Month: June 2018

We have been in Portugal for four months now. It has been great, but I am feeling a bit embarrassed of my Portuguese. I hardly know anything. The real issue is the Portuguese are too nice and make it too easy not to learn the language. I have mentioned it before, but they will go to the ends of the earth to help you. That includes using English at any opportunity, even when you want to learn or practice Portuguese.

This does, however, provide the opportunity for odd things to happen in our daily conversations. One of my favorite parts of traveling is trying to purchase something, but getting something different because of the language barrier. What you get could be better or worse, but always humorous.

Yesterday we went to our local butcher and asked for sirloin steak. Somehow we got pork. And… it turned out to be the best pork I have ever had. It was buttery tender like a high quality beef tenderloin. The slices were nice and thick, but we could slice through it easily with a fork. Although not what we were looking for, we were very happy for the mistake!

This topic made for a short post without any fun pictures, so here is a little more. We have not done any epic adventures in the last little bit, but lots of fun little things.

Fun in the sun has been a recent topic 😎.

Of course, food is always a topic of choice. Theo knows what a good strawberry is!

Here is a picture that demonstrates how the Portuguese discount prices. To top it off, cheap wines are great here! For 3 to 5 euro you can easily find quality wines. These easily rival 10 to 20 dollar wines in the States. We have not found wines that rival the expensive wines of the US (good California Cabernet, for example). But, to be honest, we have not tried anything approaching that price range either. The inexpensive wines are just too tasty to pay more. And, when we purchase 10 to 20 euro wines, they have not been significantly better; some not even as good as the inexpensive options!

Speaking of value, our favorite Dim Sum restaurant (in Oeiras) surprised us. The expensive dish we usually get is Peking Duck. It is about 16 euro and we split it with some appetizers. It comes with a sculpted carrot. I can’t figure out how they can sculpt a carrot with this kind of detail and still make money with the food! It is a fish swimming around a piece of seaweed. And the details go all of the way around!

I think we are heading out for a hike this afternoon. If it turns out epic I will post about it!

A quick trip to Paris reminded us the difference between our slow travel and the standard vacation. We took 5 days, 4 nights for the trip. That really leaves 3 days to explore (a fact I did not fully comprehend until the second day 😲).  Even with the short time we were able to see many of the highlights of Paris.

The trip started, as every trip does, with travel. We had a late morning flight out of Lisbon, which was great for Theo’s nap schedule. Getting to the airport was a bit of a stress though. From where we are at in Cascais there are lots of options, but all have difficulties. If we drive we either have to pay for parking (while maintaining a rental car), or return the car and lug Theo’s car seat around Paris. If we taxi (or Uber) we have the same difficulty with the car seat. If we use public transportation, we have a 25 minute walk to the train station, a ~45 minute train ride, and 2 subway rides to get to the airport. Total it is over 2 hours with all of our stuff (an amazing amount when you have a baby). After searching the web for a few days, I finally came up with an elegant solution.

We went with Uber. It turns out the airport has storage available. When we got to the airport I simply ran the car seat over to the Baggage Deposit (before security next to car park P2). It took me less than 10 minutes. On the return trip we picked up the car seat and proceeded to our rental car.

There is merit to a short timeline. I think we saw more of the Paris attractions than we have seen of the Lisbon attractions 🤔. Here is a quick summary in pictures:

Notre Dame

A (The) beautiful cathedral. Incredible architecture and details. A must stop, even on a quick trip. I particularly enjoy the gardens on the southeast side where you can see the iconic exterior.

On a side note, we passed another cathedral that may rival Notre Dame, but without the fame. Next time we are in Paris I hope to investigate Eglise Saint-Eustache (sorry somehow I did not take a picture of this one).

The Louvre

Worth going just to see the shear size. It is impressive (and confusing). I tend to be quite good with maps and 2D representation of our 3D world (e.g. the multi-floor map). But I was totally lost! The map is rubbish. And, the signs in the Louvre don’t help much… unless you want to see the Mona Lisa. Probably 50% of the signs in the museum point to the overrated painting. It feels like the place exists purely for this one, small painting.

The rest of the museum is for people to get lost. I don’t mean this in a particularly negative way; getting lost in one hall after another is really the magic of the place (and my favorite part). It is enormous. And we only saw part of it (some was closed and Theo was running out of time).

Eiffel Tower

This was a bit of a surprise to me. I have seen it a couple times before, but with all of the terrorist activities, it is now behind a wall. It is an ugly, metal wall now, but a permanent wall is under construction. You can still see the tower up close, but have to go through security (open you bag, etc.). The increased security measures change the feel of this iconic attraction, and the city as a whole.

Musée d’Orsay

My favorite museum in Paris. The impressionist exhibits are unparalleled. Leslie snapped a couple pictures of her favorite paintings. As you can see she loves Degas dancers.

Everywhere in between

We walked most places, some with the stroller, some with the pack. If you don’t mind walking 5+ miles a day, Paris is a great city to walk. Every new road we picked we found a treasure.

Leaving Notre Dame and wanting to see the Eiffel Tower, Leslie flagged down a Pedicab. Aside from being nervous about getting run over a couple times, it was a great way to cross the city. Theo loved it!

Dance

Leslie took an advanced ballet class and loved it. Definitely what inspired Degas!

Eating

Of course, you can’t talk about Paris without food, wine, and café.

Like most short trips, we needed a vacation from our vacation when we returned. With Theo in his own room again (giving us real sleep), we are now back to our slow travel style. The trip did remind us to seek out the sights around us (e.g. in Lisbon) while we have the chance. More posts to come. Cheers!

Settling In

We have settled in to our new place (Cascais). It is a bit over the top with a pool and a door man.

We have gone back and forth having and not having a car. With a car I am able to surf and we can make a quick run to large grocery stores, etc. Without a car, there is a surprisingly well-equipped, small store a block away, but it is a bit pricey. The walk/bike path along the water is great and takes us for miles in either direction. Getting into the center of town takes about 20 minutes on foot.

The weather has slowly been improving, although people keep commenting that it is unseasonably cold. Beach and pool days are becoming regular.

Friends

A few days ago we spent the afternoon with friends at their retreat house. It is a beautiful house in a rural valley in the middle of nowhere. A year ago it was probably lush green, but the fires last year burned miles and miles of trees in the area. This picture doesn’t do it justice (I took it while driving). As far as you can see is burnt trees, in every direction.

I can’t imagine the worry our friends had during the fires! Luckily, their house came through just fine, even though most of the trees on the property burned.

Life is great, but…

There are some challenges to this lifestyle. We had great aspirations to work on websites, health, fitness, and traveling. Amazingly, life consumes you quickly even when you don’t have a job.

The last couple of weeks have had a bit more bickering than usual. We finally hashed out the source of the frustration: it comes down to a lack of progress on our goals. Or to put it another way, we have been busy living instead of growing. Our goals have been a bit muddy lately.

After lots of discussion, I think the fears of bleeding money and living an unsustainable life have been hampering our motivation/excitement for progress.

Recognizing the fear is really going a long way to help us out. It shows us how our fears are limiting our potential. Knowing and understanding is the first step. Doing something about it while we still have time is the challenge (and next step).

We are heading to Paris for a few days of museum exploration. When we return we are going to dive into websites, real estate possibilities, startups, and, of course, more exercise.

In the end, it will not be about what we accomplish. The true feeling of accomplishment will come from the effort put into our goals.

Off to Paris!