Visiting the Parque das Nações

On Saturday we walked around at the Parque das Nações (Park of the Nations), the site of Expo '98 and a showcase of contemporary architecture.  The area includes a 5-kilometer park along the Tejo River on the eastern side of the city.  The site was formerly a brownfields area with old factories, warehouses, and a dump.  All this was rehabilitated and transformed into a shiny, if somewhat generic, modern example of the new urbanism.  Many Lisboetas have flocked to this new neighborhood, with its large apartments in new buildings with river views, its convenient transportation, and its easy access to malls and park space.  Quite different from the old, winding, hilly streets toward the city center!

The blokes in front of Oriente train station, designed by Spanish architect Calatrava

You enter the area from the new transportation hub, a metro and train station surrounded by stops for connecting bus lines.  You cross the street to the Vasco da Gama Mall, a nautical-themed shopping center overlooking the park.  Once in the park, there's a museum, convention center, a concert arena, a "musical garden," the famous Lisbon Oceanarium, and many walking paths.

The park viewed from the teléferique

Michael with the Portugal Pavilion in background

There is also the Portugal Pavilion, designed by Álvaro Siza Vieira, who is probably Portugal's most famous architect.  It is a building with a huge concrete canopy that is only about 10 inches thick, so that it almost looks like a piece of cloth or a fluid.  Unfortunately, the park owners have never come up with a good use for the space since the fair, so it's mostly something you usually admire from afar.  (I learned this from reading an article about the building by urban anthropologist Tim Sieber).

Across the Tejo River with the Traveling Gluttons!

Today we had an amazing adventure!  It was a nice sunny Sunday, though the air is still crisp.  We took the bus down to the Cais do Sodre ferry terminal and hopped on a ferry boat to Cacilhas, a small town across the river from Lisbon.

On the river, leaving the hills of Lisbon behind us!

We were really hungry when we got off at the Cacilhas ferry landing.  Luckily, the town is known for great seafood restaurants.  We picked O Farol, where the tables were packed with satisfied-looking Portuguese people, always a good sign.

K spots a good spot

We had to wait about ten minutes for a table, but the waiters seem to know how to squeeze people in without making anyone feel rushed.  We were so hungry, we had trouble deciding what to order, so we settled on the "Everything Shellfish" feast for 2-3 people.  We weren't sorry!

Rafi learns to use a hammer to pick apart a crab

Actually, this doesn't show the wonderful hot plate of clams bathed in garlic butter, clam juice, and cilantro, or the toasted rolls designed to mop up that crab roe salad on display in the crabshell above.  Everything was fabulously fresh and delicious.  We, too, were satisfied customers.

When Michael orders a coffee after lunch, it's serious!

Cacilhas is a weird combination--it has been known for seafood restaurants for decades.  But it also has shipping docks and industrial areas--some in ruins, some still active.  After lunch, we took walk along the old crumbling quai--definitely a site for some industrial archaeologists, I imagine.   But today, it was just Sunday walkers.

Along the somewhat gritty waterfront

We wondered what the people of Cacilhas did, how they worked and lived, what kind of place it was and has become today. Then the boys and I visited a 19th century frigate that is now an excellent museum by the ferry terminal.  And then we took the ferry home, passing by a German cruise ship as big as a huge apartment house/shopping mall complex.

We were worried the cruise ship wouldn't clear the bridge, but it did

Then we took a meandering trolley ride back to our neighborhood.  Another great weekend in Lisbon.

The boys start judo!

Today the boys started their after-school activity of choice: Judo!  Here's how they look in their new judo uniforms:

Ah, ah, ah, ah.. Stayin' alive! Stayin' alive!

Can you believe they taught them how to do this on their first day?

Our new favorite place: Xurrex

Last night we had a great casual family dinner at a place called "Xurrex" (pronounced "Shoo-rhesh," which is a cute abbreviation of "churrasqueira," or BBQ place).  We love the food here in Lisbon, but it has been tricky because there are very few places where you see children eating out.  Now, we have the perfect place.  We discovered it a week ago, when the boys and I were walking up the main shopping street in our neighborhood (Rua Ferreira Borges), and we smelled the irresistable smoky aroma of barbecued chicken billowing out of a small storefront.  Well last night we actually had dinner there, and we were not disappointed!

The card for Nova Xurrex--mmm!

We walked in and they set up a table for us in the back of the long, skinny eating area.  We ordered a half a barbecued chicken, a mixed grill plate, salad, a grilled cheese sandwich for Zeke, and a couple of beers and peach juices.  The meats came out crispy and succulent, with homemade shoestring french fries and rice.  They also make great looking batatas a murro (punched potatoes), but with our guys, there was no denying the fries! The salad was terrific--with little bits of watercress and roasted green and red peppers kicking it into high gear than the standard, simple churrasqueira salad.

Chicken on the grill

We also took advantage of the classic Portuguese condiment for barbecued chicken: Piri-piri sauce, which is basically a hot pepper oil made with the national favorite variety of hot dried peppers.  Simple, but fabulous!

But what made Xurrex so great was the neighborhood vibe--while we were eating our dinner, dozen of people passed in and out, ordering takeout.  We also appreciated the warm welcome we got from João Pinto, who has run the place for decades.  João talked to us about visiting his cousins in the Boston area and seeing Chinatown in New York, which he especially enjoyed. 

João at work

We'll be back, for sure!

Video Snippet of Lisbon sidewalk

The Lisbon sidewalks are made of white cobblestones, packed in pleasing patterns. They are hard on the feet. Here is a quick video clip of sidewalk.

Rafi's school day: Change for the better!

Today Rafi moved into the older kids' class, which was a big improvement.  He sits next to a little boy named Max whose dad is a Brit and who is completely bilingual--this is a HUGE help!  Also, the room is quieter and more academic than the younger group's class, which is more like a kindergarten environment.  He enjoyed doing math, even.  His new teacher is named Catia, and she is very nice.

Also, Zeke and Rafi have started having a private Portuguese class in the afternoons, taught by the school's principal, Isabel.  They are enjoying it and came home singing the word "refrigorifico!" which means "refrigerator," of course.

A post about Portuguese Magic cards by Zeke

We found a place to buy Magic the Gathering (MTG) cards at the shopping mall near our house.

Cool packs: "Scars of Mirrodin," "World Wake" and "Basic Collection 2010" em português!

...and a "Carnifex Demon" card in Portuguese

The guy who works there has been an MTG fan for so long, he was playing before the Portuguese-language cards came out 14 years ago.  He says that Portuguese players prize the English-language cards as the "originals," but we are excited to have cards in Portuguese!

Zeke's first post, or Zeke's first day of school

On the first day of school we all woke up bright and early. I think. Anyway I was excited. Rafi wasn't exactly excited, in fact he was mostly shy. Not me. We had taken a tour last week, and that place is packed with foosball tables. (Yeah Rafi, foosball tables, reeeal intimidating.) 

So we went to the school and were greeted by 100 kids (not exactly, but almost), and it was awful. Not!  They were nice and they spoke alot of inglês! First we did PE. We started with warm ups. Then we did dance--a bystander could mistake us for a pack of ducks dancing to "Stayin' alive"!

Then we had art. It was fun. To start, the art teacher made me draw whatever I wanted just to see what I would draw. I drew a clock. Of course it wasn't that simple. In the middle of the clock there was a guy who was sticking out his arms so that they pointed at the numbers on the clock. After that she made me draw a picture of my neighborhood. And then a picture of my room. Then I did what my class was doing: Patterns. Then it was time for break.

At break most kids had snack. People who finished their snack would play. There would be about five girls practicing the dance to "stayin' alive" (Eventually a few boys would join in.) There would usually be about three boys spinning tops. Most people ate or played futebol. Break was only about 15 minutes and before I knew it it was time for the next class.

After the end of the next class was lunch. Lunch was pasta, and I love pasta. I ate all of my pasta then went outside to play. The rule was the faster you finish your lunch the longer the recess you get. I played futbol at recess.

The last class of the day was math. All you had to do was solve a few multipication problems. After math we all went home.

Rafi and Zeke in front of their new school

At the end of the day we were all hungry. So we went to our favorite pastelaria and had a afterschool snack.

Enjoying a delicious afterschool snack

First day of escola! (by Krista and Rafi)

So...the boys were not sure about going to a Portuguese school--it sounded it might be hard to understand what was going on.   But, after a week of hanging out 24/7 with our guys, who only had their brother to play with...well, Michael and I were sure!

Cabin fever!

This morning, we got up early, ate breakfast, and walked to the Escola Pedro Nunes for the boys' first day of school in Portugal.  Zeke is planning to tell all about his experiences in his own blog post (soon to follow); so Rafi and I will take the lead on this post.

Krista: On the way to school, Rafi repeated what he had told Michael and me before: he was worried that he would feel "super-shy" at school.   Now, those of you who know Rafi might consider this unlikely, but...

Rafi: Mom! You're embarrassing me!

Krista:  When we arrived at school, the vice-principal took us to the school courtyard where the kids play, and he started introducing the boys to other kids who would be in their classes.  The kids were completely friendly.

Rafi:  (laughing) It was great awful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Krista: Rafi met his teacher, Cece (short for Cecilia), who is the English teacher.

Rafi: I couldn't speak one word of Portuguese! by, the way, what is "word" in Portuguese???????

Krista: It's "palavra."  Anyhow, Cece introduced Rafi to some other 6-year-old boys named Santiago, Vicente, and Gonçalo.  They seemed like nice guys, and Rafi went to class with them as Cece shooed Michael and me out the door.  So Rafi will have to tell you how the day went after that.

Rafi: First, the kids stood in a circle and sang songs--la la la la loooo!  It sounded like a bunch of Ewoks.  Then, we went into a classroom to have English.  The kids were learning the letter M.  I did pretty well.  After that, it was time for music, this time with the music teacher and we played instruments, but it sounded like a box of pots being dropped from the window of our apartment building.  Then it was snack time.  The kids are really LOUD--you couldn't even hear yourself chew!  I was flabbergasted--they were even louder than me!

Krista: Then what?

Rafi:  Then we went to gym, and the kids really started screaming.  We ran around in circles, and then we dressed up and did some acting.  After that, it was lunchtime.  The food was good, especially the soup.  We played after lunch, and the older kids interviewed me--"what is you name? what is your favorite color? what is your favorite animal?"  They asked me in English.  They had big Portuguese accents, but they could understand what I was saying.   Then it was time to go back to class.  We did some "maths," and they taught me the numbers in Portuguese.  After that, we had more singing (this time they sounded like a bunch of apes), and we ate a snack.   Then it was time to go home!

At the end of the worst first day of school

Krista: Rafi came out the door with a big smile, and Cece said he had done really well.  We were all pretty happy with Rafi's first day of school.

Rafi: Except for one person--Rafi!  (though he's smiling as he says it, so we'll see how it goes...)

A new friend and a night out on the town

On Saturday morning we met a neighbor named Fatima (our landlady mentioned her to us as one of her friends in the neighborhood).  She lives less than a block away--we can actually see each other's apartments from our windows.  She came over for a coffee, and we really hit it off.   She has a son and a daughter who are in their early 20s and studying at universities here in Lisbon.  We talked for a couple of hours, and she took me down to the market to show me some of her favorite places there for fish and cheese. 

Fatima introduced me to her friend Ana, who is an actress on the Portuguese stage and screen and who also lives in the area.  The three of us sat down for coffee at a pastelaria, and I felt pretty smug to be able to get by conversing in my basic Portuguese with two real Lisboetas.  Of course, both of them speak some English, like most Portuguese people between 15-50 years old; so when I got in over my head, they helped me find the right words.    

Later that night, Fatima offered to stay with the boys while Michael and I went out to dinner--a much-needed break!  We rode the trolley to the Bairro Alto and had dinner at a place her friend recommended--O Sinal, on a side street a few blocks away from Praça Camões.  The Bairro Alto is a hilly area known for nightlife, and even on a chilly January evening, there were people walking around.  Every dish at the restaurant looked good, but we are really enjoying fish here in Lisbon, so we ordered roasted dourada fish and sauteed calamari with batatas a murro (potatoes that have been cooked, smashed, then pan-fried--a brilliant preparation) and a little bottle of white wine.  Then we walked around and watched the young party scene for a while.  When that started making us feel old, we walked home, feeling a lot less harried than a few hours earlier. 

Belém now and then (1966)

After Saturday's post about our visit to Belém, my mom (Victoria Harper) sent us these pictures of her and my sister Cindy at some of the same sights in the summer of 1966:

Aww...Cindy and Victoria, Belém, 1966

Cindy in monastery courtyard, Belém, 1966

 Notice that the monastery's stones have been cleaned--membership in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites List has its advantages!

Visit to Castelo de São Jorge

The weather was brisk today and we visited the Castle, which offers spectacular views of the city.

Our outing to Belém

Here is the geography of our visit to Belém yesterday (captured on our GPS unit).

Our new school

On Monday, the boys will start school at the Escola Pedro Nunes, a small, private grade school (not to be confused with Lisbon's premier public high school, Liceu Pedro Nunes).  It's a 10-minute walk from our house, about a block away from the beautiful Jardim de Estrela where the boys like to play and where Michael and I like to go running.

The school looks like a great fit for us because it is mostly Portuguese students, but there are English classes three times a week as part of the regular curriculum.  So our guys will have the Portuguese immersion experience, but if they get really frustrated, there are some English speakers on the staff who can bail them out.  We're hoping the other students will speak just enough English to include Zeke and Rafi in the normal playground games.

Zeke is getting really excited about starting school and learning Portuguese.  Rafi says he's going to take a melatonin at breakfast on Monday so that he sleeps through school.  He said he just knows he'll feel shy, and he is dreading that!

Discovering Belém!

This morning, we returned to the Escola Pedro Nunes and arranged for the boys to start school there on Monday (details will follow in our next post).  Knowing that next week will be all about establishing our normal Lisbon routine, we decided today would be a great day for an excursion.  Our destination: Belém, a suburb just west of Lisbon that was a hub for seafarers during Portugal's early colonial era.

Zeke and Krista on the #25E trolley

Like many of our adventures these days, our outing started with a ride on one of our neighborhood's old trolleys, followed by a ride on the super-slick new tram heading to Belém.  We got off the tram, ate a quick lunch at a tiny family-run joint with a display of abandoned cell phones on the wall, and then headed to the big esplanade along the Tejo (Tagus) estuary, where the river meets the Atlantic.

Intrepid explorers from the Americas discover Belém!

The boys enjoyed running around on a giant mosaic map of Portugal's 15th-16th C. expansion into Africa, Brazil, and Asia.  The mosaic was a gift to Portugal from the apartheid-era South African government (just a way of saying, "Thanks for colonizing the Cape of Good Hope, guys!").  Zeke and Rafi enjoyed doing some contact-improvisational dance representing their own movement from Massachusetts to Portugal.

From Amherst to Lisbon

From there we walked along the windswept waterfront to the Torre de Belém.  We ran up the spiral stairs of the place where, almost 500 years ago, Portuguese ships unloaded a rhinoceros from India intended as a gift for the Pope.  On the way to Italy, the ship sank and the rhino drowned, but somehow they managed to fish it out of the water and have it stuffed for His Holiness in Rome.  Albrecht Dürer's famous engraving of a rhinoceros was based on a description of this particular beast.

Michael at the tower, with the 24th of April Bridge behind

After seeing the tower, from top to dungeon, we headed over to the Monasteiro dos Jeronimos (that's the Hieronymite Monastery, but who's translating?).  This monastery is built out of beautiful golden stone and carved with intricate sculptures in the "Manueline" style, which is ornate and special to Portugal.  The afternoon sunlight made the cloisters almost glow (with apologies to our Amherst friends who are buried under a fresh five inches of snow).  The monks at this monastery were tasked with praying for the sailors who embarked on long sea voyages.

Rafi in the hushed cloisters (photo by Zeke)

Before leaving the monastery, we visited its church, where Portuguese seafarers would go to pray the night before heading out to sea.  The poet Luis de Camões and the sea admiral Vasco da Gama are buried there.  These guys were major figures in Portuguese literature and military/mercantile power in the 16th century, and so they have impressive, carved sarcophagi at the entrance to the church.

All this walking around made us hungry...for pastries, of course! Fortunately, this town is well-known as the birthplace of the original pastel de nata, which they call a pastel de Belém in Belém.  We headed to the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém, a vast, cavernous pastry palace where thousands of warm, oozy custard tartlets are served up daily. 

Mmm...

Of course, after all taking in all the sights related to colonial expansion, I couldn't help but think about Sid Mintz.  His book Sweetness and Power examines how, a few hundred years ago, Europeans ditched honey, started extracting sugar, tea, coffee, and chocolate from plantations in the colonies, and became sugar-crazed caffeine addicts. 

Not that we have a problem with sugar-crazed caffeine addicts, of course. 

--Krista

Pastries!

Enjoying a pastel de nata and a cream puff at a street café

Here's a math problem: There are half a million people in Lisbon and a pastelária (pastry shop) on every corner of the city, each stocked with dozens of sweet pastries and an endlessly flowing stream of espresso.  How many bicas (thimbles of coffee) and pastries does each Lisboeta have to consume each day to keep all the pastelárias in business?

We don't know, but we know it is a good thing that the city's hills provide some extra cardio training to compensate for all the sweet temptations in the pastelária windows.  Here are a few we have sampled so far:

Bolo de praline

• pastel de nata: our favorite, "a sweetie pie," as Zeke says.  It's a simple little tartlet, about three inches in diameter, made of a flaky puff pastry crust filled with custard and baked until crispy underneath and dotted with dark brown spots (see picture at top of page).
• bolo de praline: This is a basically a round doughnut (no hole) made with the same dough as Portuguese sweet bread, sliced open and filled with custard (very popular here, as you'll see) and rolled in sugar (see picture of boys above).  Despite the name, there are not any nuts, but the boys don't seem to mind at all.
• cream puffs: all over the place, all sizes, usually slathered in chocolate (see picture of boys above).
• pudim flan: eggy flan with thin caramel

But there are even more variations, seemingly endless combinations of sugar and eggs.  Zeke and Rafi plan to try them all...Michael and I will pace ourselves and try to run laps around the Jardim de Estrela to make up for any overindulgence!

So, now you see why we are calling our blog the "Traveling Gluttons"!

Great public transit, and bureaucracy

Zeke riding the Lavra funicular up the hill

One thing we are enjoying already is the wonderful public transportation here: a well-linked system of metro, buses, ferries, commuter trains, adorable yellow streetcars that rattle through our neighborhood, funiculars to go up the really steep hills, and, for one hill that is even too steep for that, a giant elevator built by Gustave Eiffel's firm.  But the first few days, we were racking up a lot of tickets between the four of us, and so yesterday we decided to get our monthly transit passes.

And learned that Portuguese bureaucracy is no joke!  For our transit passes, we filled out a long form for each person, brought our passports and small photos, and still, when we reached the front of the line, the woman in the booth at the metro said, "Oh, but it needs to be black ink, and you used blue."  So we inked over all the blue letters with our black pens and went back to the line.  But it turns out, she was not being a jerk to us; she clearly took the details as seriously when doing her own job.  She proofread all four of our forms very carefully and pared our photos down to the exact size required.  But when we came back today to pick up our cards, she smiled at us.

Our next encounter with Portuguese bureaucracy: enrolling our kids in school.  In Hungary and the USA, this was pretty simple: show a copy of your ID, immunization records, and rental agreement or proof of address, and your kids are ready to go.  Here, you need all of the above plus report cards and school records "verified by the embassy" (according to the school offices).  But the US embassy does not verify school records.  So tomorrow we will go to the Fulbright Commission, which is used to helping clueless American professors, teachers and students in Portugal, and see whether they can help us out.  I'm not on a Fulbright fellowship this time, but they seemed awfully friendly on the phone.  I am optimistic, and I will definitely use black ink.

Now, we have our transit passes and can hop onto any publicly operated contraption we want.  I feel like a superheroine!  A very geeky superheroine...

-Krista

Lisboa: Settling in and our contact info

We left snow-covered Amherst six days ago, and now we are settled into our 2-bedroom apartment in Lisbon (or Lisboa, in Portuguese).  We are living in the Campo de Ourique neighborhood, which has lots of shops and a pastelaria on every corner, it seems.

First day in Lisbon--photo by Rafi

Rafi and Zeke are excited about documenting our time in Lisbon on this blog.  Sometimes, having kids and adults collaborating on a blog brings up issues, though.  Like, is it OK to post photos that are clearly upside-down?  Adults vote no, kids vote yes.  OK, just this once, Rafi!

Rafi on the winding streets of Santa Isabel

Keep in touch!  Please do add comments to this page as you read.  In case you would like to drop us a line or call, here's how to reach us:

Mail: Harper-Ash Family
c/o Sara Bizarro
Rua Azedo Gneco 10, 2 Dto.
Lisboa 1350-035
Portugal

Skype: kristamharper OR michaelaoash

Even though we are enjoying discovering the city, we are missing you, our friends and family back in the USA!