The Magnum

In late 1990's Turkey, they were sold by a company called Algida.  They were rich vanilla ice cream covered in dark chocolate, served on a stick.  There were many variations but the one that I always sought out as a treat was the double caramel kind.  Unbeknownst to me, at the same time Susan was in Haiti, eating a dark chocolate and almond Magnum, packaged with the exact same heart brand.  Sometime in the time that we met, fell in love, and got married, we had a conversation about the big splurge dessert that we really love.  We both came up with the same answer:  Magnum

From then on, whenever we traveled, we searched out the happy little heart logo that indicated we were about to be treated to a sweet treat.  We had them on our first trip together in the Czech Republik.  We had them in Morocco on our honeymoon and whenever we traveled abroad.  In Spain this summer, there was the Frigo brand and in Portugal there was Olá.  If we saw the red heart, one of us usually convinced the other that we deserved some ice cream.  If we were in the mood for ice cream and the store didn't have the proper logo, we would keep walking.  Something better awaited those who were patient.

Eva Longoria welcomed us to the bus terminal in Coimbra, Portugal with this poster:

As we relaxed during one of our last afternoons in Spain, I took this photo in the Parque Retiro in Madrid:

Now, we have ice cream in the United States.  We know this.  There are many brands to choose from.  Some of them are pretty good and taste great on a hot summer day.  But none are as decadent and indulgent as the Magnum.  We look forward to eating Magnums as a special little perk that's reserved for international travelers who know how to spot the very best.  Susan and I both love them and they are yummy and no one in the United States could ever get them unless they traveled abroad and tasted the Magnum deliciousness...

Until now.  They're available in the United States!!!

English For Planet Earth

While working in La Alberca, we were approached by the Program Director, Jason McDonald, and the Master of Ceremonies, Amelia Gain, to work in a different capacity.  Pueblo Inglés had hired a Spanish media firm to create a new website advertising the language program.  We were asked to sign waivers and a few of us were invited to take part in starring in commercial!  The commercial is featured on a website and later it will be launched into space aboard a satellite!

http://www.englishforplanetearth.com/en/index.php

Look for Mark, Phil, Josephine, Jason, Genevieve, and me with my very cheesy line in this Pueblo Inglés commercial:

"At Pueblo Inglés we asked ourselves a question:

Why don't all of Earth's inhabitants share a common language?

Why not one as beautiful as this?

Do not hold back.

Do not let a day go by without having grown a little

without having been happy,

without having expanded your dreams.

Do not let yourself be overcome with despair.

Do not let anybody take away your freedom 

to express yourself, as it is your right.

Do not give up on making your life something extraordinary.

Do not stop believing that words and poetry can change the world.

Come what may, our essence remains intact.

We are creatures full of passion.

Life is a desert and an oasis.

It tears us down.  It hurts us.

It teaches us.  It make us protagonists of our own story.

And even if the winds blow against us... the mighty work goes on.

You can contribute a verse.

A language like this deserves to go far.

From a small village to all corners of the world,

and even beyond our planet.

Serious About Siestas

While in Spain, we learned about the siesta, the magical time in the afternoon when it was time to relax and escape the heat of the midday sun.  People left the streets.  Many businesses and restaurants closed.  Most Spanish people retreated to their own homes for a few hours of down time.  At Pueblo Ingles, there was a special need to embrace the siesta - we needed to recover from the 9am-11pm schedule of speaking English and the 11pm-??? schedule of partying into the night. 

During the siesta we did a number of different things.  There were times when I sat in front of the computer and tried to catch up on blog posts.  There was the last day at the Abadia de los Templarios resort when Susan and I realized that we weren't going to have another opportunity to use the swimming pool and so we cooled off and did just a few laps.  There was some built in time after lunch (our schedule at Pueblo Ingles had a 2pm lunch remmber) to read a good book or to spend some unscheduled time talking with a new friend.  Most of the time, Susan and I fully adopted the siesta and slept away the afternoon in our little air-conditioned room back at the villa.  This was a great way to recharge for the evening and, more importantly, escape the heat.

Heat in Spain isn't completely oppressive.  It's similar to a slow baking oven.  We experienced it on our honeymoon in Morocco.  Plenty of temperature.  No humidity.  So with plenty of water, occasional shade and a breeze, it's really bearable.  There just wasn't any humidity to deal with.  As long as we're not exerting ourselves outside or forgetting to hydrate, it's tolerable.

Now that we're back in Milwaukee, we're living through a long week of intolerably hot, humid, sticky days.  We water the plants at night.  We go to exercise at the gym at 9pm.  We keep the windows closed and the air conditioners on for a good portion of the day and night.  We eat more fruit and less meat.  And we've reverted to our Spanish practice of escaping the midday heat with some quality shuteye.  Granted, it has started to mess with our ability to fall asleep at 11pm at night but staying up later isn't such a bad thing once the sun has set and the temperature dips into the low 80's.  We welcome the siesta.  We endorse the siesta.  We love the siesta!

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jog

We've been home for five days now and some realizations have set in with being back in the United States of America once again.  Here is a list of observations:

• The best superpower to have is the "I Dream of Jeannie" blink that allows you to immediately be home at the moment that the vacation is over.
• The ride home is always longer and less filled with excitement than the road out to adventureland.
• Upon arriving at our door, we ate raspberries from the bushes along the fence line before we put the key in the lock.
• The raspberries bushes were waiting for us.  The berries are just now ready to eat.  Either they were waiting for us or they desperately needed to be watered.  Regardless, they're yummy and we're grateful.
• The weather in Milwaukee is so much more humid than anything that we experienced for the three-and-a-half weeks that we were away.  
• Our bed is amazing.
• Our shower is wonderful.
• God's timing is perfect.
• Our flight home from Helsinki was safe.  Our luggage arrived from Madrid without delay.  Our home is in great shape.  Fiona and family took great care of our plants, inside and out.  Our family and friends are incredibly welcoming.  Our post office delivered our mail too soon for some reason, and all of our bills, important documents, college transcripts, magazines, and books were completely soaked and ruined.
• Having two thumbs that work is a blessing.  (If you don't know, I sliced a chunk off of my right thumb with a kitchen mandolin on Easter Sunday so I've been without the use of that thumb for more than a month.  Now it's 99% healed.  Alleluia!)
• Fruits and vegetables are much easier to find in this country.
• It will take some time to overcome our addiction to coffee and Magnum ice cream bars.
• Eating dinner at 11pm in Spain was not a habit that we got used to.
• Having the sun set at 11pm in Finland was not something that we could get used to either.
• Days of summer vacation are delightful when spent abroad or at home.  I would recommend a healthy combination of the two.
• It was wonderful to get to Weight Watchers on Wednesday and find that we found out that we both lost weight!
• Weeds don't go on vacation.  They constantly work hard, day and night, to choke up the garden.

On The Road Again

We apologize for not typing up more posts to this blog.  We didn't bring our own laptop on our travels so we're at the mercies of the various internet cafes.  (An interesting note, with the prevalence of wifi connections, there are less and less internet cafes, even in major cities.)  So there are a lot of great stories to tell but we're still living the adventure and don't have the time to sit and catch up on the story-telling.

We promise to fill in the gaps with all of the stories and fill in the gaps on the stories that we didn't complete.  You may want to check on this blog in a week or two and then scroll down to see what new blog posts we inserted.

Tonight, we are getting together with six or so of our friends from Pueblo Inglés at a restaurant in Plaza de Colón in Madrid.  It should be a hoot and a holler.  With the variety of personalities, I expect a raucous night.

Then tomorrow morning, bright and early, we need to find our way out of the Sol neighborhood back to the airport.  The hotel manager recommends that we take a train and then the subway.  So we have to navigate those two transit systems. Then we have the intricacies of having a 23-hour layover in Helsinki, Finland.  Yes, Helsinki.  When we booked these flights in January, we found that we could save $400 per person if we took Finnair through Helsinki.  The layover isn´t too problematic because we have the chance to get out and experience ANOTHER country and we do have a reservation at the Hilton at the airport so we can get a little shut eye even though the sun may not set for very long...

We´ll write some more when we´re back home in Milwaukee!  Peace and Love, Robert and Susan

Sunflowers

This vacation has been full of small blessings. 

Today we took the bus from Sevilla to Granada.  We arrived at the San Sebastian bus station in Seville at 3:30pm, paying our taxi, hefting our backpacks, and lining up at the ticket window.  Only to learn a minute later that there were no buses to Granada that left the San Sebastian station.  We needed to go to the Armas bus station on the other side of town.  Another taxi ride.  Another strapping on of our load.  And because there were no ticket agencies that advertised buses to Granada, we stepped to the information kiosk.  The woman working there informed us that we could take the Alsa Bus Lines and we could buy our tickets at window #1.  It was 3:50.  She said we'd better hurry if we wanted to catch the 4pm bus!

So we waited in line.  We were patient, even when a young man skipped in line in front of some other people and proceeded to hold up things for a while.  We arrived just before 4pm but the saleswoman informed us that we were too late.  We could buy tickets for the 5:15pm bus instead.  We relaxed with some water and chocolate bars, reading away the minutes in the busy bus depot.  There were a few nervous moments when we didn't see our bus in the terminal but it was there, advertising that it was coming from Cadiz and going to Almeria.  Sevilla and Granada were just two stops in between its initial and final destination.

We boarded the bus after loading our backpacks in the storage area.  (Loading our backpacks = awkwardly twisting out of the arm straps, making noises while lifting it again, bumping our head on the storage area door, tripping on the curb, regaining our composure and checking that no one was watching.)  On the bus, we realized that there were no two seats right next to each other.  We would have to sit apart for the three hour ride to Granada.  :(  Susan politely asked a woman to move her purse that she had put on the seat with the expressed purpose of not having anyone sit next to her, and I slid into a window seat two rows back next to a man who was indifferent to my presence.  I popped my headphone earbuds in my ears, turned on some music, and settled in for the ride.

PANICKY BREAKING AND STOPPING!!!  Our bus driver barely avoided causing a major collision on the freeway as everyone came to an immediate stop.  How close he came, we will never know, but the man next to me wasn´t going to take any chances.  He dug his seatbelt out of the cushions beneath him, grumbling something in Español and then found my seatbelt, in the international sign of, ¨With this driver behind the wheel, you'd better put your seatbelt on!¨  He fished out my seatbelt and handed it to me with some gestures and easily translated Spanish.  Susan turned around from two rows up to see if I was still in one piece and mouthed "Are you alright?"  I nodded with a grin and displayed the buckle, trying to visually represent what safety-minded seat companion was expressing to me.  She smiled a knowing smile and turned back around.

The tall red curtain had slid forward, covering the side window next to me.  I reached up and pulled it back, sliding it into a bunch just behind me.  Traffic started moving slowly ahead and the driver took a more cautious speed.  That's when I noticed the sunflower.

Now, I should mention that I love sunflowers.  The sunflower is most definitely my favorite flower, surpassing the playful snapdragon, the sensual calla lilly, and the sinister dandelion which causes my sister to sneeze.  Sunflowers are really magical the way that they turn to face the sun and I really think that they are beautiful.  They don't make the house smell too flowery and their seeds are delicious!  Yes, sunflowers are the best. Someone, riding on this bus on a journey many months before this day, had apparently agreed with me.  They had etched a beautiful outline of a sunflower into the glass of the window next to my seat.  Pulling the curtain back revealed the image, creating an interesting foreground to everything that was flying past on the left side.

 

Our bus sped past various fields, mostly olive trees with their gray-green leaves and cork oak with their awkward limbs stretched sideways.  There were open spaces filled with solar panels, collecting the sunshine and converting it into electricity.  There were kilometers upon kilometers of flowering bushes, all blurring by too quickly to be identified.  Occasionally there was a lone white house or a small village nestled into the folds of a small mountainside.  And sometimes, especially near the beginning of the journey, soon after the bus had narrowly avoided the accident, there were fields of sunflowers.

Confessions

Forgive us, for we have travel sinned.  We cheated.  Twice.  Well, technically, three times, but I've never been technical, so only twice.  You see, we're sort of "travel snobs".  We pride ourselves on getting off the beaten path, only taking what we can carry on our backs (although our backpacks are pretty darn huge), eating national dishes even if we're not quite certain what we're putting in our mouths, staying in pensions and guest houses that help us meet people and make relationships and get more insights in to the culture . . . you get the idea.  But sometimes we make exceptions.  Lisbon has been the city of exceptions.   I'll blame, at least in part, my health.  In Coimbra my bodyaches became a knot in my chest which moved to my throat which turned into a two-day fever.  So when we arrived in Lisbon and the first pension I visited resulted in no answer (in spite of climbing all four double-flights of stairs), I was sort of done.  And there was a temperature-controlled, noise-proof hotel room with a rooftop pool right there.  And the price was still in double digits, not triple.  And did I mention I had a fever?  So we caved.   Confession one.

Confession two:  We've sort of marveled at the fact that everyone here stays so thin when we rarely see vegetables or fruits on the menu and there's a pastry shop every 25 yards.    And, as if to further justify the choice of delicate, flaky, fresh bakery over greens, the veggies that are on the menu are usually canned and mushy.  [Note to self and readers:  when in Portugal, skip the Asparagus in Spanish Sauce.  As best we could tell, the Spanish Sauce was mayonaise with canned shredded carrots and parsley.   And the asparagus was canned too.]  So we were desperate for a salad.  We did a few shopping sprees for fruits and veggies at a corner market or two, but we craved salad.  So, once again, we caved.  Twice.  In between our multitude of pork and potato and fish-filled meals at authentic Portugese establishments, we succumbed to the Sirens' Song of Salad and snuck in to a corner table, surreptitiously and guiltily relishing our greens at the (gulp!) Hard Rock Cafe.  Ok, so one time we hid in the corner; the second time we might have actually sat on the stage.  But those anti-Cobb Salads, overflowing with color and crunch were worth every second of guilt.   And we resisted buying the t-shirt.

Coming soon:  The List of Blessings and Beautiful Moments and People that Come from Getting Off the Beaten Path

The Amazing Race

The other truth that we often discuss is that we're really participants on the reality show, The Amazing Race.  Every day that we're exploring the city, navigating subways, city buses, squares and streets with long challenging names such as Avenida Antonio Augusto Aguiar, Rua dos Remedios, or Largo do Outeirinho da Amendoeira. Many times, we've done the classic slack-jawed tourist pose where one of us turns the map in circles while the other one squints at the nearest street sign with a look on both of our faces reminiscent of Bugs Bunny's "I knew I should have taken a left at Praça Afonso de Albuquerque!"  If you've never watched The Amazing Race, the contestant pairs hurry through the various countries, following clues to reach specific landmarks, complete a challenge that is only vaguely representative of the culture, and then head on.  The team that reaches each stage in last place is eliminated from the race, whittling the competition down until the winning team completes a race around the world and receives a prize for $1,000,000.
We haven't seen the eyebrow-raising Australian host, Phil, on any stage of our journey but we wouldn't be suprised if we arrived at our destination hotel at the end of a long traveling day to have him tell us, "Robert and Susan... you're team number... ONE!"

Double-Oh-Seven

Traveling to different countries always puts me in secret agent mode.  Maybe it's the little boy in me or maybe it's my excitement over experiencing different cultures.  But I'm definitely a secret agent.  While dining at dinner in Lisbon, I turned to Susan and confessed my true identity.  I've been expecting all along that somewhere during this trip, in a little cafe or a backstreet, that my contact will identify himself with the secret code phrase and then pass the dossier detailing my next mission.  If I chose to accept it, he would once again fade into the crowd and I would be forced to abandon this romantic tryst with Susan to complete the important and nearly impossible mission.  But so far, I've been able to elude and confuse my handlers and no one has slipped a folder to me with "For Your Eyes Only" or "Classified" written in bold letters.  Because of this unexpected freedom, I explained to Susan, we've had the opportunity to continue this romantic adventure uninterrupted!

How do they do it?  I've seen almost every James Bond and Jason Bourne movie and in my memory I don't recall them carrying a huge backpack around on their backs.  How do they manage to have unwrinkled clothes?  How do they learn the new customs and languages?  When do they have time to appreciate the culture of the different places that they visit?  Most importantly, how do they manage finding their way around new cities?

As Map Man, I'm usually the one holding the map, strolling toward our next destination with great confidence:
I know where I am.
I know where I want to go to.
And occasionally I know how to get from here to there.

It's part of the travel adventure, to be sure, but I would like to know how these other secret agents keep an encyclopedic knowledge of where they're traveling and how they're going to get around.

There should be a movie where the secret agent man goes through the realistic obstacles that we all face when traveling.  Perhaps he has to stop and ask for directions.  Perhaps he misses the bus/train/last taxi cab and has to walk for kilometers in the blazing sun.  Perhaps the food that arrives doesn't match the expectations that he had while ordering.  Perhaps he doesn't have the right amount of cash and has to charge the bill.  Perhaps he gets on the wrong subway.  Perhaps his taxi gets stuck in traffic.  Perhaps his overhead baggage doesn't fit, the person sitting next to him is a bit too talkative or odorous, his luggage doesn't arrive in the same city.  Perhaps there are no rooms available.  Perhaps the exhibition is closed.  Perhaps the building is under construction.  Perhaps he catches a cold.  Perhaps he takes an all-inclusive package where one of the tourists always arrives late, carries too many suitcases, or has to use the bathroom at inconvenient times.

Now I realize that this would be as enthralling a secret agent movie as my cleaning-up-the-kitchen-after-the-cooking-show show... but it would make things a little realistic, don't you think?

Nourishing the Body and Soul in Portugal

So maybe we were just a little bit spoiled in La Alberca . . . our days were filled with interesting conversation and activities, the weather was warm yet breezy, the company was sublime, and the food and wine just kept flowing . . . Three days later I found myself in Viseu, Portugal, and instead of embracing the adventure in true Wander Woman fashion, I was fighting off a serious case of The Crabbies.  This particular bout was induced by a lack of food, a lack of breeze, and a lack of open businesses.  Alas, Robert couldn't do much about the change in weather, but he was able to magically produce two cokes and a ham and cheese sandwich, sustaining both our bodies and spirits.  The day was saved!  It's embarrassing how much sway the presence (or absence!) of food has on my mood.  Anyway, Robert will probably write his own blog and give a more thorough overview of our experiences in Portugal thus far.  I'll just stick with my sustenance for body and spirit theme:  Food and Music.

Menus Lost in Translation:
Just when we thought the observation of Sunday Sabbath in Viseu meant bar food for dinner, we had the good fortune of dining at O Cortiço, a lovely little restaurant tucked surreptitiously into a side alley off the main square of Viseu.  Robert's travel Bible, the Lonely Planet guide, had led us to this eatery that specializes in various recipes of the surrounding region.  Not exactly sure what to expect, we were grateful for the English descriptions following the Portugese.  Their ambiguity might have been a means to keep the recipes a mystery or maybe it was just poor translating.  Either way, the wording delighted us.  For example, we might have sampled any of the following:
-Feijocas contodos à manera da criada do Sr Abade otherwise described as "Large French beans cooked like the aboot's maid"
-"Drunken rabbit 3 days in is lie"
-"Roasted duck rice, roasted like the old times"
-"Stew little pieces of veal in the earthern mug stewed like the farmer from Cavernãos"

And, my personal favorite, Bacalhau podre apodrecido na adega or "Rotten codfish in the wine cellar".  I passed on that.

In the end Robert chose "Roast lamb, roasted like the mountain shepherd", and I scored another point in the ordering game with my choice, "Shrub rice with little pieces of veal".  The half portion I asked for was still large enough for a family of four, arrived in a solid, well-used earthenware pot, and had a little dried twig rising from the center.  As a self-proclaimed foodie, I always enjoy trying a new restaurant or cuisine or dish, and there's something exciting and satisfying in "discovering" a new flavour.  I have no idea what unique spice or herb or cooking technique or "shrub" element produced the earthy, beautiful taste, but it was a-ma-zing!  Add a sweet young waitress who was patient and helpful in spite of being scared to death about using her English, an opening cheese and ham plate with the first whole wheat bread I've had since arriving on this continent, and Robert´s lovely cooked cabbage that came with his meal, and I was thoroughly sated.  And mellow enough to endure the "fire water" the waiter produced as a final exclamation mark to our experience.  Bom  Apetite!

Music that Needs No Translation

Several years ago I heard a piece on NPR about Mariza, a new fado singer from Portugal.  The article was intriguing enough to prompt a little research, and a fascination with hearing it for myself someday was born.  When we first decided to travel to Spain, my mind went immediately to the neighboring Portugal and its music.  Fado is a uniquely Portugese musical form that involves traditional guitar, a distinct, round-bodied, 12-string Portugese guitar, and a soulful singer.   And today, finally, I heard it for the first time in person.  We took in an afternoon show at the Fado Center here in Coimbra, supposedly (at least according to some sources), the birthplace of fado.  The rapid, intense stylings of the Portugese guitar left me breathless even before the vocalist began.  I didn't need to understand Portugese to understand the longing.  Apparently the first fado songs were meant for one specific purpose:  wooing women.  After just one fado experience, I can honestly say the Portugese women don't stand a chance of resistance.