Mamã do Feliz Aniversario!

My mother had a milestone birthday this year, and her wish was to gather her sister, my sister, me, and all of our respective partners, to poke around Lisbon for a week. It was a week of nice relaxing company, good seafood, and great, inexpensive wine. Below you see a specialty, grilled sardines, anticipating the honor of being eaten by me as my first meal:

Here's Rachel, Mom, and John (toasting arm only), enjoying a bottle of vinho verde, the linchpin of a well-rounded Portuguese lunch (the other components being pleasant weather, and a cafe on a pleasant plaza).

Portuguese "green wine" is actually white, but fizzy and tart. The green refers to the fact that it is "young": picked, made and drunk within a year. Try some. You can find it in the USA in a light blue bottle by Casal Garcia. Try it! Try it!

Another nice thing about Portugal was abundant live music. One form of Portuguese folk music is called Fado and generally involves a classical guitar, a 12-string Portuguese special guitar, and a singer.


As you probably know, Portugal is famous for its ceramics and ceramic tiles. I was a bit of a sucker for these. These are from the Palacio de Pena in Sintra:

Spanish 16th C. tiles from Sevilla, in a cathedral in Coimbra:

From an exhibition of ceramics of Coimbra:

My sister sitting in a lovely garden outside the aforementioned Pena Palace:

A nicely painted little boat in the town of Porto Brandao, to which we ferried across the Tejo River from Lisbon for lunch one day:

At the Monastery of San Jeronimos, in the Belem district of Lisbon, Vasco de Gama is buried. This is some detail from his tomb:


More Lisbon photos

John and I also did a side trip up to Coimbra, an old Moorish city that is also home to Portugal's flagship university, dating from 1290. We stayed in a homey "residential" (which, according to the concierge at our hotel in Lisbon, is distinct from a hotel only by its inferiority to a hotel) with a balcony overlooking the ancient pedestrian walkway/market below.

Coimbra is not on the coast so we went into seafood withdrawal for a few days, but liked one of the local dishes, goat stewed in red wine.


This is Coimbra's Se Velha (Old Cathedral), which took the place of a Moorish mosque that was here until the Moors were unceremoniously removed.

Johnny in the Se Velha's lovely, peaceful gothic cloister:


More Coimbra photos

Happy Birthday Mom, and thanks for introducing me to this memorable place. And thanks to Denny and Ellen for your relaxed and adventuresome spirit.

In Case You Were Wondering

this is what I would look like if I were an 18th C. nobleman, and also made out of ceramic tiles. Just to give you a rough idea:

Stay tuned for more Portugal photos. And also as a point of interest: False Reckonings 1, Blogging Saddles 0.

Congratulations Brendan and Jason

I feel so lucky to have spent this past weekend in Moss Beach, California at the wedding of my oldest friend Brendan. It was a historic moment for two reasons. First, he married his partner Jason of 5+ years as their right to do so hangs in the balance (California voters will decide when they go to the polls November 4th whether or not to outlaw same sex marriage). On Saturday, despite forecasts calling for rain and cool temperatures, their little meadow overlooking the Pacific was sunwarmed and peace filled. Whoever controls the weather clearly weighed in in favor of equal protection.


Secondly, I finally had the opportunity, in front of important witnesses, to clear my name. Brendan's mother has long held to the false notion that a gash in his head sustained at age 6, requiring a trip to the emergency room and multiple stitches, was caused by his desperate effort to flee my attempts to kiss him. Brendan agreed with my recollection of events: it was merely a game of tag. My reputation is clean, at long last.

More photos here.

It was lovely to see everyone and I feel honored to have been included. Congratulations and best wishes for a long, happy, legally sanctioned marriage!