Flat Stanley........ our latest visitor

Our latest visitor was Flat Stanley.  He went on a number of touristy trips here in London with Debbie.  He never complained, didn't eat a thing and was a great guest.  Our nephew Daniel's daughter Evie, was participating in a class assignment in Sacramento, California.  Her class was reading Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown.  Stanley is a young boy who is accidentally squished as flat as a pancake when a bulletin board falls on him.  Stanley discovers some real advantages to being flat, but is otherwise fine.  He can slide under doors and even fold himself up small enough to fit into an envelope and be mailed to different locations around the world for a vacation........and that is how he ended up in London.
Here are some highlights of Stanley's vacation in London, England.

Stanley and Debbie at Sugahill Cafe

Stanley getting ready to catch a double decker bus.

Stanley at the London Eye.

Stanley and Big Ben.

Stanley overlooking the River Thames.

Stanley at Buckingham Palace.

Stanley in front of the Statue at the Palace.

and.....near 10 Downing Street.

We had a very nice visit with Stanley and even if you can't fit through the mail slot we would love to have you come visit us in London.  

Cheers !

A Tale of Two Cats

We are in training to be Grandparents.  Our neighbors have two cats.  One of whom, loves us to pieces and when he misbehaves we tell him to go home to his parents.  We only know the name of one of the cats.  His name is "Harrison".  He is the one who comes to visit, rubs our legs, runs into the kitchen and promptly uses our garden as his litter box.  We do not know the other cat's name.......so we just call him "Ugly."  Ugly is a tortoise shell cat who looks like he was painted by God on a day when he was very tired.  
Here are a couple of pictures of Harrison.  We don't have one yet of Ugly, but when we do we'll post it.
It really is very nice to have a pet to love and cuddle and not have any responsibility for.........so kind of like being a Grandparent I guess.

So, Nikki and Joey, when you do have children, make sure you tell us what their names are or who knows what we will call them!!!!  (Just kidding in all seriousness, we can't wait to be Grandparents.)
Just a short cat tale ...........over and out.

Mum's the Word

In England, Mother's day is in April.  All the greeting cards say "Happy Mum's Day".  So this blog is dedicated to Jon's Mum (Janet Hill) who came for a visit in July.

Unfortunately, the weather was not ideal, but it was friendly on a few of the days.  We sure enjoyed her visit.  She arrived three days after we moved into our new house.  We frantically painted the pink room to tan and cream as to not have her wake up in a Pepto-Bismol nightmare.  It was a photo finish but we were happy with the results.

The first journey we took her on was to Knole Estate.  We rented a car while she was here, so we drove there instead of taking the bus to the Southern Rail to London Bridge to connect to Southeastern Rail to Sevenoaks, followed by a 2 mile walk to the Estate.  Mum was most appreciative.  Knole estate is a beautiful jewel in the British crown (not the actual crown) where the fallow deer run free and hills roll on for days.  Mum viewed the whole estate from the comfort of her rolling chair and the deer were very friendly to her (and so was her "driver"):

After Knole Estate, we took her to the Pub where they serve the "Best Cheeseburgers in England" (from a previous post). Wouldn't you know it, they were out of cheeseburgers that day.  So instead, Mum had the "Best Steak and Ale Pie" in England that day.  Here's Mum ordering the Cheeseburger outside the pub:

One of the best day trips we had was a walk along the promenade of the River Thames.  The weather was quite nice that day.  It was a very peaceful day as you can see: 

We then took Mum over to Trafalgar Square to see the new fountain and the countdown clock to the Olympic Games in 2012.  Mum was getting cold and sprayed near the fountain so she decided to take a little trip of her own:

While Mum was here we had a housewarming party so she could meet some of our new friends -- let's face it...we wanted to show off Mum and our new house! We love having family and friends come to visit us here in London.  The invitation is always open. So...thank you Mum for coming to see us.

In England, "Grease" is not the word, "Mum's" the word!

We love you Mom.

Sorry Seems to be the Easiest Word

The British are, if anything, polite in most any situation.  It is a sign of reservedness and helps maintain a general sense of propriety.  But, as the outsiders looking in, we have to notice that their favorite word is “sorry.”  It is apparently used to mean any of the following:

·         “I see that we are both in the same doorway at the same time.”

·         “I would really like to get on that Tube escalator in front of you.”

·         “Could you take off your headset so you can hear me?”

·         “We feel bad that we haven’t updated the blog in months”

·         “Would you please repeat yourself, I didn’t understand you.”

·         “I don’t have a lot of self-esteem.”

But it is most often used instead of “Excuse me” or “Pardon me”.

If you are standing, for example, at a bus stop, and someone wants you to step to the side slightly so they can pass, the appropriate expression for them to use is “Sorry”.  If you accidentally brush up against someone in a crowd, what should you say? “Sorry.”  And if Nigel simply wants to get Francesca’s attention, he should most definitely say “Sorry”.

Oddly enough, there was a study released recently in the paper (and it actually was on page 11), that showed the English say “Sorry” an average of 6.2 times per day and that they should be averaging about 1.2 times per day (the number of times in a day a person would truly be sorry about something).  So, if you are English and live to be 100 years old, you will likely say “Sorry” no less than 226,300 times in your life.  On the upside, according to the study, if you were Scottish and 100 years old, you would have only been “Sorry” 131,400 times.  Hurray for Scotland!

We hope you have found this post interesting.  If not … “Sorry.”

Goodbye Kelvin Grove, Hello Halifax

So, after 8 months of living in the flat on Kelvin Grove (and by flat we mean about 500 usable square feet), we decided it was time to start living like civilized people.  The house hunt began again.  After learning that rentals only stay on the market for 24-48 hours after they are first listed, Debbie got busy finding homes that had just been listed.  She stumbled across this one on Halifax Street, about 4 hours after it was listed; a viewing was arranged for the next day.  By the time we had our viewing, there had already been one prior and one more scheduled later that day; so we had to move quickly.  Turns out, that this London version of the Winchester Mystery House was/is quite popular.  We put in an offer immediately (yes, you make offers for leases in London as if you were buying, and then there is a negotiation process – bizarre, we originally thought you would just pay the listed price).  At any rate, we won the bidding war!
 

There is a sad element to all of this and an element of inspiration.  We were so filled with hope and energy to tackle “living in a flat in London” when we first arrived.  As time went on, those 500 square feet got smaller and smaller.  Move-in Day was exciting and different and full of promise.  Move-out Day took forever to get here.  But it turned out to be one of the best days of our entire time in England so far.  Our new house with its odd stairs, short ceilings, hobbit holes, small passageways, pink walls, holes, broken tiles, decaying brick, dirty carpet, ripped wallpaper, and electrical and gas hazards, was to become our proper London respite.  We walked in with the keys on day 1 and knew we were “home” – with all of its problems, it just felt right.  We love the new house, but it was an ordeal beyond anything we expected to get here.

Backtracking a few weeks, the time came to prepare for moving – to do so, we needed to break our current lease 4 months early.  That turned out to be the easiest part of what we would have to do to get out of the flat.  Everything was set, we had a move in date, we had new furniture on the way to the new house, and we were ready for the big day – July 9.  That is when all hell started breaking loose (and by “all hell” we mean a rapidly growing hatred for our then current landlords and an unravelling list of problems with the new house).

Leaving Kelvin Grove

About 4 days before we were set to move out of the old place, we get a note from the Landlord asking for the copy of the receipt from the professional window and carpet cleaners we hired.  What? We didn’t hire any professionals – we vacuumed and cleaned the windows ourselves.  Through a series of emails between Jon and Psycho Landlord Twin #1, we determined that the team of Psycho Landlord Twins would not release our £1500 deposit unless we hired these professionals.  At this point we demanded to see the receipt from the equivalent professional cleaning that was done before we moved in (as we would not return the flat to them in any better shape than it was when we moved in).

“Oh, you never got that receipt?”

“No, and we will need to see that before we order a professional carpet cleaner”

“Well, you’d best arrange for that now as we don’t want to have to charge you for lost rent if the receipt is not available to us by July 9.”

What the hell? We had nothing in the lease indicating that this was a requirement, and no proof that it was ever done before we moved in.  But the Psycho Twins had us pinned to the wall to the tune of £1500.  Fine, we’ll order the f-ing carpet and window cleaner.  Ok, done.

“You know, there are some extra weeds in the garden.  We will need to hire a professional gardener to tidy up”, said psycho #2.

“Oh and the hole in our attic that was there before you moved in lets moths in.  That is a problem and we’ll have to fumigate, which you will have to pay for”, said psycho #1.

“Oh, and there is a bit of dust on the floorboard in the kitchen, so we must have a full cleaning crew in and you will have to pay for that”, said the psychos in unison.

As our readers will hopefully know, we are not messy people and keep a very clean house.  Needless to say, we vehemently disagreed on all points, especially the weeds in the garden (since their garden was a disaster when we moved in) and the fumigation at our expense because they have a structural problem with the building. It’s not like we hung out a neon sign saying “All moths welcome” – AND, we had to live with those stupid moths for 3 months.  The psychos are apparently not smart enough to realize that killing any moths that might exist (of which there were none because we had already fumigated 2 months prior) will not plug the gaping hole in their attic where all creatures great and small can get in.

At the risk of carrying on too long about this (we know, “too late already”), suffice it say that we had to pay almost £600 just to get our deposit back.  After discussing all of this with the letting agent, we learned that these psychos are just that – bipolar psychos.  We could have filed a claim and fought the whole thing in court, but we opted to go British-passive instead of British-aggressive, unlike the psycho twins.

Halifax, the New Day Dawns

Since the new house was unfurnished and the old one completely furnished, we had a new problem to tackle, but it was one to which we looked forward.  Knowing that all of our furniture is gathering dust in a storage unit in Los Angeles, we went furniture shopping.  It took only one stop at one store to realize that furnishing an entire house in England requires a promissory note from Lloyds of London.  Hmmm. What to do?  Plan B – Debbie found one of the charity shops for the British Heart Foundation that had just opened a new used furniture location.  We went and they had good quality furniture at a fraction of the cost of new stuff. We bought couches, dressers, tables, chairs, microwave, television, DVD player, surround sound system, and tried to buy their kitchen sink, but it was not for sale.  They waved the £30 delivery charge since we bought so much stuff.   We decided that the beds and mattresses had to be brand new – so we bought them at a furniture store that has since disappeared (it was burned down in the London Riots in August – yikes). 

As we noted, we walked in the door at Halifax and a great sense of peace came over us.  Long gone were the tribulations of living in a small box, walking up and down those 17 stairs every day, just to get to the front door; we were standing in what felt like a real home, full of warmth and a return of hope and promise. We knew we were in the right place – a place we cared more about and would be proud to call our own.  So we set about checking out the property to see which of the repairs had been completed.  Total count = zero! Are you kidding? We signed the lease three weeks prior and nothing had been done. Wow, loss for words.  Undaunted, we decided to get the cameras rolling (because we will get 100% of our deposit back on this place come hell or high water!).  After 63 photos of problem spots and an email to the new landlord to politely say WTF?, we stopped and marvelled that even with the items that needed repair, we were still so much happier; happy enough that the problems just really didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.  There is a big difference between a hole in the ceiling and a hole in your spirit – a good lesson to learn.

So we set about actually moving our stuff from the old place to the new place [note: the flat and the house are only 2 blocks away from each other, so we were able to move everything by loading it into suitcases and rolling those suitcases back and forth between the properties].  We also got started on “painting the pink room” – one of the bedrooms had been used by a little girl prior to our tenancy and it was painted in two-tone hot pink – yowza! We had secured permission from the Landlord to paint it.  Debbie began the masking tape and tarping process and Jon made some round trips between the flat and house to cart more stuff over (8 trips in all that day).

It's Only a Flesh Wound

Not feeling like painting and not wanting to cart more stuff over, we decided to unpack our kitchen stuff.  Plus our furniture was scheduled to arrive in about 30 minutes.  We had been on an IKEA trip to get all of the dinnerware, pots/pans, silverware, etc. for our new kitchen and now we were about to start having fun opening all the packages and configuring this great new kitchen (which is 3 times the size of the old one).  One of the items we got at IKEA was a really good knife – we’d been trying to saw through bread, onions, and tomatoes for months with our rented knives, so we were excited to finally have a really good one.  Turns out the knife was hermetically sealed in its packaging and required a team of 10 people to get the knife out.  As a fan of the figure-out-this-packaging challenge, Jon figured out how to get the knife out – simply yank on it as hard as you can and cut a 5 cm deep gash in your index finger.  Brilliant!

Jon is standing there bleeding profusely with a huge gash in his finger – looks like it will need 15 stitches at least!  Debbie gets on the phone to the doctor’s office hot line and finds out that Jon needs to go to “A&E” (Accidents and Emergencies), the UK name for an ER.  Closest one is at Lewisham Hospital.  No worries, it just a 25 minute bus ride and a 10 block walk – shouldn’t everyone travel to the ER with blood loss via bus?  Debbie couldn’t go with Jon because there were two delivery companies scheduled to arrive with a house full of furniture in 15 minutes.  So, we kissed and agreed to reconvene back in a fully furnished house with a fully stitched finger.  The whole ER experience was different, not bad at all, but different.  It only took 2 hours, including round trip transportation and Jon will only have a small scar.  Upon his return home, the house was furnished (except the new beds had to be assembled and we only had three working hands between us!).  Still, we were so happy to be in the new house – really, we were (and still are).

And now for the pictures

Caption Contest Results and Preparing to Dust

Cheers everyone.  I know you all are waiting with baited breath about the winner of the May Caption Contest.........all four of you.  Well, it was a tie.  Debbie chose Jason Jaffee and Jon chose Becky Farina. So congratulations you two for sharing the illustrious title of co-winners of the May Blog Caption Contest.
So, dust cloth in hand, I am getting rid of the cobwebs on the blog.  So sorry for the massive delay, but we have been busy. Here are the last few months in a nutshell.  We will go back and blog the individual events with pictures but this is why there have been no blogs since July 1st.

We moved.........
Mom (Jon's Mom, Janet) came for a visit........
Debbie got a job with a Media Company...........writer/actress
Jon very busy at work
Dee Dee and Jason Jaffee came for a visit....including a 3 day trip to Paris for Dee Dee's birthday.

So we will be getting back on track soon.
Also, most of you know that our beloved "Lucy" died.  She made it past her 15th birthday by two days. Very sad indeed.
We will be coming home for Christmas, so we hope to see as many of you as we can.  Look for a new blog entry with pictures soon and perhaps another Caption Contest......because the first one went over so well !!
Much love - Deb and Jon

More Crazies on the 176 and What's on Page 11 – Installment 4

We realize it has been a while since we have blogged and we apologize for the lack of "flow of information".  We have been busy preparing for our upcoming move to a new house!  Yes, we are moving a whole two blocks away from where we are now.  It is a bigger place (3 bedrooms) and very charming (English code for “quirky but just right for us”).  We will no doubt be blogging about the move (scheduled for next Saturday the 9^th of July), but suffice it to say that there is much to tell on that front.

In the meantime, to keep you entertained and to assure you that life in England presses on regardless, we have some new highlights from “page 11”, from the 176 bus, and from the city of Penge for your perusal end enjoyment.

IRONING ON THE FREEWAY?

A couple of months back, the M1 (English version of “I-5” or “The 5” as they say in Southern California), was shut down for three days because of an overturned Lorry (Semi/Big-Rig in American English).  There were massive delays and people couldn’t get to work, etc.  Why it took three days to clear the mess, we do not know.  What we do know is that a local man took it upon himself to stage a peaceful protest by opting to do his ironing directly on the pavement of the M-25.  Yep, he brought an ironing board, iron, and wrinkled shirt, and set up shop right in the middle of the road.  We are still not sure exactly how he kept the iron hot enough to actually press the shirt and there are no photos of the pressed shirt to prove that it worked, but here is what was on page 11:

HEY LADY, SHAVE YOUR ‘STACHE

So, we are sitting on the 176 bus quietly minding our own business when this man comes downstairs on the bus (you can go upstairs and downstairs on buses here) to prepare for his alighting.  Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, he was right in front of us.  We knew he was leaving based on his positioning in the bus and we were certain he was headed to the barber based on his beard and moustache.  Looking down at his feet, we learned he was wearing a lovely pair of Espadrille high heels in a brilliant orange.  Looking up again, we realized this was no man!  Seriously Lady, have you ever heard of Gillette?  It was amazing to see that much growth – it was like a goatee.  All we can assume is that she was in Stage 1 of the standard NHS Gender Reassignment Program (they don’t really have such a program, but if they did, she was their poster child).

BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU HIRE A PRIVATE CAR SERVICE

We were out shopping in Penge for new outdoor furniture for our new house (yes, we will now have direct and private access to our own back yard – Yay!).  We found the perfect set as well as a barbeque, briquettes, an iron (funny that this all comes back to ironing, yes?), barbeque utensils, and several other sundries.  So far, so good.  Here’s the rub: how do you carry three boxes of patio furniture and a barbeque on the Bus (actually two buses in our case)?  Answer: you don’t, hire a private car service!

The store where we bought the furniture (Wilkinson) has this handy phone right by the checkout for car hires.  All you do is pick up the phone and it automatically dials the car service (clearly we were not the first couple to buy more at Wilkinson than can be carried on the bus).  So Debbie calls for the car…”We’ll meet you out back”…”Perfect, thanks!”  So we take our trolley (cart) out back and with the assistance of a generous and friendly Englishwoman, we get all of our goods to the parking lot area.

The car pulls up, we load his boot (trunk), his back seat (back seat), and his front seat (front seat) with our stuff and we are on our way.  Fantastic!  Then the driver says, “You might have to help me find your house, I am new to the area”.   Turns out he was new to the area, new to London, new to England, and, in fact, new to Western Europe!  We were of little help since we have never driven here (that’s what buses are for).  After several hundred wrong turns and back streets – voila! We were at our flat.  Then it came time for the bill. Certain it would be £30 or £40, we braced ourselves...

Suddenly, it felt like a MasterCard commercial: “New Outdoor Furniture - £100; New Barbeque £35; Household sundries £40; Ride through every possible side street in a one-mile radius with an immigrant using very broken-English…priceless!”.  In this case, priceless was only £7. Yay!

CONCLUSION

As we prepare for our move in 7 days, we promise to keep tracking more interesting and insightful experiences to put on the blog.  For now, we are going to go iron our pajamas on Sydenham High Street and beg for change from non-English speaking she-males…

May 2011 Caption Contest

Welcome to our first official Caption Contest!  To enter, write the perfect caption for the photo below.  Only entries submitted as comments on the blog will be considered for the grand prize.  Ok, there is no prize, but we hope you will play along and check out just how clever our little blog community can be (click on the "Comments" link to see the submissions).

After the contest, we will tell you what this is picture is really all about.  Enjoy!

PORTUGAL PART III - Where we bid a fond farewell to The Doenca and The Algarve

Day 7 – 29 April 2011 – Olhão and Tavira Revisited and “A Recipe is Born”

Our last day in the Algarve before we headed to Lisbon, we decided to go back into Olhão for coffees and to see what was going on in the rest of the world via e-mail and Facebook.  Café Canaloupe would be our hangout if we lived in Portugal – it is right on the oceanfront with great views of the water, all the fisherman, and the ocean promenade...and it has free WiFi.  The Olhão market is right next door; the market is made up of two large buildings, one for the Fish Market and the other for produce and Algarve specialties.  In the fish market, loads and loads of fresh fish and fishermen who will carve them up and fillet them for you while you wait.

http://youtu.be/QINLyihG6rQ

The fish at the market is caught daily, in the wee hours of the morning.  Doesn’t get any fresher than that!  On the produce side of the market, fresh vegetables abound,

as well as cheeses, wines, and other fun things, like giant bags of escargot (notice the heads of the live snails poking out of the netting…ewwwww).

We decided to back to Tavira for lunch since our first trip there was overshadowed by itching, swelling, and a visit to the Farmacia.  No troubadour sightings in Tavira that day (they were either in another city or had been arrested and jailed), but we had a delicious lunch by the river.  Rossini tournadoes of beef in a peppercorn sauce.

We angered the waitress by sitting at the farthest outdoor table from the kitchen – this made her cranky, Portugese cranky.  We don’t know why the extra distance to the table irked her so, given that we were her only patrons.  Bless her heart, she persevered, and earned a tip in spite of herself.

With full bellies, we walked off our lunch, up and down the riverbank.  We stopped to sit for a while on the edge of the river and watched the fishing boats and island ferries go by.  Then we went to a souvenir shop to buy a toothpick holder modeled after The Cock of Barcelos  (a legendary cock in Portugal and we know the tale if you want to hear it…or you can be self-sufficient and look it up on wikipedia).

With packing looming over our heads, a kitchen full of food from Pingo Dingo, and only a few hours left to deal with all of it, we decided to go back to the villa.  Once at the Villa, we figured out how to address the excess food – we cooked it all in one big pot.  It was delicious and our first “native” Portugese recipe was born:

Olhão Chicken a la Robinsons

·     1 Cooked Chicken – shredded

·     1 Head Garlic – minced

·     1 Diced Onion

·     2 Chicken Boullion Cubes

·     3 Can of Beans (we used Kidney, Butter, and Cannelini)

·     Cooked Risotto (portion determined by amount of people or however much you have to get rid of)

·     1 Pot of Boiling Water and…

·     1 Kitchen Sink, Rinsed and Drained

Really very good!

We packed, ate, drank wine,  played cards and passed out, ready to get up the next day to head to Lisbon.

Days 8 and 9 – 30 April and 1 May 2011 – Farewell Olhão and Ola Lisboa

 

Our second day of rain (not bad out of 9 days) came on Algarve departure day.  Before leaving Olhão, we decided it would be a good idea to get directions to our hotel, the Albergaria Senhora Do Monte, in Lisbon (Lisboa to the natives), before we just hopped in the car and started driving.  We knew only that it was in the Graça area of Lisbon, had 28 rooms, and was best known for its views – not much to go on in terms of navigation.  So, we headed to Café Cantaloupe in Olhão to use their wi-fi one last time.

The rain was moderate, but not too heavy, so Jon dropped Debbie off closer to the café…with the umbrella…and went to find parking.  The Saturday Street Market was going on out front so Debbie found a table and chairs inside and ordered 2 coffees.  Jon was gone quite a while and Debbie started to get a little concerned; then a lot concerned when the deluge began!  All the Farmers’ Market vendors and patrons ran inside the tiny café for shelter.  Still no Jon.  When he did arrive, he was soaked to the bone.  Because of the market, he had to park very far away and got caught in the middle of the downpour, wishing he’d kept the umbrella.

We connected to the internet and found directions to the hotel.  In the absence of a printer, we had to copy down the directions on the back of the hotel confirmation page we had in our travel documents – one full, hand-written page of detailed directions with no less than 24 different Portugese Street names…shouldn’t be a problem, right?  So, we waited for the rain to subside, said goodbye to The Algarve, and headed north to Lisbon.

The drive to Lisbon is about 2 ½ hours.  Our journey was 4 hours (due to our “excellent” directions).  We crossed the bridge into Lisbon that looks just like and was modelled after the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.  In fact, Lisbon reminded us of San Francisco, with its seven major hills and cable cars.  We never saw the exit listed in our internet directions and had driven too far (completely through Lisbon).  We turned around and drove back towards the bridge, of course missing our last exit into the city center; so back over the bridge we went…on the other side, we needed to make a u-turn to get back on the bridge again in the right direction.  We had a new plan: Pay the toll, cross the f-ing bridge again, take the first exit possible, and just magically find the hotel.  Lo and behold, it was a brilliant plan - we found it in spite of Google Maps.

After having our passports held by the front desk for 20 minutes (we assume they were cross-checking our records with Interpol), we settled into our room and enjoyed those advertised stunning views.

And one interesting view

Then it was time to try the rooftop bar for even better views.  We became fast friends with Victor, the bartender, who had never heard of the Espresso Martini nor the Chi-Chi.  He now has two new cocktail recipes from his crazy American/London friends.

Victor returned the favor and told us where to go for a great dinner.  We told him we like to eat like the locals and his recommended restaurant, Satellite, did not disappoint.  We had a traditional Portugese veal steak platter for two.  Yummy! No PETA comments needed here.

After dinner, we took Tram 28 (a cable car) around Lisbon.

The streets are very steep at times and the tram very crowded.  Sometimes, the locals cheat and hang on to the back of the tram to avoid paying.  A risky proposition as the tram goes so close to the edges of the buildings, they literally take their lives into their own hands.  We snapped a photo of one such cheater (who was apparently worried we were going to send it in to the Policia):

On our way back to the hotel we wondered, “Just how much is the doggie in the window?”

and enjoyed the beautiful evening view of Lisbon:

After a nice complimentary breakfast the next morning, we turned in our awesome car and flew back to London.  Portugal gets four thumbs up from these travellers, even if some of those thumbs were swollen and itchy.

PORTUGAL PART II – Where the bugs won the battles, but lost the war

Day 4 - 26 April 2011 - Faro "with our top down" and The Return of the Troubadors

With Debbie on the path to recovery, we decided to revisit Faro in a healthy, non-emergency-room way.  As we started out the day, we figured how to go topless in the car!

We took a nice, breezy car ride to Faro to see the non-hospital parts of the city.  Faro’s old section had parts of a Medieval City, occupied at one time by the Moors.  We bought tickets to see the Cathedral and The Chapel of The Bones (as eerie as it sounds).  68 rocky stairs took us up to the observation bell tower; beautiful views of the city and marina to be seen there. 

Back down the 68 stairs, we went inside the Cathedral.  It had stained glass, lots of religious artwork, and a very old organ inside.  Then we went looking for The Chapel of The Bones.  The guide had pointed us to an area with an open door.  We went in, but there were “no bones about it.”  Disappointed, but still not giving up, we went through another opening.  Yep, there they were – skulls, femurs, lots of bones, cemented into a cross/altar with people buried underneath.

Well worth the €3 admission fee.  Aside: Our guide book noted this Bone Chapel as “the ultimate in recycling” (who writes these guide books?). 

We meandered through the cobblestone streets of Faro and came upon the same trio of street performers we had seen the day before in Tavira!  The Troubadors must have been travelling in the same circuit we were!  Another interesting thing we discovered while meandering is that storks like to build massive nests in very high places.  Why are we telling you this? Well, because we saw them…everywhere!

We stopped for lunch.  Jon had a Sagres beer and Debbie had a Pepsi Light and then our entrees came: Jon – Pork Tenderloin (which was so-so); Debbie – Steak with Mushrooms and Cream (had to have what Jon had on Sunday!).

As we were eating, guess who showed up on the sidewalk prepared to entertain the diners? The Tavira Trio of Troubadors!  They played three notes and our waiter wagged his finger at them, and they left.

We drove topless back to the Villa with a stop at the fresh bread place (not a bakery, which is why we call it “the fresh bread place”) that Martin had told us about.  We bought three fresh rolls for making garlic bread and headed home.  We hadn’t yet planned our journey for the next day, but we were certain we would see the Tavira Trio again…

Day 5 - 27 April 2011 - Tablecloths, Monkfish, and "Why did we pick Portugal anyway?"

With Debbie feeling almost human again, we set out for Lagos (pronounced “La-gosh”) near the Western coast of Portugal.  We never made it…but not for any bad reason.  We were just enjoying ourselves in the cities along the way, Loulé (pronounced “Low-oo-lay”) and Portimão (pronounced “Port-e-moung”).

Loulé was inland a bit but on our way west.  We wanted to see the market (Mercado) there, but didn’t know where it was located.  As we were walking through town, about 6 blocks from the parking garage, we saw this cool looking, almost Turkish architecture, building.

Turns out it was the market.  As Jon’s Dad always used to say, “There is no amount of planning that can replace dumb luck.”  The market was large and very clean, full of fresh seafood, vegetables, Piri Piri spices, and collectibles.

Debbie spotted a round tablecloth that was exactly what she had been looking for. It is a Provençal pattern with black olives on a yellow background, and we now own it.

Back on the road to Lagos, we stopped in Portimão, a very large beachy/resort town.  We bought a hat for baldy since we’d been driving through the Algarve with the top down and his head was turning quite red.  We walked down to the beach (Praia de Rocha) and had lunch, seaside.  The beach was pristine and the water a beautiful blue.

Jon had Portugese-style Steak and Debbie had Monkfish Kabob.  We also had some homemade Red Sangria that was amazing:

We were becoming quite accustomed to three hour lunches in the late afternoon.  As it was now almost dinner time, we decided that Lagos was too far and we opted to return to the Villa.  What a great day this was, and we were both so happy that Debbie was fully able to enjoy it!

Side Note: About two years ago, we bought the latest novel from one of our all-time favourite Authors, Alan Folsom.  Debbie read it shortly after we bought it and then passed it on to Jon.  Jon let it sit for quite some time and actually just started reading it just before this vacation began.  About 100 pages into the book, Jon noted that the main character was about to head to…Portimão in the Algarve region of Portugal.  The story unfolds with more than half of the book taking place in the Algarve and Lisbon.  As we got to talking about it, we remembered that this book was the reason we even originally looked at Portugal as a vacation spot.  Debbie read it and thought “Algarve? I’ve never heard of it.”  A bit of research and two years later, here we were.  The whole kismet part of it was that I was reading the Algarve section of the book while we were in the Algarve and shortly after the characters went to Lisbon (a couple days later into our trip), so did we.  Clearly, Portugal was our destiny for this April!  P.S. The book is called The Hadrian Memorandum and we highly recommend it (and any of the other books by Alan Folsom).

Day 6 – 28 April 2011 – Two Americans, Living in England, Staying in Portugal, Visiting Spain (aka, "You mean we drove all the way to Spain for Frappacinos and Fritos?")

We set off for Espanha around 9:30 a.m. and arrived in Seville approximately 2 hours later.  The weather was beautiful, but the closer we got to Seville, the hotter it got.  Turns out it was 93 degrees Farenheit (in April!) and a much hotter sun than we are used to.  Apparently, Seville gets to 120 in August.  No thanks!

After an unplanned  tour of the city enjoyed while we looked for parking, we ended up in an underground garage.  When we emerged from the garage to street level, we were smack in front of Seville’s bullfighting ring (Plaza de Toros).

The bullfighting season starts in April and runs through September.  There was a fight scheduled for 5:00 pm.  Decent seats were €75 up to €185 and cheap seats, €25, were in the blazing sun at the top of the arena.  Again – No thanks!

Side note: In Spain, they apparently still kill the bull in the fight; in Portugal, they let the bull live – we’re not quite sure how that works…anyway, back to Seville.

We walked through the historic district and saw the cathedral.  It is touted as being the biggest cathedral in the world (we tend to agree – this thing was huge!).

Needing a break, we saw a sign ahead showing the international symbol for respite and beverages…Starbucks…directly across from the cathedral.  As sad as it sounds, it was the perfect stop.  Cold Frappacinos in the hot Spanish outdoors, people watching, in the shade of the massive cathedral; doesn’t get much better than that.  Rested, we walked toward the shopping district which was not dissimilar to shopping districts all over Europe.

Had we wanted to, we could have taken a tour of the city by horse-drawn buggy

or open air bus.  Being the daredevils we are, we did it on foot and in our convertible!  After looking for an hour to find a specific neighborhood of Seville so we could eat, we finally gave up and stopped at a gas station to buy sodas and a bag of Fritos. 

Seville, it turns out, wasn’t exactly what we had envisioned.  A beautiful city, but we thought it would be somehow more intimate or have a more romantic feel to it.  It was a very large city and felt just like a big city.  All the same, we are glad we went and grateful we had the opportunity. 

Side note 2: Spanish is an easier language for us (especially Debbie) than Portugese.  Portugese sounds like a mixture of Spanish, Italian, French, Latin, and Russian.  Walking down the street, if you heard people speaking Portugese and you were unfamiliar with the language, you would likely assume it was Russian or Slavic…anyway, back to Spain.

We decided to go a border town of Spain/Portugal as we were heading back to the Algarve.  Turned out our destination city was in Portugal, not in Spain.  We drove through Castro de Marin, with an old fortress-type castle on the hill.

Beautiful.  We headed on to Monte Gordo, a charming seaside Portugese town for dinner.  While we were having our onion pizza (awesome),

we studied the street vendor across from the café and saw a sachel with red roosters and “Portugal” on it, that we knew (for reasons too racy to put in the blog) was perfect for our niece Robyn.  She loved it and now uses it as her everyday purse!

After Monte Gordo, we headed back to the Villa and arrived around midnight, ready for a good night’s sleep so we would be rested for the Royal Wedding from which we were escaping.