Lisbon: Eating Our Way Through It.

I've got one giant folder with over a hundred shots so I'll divide the Lisbon posts up by certain categories. Starting with the food. And we did eat our way through it, BUT we were doing something like 20,000 steps a day, which makes eating all the more special. Guilt free.

First, an overview:  After the Urban Sketchers Symposium, Fred and I trained down to Lisbon for another five or six days. It's a belated celebration of our 25th wedding anniversary, which we celebrated on the day back in October, but didn't know yet if we'd be coming to Portugal. So it was a good excuse to extend this travel period so Fred could have a bit of non-working time. AKA "vacation."

Our pattern here has been a long walk together in the morning until around 3. And by morning, I mean 11:00 am. We both like our coffee/tea/paper/puzzles in the morning. Then we separate—Fred to draw and me to work if there is something for me to do, and edit my photos, and have lunch. Fred grabs something to go. I, however, sit in a little family restaurant and chill. Lunch out is something I never ever do at home. It's odd I've taken to doing it here.

A few of our nights here we ate in very brightly lit family-owned (as in the wife cooks and the husbands serves, or vice-versa) type places. Here we sat next to Jean-Michel De Monicault --t he mayor of Croisy-sur-Eure, a little town in Normandy.  He and his wife Catherine said they would like us to visit and stay in their castle! It's a B&B. It's the only way they were able to keep it in the family. Photo below, credit to Booking.com

The Mayor. 

There's this great little sour cherry liqueur called Ginjinha that's sold in tiny plastic shot glasses all around the city for one euro. At the bottom are a pile of little tiny cherries with pits --- they look more like olives than cherries.  Just remembered -- it is also served often in a little chocolate cup!  More info about Ginjinha on this site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginjinha

Fred ordered the fish and chips, basically---something we saw at someone else's table -- but the waiter said they were all out, but there were two other kinds of fried fish. Fred, not knowing one from the other said, You pick!  (Words never spoken by Fred Lynch ever before--- or ever again, for that matter!)  This is what he got. Three little fish biting their tails. I said, Can you do this? He did and liked it!

Mine was more along the lines of what I expected.

I'd say let's leave the chocolate mousse for the French to handle. This was not very chocolately, and just kind of odd.

This is the outside of the place we ate all that. It's very typical of hundreds of spots to eat.

One night we had just a cheese board for dinner and later found this same cheese at an outdoor market. It's soft in the middle, like brie, but has a firm rind (that is edible) and it's wrapped in a white cotton cloth. Really good!

Olives at the outdoor market. They were selling them for one euro a cup -- and the cup was a plastic beer cup with the logo for Super Bock, their Budweiser. 

Crazy-looking tomatoes.

HUGE macarons! 

This restaurant served our meals in little steel pots. This was seafood pasta. I was a little deflated at the elbow macaroni, which is silly because pasta is pasta, no matter the shape, but it was too good to be disappointed for long. I'm all mixed up now about what we ate where because of how similar the little family places are. We had the pots with the mayor and the crazy fish at the place I showed the photo of the outside of.

Portuguese donuts. I asked a woman in a department store what they're called and she thinks they are bolas de berlim.
By the way, this language is way complicated. The word for yes is "sim," but it's pronounced "sing." I THINK. The M is NG... lots of Bs and Ms in this language. Ok -- that was just my own interpretation of what I hear myself. Just did a little research and some describe the M as like the N at the end of a French word.. sort of not said...  At least it's something that is talked about and not just in my imagination.  There are also a lot of ZSA ZSA sounds.
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/9915052/Pronunciation-of-M-in-Portuguse 

Delicious watermelon snack. 

This is the national pastry. Called a pasteis de nata. As I said on my FB/Instagram post -- I usually don't take my empty calories in any form other than chocolate or ice cream (sweets-wise, anyway), but had to try this. It's eggy custard in a very flaky crust. I get it, but nothing special to me.

Gelado. Every bit as good as gelato.

One night we decided to eat somewhere with better lighting. So I looked up most romantic Lisbon restaurants on TripAdvisor and came up with this. It didn't disappoint. I walked to it to make the reservation. Had a nice interaction with the server. When we arrived, he looked at me as if he had never seen me before. Asked if we'd like a table in our out -- there was only ONE left outside and that was where I had reserved to sit!  So unnerving. What's more, there was a little scrap of paper with the name Desiree on it, and the number 2! Fred and I slipped it under the placemat and settled in to OUR table.

This appetizer was warm, melty Portuguese cheese with honey and bread to dip in it. Excellent.

It was our belated 25th anniversary dinner. We didn't know if we were coming to Portugal last October when we celebrated in Portland, ME. A tad different!

We might have these in the states ---- machines to make orange juice. I used one a couple of times in the super market where the basket of oranges at the top is huge, and you have to feed more in once in a while, and push an orange along once in a while if it gets stuck. A nice British young man walking that Camino de Santiago pilgrimage helped me toss more oranges in once. It was a bit high for me. The orange juice is, naturally, amazing.  I just looked up that pilgrimage and it does not go through Portugal, so.. whatever.



I will close this post with a bunch more shots of awesome things to eat. Or not!

Post-Porto Post

As I sit in the train station, waiting for our train to Lisbon, I will write about our time in Porto for Fred's Urban Sketchers Symposium. I'm behind on the blog because this is a new city for me and there was too much to see to just hole up and blog by myself!

Some info about this organization can be found here:  http://www.urbansketchers.org/p/usk-symposium.html   This is the 9th year for the event, four of which Fred's participated in: Barcelona, Manchester (UK), Brazil (Paraty), and Porto.

Porto is the second largest city in Portugal (Lisbon being first). It's on the Duoro River, and is best known for its port wine. It is also known for its buildings covered in beautiful tiles (azulejos). I plan to do a whole post on just these tiles, as I collected tons of shots of them.

This post is going to be VERY long -- the entire Thursday night, Friday, and Saturday that we were in Porto.

Adorable little bottle of port in Fred's swag back. I took this shot on our balcony.

This year's Symposium was the biggest yet at 800 sketchers, representing 46 countries.

TONS of sponsors were there!

This sketcher found himself surrounded by Portuguese camp kids. 

At every corner are more sketchers.

Porto has these cool trams. Lots of people ride bikes in Porto and they use the tram track as a bike path and then just get off when a tram is coming.

This year, all the instructors did a demo (in addition to workshops, which are more about teaching than showing what they, themselves, do). This is the beginning of Fred's demo.

Another demo happening.

Around every corner!

More campers! Fred's demo in the background.

Fred entertaining his demo attendees.

One of Fred's workshop attendees is an American journalist working in France and tweeted this:

@fredlynchart‘s favorite quotes about art are gems of wisdom. Lynch, a talented illustrator & teacher, brings a stand-up comic’s wit to his workshops at #USkPorto2018. “Viewers draw meaning from pictures,” Lynch writes. “Illustrators draw meaning into them.”

Get off the tracks!

Friday night we ate with Gabi, the founder and master mind behind Urban Sketchers. He's a Spanish-American, Seattle-based journalist who also illustrates, teaches, and sketches. Lovely man. He writes for the Seattle Times.

The cappuccinos are usually half the size of this one. I had this while killing time before a Port wine "factory?" tour. Across the river is where all the factories are. That's not what they're called, but... And it's not Porto anymore, it's Vila Nova de Gaia.

Our hotel was just out of view on the left, one block from the Duoro.

A broom store!

These mail slots -- I don't get it. They must have shelving on the other side so the mail doesn't just end up in one big pile.

Santa's escaping. Or maybe this is how he gets in since there is nary a chimney in Porto!

Love this sketcher shot. 

Looks like this sketcher's got an idea.

This is a bookstore that charges ADMISSION now due to the throngs of visitors. Apparently it inspired J.K. Rowlings' Harry Potter books, so fans come far and wide...  

...and stand in a line that goes all the way down the street.

I'm determined to not eat surrounded by tourists. No easy task in beautiful places like Porto, but this one --- a great find, and really not very far off the beaten path!

All this for six euro.

And while I was sitting there, what comes on the TV but an interview with Urban Sketchers sketchers! 

She's the cook. I took Fred back later for a drink. She and her husband were very sweet, but tired and needed to close.

As we were leaving, the guy was setting these all up for the morning -- this is how they had been when I was there at lunch. 

Fishing on the Duoro is strictly catch and release.

The view from Porto to Vila Nova de Gaia.

This cat was hilarious --- he would crouch down all flat, wiggle his hind quarters faster and faster, and then seem to doze off. Later I got a closer look and he was cross-eyed, so he might not really even see the bird very well.

Crazy pretty and varied sardine cans.

Adorable cozy place for a drink. Sometimes you have to get over not getting a seat outside because the locals don't always care and it's really nice inside.

Magic hour light.

The port factory.

A mural at the port factory.

A new friend on the tour and I took each other's pictures.

Porto from across the Duoro.

Next is my story about these kids who jump off the bridge for money. They do it all day long and tourists give them money for it. If you're a new observer, it's scary. I don't know if it was just me, but I was alarmed. Some guy and I decided together that he's probably not suicidal. He just does this for show. There's a gang of about eight of them. All about 16. They act really nervous as if they just can't bring themselves to do it, while their buddies are egging them on from the side. 

These are the guys on the sidelines. They all seem to take turns doing it.

If you look closely, you can see this kid after he's has jumped. They keep their sneakers on --- which is very concerning for us onlookers --- so they can climb up the rocks to get back up again.

He changes his posture to be like a pencil. He can go deeper that way and come up further away, increasing our concern when he doesn't pop back up immediately.

He's climbing up the rocks here.

I excitedly shot this thinking those were real pigeons on that cool cube sculpture!  

Gabi himself taking Fred's workshop! 

I took this photo with the intention of posting it to Instagram with the caption: The mailman has a tough job.....
Only to find out that "Correio" is not a name. It means "mail."   

I find that the graffiti in Portugal is happy stuff. 

I was determined to walk 10K steps before allowing myself to relax with lunch, but at 8,600, I caved to this sweet place.  

Murca! I guess I didn't take a picture of my meal, but it was amazing. Salad, soup, bread, wine, water.... all for under six euro.  NO tourists. All Portuguese people -- mostly older couples at lunch.
 

This is Porto from my walk home. I ended up really far from where I started.

Tonight was the last night of the show, when, as I mentioned before, they have a silent auction. So fun, and HUGE this time with 800 participants. I wanted to scream PEOPLE! Please walk counter clockwise around the table... keep it moving... no butting in... no stopping and chatting. We all want to see all the work. It took me 45 minutes to get all the way around. I bid on the one that spoke to me, and would remind me of my time spent here. And I WON it. Fred has it so packaged up and protected that I can't take a photo of it, but it turns out the artist was in Fred's workshop when she did it!  The assignment was to illustrate a quote by the American writer Mary McCarthy, "Every Portuguese town is like a bride's finery. Something old. Something new. Something borrowed. Something blue."  Barbara Luel is the artist. I will post the image later!  I LOVE IT! So glad I won the silent auction.

 

Fred and I left for a bit and had a bite across the street. When we returned it was cocktail time and closing bids. (A new cocktail, by the way, that I happened to have learned about on my Port tour, is white port and tonic. Very nice. It was served at this event.) We chatted with people we see at these events, and some we don't see much but with whom Fred has an email and/or social media relationship. Then at 9 pm, pretty much right on schedule, the announcement was made: Next year in Amsterdam. It can be ANYWHERE in the world, so this is really a cool moment! We can't count on going, however. We have to hope Fred's proposal gets accepted, and that the timing doesn't conflict with Viterbo.

Fred and Gabi :) 

Shari Blaukopf won Fred's piece!

On the walk home.  

I want to be at that party. 

Good night and goodbye, Porto!