Lisboa Date Weekend

For President's Day Weekend we once again went on a "Date Trip" with Megan and Greg. Our first was to London and the second to Sevilla. This one was to Lisboa, Portugal, a first for all of us. We got an early start to the weekend on Wednesday at "Couple's Yoga". Ashley and Megan had signed all of us up without telling Greg or me. There was some grumbling but we eventually acquiesced. And it was a great time!

This was our second-to-last move of the night. Just the classic "airplane" move that you do with your nephews or grandkids but with your partner. I lifted Ashley first and then she accepted the challenge of lifting me. And she nailed it.

Here I am trying to let go with both hands and assume the "flyer" position. Didn't quite happen fully. Take a moment to appreciate the muscles in Ashley's arms & legs. Yowzer! Other moves included draping yourself over your partner in downward dog, doing a half-handstand with your feet on your partner while in down dog, an acrobatic move called "The Bat" where the partner spins and ends up hanging upside-down with your feet supporting their hips (very difficult), and sitting cross-legged with your hand over your partner's heart while staring them in the eyes for five minutes straight. Funny how uncomfortable that makes you even though it is the person you love most in the world.

Due to a mix-up we had separate flights and Ashley and I got there first. We went out to eat at this excellent restaurant near the hotel and had some fantastic chourico (silly Portuguese spelling), cheese, codfish cakes, and chocolate cake.

I had to take a picture of this guy's man-purse at the restaurant. He was French, if you were wondering!

On the way back to the hotel we had to stop for pictures of the famous tiles.

Many similarities between southern Spain and Portugal. I'm sure that both sides would claim superiority, although the credit mostly goes to the Moors.

The next morning we caught a taxi to St. George's Castle and spent time exploring the neighborhood around that area, Alfama. It was fantastic! An earthquake destroyed most of the city in 1755, but Alfama survived and still has that medieval charm.

The castle. It was Christian, then Moorish, then Christian, then rubble after the earthquake, then rebuilt as a Fascist monument, and now is a tourist attraction. 

This was one of my favorite public spaces in all of Europe. We only found it because we were trying to find a flea market from the castle. There were large, all-caps words on the different facades along with graffiti, crumbling structures, a twisted tree, and an old church. The word behind Ashley was "Kosmos". I would love to go back in time to my youth and visit this place on a Saturday night at midnight. Imagine the party.

Or live in one of those apartments/houses above it. Victoria! Sem Medo! (No Fear!)

Torn street art.

The tree and church.

Some of the graffiti.

"Uniwer Am?" Kosmos and Victoria I get, but this one stumped me. Universe? I showed this picture to a local and asked her the significance of this crazy piazza. She had no idea.

Walking from the castle to the flea market we passed under this arch connected to the Church of Sao Vincente. I think these connect the apartments with the clerical offices.

We forged on and found the flea market, where I bought a really cool carved wood witch doctor mask from Gambon from an African guy. First time I have ever felt that urge in almost four years of visiting European flea markets. This building faced the market square and was for sale. One can dream.

From the flea market we worked our way into the heart of Alfama and found this bakery, Pasteleria Alfama. On the left is Pao do Deus, the bread of God, and on the right are the famous egg yolk tart and coconut pastries. The egg tart was created by nuns who would use the egg whites to bleach their habits and needed to find a use for all of the leftover yolks. Delicious!

The view from a different church. The area below us and to the right is the heart of Alfama and we loved exploring the old, twisted streets.

Another view of Alfama, with the Igreja de Sao Vicente on the left.

We headed from Alfama to the Placa Commercio and found this building on the way. Lisboa felt like a bigger version of Sevilla, with the tiles, old neighborhoods, and gritty streets.

Ashley filling her water bottle in front of the Cathedral, which looks like a castle.

This was a huge, old, twisted tree that we happened across while leaving Alfama.

This is down in the new area, Baixa. Notice the tiled sidewalks. A little slippery in the rain.

Very lovely building in the Baixa district.

If you can't tell, it was raining all day, which is why we look like drowned cats. This is Placa Commercio, with a statue of King Jose I in the center and the Arch of Triumph behind. This square is right on the harbor. Lisbon does not face the ocean but rather a large brackish bay.

The bay where the river Tagus meets the Atlantic.

Ashley at the Arch of Triumph.

Another view of the arch and the cathedral.

On our way to finally meet up with Megan and Greg we passed some more...buildings with lovely tiled facades! Imagine that. I can only imagine how much lovelier they would have been on a bright, sunny day...

We finally met up with Megan and Greg at the Convento Carmo, a church that was destroyed during the earthquake but not rebuilt. The gothic arches are still intact and give the place an eery feeling.

A testament to their architectural fortitude.

Just below the convent was this lovely view of Baixa. It was rebuilt by Marques de Pombal following the earthquake. In the upper right of the picture you can see St. George's castle on the hill.

This is the Santa Justa elevator, which can take you from the bottom of the new part of town to that area just below the Convento Carmo. People wait in line to pay five euro to ride that thing. No thanks, but still a nice addition to the city. Notice Megan's crappy umbrella with pictures of Venice that she bought for five euro in Lisboa. Those umbrellas were an endless source of humor, falling apart easily and turning inside out at the slightest gust of wind.

That afternoon we took a food tour, but we decided to "pre-party" so we wouldn't be ravenous on the tour. We happened upon this cafe/bakery called "Casa Brasileira" which served warm egg tarts, cod cakes, vegetarian egg rolls, and other delicious delectables.

One of the shops we stopped by on the food tour. Piled on the shelf is the famous salted cod, which actually comes from Norway. The reason it became so popular in Portugal is that it preserves very well when salted and the Portuguese explorers and conquistadors needed a safe, stable food supply on their long voyages. This stuff powered Vasco da Gama (eastern route to India) and Ferdinand Magellan (circumnavigation of the globe).

Our food tour guide, Rebecca, telling us about what the Portuguese call "Romeo & Juiet": local cheese topped with a thick marmalade made of quince. Hanging in the background are the famous legs of Pata Negra, the 70 euro-per-kilo meat of pigs that are feed entirely on acorns. It gives the meat its signature dark, oily quality.

This was a cultural house that we visited on the tour. It was for people from a certain region of Portugal who have moved to Lisboa and wanted a little taste of home. This was a large indoor courtyard in the center. In the room behind Ashley and Megan they were playing live folk music and performing a traditional folk dance from their region.

The dancers.

The building used to be a casino, as you can tell by the tile theme.

Exiting the building on our way to eating some local specialty chicken.

The next morning we awoke to a rainbow outside our room window. Funny how you can take a picture of an illusion. Breakfast at our hotel was great, with the highlight being Portuguese Toast, their take on French Toast. They take day-old baguette bread, soak it in eggs and milk, then deep fry it and coat it with sugar and cinnamon. It tastes as good as it sounds.

We then caught the train to Sintra, which is the Versaille of Portugal. The royals and wealthy people built castles and mansions there as a place to get away and be amongst greenery near the coast. We tried to go to the old Moorish castle on the hill, but it was so rainy and windy that the ticket seller wouldn't let us buy tickets, saying it was too dangerous. So we proceeded on to the next hilltop attraction, the Palacio Pena.

This is the eclectic Palacio Pena, built by Ferdinand II, a cousin of Mad King Ludwig of Neuschwanstein fame. It was sort of a mixture of Disney, traditional European design, and some drug-induced mania. 

Greg outside the ramparts.

Tell me this guy wasn't on drugs.

Ashley and I were practicing our yoga staring contest and she couldn't keep a straight face.

That's more like it.

Finally, a picture of the four of us together! Date weekend 2016!

Ashley walking through one of the arched passageways. The palace is up on a hill and it was extremely windy and cold that day.

 The gardens leading up to the arched entrance.

 One of the doorways, framed with carved gourd vines and pheasant tiles.

 One of the ceilings.

 Another archway.

 More ceilings.

Ashley in the royal dining room.

 The royal kitchen. The first thing that came to my mind was: "Chester Copperpot!"

 I have conquered Palacio Pena.

There were so many places you could climb and explore. The kids would have loved the outside, although it was a bit dangerous in places, such as where those two women are standing. Now, note the lower two turrets just above the arched gateway.

See what I mean? The shape and studded nature of this turret are not exactly Disney-friendly, but I don't think kids would have noticed. Ferdinand II was described as "flamboyant", which is code for something else I think.

The courtyard and clock tower.

The windy, windy porch that overlooked the town.

What a view! You can see the old Moorish castle on the right.

We then caught the bus back down to the main part of town and walked out to Quinta da Regaleira, a mansion build by the former royals after they were deposed.

The bell tower of the chapel and the mansion in the background. The best part of this place were the grounds. Again, the kids would have loved this place!

Looking up from the grounds to the Moorish castle on the left and Palacio Real on the right.

There were structures like this all over the place, towers and turrets and stairs and paths and caves and tunnels and waterfalls and ponds and...you get the idea. Not sure what is going on with Ashley and Greg here, I think he was trying to take a picture of the tower as well.

This requires some explanation. We found one of the underground tunnels and we emerged here, under a waterfall looking over a green pond with a stone walkway. Ashley and Megan felt it appropriate to do a yoga tree pose on the stones.

Yours truly on the stones.

Not sure what this is but you could climb up it!

This was my favorite site of the whole trip, the Initiation Well. A staircase spirals all the way down to the bottom. It has some pagan/alchemist meaning.

On the staircase.

From the bottom.

It looks like I am a holy angel or something.

The passageway leading from the grounds to the mansion.

Ashley loving the very ornate door.

The ceiling.

I loved these lion knockers.

This was hilarious. On the top floor there were some educational exhibits about the mansion and grounds. This cat was totally sacked out on one of the displays. Ashley tried to pet it but it thumped its tail as if to say, "Leave me alone".

The outside of the mansion.

And that is pretty much it, folks. We caught the train back to Lisboa, ate at the Casa Brasileira again, went back to the hotel for a power nap, and then went to a 10:00 pm Valentine's Day dinner at a Fado restaurant, where they sing you traditional Portuguese folk music as you eat. The next morning we were up and out the door early to catch our 6:50 am flight.

That was our last date weekend ever with the Trifilos, unless we meet up again in Chicago after we both leave Europe this summer. Portugal thoroughly charmed us and we know that we missed so much. Can't get everywhere, and we still have Belgium and Norway to conquer!

Skiing and bonfires

I love winter in Europe. The opportunities for travel are somewhat curtailed but that just means that we spend more quality time in our local area and on shorter trips. Specifically, it means snow skiing and bonfires!

The day after Christmas, AKA Boxing Day or Santo Stefano, we had a bonfire potluck at our house for our friends. We were missing the Crandalls, who had left in mid-December, but still had a great time.

Standing by my beloved creation before it goes up in flames. Most of it was made from the trimmings from our neighbor Aldo's yard.

In full conflagration with the guests circled around. I loved this view and had to snap a picture.

The next day I gave Ashley the day off and a huge shopping budget as her Christmas present. I took the kids up to the ice skating rink at Piancavallo, since the snow was not good enough for skiing yet. Juliet improved a lot in just a couple of hours.

The new year got off to a good start with the La Befana Bonfire celebration on 5 Jan, L'Epifana Eve. Also known as King's Day, the Epiphany in Italy is the official end of the Christmas holiday. Tradition holds that the wisemen invited a "witch" to come with them but she declined. She then changed her mind and tried to follow them, but was unable to find the home so she left gifts at every home she came across. The anti-Herod, if you will. To celebrate her in NE Italy, enormous bonfires are built and lit, with the witch on top. The direction of the wind determines the type of year it will be: towards the sea is good, away from the sea is bad, straight up is uncertain.

Ashley and Georgie at our neighbor's bonfire, which is the unofficial one for our little town. This monster put my bonfires to shame. It was huge!

 The witch on top.

 The townspeople gathered around. You couldn't stand too close, it was too hot.

After the witch burned away all that was left was the cross she was tied to. No, Neil Young, this is not white supremacist terrorism in Alabama!

Our neighbor, Bruno, pouring gasoline or some other flammable on the fire.

There were food and drinks and desserts, all free of charge and they wouldn't accept donations!

Isaac and his best friend from school, Simone. These two are a couple of LEGO-crazed, Wii-playing, constantly joking, occasionally fighting, but always LOUD Italian-speaking friends.

A few days later Ashley took the kids skiing at Piancavallo and met up with some friends there. This year is the worst year for snow in many decades and only a few days later the resort had to close and didn't reopen again for several weeks. So sad.

Juliet is an awesome skier! No edgie wedgie this year and she is skiing intermediate runs like a champ.

The Slabaugh girls with Samantha, Georgie, Juliet, and Chloe Weatherwax. Look at Jubie with her poles! Such a big girl!

For MLK Day the Joneses found a babysitter and we left the little kids behind to finally make the complete Sella Ronda skiing circuit. The sky was clear and the day was amazing, if very cold with crappy snow. We lost Tann for about an hour at the beginning of the day, but soon regrouped and made the most of it.

We started in Arabba and made the clockwise circuit. You never ski the same run or ride the same lift twice, and you go through about five or six different resorts while you make this huge 40 km circuit in the Dolomites. Georgie was freezing in this shot but still appreciated the views.

Ridiculous views like this all day.

We stopped for lunch here and got some outstanding German food. Behind Tann and me is the Alpi di Siusi area.

Isaac and Payton at the same spot.

Isaac at Sasso Lungo near Val di Gardena.

Georgie and I at the pass just east of Sasso Lungo. Every view was new so you never stopped being amazed.

Isaac and Payton at the same spot from a different angle.

Georgie a little farther along the circuit. She had warmed up and was feeling great.

Payton skiing the pass. Love those Dolomite peaks. We finished the circuit about an hour early and skied the last run a few times to finish out the day. Love the Sella Ronda.

The next weekend we decided to have yet another bonfire at our house. I had worked hard to get a new one built and our neighbor Aldo had helped add to it.

The pre-bonfire set-up. Isaac and Georgie and I were throwing the frisbee around on this lovely late January day.

Not as big as the Befana bonfire, of course, but the fire was about 10 feet tall and the flame at least 20. The sparks were showering down like confetti and the kids were playing in them. All very safe.

It was also a full moon, which you can see here outlined by the curving flame. It was great because even when you stepped away from the fire there was still plenty of light to see.

The next weekend we had a trip planned with the Joneses to my favorite ski resort ever: Sonnenalp Nassfeld on the Italian-Austrian border. I had been there four times before with Kwame and Greg, Greg and Megan, Greg and Ben, and Ben and Jeff. This time it was with all the giblets. We got a ski in-ski out apartment at the base of one of the lifts and it was worth every penny.

This was the view from our kitchen. They had the bunny slope lit up and they were putting on a skiing, pyrotechnic, and snow-cat show, complete with euro-techno music.

Ashley took one for the team the first morning and watched Juliet (sick with croup - but not too sick to dance), Jacqueline, and Kate the baby.

Meanwhile, the big kids were tearing it up on the man-made snow with incredible vistas. Landon is on the ground behind Georgie and I was very impressed with his skiing all weekend. Great story from this first morning: We found a cool kids' run with curves and small jumps called the "Funslope". There was a small platform at the end of the run and Isaac had gone off of it and fallen. Angela didn't see him because he was in the blind spot below the platform, so she went off the platform and crashed to the left trying to avoid him. She started yelling to Tann who pulled up and stopped behind Isaac. They yelled at me and I pulled up in front of Isaac, right below the platform.

Then, this idiot 40-something Italian dude starts coming down. At this point there are three visible, yelling adults standing below the platform protecting a non-visible child. Did that stop this moron? Certainly not. He started skiing towards the platform and was yelling at me to get out of the way. He had PLENTY of time to pull up and not go on the platform. But no, as if in a slap-stick movie he went off the platform at full speed, still yelling at me, and hit me like a line-backer lighting up a wide receiver. I let him have it in my imperfect Italian, yelling at him that my son was on the ground below the jump and that he was an enormous jackass. Tann was likewise berating him in English. He shut his mouth when he realized that there was a child on the ground and that he was outnumbered & outlanguaged.

This is the top of Nassfeld, right on the border between Austria on the right and Italy to the left.

It was foggy down in the Italian valleys but clear and bright in the Dolomites!

Georgie at the top. What a great day.

Isaac, Payton, Samantha, and Georgie on the run with the infamous Funslope. Despite that incident we skied this run numerous times throughout the weekend. There was a jump at the exit the we would all take turns on.

 Georgie and Samantha on the lift.

 This is the top of the eastern side of the resort.

 Looking east towards Tarvisio and Villach. Tann is on the right.

Looking north towards the village of Hermagor, where the sun was shining and there was no snow on the ground at the end of January. A very weird winter.

The next day it was foggy and colder, but we still had a great time. This is the top of the center part of the resort. They are usually blasting euro-techno out of that lodge, but that day it was AC/DC's  "Highway to Hell". I was full-on rocking out.

 I think Tann stole Ashley's phone and took a selfie.

The peak behind us is the top of the resort on the border with Italy. I loved them way the clouds and sky came together in this shot.

Random snowboarder photobomb!

Towards the end of the second day we skied the run with our favorite jump in the park. Just big enough to be fun but not dangerous.

 The last run of the day with Tann and the big Jones kids.

 The boys having a snowball fight.

All the big kids together at the end of the weekend. Better snow would have been nice, but we had a great weekend regardless.

We will have more skiing and more bonfires before the winter is out, but next up is our couples' date weekend in Portugal with the Trifilos.