Greetings,
I hope this finds you all in good health and ready to enjoy the summer.
We enjoyed having my sister and brother in law here for two weeks. After visiting Guimarães (see my last write-up) Bonnie and Randy spent 5 days seeing a bit of Lisbon, Cascais and Sintra before returning to Porto. Anxious to see the Douro Valley we booked a tour and spent the day visiting a couple of wineries, learning a lot about the stomping of the grapes (body heat and sweat are an important part of it) and why the soil in the Douro Valley is so perfect for growing wine (it's the shale). On the way there, our tour made a coffee/pastry stop in the very charming town Amarante. As we were walking around I was rather surprised to see an unusual pastry in a shop window, see photo attached. My sister ran in and purchased one for Nick, and yes, it has a creamy filling and it's the official pastry of the town. Wanting to know more about this unusual pastry I googled it and learned the following: Amarante is sedate and conservative town obsessed with cakes shaped to look like the male member. São Gonçalo the 13th-Century saint, is said to have settled in the town after making pilgrimages to Italy and Jerusalem as a Benedictine monk, and while no claims are being made about his physical attributes, legend holds that he was possessed of Cupid-like gifts. The cakes, known locally as doces fálicos (literally, “phallic sweets”) are handed out together with locally-harvested dried figs at ceremonies held each January (on the anniversary of São Gonçalo’s death) to usher in a “fertile and favorable” year. It’s a tribute to the cakes’ popularity and, ahem, staying power, that they are available at all today—banned as “obscene” by the right-wing dictatorship that took control of Portugal in the 1920s, the cakes were baked and exchanged in secret until the Carnation Revolution of 1974—the peaceful uprising that returned Portugal to Democracy.
May is college graduation time here in Portugal and there were huge celebrations for a week. Called the Queima das Fitas (Burning of the ribbons), graduating students enjoyed a wide range of activities from parading around town in their uniforms with colorful top hats and canes, attending nightly concerts by well known national bands, drinking, attending teas and a gala ball, drinking, and burning the ribbons which signify which academic studies they pursued (Law - red; Medicine - yellow; Humanities - dark blue; Science and Technology - light blue; Pharmacy - purple; Economics - red and white; Psychology and Education Sciences - orange; and Sports Sciences - brown). While we didn't attend any of these events, many of which are open to the public, we heard them every night because the large city park nearby was the main location for all the concerts. Lots of drums!
May was also the time for the huge Eurovision event. While I have heard the term before I never really paid attention to it until now. This event is bigger than the Super Bowl, even bigger than Beyonce and this year 162 million people turned in to watch. All European countries have their own competition to select the best song/performer to represent their country. I love Portugal's entry this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NmF5otCtqU. Unfortunately, this year's winner was Sweden. Notable winners in the past include Celine Dion (Switzerland) and Abba (Sweden), while others who participated in the past and didn't win include Lulu (UK), Olivia Newton-John (UK), Englebert Humperdinck (UK), and Julio Iglesias (Spain).
Property taxes here are due in May and though we applied for the 3-year exemption we're allowed, we received a notice telling us we were approved for two years instead so we headed to the local finance office to get clarification (and we were able to get the three-year exemption). While waiting in line the gentleman in front of us heard us speaking English and started chatting with us. Jamie is from Southern CA and his wife is originally from Sacramento. They moved here 1.5 years ago and they too purchased an apartment and were trying to verify their exemption. As it turns out, Jamie is also the volunteer head of the Porto chapter of Afpop, which is an organization that helps expats from all over the globe here in Portugal. He invited us to attend a tour of the Super Bock facility in Matosinhos the following day with his group. Super Bock is the #1 selling beer in Portugal and while I don't drink beer, the tour was great. The brand was founded in 1927 and has won 39 gold medals. In 1927 the CEO realized that most of their workers had to walk great distances to get to work and were exhausted when they arrived. This was during the Salazar regime when most people were too poor to own a car, so the CEO decided that they would serve breakfast to all employees when they arrived at work ... a practice that is still in force today. Then he decided to invest in some buses to pick up the employees and bring them to work and take them home at the end of the day. Salazar wouldn't allow the Portuguese to drink anything other than beverages made in Portugal so Super Bock also started producing a coca cola type beverage (Snappy Cola) as well. Today they have a number of lines of sodas, bottled waters, ciders and even wines. At the end of the tour there was a tasting with pairings of cheeses and nuts.
Last weekend was Navy weekend ... similar to Fleet Week in San Francisco. We headed down to the Ribeira to see, as did everyone else in town. There were three large ships on display on the river but only one that was open for touring, a large sailboat that is used for the initial training of all sailors. When we arrived on Saturday afternoon we discovered a mile-long line of people waiting to go onboard, so we decided to come back on Sunday morning when they opened. Unfortunately we encountered another mile-long line of people who had the same idea. There's always next year.
We were delighted to see some old friends from Brentwood when they were visiting Porto this past week and enjoyed a great meal and conversation. I was bummed that the weather turned cloudy that evening, preventing them from viewing the awesome sunset over Porto but they didn't seem to mind. It was wonderful to see them all again and catch up.
Last night (actually Sunday morning) we were treated to a half hour long fireworks display from our balcony, taking place in the neighboring city of Matosinhos. Every May Matosinhos holds a festival, considered to be one of the high points of religious pilgrimages of not only the district but also the whole country. Called the Festival of our Lord of Matosinhos, it is three weeks of recreational, cultural and sports events culminating with a huge fireworks display that starts at midnight. We figured it was better to stay up to see it than go to bed and be awakened by all the explosions.
Tomorrow, May 29 we'll be heading to Sitges, Spain, a beach town about 30 minutes south of Barcelona. Our friend Linda is house-sitting for a friend and has invited us to come stay with her. We're looking forward to seeing Linda again and checking out Sitges. We'll return a few days before my daughter Erinn and my grandchildren Zoe and Owen arrive for their first visit. June and July are packed full of visitors and trips.
And finally, here are a few more things I 've learned: Portugal consumes more wine per capita than any other country in the world. While Americans aren't the largest group of expats in Portugal, 40% of American expats in Portugal are from CA. And finally, romaine lettuce doesn't seem to exist here.Adeus, abraços e beijos,
MaryLou
