from Sandy Needham

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Ericeira/Lisbon Dispatch

From the Lisbon airport we were whisked away to the charming seaside town of Ericeira by our friends, Pedro, Michelle, and their three-and-a-half-month-old, Adorable Luca. There is a simple little bar, Latas do Mar, perched at a high lookout over the Atlantic, where a sunset glass of wine was accompanied by an outstanding American classic rock playlist. It was several versions of paradise all at once!





Ericeira is Pedro's ancestral town, though he grew up in Lisbon, where his mother and sister live. He and Michelle are refurbishing a house that will be spacious and quite spectacular with its ocean views and painting studio. In the meantime, they have been living in a beautiful apartment up the hill from the town center...formerly Pedro's bachelor pad, ever-so-sensitively converted by Michelle into a colorful and comfortable showcase of exquisite artifacts they picked up around the world.







Michelle gets her daily work-out(s) pushing the baby stroller down and up the hill in order to enjoy the town and the many inhabitants with whom she is already like an old friend. Our casual hotel was conveniently on that path.

As Pedro puts it, "Michelle is a perfect mother!" With only 3-1/2 months' experience, it is amazing to witness her organization, engagement with Luca and uninterrupted engagement with the world. Michelle is a natural 'can-do' person, so the baby fits into whatever is going on because his mother instills such confidence that "everything going on here is life!" Credit is also due to Luca, who was born with traits that are calm and welcoming to strangers. He is a dream.

I love this 'nap shot!'


Our first dinner of, yet again, unimaginably great seafood, was one of several to come in our four-day visit. 


Fresh Portuguese sardines


Ericeira has a bustling nightlife of restaurants and bars. When it was time to tuck Luca in, Pedro took Newton and me to Hemmingway's Bar, where the craze is all manner of gins and tonics from around the world. Each combination is embellished with its signature apple, cherry, etc..





These are all gins
We met for morning coffee at their favorite café, then Pedro took us on a long coastal drive, where September summer hold-outs were still relaxing under beach umbrellas.









































Here is a plaque describing the ships that sailed from Ericeira to an Ericeiran colony in Brazil.


This is the marker of the point furthest west of continental Europe:


We visited Lisbon a couple of times. 
Cascais



















We visited the medeival São Jorge Castle, originally a Moorish fortress:


You can see how I missed the target every time in high school!
Knight of São Jorge


Time for a change
When I first visited Portugal in 1977, I was becoming a "Brazil Nut" in New York, what with my weekly Afro-Brazilian dance class with a wild Baiano teacher and live musicians, and the strong penchant among my group of friends for Brazilian jazz clubs. The gorgeous, urbane Brazilian night club, Cachaça, was just down First Avenue from my apartment. I had not yet visited Brazil. My Portuguese friends took me out to hear fado in Lisbon - the traditional music of Portugal. A woman was singing depressing songs in a dark corner with a black shawl over her; I was not impressed. The contrast was just too dramatic, set against this lively force of nature that was the Brazilian culture with which I was falling in love. The experience left an impression of a stodgy old country.

The biggest difference about Portugal now vs. then is in the very air, now crackling with youth and dynamism in such a palpable way. My favorite detail of this phenomenon is the devastatingly beautiful fado Pedro and Michelle took us to hear in the vibrant Cidade Alta neighborhood. In a tiny packed club two young men were playing mandolin-like stringed instruments while a beautiful, sexy young woman sang fado in a spotlight, wrenching the heart with the sheer beauty of her voice and the emotions evoked.

Aparently the financial crisis deserves at least partial credit for this revitalization of Portugal, as the country's low prices brought a surge of tourists and relocations from elsewhere on the continent. This young generation was ready and waiting to start calling the shots...we could witness it all in that fado that blew us away!


Pedro's mother, Jena (Luca's actual Grandmother!), took us to a remarkable Sunday afternoon event in Lisbon. A cultural organization invited chefs from various ethnic restaurants to set up buffet tables in a park. They added a beverage center, tables and chairs for the pre-ticketed attendees, and we ate and ate, from Iran to Africa to India to China to Italy down to the Brazilian dessert of Canjica. It was a fabulous idea and made quite a happy civic gathering.

Another outstanding day was spent in the historic, hilly town of Sintra. It is full of charming shops and beautiful homes.




Notice the Moorish castle atop the hill


My mother was famous for her chicken figurine collection. When in Portugal, I cannot avoid thinking of her with their national symbol everywhere. This shop caught me off-guard and afforded me a true moment of grief. 

The Pena Palace in Sintra is one of the stranger structures I've encountered, although the nineteenth century is famous for bequeathing many hodgepodge style combinations to architecture. Michelle simply described it as 'a Disney Castle.'



The Moorish elements post-date Moorish rule by seven centuries.




I thought the palace kitchen was one of the best I've seen.












Ericeira was ablaze our last night. There was a concert in the plaza, and after all the gin and tonic craze, I managed to tutor a gin martini out of a bartender friend of Pedro's. No olives were available, so I said a bit of lemon peel would do. He made this masterpiece:

Pedro took us to the gigantic department store, Corte Ingles, to shop for wine to carry home. We each selected six bottles, which Pedro - knowing the ropes well - whisked over to the wrapping counter where each bottle was throughly bubble-wrapped and boxed, compliments of the store. Our hosts generously loaned us two extra suitcases, and Pedro handily packed the twelve boxes into them - done!





Thank you, Pedro and Michelle, for being such energetic and thorough guides!


Full disclosure: Luca is six months old at this writing. What a Love:


We flew HOME after three months of European wonders; things were still 'off' in their third-world way, but the natural beauty endured and welcomed us home with a sun-drenched, windy embrace.

Love,
Sandy


Thursday, November 26, 2015

Mallorca Dispatch

Well, I'm still not sure if it's Mallorca, Majorca, or some other Catalan spelling, but it's damn beautiful! I actually saw different spellings on signs, so feel justifiably confused.

This trip was not a home exchange, but an early September reunion with Newton's former Natal poker buddies - now moved away.



Carlos is the Mallorca native who moved back from Natal last year. His mother is Maria José, whom I've adored ever since five minutes after meeting her when she visited Natal a few years ago. She works in a doctor's office. Carlos works for a tourist company whose new offices are now in Krakow, so he commutes between Mallorca and Poland nowadays. We stayed with Carlos and his big sweet dog, Elliott, our first couple of nights. 




















Maurice is a Belgian who works in travel, and Gabriela ("Gabí") is his beautiful partner from São Paulo. He was my local fellow-history buff in Natal. They were both a big part of our former party group, now better known as the diaspora! After the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Maurice and Gabí took their significant tour guide earnings and traveled from Australia to Nepal for five months. Their trip was literally cut short a few days by the earthquake in Nepal. They then set up a new household in Mallorca. This meant their big sweet dog, Laika, was reunited with her best friend Elliot, at last! Gabí's English has become excellent, and her Catalan (also spoken in Mallorca) is right in line.



Maurice's sister, Ann, and her husband, Wim, were visiting from Belgium, and were a beautiful addition to the group. Ann works for the government and Wim heads the cyber crime investigative unit for the police...and plays guitar, sings and acts!


Our grand tour of the island was before additional poker alumni arrived. Carlos and Maria José drove us all over the island, accompanied by Maurice, Gabí, Anna and Wim in the second car. The road wound up higher and higher until we were in a fog, but in the meantime, we saw incredible vistas of beauty and the gorgeous towns of Valdemossa, Sóller and Deiá.

We could spot or follow Maurice and Gabí's beautiful persimmon-colored car easily all over the island, even in a fog!

Valdemossa



We had an absolutely cinematic lunch here:



L to R: Gabí, me, Newt, Maurice, Ann, Wim, Carlos, Maria José

Our lunch view
Carlos took us into Palma, Mallorca's miniature Barcelona, for the best lunch I ever had...which means it superseded the other best meals from the summer I have already mentioned! We went to the central market, Mercat de l'Olivar. Carlos led us first to the seafood counter, where we stood around drinking glasses of cava and eating unforgettable delicacies. 




We were swooning, but then Carlos led us to the salami counter, where the salamis were the freshest; utterly divine. 

I had just asked the stand owner to marry me!

We toured the wealthy yacht area; the variety of boat names and flags were fun. 









Laughter, reminiscing and toasting persevered through the rest of the day - in ENGLISH. I was in language heaven! 
Soon, the other reunion participants arrived on the island: 


You have already been introduced to Jordi-the-Catalan if you read my Catalonia Dispatch. He returned home to Spain from Natal earlier this year and is a construction engineer (and very generous tour guide to old friends!). We celebrated his birthday while in Mallorca.












Pedro from Lisbon - also in tourism; his wife, Michelle from Montreal - a teacher; and their ADORABLE 3-month-old, Luca - a full-time baby, arrived from Ericeira, outside Lisbon. They moved there from Natal last year.





Here is Luca in the "onesie" I bought him from another member of the Natal diaspora: Ian, now back in London. Ian designs many fun baby items at his company, Nippaz with Attitude, but I thought this "babygrow" - as Ian calls 'onesies' - was especially sweet:
 

Jan, also a Belgian, drove from Belgium with a Brazilian girlfriend. He is all over the world all the time, another travel agent. We met both Maurice and Jan on the same night some years ago when we were a team of four on Trivia Night in Natal. We won, with significant thanks to their fine Belgian education. Very knowledgeable! Jan left Natal last year and was moving to Italy after the reunion.

We moved into a spacious Airb&b apartment with Pedro, Michelle, little Luca and Jordi, just a short walk from Maurice and Gabí's apartment. It was in a neighborhood outside Palma called "Sometimes!"...except it is actually "Som-eh-teem-es." NOW I could live my Grandma fantasy, and what a great joy that was. Luca is simply an entire reason to live!



The big Poker Reunion Game Night arrived. Michelle was certain that Luca would follow his routine and stay asleep at Maurice's after all the women left for our dinner out, but 1)Luca had recently returned to Europe from Canada; 2)had recently traveled from Portugal to Mallorca; and 3)was three months old and growing and changing! The guys passed him around the poker table for some time before Pedro managed to get him back to sleep! What a sight:






Maurice arranged a day on a hired sailboat. It was marvelous fun despite some clouds.





Everyone, except me, took some dramamine ahead of time to avoid sea-sickness, which I feared less than dramamine! Ironically, there was no turbulence at all; Newton kept mentioning that he was very sleepy. We finally realized that the Dramamine was making everyone tired...except Gabí, who was not affected.


She and I shared the complimentary cheap cava. I followed my rule of a glass of water between every glass of cava...

but Gabí...did not!

If you look closely, here are exorbitantly expensive hotel rooms nestled in the cliff:


                                               Newton rallied:
Some managed swimming and snorkeling in the gorgeous sea:






















You can take the foreigners out of Brazil, but you can't take Brazil out of the foreigners; here is our Havaiana's ad:
















Granny, again! 

















And I call this photo MANDONNA and child:

Carlos and Pedro cooked a big barbecue at Maurice and Gabí's:
L to R: Pedro, Jordi, Maurice, Maria José, Gabí, Jan's girlfriend, Jan, Ann, Wim, me, Carlos, Carlos' longtime friend.
We visited the magnificent Catedral de Mallorca:





































This is the side Chapel of The Holy Sacrament, renovated by the Mallorcan artist Miquel Barceló in 2007. It features terra cotta-modeled murals of the loaves and fishes story and the wedding at Canaan, plus an entirely modern interpretation of stained glass:




I particularly loved this bolero hat crowning mortality in the floor marble!













Cocktails at the Sky Bar in Palma allowed us to absorb the sky, the sea, the lighting and the city.


Our last scrumptious dinner together:



AND, it was just a month-and-a-half later that Gabí and Maurice tied the knot
in beautiful Valdemossa, with Carlos, Maria José, Jordi, Michelle, Pedro and Luca, Ann, Maurice's parents and other friends in attendance! We hated to miss it. Congrats, you two!








































The wedding included a wild night in costume, which we also hated missing:

















































Our last stop of the summer would be four days in Portugal with Pedro, Michelle and my precious, pretend grandson.

Love,
Sandy








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