these great padded shoulder straps and gear take up the room one would otherwise use to fill with stuff. So, for about a month before our departure we widdled down our packing list. Mike packed his bag and lived with it for a few weeks until he knew what to bring. Deanne stared at the clothes she wanted to bring, every day taking something else out of the pile until she figured out what to bring. Each of us have a few pairs of lightweight, sun protective long pants, two pairs of shorts, four or five shirts and the medicine, make-up (hair gel mostly) and underwear required to last for approximately a week before cleaning and restocking. Our detachable back packs have all of the electronics that modern frontiersmen need, like iPods, PCs, electric toothbrushes, travel guides, etc.
So, the point of all of this is what we did wrong.... well, we packed for this trip putting the clothes in the big bag and locking with a TSA approved lock. The detachable backpacks were carried on the plane full of valuable electronics and medicine. Once we got to a two night hotel (here is Lisbon) we were able to rearrange knowing that we have only train travel for the next few months. Some of the heavier electronics could be transferred to the wheeled bag and off of our backs. Mike, ever the pioneer, packed up his bags last night with a new, improved system to give it a try a day before we had to leave Lisbon. The computer and other heavy stuff went in the wheeled bag and a few days change of clothes went into the accessible backpack. As we sat in our room having a small dinner of deli ham and cheese he figured he would grab his knife for something, but alas, the keys (yes, the lock came with three keys) to the suitcase lock were inside the bag with the lock on it. It took the maintanence man twney seconds and a screwdriver to break the lock, so there was no real emergency... just a little hiccup.
The other thing that is hard to figure out is the electronics and the internet. We supposedly can access the internet from each of our hotels, but costs (like 24 Euros per day at the Hilton) or technolgy conspire to make it hard. Yesterday Deanne tried to hook up to the internet in our hotel room, but her computer needed recharging. When she pugged it in, sparks flew. Today, Mike used a different outlet and was successful, then logged on to the internet without any problems. Internet access costs 12 Euros for 24 hours, which is outragous, but we were anxious to connect with all of you. We tried to find an internet cafe today, but after two hours of walking we never saw anything that looked right. It should be better in Spain... our past few entires were made using free WiFi access in the Madrid train station.
We ventured out on the city buses again today. This time we traveled much further to visit another ancient church. This one was built in the 1500s. Remarkable, although I doubt you want to hear all about it. As soon as we get our technolgy figured out we will post the photos for those of you wanting to see this trip as well as read about it. We also saw a monument to the discoverers, those guys that set sale from Portugal in its heyday in the 1600s to discover the new world. This monument sits right on the edge of the river. Another beautiful day.
Lunch today was fun. Our waiter spoke no English but was able to find an English menu for us when Mike asked. Mike asked what a "Butcher steak" was and the answer was beef. So he ordered it. Deanne went with the cheese omlette because she knew what that was without asking and sometimes simple is best. She did ask for a glass of wine though, but pointing to a menu line that said Viho 175 l. The waiter asked if she wanted white, as she may have not understood what she was pointing to, and she agreed that white was fine (the conversation was difficult enough that trying to explain preferences seemed way too much). Mike ended up with a very salty piece of shoe leather with an over easy egg on top and fench fries on the side. Deanne ended up with a bottle of RED wine half the size of a normal wine bottle (or double the size of what she ordered)and an omlette with fries on the side. We laughed about our ordering and dug in. This cafe was crowded during the lunch hour (2:00) so we were sharing a table with a group of workers from Portugal Telecom. The woman next to Deanne spoke English and struck up a conversation. As she and her colleagues wrapped up their meal we got to watch soft serve ice cream being made Portuguese style. A plastic cup of ice cream in pulled from the freezer and pushed through a press that shapes it into a swirl and onto a cone. Ingenious!
So, the things that screw you up when traveling in foregin countries are little. Like packing. We bought awesome Osprey suitcases at REI. These bags are the cadillacs of rolling suticases that convert to backpacks when you need to carry them great distances up and down the stupid stairs of train stations. They have detachable day packs that we can load up with the stuff we need for touring during the day. The only downside of these cool bags is that these great padded shoulder straps and gear take up the room one would otherwise use to fill with stuff. So, for about a month before our departure we widdled down our packing list. Mike packed his bag and lived with it for a few weeks until he knew what to bring. Deanne stared at the clothes she wanted to bring, every day taking something else out of the pile until she figured out what to bring. Each of us have a few pairs of lightweight, sun protective long pants, two pairs of shorts, four or five shirts and the medicine, make-up (hair gel mostly) and underwear required to last for approximately a week before cleaning and restocking. Our detachable back packs have all of the electronics that modern frontiersmen need, like iPods, PCs, electric toothbrushes, travel guides, etc.
So, the point of all of this is what we did wrong.... well, we packed for this trip putting the clothes in the big bag and locking with a TSA approved lock. The detachable backpacks were carried on the plane full of valuable electronics and medicine. Once we got to a two night hotel (here is Lisbon) we were able to rearrange knowing that we have only train travel for the next few months. Some of the heavier electronics could be transferred to the wheeled bag and off of our backs. Mike, ever the pioneer, packed up his bags last night with a new, improved system to give it a try a day before we had to leave Lisbon. The computer and other heavy stuff went in the wheeled bag and a few days change of clothes went into the accessible backpack. As we sat in our room having a small dinner of deli ham and cheese he figured he would grab his knife for something, but alas, the keys (yes, the lock came with three keys) to the suitcase lock were inside the bag with the lock on it. It took the maintanence man twney seconds and a screwdriver to break the lock, so there was no real emergency... just a little hiccup.
The other thing that is hard to figure out is the electronics and the internet. We supposedly can access the internet from each of our hotels, but costs (like 24 Euros per day at the Hilton) or technolgy conspire to make it hard. Yesterday Deanne tried to hook up to the internet in our hotel room, but her computer needed recharging. When she pugged it in, sparks flew. Today, Mike used a different outlet and was successful, then logged on to the internet without any problems. Internet access costs 12 Euros for 24 hours, which is outragous, but we were anxious to connect with all of you. We tried to find an internet cafe today, but after two hours of walking we never saw anything that looked right. It should be better in Spain... our past few entires were made using free WiFi access in the Madrid train station.
We ventured out on the city buses again today. This time we traveled much further to visit another ancient church. This one was built in the 1500s. Remarkable, although I doubt you want to hear all about it. As soon as we get our technolgy figured out we will post the photos for those of you wanting to see this trip as well as read about it. We also saw a monument to the discoverers, those guys that set sale from Portugal in its heyday in the 1600s to discover the new world. This monument sits right on the edge of the river. Another beautiful day.
Lunch today was fun. Our waiter spoke no English but was able to find an English menu for us when Mike asked. Mike asked what a "Butcher steak" was and the answer was beef. So he ordered it. Deanne went with the cheese omlette because she knew what that was without asking and sometimes simple is best. She did ask for a glass of wine though, but pointing to a menu line that said Viho 175 l. The waiter asked if she wanted white, as she may have not understood what she was pointing to, and she agreed that white was fine (the conversation was difficult enough that trying to explain preferences seemed way too much). Mike ended up with a very salty piece of shoe leather with an over easy egg on top and fench fries on the side. Deanne ended up with a bottle of RED wine half the size of a normal wine bottle (or double the size of what she ordered)and an omlette with fries on the side. We laughed about our ordering and dug in. This cafe was crowded during the lunch hour (2:00) so we were sharing a table with a group of workers from Portugal Telecom. The woman next to Deanne spoke English and struck up a conversation. As she and her colleagues wrapped up their meal we got to watch soft serve ice cream being made Portuguese style. A plastic cup of ice cream in pulled from the freezer and pushed through a press that shapes it into a swirl and onto a cone. Ingenious!
July 18, 2007 We're here in Lisbon!
Lisbon is beautiful! The sidewalks are all paved with small (maybe 2 inch square) pieces of a light colored stone, and in many places they are decorated with elaborate patterns of dark stone. The city is bordered on the south by the Tagus River (Rio Tejo to you Portuguese speaking readers) which gives it a port feeling. High speed ferries roam the river transporting people to the town on the other side. A bridge looking identical but shorter to the San Francisco Golden Gate bridge (and reportedly built in the early sixties by the same company) crosses the river. The people seem friendly, and although many of those not working information desks or hetel desks don't speak English they are tolerant of us not speaking the language.
Our Best Western is a nice three star hotel around the corner from a major plaza and park. Equidsitant from the plaza, but on the other side we can see the Ritz Four Seasons (??) so we know we are in a good neighborhood. After our train arrived at 8:00 AM we stopped in the information office at the train station and got directions for the city bus to our hotel. We took a few pcitures of the "happy to be here finally" variety and headed around the corner to find our bus standing waiting. We hopped on, road it for awhile, found a stop that looked right and ended up at our hotel at 9:00 AM amazingly enough. Our room wasn't ready yet so we left our bags with the doorman and walked over to the park. A hop on hop off bus was just about to take off for a one hour, forty minute cicruit of the city, so we hopped on and rode around for a few hours to see the sights. Later in the day, after checking in to the hotel and taking a shower (trains are barely able to handle toilets, let alone showers) we rode the hop on/hop off bus again to a beautiful cathedral (Bascilica de Estrela). All in all, today was a great day for toruing. The weather was exceptional. It started out at 70 degrees and got to maybe 75 later in the day.
For those of you wondering about the night on the train, well here is the update. The bottom line is that neither of us slept well, albeit for different reasons. Mikie couldn't sleep because of the noise as the train made turns and hit the tracks and Deanne can't sleep in overheated accommodations and this sleeper was hot! No middle aged woman would have done any better in that train! Stripped down to our underwear (I know, not pretty), we sweated our way out of Spain and into Portugal. At some point during the night we stopped going over mountains and it got quieter and cooler and we both ot a few hours of sleep between 2:00AM and our wake up knock at 6:45.
I apologize for the typos in this section. It turns out that when you log into blogspot in Portugal, the web site interface is all in Portugues. Even the spell checker thinks in Portuguese. So, this isn't spell-checked.
One last thing, to Mike's high school and college friends who have written him with comments about the authorship of this blog, you are indeed correct. He is looking over my shoulder, so I won't say anymore. Forty years after college he still has a girl doing his writing for him.
Love you all,
Mike and Deanne
Our Best Western is a nice three star hotel around the corner from a major plaza and park. Equidsitant from the plaza, but on the other side we can see the Ritz Four Seasons (??) so we know we are in a good neighborhood. After our train arrived at 8:00 AM we stopped in the information office at the train station and got directions for the city bus to our hotel. We took a few pcitures of the "happy to be here finally" variety and headed around the corner to find our bus standing waiting. We hopped on, road it for awhile, found a stop that looked right and ended up at our hotel at 9:00 AM amazingly enough. Our room wasn't ready yet so we left our bags with the doorman and walked over to the park. A hop on hop off bus was just about to take off for a one hour, forty minute cicruit of the city, so we hopped on and rode around for a few hours to see the sights. Later in the day, after checking in to the hotel and taking a shower (trains are barely able to handle toilets, let alone showers) we rode the hop on/hop off bus again to a beautiful cathedral (Bascilica de Estrela). All in all, today was a great day for toruing. The weather was exceptional. It started out at 70 degrees and got to maybe 75 later in the day.
For those of you wondering about the night on the train, well here is the update. The bottom line is that neither of us slept well, albeit for different reasons. Mikie couldn't sleep because of the noise as the train made turns and hit the tracks and Deanne can't sleep in overheated accommodations and this sleeper was hot! No middle aged woman would have done any better in that train! Stripped down to our underwear (I know, not pretty), we sweated our way out of Spain and into Portugal. At some point during the night we stopped going over mountains and it got quieter and cooler and we both ot a few hours of sleep between 2:00AM and our wake up knock at 6:45.
I apologize for the typos in this section. It turns out that when you log into blogspot in Portugal, the web site interface is all in Portugues. Even the spell checker thinks in Portuguese. So, this isn't spell-checked.
One last thing, to Mike's high school and college friends who have written him with comments about the authorship of this blog, you are indeed correct. He is looking over my shoulder, so I won't say anymore. Forty years after college he still has a girl doing his writing for him.
Love you all,
Mike and Deanne
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
July 17, 2007 Travel "experiences"
We are chalking up the frustrations of traveling as "lessons learned" for future reference. We had a few of those today.
Our first night in Rome was spent at the Hilton Hotel adjacent to the airport. Deanne had Hilton points saved up from her working years and that allowed us to get a free room and soundly beat our 100 Euro room budget. Of, course, staying at a Hilton is quite expensive for other things, so we exceeded our food budget by enough to make up for the free room. Breakfast was fixed price at 48 Euros, or $54 for the two of us. Ouch! But that wasn't the lesson. That came when we left the hotel to get to Rome's small commuter airport, Ciampino. After asking twice at the Hilton, we were assured the best way to travel there is by taxi (they estimated the fare at 30 Euros, approximately $40). We hopped in the cab they called for us and was told after our half hour ride that we owed 60 Euros or $80. Lesson: always negotiate the rate in advance in Rome. We ended up having an Italian argument with him and agreeing to 50 Euros, chalking that up to a lesson learned.
Our second lesson of the day.... don't stand in a line on an assumption that you belong there. After we disembarked in Madrid from our cheap 50 Euro flight from Rome to Madrid, we lined up with all of the other passengers from our flight for a line we thought was immigration. Given our position at the back of a long, hardly moving line, we decided to step out of line and use the restrooms. When we got back in line, our fellow passengers were gone and replaced by many more people. We stood in this line for forty-five minutes, slowly making our way toward the sign identifying the exit to the boarding area. When we finally got to the front of the line we realized that we were in line to board a flight to Oslo, and that we could have walked by all of these people to exit this room one hour earlier.
Unfortunately the exit we walked out of took us to the wrong baggage claim and we had to walk for a good fifteen or twenty minutes to find the proper baggage claim, where we had the good fortune to find our bags waiting for us in the unclaimed baggage area. It seems that the silver lining in this story is that if you DO happen to stand in the worng line for an hour, then exit into the wrong terminal's baggage claim, when you finally get to the right place you won't have to wait for your baggage. It will either be there or it will have been stolen already.
With our baggage in hand we made it through the airport, back tracking to the original terminal we had accidentally entered. We found the Madrid Metro which we recommend above any other metros either of us have ever taken. It is clean and cool on a hot day, with escalators instead of stairs to navigate your wheelie bags.
After only one Metro transfer we made it to the train station and booked our sleeper car on the train to Lisbon. The reservation agent who spoke no English (although we hope he understood ours when he booked our reservation) apparently understood that we wanted a double sleeper. We are sitting in the train terminal writing this, so next time we log in we'll let you know what sleeping on the train is like. We leave at 10:45 tonight and arrive in Lisbon at 8:00 am.
Our first night in Rome was spent at the Hilton Hotel adjacent to the airport. Deanne had Hilton points saved up from her working years and that allowed us to get a free room and soundly beat our 100 Euro room budget. Of, course, staying at a Hilton is quite expensive for other things, so we exceeded our food budget by enough to make up for the free room. Breakfast was fixed price at 48 Euros, or $54 for the two of us. Ouch! But that wasn't the lesson. That came when we left the hotel to get to Rome's small commuter airport, Ciampino. After asking twice at the Hilton, we were assured the best way to travel there is by taxi (they estimated the fare at 30 Euros, approximately $40). We hopped in the cab they called for us and was told after our half hour ride that we owed 60 Euros or $80. Lesson: always negotiate the rate in advance in Rome. We ended up having an Italian argument with him and agreeing to 50 Euros, chalking that up to a lesson learned.
Our second lesson of the day.... don't stand in a line on an assumption that you belong there. After we disembarked in Madrid from our cheap 50 Euro flight from Rome to Madrid, we lined up with all of the other passengers from our flight for a line we thought was immigration. Given our position at the back of a long, hardly moving line, we decided to step out of line and use the restrooms. When we got back in line, our fellow passengers were gone and replaced by many more people. We stood in this line for forty-five minutes, slowly making our way toward the sign identifying the exit to the boarding area. When we finally got to the front of the line we realized that we were in line to board a flight to Oslo, and that we could have walked by all of these people to exit this room one hour earlier.
Unfortunately the exit we walked out of took us to the wrong baggage claim and we had to walk for a good fifteen or twenty minutes to find the proper baggage claim, where we had the good fortune to find our bags waiting for us in the unclaimed baggage area. It seems that the silver lining in this story is that if you DO happen to stand in the worng line for an hour, then exit into the wrong terminal's baggage claim, when you finally get to the right place you won't have to wait for your baggage. It will either be there or it will have been stolen already.
With our baggage in hand we made it through the airport, back tracking to the original terminal we had accidentally entered. We found the Madrid Metro which we recommend above any other metros either of us have ever taken. It is clean and cool on a hot day, with escalators instead of stairs to navigate your wheelie bags.
After only one Metro transfer we made it to the train station and booked our sleeper car on the train to Lisbon. The reservation agent who spoke no English (although we hope he understood ours when he booked our reservation) apparently understood that we wanted a double sleeper. We are sitting in the train terminal writing this, so next time we log in we'll let you know what sleeping on the train is like. We leave at 10:45 tonight and arrive in Lisbon at 8:00 am.
July 16, 2007 -Caution: This section contains explicit whining. Do not read if you show extreme sensitivity to whining, if you have an important trip
planned, or if you are Deanne’s mother worrying about us on this trip.
Should I start with the good news or the bad news? Those of you who I have talked to know that our budget for this trip started at 100 Euros per night for room and 100 Euros per day for everything else. The good news is we our hotel at $110 base beat our hotel budget especially when we got a fifty percent discount at check-out! The bad news is the reason they gave us the discount. We woke up at 4:00 AM right on schedule only to find no hot water. Apparently the boiler went out yesterday (no wonder we washed our faces with cold water) and working all night didn’t solve the problem.
So, one of us took a freezing cold shower and the other used a wet hand towel, heated in the microwave, to wash up. To protect anonymity and to lessen the impact of the visual images it creates, I won’t identify who is who. Just remember who has dreadlocks if the hair isn’t shampooed each day.
They offered us the wonderful bonus of either 1000 Mariott points (worth about 1/10 of a hotel stay) or half price off on this wonderful, refreshing hotel stay. I tried telling the front desk clerk that this entire story would be posted on this well-read blog (well, I am a story-teller) to see if I could finagle better than 50%, but there was no manager available to approve. In fact, she couldn’t even post the discount herself and give me a copy. We’ll see if we even get it. In the meantime, give a second thought before booking yourself into the Seattle Fairfield Inn.
The Delta counter was packed when we got to the airport. After trying unsuccessfully to do kiosk check-in (do you believe Delta doesn’t let international passengers do self check in?) we stood in line for an hour until they moved the JFK bound passengers to the front of the line. We made it to our gate as the flight was boarding. So much for getting to the airport two hours ahead of time. Three might be safer.
The trip to New York was great, and it looked like our flights would be great. Whenever the plane is configured with three seats on each side we book side-by-side aisle seats so neither of us has a middle seat. In this case, Mike’s row had two extra seats, Deanne moved over and we had a set of three seats to ourselves for a very comfortable trip. Aside from the meal of crackers, cheese and oreos, the trip was wonderful. We landed in New York at the gate across the hall from our departure gate, had lunch during our two hour lay-over and boarded our flight to Rome.
As for pure entertainment, this trip was outstanding. First good news, they upgraded Deanne to business class, which she generously offered to Mike. So, he sat next to a very pleasant and interesting (and beautiful) Silicon Valley retired executive for front row seats to the rest of the on-board entertainment. Who would have guessed there would be so much to watch when there are suspected terrorists on board (we suspected them, and we aren’t sure what status they had with the airline). Deanne and the back of the plane missed all of the excitement, and believed the stories we were told about air conditioning malfunctions. We didn’t make it off the ground before stopping the plane on the approach to the runway, getting all of us off the plane (to repair the air conditioning or to take the odd ball passenger off- depending on your view of the action). After we sat around the terminal for awhile we got back on board. We talked about what was going on during the time together in the terminal and Deanne told Mike about the very weird Middle Eastern guy sitting two rows in front of her. Well, after we reboarded, someone else must have decided he was weird because he was taken off the plane with the first weird Middle Eastern guy that started the whole thing. Taking them off the plane took another hour or so. All in all, we were delayed four hours sitting on the tarmac while all of this got sorted out. But, as you read this you know that this story has a happy ending. We are sitting in our first Roman hotel. WE MADE IT TO ITALY!!
Mike’s version of the story: From my point of view in the upgraded, lush and roomy business class section this Middle Eastern fellow went up to the flight attendant and demanded he be allowed to get off the plane!! He was so adamant it was a bit disturbing to say the least. The plane stopped taxiing out for takeoff and the conversation continued. I heard the guy say he left a lot of money in his car and needed to get off the plane and get it. The pilot and all of the flight attendants were talking to this guy for a long time. Suddenly two security guys came in and stood right next to him. Shortly afterwards the shuttle came up to the side of the plane and we were all disembarked back to the airport. The middle East guy was on the shuttle and was talking with the dude from the back the Deanne was speaking about.
Should I start with the good news or the bad news? Those of you who I have talked to know that our budget for this trip started at 100 Euros per night for room and 100 Euros per day for everything else. The good news is we our hotel at $110 base beat our hotel budget especially when we got a fifty percent discount at check-out! The bad news is the reason they gave us the discount. We woke up at 4:00 AM right on schedule only to find no hot water. Apparently the boiler went out yesterday (no wonder we washed our faces with cold water) and working all night didn’t solve the problem.
So, one of us took a freezing cold shower and the other used a wet hand towel, heated in the microwave, to wash up. To protect anonymity and to lessen the impact of the visual images it creates, I won’t identify who is who. Just remember who has dreadlocks if the hair isn’t shampooed each day.
They offered us the wonderful bonus of either 1000 Mariott points (worth about 1/10 of a hotel stay) or half price off on this wonderful, refreshing hotel stay. I tried telling the front desk clerk that this entire story would be posted on this well-read blog (well, I am a story-teller) to see if I could finagle better than 50%, but there was no manager available to approve. In fact, she couldn’t even post the discount herself and give me a copy. We’ll see if we even get it. In the meantime, give a second thought before booking yourself into the Seattle Fairfield Inn.
The Delta counter was packed when we got to the airport. After trying unsuccessfully to do kiosk check-in (do you believe Delta doesn’t let international passengers do self check in?) we stood in line for an hour until they moved the JFK bound passengers to the front of the line. We made it to our gate as the flight was boarding. So much for getting to the airport two hours ahead of time. Three might be safer.
The trip to New York was great, and it looked like our flights would be great. Whenever the plane is configured with three seats on each side we book side-by-side aisle seats so neither of us has a middle seat. In this case, Mike’s row had two extra seats, Deanne moved over and we had a set of three seats to ourselves for a very comfortable trip. Aside from the meal of crackers, cheese and oreos, the trip was wonderful. We landed in New York at the gate across the hall from our departure gate, had lunch during our two hour lay-over and boarded our flight to Rome.
As for pure entertainment, this trip was outstanding. First good news, they upgraded Deanne to business class, which she generously offered to Mike. So, he sat next to a very pleasant and interesting (and beautiful) Silicon Valley retired executive for front row seats to the rest of the on-board entertainment. Who would have guessed there would be so much to watch when there are suspected terrorists on board (we suspected them, and we aren’t sure what status they had with the airline). Deanne and the back of the plane missed all of the excitement, and believed the stories we were told about air conditioning malfunctions. We didn’t make it off the ground before stopping the plane on the approach to the runway, getting all of us off the plane (to repair the air conditioning or to take the odd ball passenger off- depending on your view of the action). After we sat around the terminal for awhile we got back on board. We talked about what was going on during the time together in the terminal and Deanne told Mike about the very weird Middle Eastern guy sitting two rows in front of her. Well, after we reboarded, someone else must have decided he was weird because he was taken off the plane with the first weird Middle Eastern guy that started the whole thing. Taking them off the plane took another hour or so. All in all, we were delayed four hours sitting on the tarmac while all of this got sorted out. But, as you read this you know that this story has a happy ending. We are sitting in our first Roman hotel. WE MADE IT TO ITALY!!
Mike’s version of the story: From my point of view in the upgraded, lush and roomy business class section this Middle Eastern fellow went up to the flight attendant and demanded he be allowed to get off the plane!! He was so adamant it was a bit disturbing to say the least. The plane stopped taxiing out for takeoff and the conversation continued. I heard the guy say he left a lot of money in his car and needed to get off the plane and get it. The pilot and all of the flight attendants were talking to this guy for a long time. Suddenly two security guys came in and stood right next to him. Shortly afterwards the shuttle came up to the side of the plane and we were all disembarked back to the airport. The middle East guy was on the shuttle and was talking with the dude from the back the Deanne was speaking about.
July 15, 2007 We’re off! (Sort of)
Does staying in a hotel fifteen miles from home count as the first night of our trip? Here we are at the Fairfield Inn across the street from SeaTac airport. We are both exhausted. The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of preparation. We had a giant flip chart divided up into a fourteen day plan for packing up all of our personal belongings, moving most of them into storage and the rest into the lone closet that isn’t being rented to the wonderful couple moving into our home today. We got all of the work done and as you would expect, the house looks better than it ever did in the two years we lived there. Seattle weather has been awesome during the packing period, making the lake view even more gorgeous.
Jonny and his wonderful girlfriend, Megan came to visit last night to take the car to Jonny’s house for storing. They had pizza with us last night and drove us to our hotel today. We got here at about 2:00, and let’s face it,a Fairfield Inn is not very glamorous. The hotel shuttle agreed to take us anywhere we wanted for lunch as long as it was within a one mile range from the hotel. So, we began our vacation a mile from the airport at one of Seattle’s notorious old restaurants, 13 Coins. Surrounded by ten feet tall purple upholstered booth walls, we had our first Italian meal (chicken picata and veal parmesan) and wished we already in Italy where the meal would have to be better than this one was. Oh well, we are started!
Jonny and his wonderful girlfriend, Megan came to visit last night to take the car to Jonny’s house for storing. They had pizza with us last night and drove us to our hotel today. We got here at about 2:00, and let’s face it,a Fairfield Inn is not very glamorous. The hotel shuttle agreed to take us anywhere we wanted for lunch as long as it was within a one mile range from the hotel. So, we began our vacation a mile from the airport at one of Seattle’s notorious old restaurants, 13 Coins. Surrounded by ten feet tall purple upholstered booth walls, we had our first Italian meal (chicken picata and veal parmesan) and wished we already in Italy where the meal would have to be better than this one was. Oh well, we are started!
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Happy Independence Day
We spent the last week on a voyage to Alaska with family and friends from California and Colorado. It was a welcome change from the hectic plans for Caitie's graduation, the surprise party and actual event. What a surprise party !! It unfolded beautifully with each new person showing up from different parts of the country. On our trip to Alaska we had no plans to make, no food to cook and we were treated like royalty. The biggest chore was deciding which entree to have for diner:) We saw many interesting sights and met some fascinating people, the food was excellent the training facilities great. In order to have some balance to the overindulgence we walked the stairs all the time along with doing weights and walking on the track on deck. We are now home and have two weeks to prepare the final details for our trip. We also need to wedge in our annual Independence Day party with about 50 family and friends and the best fireworks in the Northwest ( actually voted in the top 10 in the country) It is always a lot of fun.
Have a healthy and safe 4th.
Have a healthy and safe 4th.
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