Milano

Things to note about Milano.
- Armani has a whole city block filled with his good. I couldn't even afford the air conditioning.
- La Sacala theatre is closed for renovations. The lobby and the museum are nice though.
- Milanese do not find references to the Da Vinci code very funny. The last supper is pretty amazing even if John looks a lot like a Mary.
- Drinks can cost you 5 eruos, but they come with all the snacks you can eat. The bruchetta was particularly good, but i would not sneeze at the salami, mozzeralla, ham sandwiches, and homemade potato chips, and if you think your drinks are overpriced and you are trying to make up the cost by trying a few of everything then ignore the waitress giving you an angry glare.
- The galleria is amazing. The light comes pouring in the glass ceilings and show off the Prada bags very well. It is too bad they spelt their name wrong on the one I bought, guess that is why it was marked down.
- Cab drivers are cab drives no matter what country you are in. A ten dollar cab ride can for twenty can seem like a good deal if you are standing on the side of a road in a strange city, you have two kids with you, and it is pitch black.

Our last night in Milan was very dramatic. There was a storm that included lightening, thunder, huge pounding rain drops and hail.

They Came They Saw They Conquered

They made it. The family finally got to see where I have been hiding for the past year. After a long flight from Canada to London the made the hop to Lisbon, rented a van (big enough for all the tourists in Nazare) and drove to see me.
Kootenay and I were walking through the plaza when we saw them. We were both happy to see them. I think my dog may be tired of hanging out with just me.
While they were visiting we swam in the Atlantic, ate fantastic seafood, and heard some great music.
Aisha managed to drink her first legal beer, taste a great sangria, have a mojito, and get kissed by a cute european musician. She did more exciting things in her first two days than I did in my first six months. Look out cute euro-boys i need to catch up.
We hit Obidos a small walled town for an afternoon of tourist pictures and some cheese, bread, olives, and various other tapas. Yummy. The portuguese do a great bread, and their cheese is pretty good as well.
After an amazing dinner at Maria de Mar, which consisted of a cod boullaibasse, shimp in lemon and garlic sauce, sardines (bigger than you would expect), pork alentejana, and wine Aisha, Jerry and myself went to Ta Bar to see a friend play some music. You can google him at Blister music. He is pretty talented. Check him out.
I was reminded how small a town Nazare was, there was long hair, bad hair, dalmatian dad, and Maria who cooked us dinner all in the same room. Maria even sent us over a round of drinks. Aisha can't seem to keep off the beer now. She seems to be channelling her mom.
We are now in Milan, but my internet time is running out so you will have to wait a day or so until you hear about it. Just a sneak peak tough.... it includes amazing pizza, large beers and rude waiters....

There are a lot of people in town right now. My sleepy little cobblestone village has become a summer resort town. During the winter Kootenay and i wandered the town and the beach leashless hearing very little english. The little that we did hear was usually from friends calling us over to chat.
Last night a boy came up to us and wanted to throw the ball for K. He wandered over and asked in accented english if he could have a turn tossing the ball, and he wanted to know what type of dog Kootenay was.
His mom quickly ran over to interpret for him. She was surprised to find that understood him. She was even more surprised to find that I couldn't understand a word she said in Portuguese.
They are from New York and have family here. The boy had a NY drawl. Not too difficult for a Canadian girl to understand.

Tourist Trolling

Kootenay and I take our big walk in the evenings now. There are so many people here that night is the only time when we can get anywhere near the beach. This has exposed us to a whole new group of people. Here are a few answers to the questions I have been most consistently asked over the past three weeks.

Sorry. I don’t speak a lot of Portuguese. Falar um pouco de portugues

We are from Canada.

I have seen a bit of Portugal. Alentejo, Comibra, Lisboa, Porto, Tavira, Fatima

I am not really comfortable walking in the forest at night with someone I don’t really know.

Tell your Mom thanks, but I have already eaten dinner.

Honestly we have met a few times already.

Yeah. I am the girl with the dog.

Ahhh. When you asked me if I wanted a little Portuguese I mis-understood. I thought you were talking about dinner.

I don’t really see Canadians as being that culturally repressed.

No. Thank you. It was a flattering proposal.

Really people do that in the tents at night?

Ha. Ha. (uncomfortable interjection)

I understand what puta means…

I said your phone was fancy. Not that you were my fantasy. But….

Luggage? Really?

I am pro recycling. I think we throw too many things in the garbage that can and should be recycled or reused.
In Nazare recycling can seem like a lot of work. There are lots of places to drop off your garbage, but a limited number of bins for recycling tin, paper, glass etc. The recycling bins nearest to the apartment are by the taxi stand across town. The taxi drivers line the benches along the street waiting for fares and keeping up on the town's comings and goings. At first they looked at me very questioningly as I dragged bags of stuff the bins. Now that it or I has become a regular occurrence they smile at me rather than shaking their heads in confusion.
My only convenient recycling bin is for wine bottles. That has come in handy as I have developed a taste for vinho verde and that has led to a lot of wine bottles for the recycling department.
Friday I landed in Lisbon after a week long visit to meet my new niece Emily. She is beautiful, pink, and has the newborne cone topper. (Jen is a small woman and us Chambers' have big noggins. Some have even been compared to pumpkins.) There I saw evidence of of a re-user that tested the limits of the usefulness of the idea. As luggage started coming off the plane a slightly used sun umbrella came tumbling down along with all the bags. The umbrellas here run from four to ten euro, so I have to question the sense of dragging one from Germany to Lisbon. It would seem the carbon footprint of that umbrella would be rather more than buying one in Portugal and gifting it to some beach family as you leave town.
Then again i just increased my carbon footprint enormously in order to meet my new niece. That umbrella must really be loved.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Canada.
A new Irish Bar opened in Nazare this weekend. Last night Michael and I went there to have a drink and help support the new establishment. I was almost overcome with joy to see that they had cranberry juice. I have been looking in the supermarkets and corner stores hoping to find some. I've seen mango, papaya, pomegranite, and a variety of orange and apple juices, but no cranberry. That all changed last night.
To celebrate Canada's birthday I will be helping Carlos learn how to shake a Cosmo (martini). Vodka, Cranberry, Lemon/Lime and ice. If only someone would import Hawkins Cheezies i would be in heaven.

I attract crazy people. Apparently Kootenay does nothing to repel them. We walk the seawall everyday. There we have met lots of nice people. We met Vitor and Spock, Dalmatian Dad, Pete, Daniel, Bruno, Greyhound Guy, and Long Hair just to name a few.
We have also met some odd balls. One guy wanted us to walk in the forest with him. Another wanted us to walk out to the lighthouse with him. One guy, who looked to be about sixty wanted us to come home with him and have dinner with his mother. Common sense and caution have kept me from taking up any of those offers.
Yesterday's odd ball was the best so far. I was sitting at Farol (coffee shop) working on my novel and was wearing earphone listening to Jenny Owen Youngs' new music (Love it). I heard the chair across from me being pulled back from the table. I was expecting Michael and Chris so I looked up and smiled. Sitting there was Joseph. I know this because he introduced himself to me and asked to buy me a drink. I declined the drink and started back at my computer.
"Nice dog" he says.
"Thank you" I respond cautiously. I didn't want to be dismissive, but my crazy-o-meter started to sound.
He is from Fatima, works in the tourism business, lives with his mom, is single, and likes to use his english.
Wow. All that information while I desperately scan the crowd in the Plaza hoping to catch sight of Michael.
Joseph calls over Barbara, my cool Brazilian waitress who graciously allows me to take up an outside table and moves the giant umbrella that keeps my pasty white skin from burning. I like her.
"Men in Portugal always pay for ladies' drinks." He tells me. As I didn't allow him to buy me a new drink he has asked Barbara to bring him my tab for the drinks I had before he got there. I only realize this after Barbara brings him a bill. The fast paced singsong Portuguese he and Barbara shared was more than my little brain could piece together. Lentamente. Slowly. A word I use often. How am I going to extract myself from this? And if a Portuguese guy spends 1.50 euros on you what does he expect?
I figure I won't have to worry about this because I see Michael and his friend Chris making their way to my table.
"We can find a free table" Chris says smiling "If you are busy." There is an implied wink in his gaze.
Luckily Michael is a better judge of what is going on and sits down. Phew!
Joseph quickly realizes that Michael and Chris couldn't fill the role in my life that he sees for himself. (They are gay. In case you weren't aware.)
As we all get settled and Michael and Chris pull out their playing cards I feel something on my toes. My first thought is that my feet are in the way of Michael's. I pull my feet back under my chair to make more room for him. Now i feel something moving up my leg. This isn't incidental contact.
Joseph now knows that it has been some time since I last shaved my legs. What the hell....
A big dog is supposed to save you from things like this. I look around for Kootenay. There she is with her head in the lap of Book Boy. Can't blame her. He is cute. Why isn't it his feet I am wrestling with under the table.

Deep Sighs

I don't want to go back to work. I am sitting here at Cafe O Farol, sipping cha preto (black tea) and contemplating my future. I thought i would miss working. I don't. If anyone has any suggestions on how I could support myself on the beaches of Portugal i would appreciate any suggestions. I am even wiling to give up good tea to be here. Those of you who know me know that is a big sacrifice. Portugal is a coffee culture. My love of tea is a handicap here. Not as big a handicap as not speaking Portuguese. I think I would have more friends if I could communicate a little more clearly. Hand gestures, charades, and phrase books can only take you so far.
A note of thanks to RcSdC for having an unprotected wireless connection by the cafe. Please don't read this and take away my tenuous connection with the cyberworld.

Who are the People in Your Neighbourhood

Birds. Singing. Cats. Singing. Waves. Shouting.
Okay it might not be shouting, but from my side of the wall it is difficult to tell the difference. My neighbour is a very boisterous lady. She is the wife and mother of fishers. I can easily see her filling the role of fishmonger. Despite being separated by four rooms and brick walls doesn’t dampen her volume. I hear her every morning.
When I first arrived in Nazare she scared me. She seems tough and, I thought, not very friendly. For Kootenay and I’s first months she alternately ignored us or spoke harshly and gestured in our direction. When I ran into problems hooking my gas tank up, I went to ask her for some help and ended up more frightened of her than of leaking gas.
This all changed a few weeks ago. The city hosted a festival. Portugal seems to have something to celebrate every month. This festival was to pray for a productive and safe fishing season. Fishers from Nazare make their way around the world. I have met people who have fished in France, Spain, England and Canada. The celebration involved various saints being paraded through town and then onto to the fishing boats. There they were loaded onto the boats and then the boats headed out to sea. They circled the bay three times while fireworks were shot off from the bluffs of Sito. When they returned the local priests lead prayers.
My friend Vitor managed to get us a ride on one of the boats for the festivities. Nazare was very appealing with its white washed houses topped with red tile roofs. Looking back on it from the sea added to its charm.
People lined the shores and waved to the boats as they made their way out to sea.
You don’t get seasick do you? This question was asked of me more the a few times as we made our way out of the harbour. I cheerfully said No and hoped that was the truth.
It was a great day. The sun was warm. I didn’t get seasick, and the fishers were gracious enough to share their beer with me.
About a week later my neighbour stopped me as I was returning home from walking Kootenay. She gestured for me to stay where I was and ran back into her house. I waited nervously. I knew that Koot hadn’t done anything wrong, and assumed that I hadn’t either, but my go to emotion is always guilt.
She came back out of the house with an 8X10 picture of one of the boats. There I was sitting on the boat heading out to sea. She had a picture of me. Odd.
Turns out it was her family’s boat. Vitor is a friend of her son. When we hitched the ride on the boat none of us knew that we would all be so closely connected.
Now when I hear her singing/shouting from the place next door I smile. I am pretty sure I haven’t done anything to make her mad at me. I think she might even like me little bit.

From What I Remember

I have been so busy doing nothing, that I have not put anything interesting up here for weeks. So, I will start with a few tidbits about my time in Spain and try not to be too wordy.

When you are travelling in Sevilla with a dog and you want to take a cab, here is a tip. Don’t wait on the street and flag one down. Despite the messy smelliness of most cabs many of them are reluctant to pick you up if you have giant white dog with you. You need to call the tele cab line and request a cab and specify that you are travelling with a “perro”. If you are lucky you can then spend the next few hours sitting in an outdoor tapas bar with various friends from around the world and a hot Moroccan waiter. While you wait for your cab to finally show up.

You might not appreciate the idiot who forgets to turn off his cell phone in the theatre, but don’t take your anger out on cell phones. They make travelling so much easier. Imagine ten years ago trying to meet up with friends who have been hanging out in Tenerife, in the Plaza de San Francisco in Seville? There would have had to be letters and calls before the vacation, emails and hope during the time and Seville, and who knows if you would have actually met up. A few text messages and Juan from Venezuela, Kim, Di, and me from Canada, Jo from England and Ro from Mexico ended up drinking cervejas on a patio in Seville.

Moroccan waiters never live in singularity. They always have a friend. So whether you want to travel to Morocco or get into a private tent during the Flamenco Feria knowing a Moroccan waiter can be helpful. Just remember to charge your cell phone so that you can call him when you are looking for a flamenco tent in the city center. An address book would never power down when you needed it.

Meeting a friend’s family can be worrisome. Are they going to be as cool as your friend? Are they going to be annoyed by your giant dog who will be endlessly searching for a hand to pet her? If you are lucky they end up being as nice and Roberto’s brother and sister-in-law Juan-Carlos and Jo. Kootenay managed to find two friends, one who would feed her chicherones and one who would pat her anytime she needed lovin’. If she could figure out how to safely swim the English Channel would probably be visiting them right now.

Spanish leather goods and flamenco fans and shawls are overpriced souvenirs, but if you don’t pick up the green leather purse you liked you will probably regret it despite the fact that it is over priced. And the shawl would look great with your black cotton dress.

If you are renting a car and planning to follow friends round Spain it helps you can get cars that aren’t as common as silver and black. When four lanes over Spanish drivers try to fit into two lanes of road it is hard to keep you eye on the lead car if it looks like every other car ahead of you and they just ran a yellow light.

Hello Seville

There were times when it felt as if Kootenay took Di, Ro and I to Sevilla. The people of Spain loved her. Before we left she had her hair cut. She went from a cut shaggy mess to a fancy poodle wannabe. As we wandered from beautiful sight to beautiful sight we were followed by comments and stares. If I was younger and a few pound lighter I might have thought they were staring at me. Instead of catcalls and whistles the soundtrack to our walks through Sevilla was… Muy elegante, grande perro. And we heard it a lot.

We cruised through town looking at the most amazing scenery. I loved the orange trees that you see everywhere. Taking pictures proved difficult. How do you choose what to take pictures of when it is all so incredible? There is the Seville Cathedral, Torre del Oro, and more plazas than you can imagine. Every few blocks you round a corner and find a park with benches, people and tapas bars. I started to experience beauty overload. Everywhere I looked the architecture seemed to scream to be recorded. Eventually I just put down the camera and enjoyed the sights. In one plaza we came across a museum. Kootenay got to hang out in the park across the street while we looked at all the paintings. It was interesting given the city’s Moorish heritage, how white all the people in the paintings were. And the cherubs had faces that seemed designed to scare people rather than comfort them. There were oddly shaped and shaded adult faces on wee little bodies with wings and arrows. Kootenay missed all this. Instead she hung out in the park and tried to get passerbys to stop and pet her. I am not sure how she made out while we were inside, but when we came out of the gallery she had a gaggle of school kids petting her and feeding her the remains of their lunches. I don’t think she minded being alone out there. I was a bit worried about leaving her there. She is a beautiful dog and while she loves me I don’t think it would take much encouragement for her to wander off with someone. But, when I decided to travel with me dog I had to be prepared to make compromises.

Before I left Nazare I made one of those compromises. Sevilla has some great places to stay in the heart of the city. But, I couldn’t find any of them that accepted dogs. Often places that will take the dog and I if we show up and they see her. She seems to know when she needs to put on her good manners. She does it when we are checking into hotels, in airports, and meeting new people. Once she is comfortable with the people around her she is a maniac, but when she needs to she can pull out the manners. But, I didn’t want to show up in Seville and not have a bed so I made a reservation at an Ibis Hotel that advertised that it accepted pets. So while Di and Ro got to stay in a quaint place in the center of town I stayed in a chain hotel devoid of uniqueness, but with a space for me and the pooch. Luckily the cost of cabs into and out of the town center came to the same about it would have cost me to park the car in the downtown, so I can come and go without resenting Kootenay and second guessing my choice to bring her to Europe with me.

How to Squeeze a Week into Three Days

Combria. What kind of town has a jail inside its borders and one that is right beside a major university? When you see the jail’s cobblestone roads, turret, and palm trees it is hard to remember that it is a jail. Although, having lived without central heating for a while now the thought of rooms in a stone building have no romance for me. Di, Ro, and I looked like crazy tourists. Here we were taking pictures of a jail. It looked remarkably similar to the crumbling castles and stone churches that are found in every town you stop in Europe.

We had our guidebooks and our town maps to direct our wanderings. We headed through the Botanical Gardens of the University, the University of Coimbra, along the old city wall and the Mondego River bank and then when the day was ending we made our way to the centro commerical. Hello H&M! I have been wearing the same four pair of pants and three skirts all winter. At H&M I added a new skirt, new pair of pants, and four new t-shirts. All for under 50 euros! While we were travelling thru Spain and Portugal our first stop in every town has been the Turismo Information building. They will answer questions in english and provide maps. Just follow the target signs, if you can.

Signs and traffic circles make European driving a challenge. It all seems easy. You look for the town you want, you plot a course on your map and off you go. Then the city you are looking for falls off the signs, the traffic circle confuses you, and the guy behind you is blinking his lights to pass because you are only going 140 km/hr and you are not sure where you put the toll ticket you picked up at the entrance to the highway… But, enough about our drive to Coimbra.

The next day we headed off to Porto, or Oporto as it is known on the map. This is a seriously old city, and I had my guidebook with me to fill Di and Ro in on all sorts of friendly facts. Like the story about the Revolt of the Drunks. There is a revolution to get behind. Our first stop was to be Vila Nova de Gaia. Vila Nova de Gaia and Porto are separated by the Douro River. There, along the riverbank, are all the Port houses. Although this was our destination, we ended up there quite by accident. After half an hour of driving in circles and getting lost in narrow windy streets we decided to head into Porto. We could see the Don Luis Bridge which connects to two cities. It bares more than a passing resemblance to the Effiel Tower. Which is probably because one of Eiffel’s students built it. We just had to figure out how to get onto it. While we were trying to get to the bridge we drove right in front of the port houses and there was a parking spot waiting for us. A shout out to the parking gods! Poor Ro. Our tour of the port house was very touristy. A man in a cape recited the history of Sandeman sherry and port in heavily accented English to us, and 15 of our closest family and friends. There was nothing very local or even Portuguese about it. We got to see the kegs, hear the lecture and watch a movie about the history of Port and the region. The saving grace for Ro was the free port at the end of the tour.

Then we were off to Porto. After we settled into our hotel for the night we headed out to see the town. The center of Porto is odd. There doesn’t seem to be a plan to maintain the fantastic old buildings that line the streets. And at street level it is not uncommon to see the bottom two floors of a building abandoned with crumbling walls. Then when you look up you the top floors of the building will have laundry hanging out and lovely plants climbing down the walls. My old strata council would have a stroke at the sight of some of the balconies. Laundry! And out of control plant growth! You walk through some really abandon streets and the grey stone buildings seem to soak up any light the little streetlights put out. That along with the buckets of rain we experienced made for a ghostly evening.

We wandered past the Sao Bento train station, city hall, the fanciest McDonalds I have ever seen and ended up down on the shores of the Douro river. While we were wandering along the rain started. I rained so hard you could have stayed dryer standing in your shower. So we headed into a restaurant for dinner and to try and warm up. I think the fact that they were playing a football/soccer game on the television swayed the decision making process.

After dinner we had to hike up the wet streets to get back to our hotel. Roberto has a great internal compass. I was lost. But for Ro leading the way, I would have been lost in the bowels of Porto forever. I will confess. I didn’t believe in him, and was ready to hop a cab, but just when I lost all faith we ended up back at our hotel. Tired, damp and full.

The next day was equally busy. We managed to see Torre dos Clerigos, Oporto Cathedral, Lello Bookstore, Igreja dos Clerigos, and Palacio de Cristal. These feet were made for walkin’. All that and then we headed back to Nazare. This time the drive went a little faster. We made it back in time to go out for dinner and drinks with friends. Di and Ro chose to go home at a better hour than I did. I ended up at Abiliu’s café Concerto until way too late listening to the Spanish Guitar and Portuguese singing. Anyone heading to town should check it out. The address is Ru Gil Vicente, 38. Or you can call me and I can meet you there if you want.

And Kootenay missed it all. She stayed home and had a sleep over with her friends Spock, Sofi and Vitor. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be a dog.

A Visit Starts

I have been loafing around lately. Sorry to all my dedicated readers. But the tale I am about to tell you will give you some idea what I have been up to and why a bit of down time was needed.

Diane (a friend for many years) and Roberto (her devoted manservant) came to visit. They were only here for three weeks, but they packed in the sightseeing. While they were here we went to Porto, Coimbra, Tavira, Obidos, and various other towns that placed themselves between our daily destinations and us.

Di and Ro saw even more of Portugal. They added Evora and few small towns in the Algarve to their schedule. And this was all done before we hit Spain.

In Spain we managed to see Ronda, Gaucin, Sevilla, Malaga, and Jerez. The Spanish weather was challenging. While we were visiting Ronda, the wind blew so hard the rain accompanying it seemed to be coming at you horizontally. The umbrella merchants were pleased because that day umbrellas lasted between five and ten minutes. Then the wind would turn them inside out. There were a lot of garbage tins filled with discarded umbrellas around town.

But, back to Portugal... Di and Ro turned up a few days early and few dollars short. Kootenay and I were doing one of our many nightly walks on the beach, when a head popped out of a car and called her. I turned and there they were, arriving early, and me with a dirty bathroom. Damn. Their first few days on vacation had been challenging. First their luggage was lost, and in the course of getting it back they learned that in Spain not only is the customer not always right, but also the customer can actually be an inconvenience. I shudder at what UBC’s “secret shoppers” would say about interactions with Spanish customer service workers. But,they got their bags back eventually, and headed to Lisboa. They hadn't reserved a place to stay so they came straight to Nazare to regroup. Unfortunately I didn’t realize they were doing this or I would have given them my Portuguese highway tip. Always Always Always get a ticket at the toll center when you enter a highway. Or, you will end up donating to the “Portuguese Road Improvement Fund”. So after lost luggage, toll fines, and some generally crappy weather they unpacked in Nazare and we headed out to have dinner and celebrate Roberto’s birthday.

One of my earliest memories of hanging out with Diane, outside of the UBC Bookstore where we worked, was of going to a Crowded House concert. On Roberto’s birthday we headed down to NBar where Carlos kept our glasses sociably full and there was a band. Almost twenty years after we met Diane and I sat and enjoyed a drink listening to Crowded House songs. These ones were sung with a bit of a Portuguese accent, but that only made the experience better.

And this was just our first day together. Wait until i tell you about trying to follow them through Seville's rush hour traffic in a rented Fiat.

Road to Sevilla

I am finding myself really torn. Until recently I have always believed that I was a city girl. Yet here I am in rural Portugal and I love the silence. I love the smell of the flowers and I love the sound of the birds. It is beautiful. They have combined rosebushes with rosemary. When I walked up to reception the smell of the roses and rosemary reminded me that I was breathing.

I sit here and watch the new wind turbines rotate, and the solar panels soak up the heat and wonder why I ever believed that the city was the place to be. I guess I will want to be back in the city when I run out of my favorite shampoo or perfume, but right now shopping is the only thing that I miss about the city. It helps that I am staying in a nice hotel with a pool and a beautiful deck. Kootenay could not be happier. She has her summer hair on and is prancing about the property as if she is the queen. The owners of the place are treating her like she is a queen and that is just feeding her ego. They even let her swim in the pool. That is where my feet are soaking right now. Ahhhh.

Driving here was great. I love to drive fast and listen to loud music. While we were on our way here I stopped at a truck stop to get some food, water and walk K. Then I was back in to car heading south to Tavira and Di and Roberto. When I started the car and rolled down the windows I realized that I had the stereo really loud. I was playing a cd of rap song covers by alt-rock / alt-country bands. The four guys getting into the BMW with blacked out windows parked next to me stopped and stared. The sight of a white woman getting into a grey four door fiat with a giant white dog listening to what at first listen seemed like a nice average song only to hear the lyrics from an NWA being harmonized to was too much for them. They all took very long looks at K and I trying to fit us into their understanding of the world. We were obviously entertaining because they caught up to us on the highway and unrolled their windows to wave to us as they zoomed past us.

Waves

When I ask people around here what their favorite thing about the town is the answer is usually “The Waves”. Watching the ocean trying to steal back the land here is more than a pastime. Older men sit on the seawall benches deliberating the world and their place in it. I see them every morning. They look out to the ocean and carry on conversations that I will never understand. The Nazare way of speaking Portuguese is so fast that I fear I will never understand it.

When I asked Beto (one of the guys who works at the Centro-cultural) what his favorite thing about Nazare was he immediately said the waves. At first I thought he said wives and that he was a little dirty and a little intriguing. But, looking at him I knew he meant waves.

Are you a surfer? I asked.

Yes. He replied smiling.

That made more sense. Although, I kinda liked my first understanding better.

Carlos talked about how amazing the waves were when they came all the way up to the seawall. I heard him talk about them, but I didn’t really believe him. Only now can I understand that I doubted him.

Kootenay and I went for a walk on the seawall at midnight. The waves were enormous and they crawled toward the town. They had to be six meters high. Wow, I thought, this is what Carlos was talking about, then, K and turned around and headed back home.

When I first arrived in Nazare the waves kept me up at night. My family and I travelled through Thailand the winter that the big tsunami hit. We were just getting on the plane as the first bits of information were making their way to the news. When we landed in Hong Kong for a stopover, we were held up while they made sure that our destination, Bangkok, was not going to be affected by any aftershocks. Then, we made our way to Thailand and headed up north. We were quite sheltered by our non-existent Thai from the news. It was only when we headed back down south to Koh Samui that the extent of the devastation become apparent. On our return to the south we landed in the Bangkok airport. The average institutional airport that we left had been turned into what looked like a war zone command center. The institutional beige walls were now covered with missing posters and as you left your flight, embassies lined the hallways asking people to register with them so they could better estimate the missing. We were not directly affected by the wave but I was concerned about the morality of trying to enjoy a vacation in a country so wracked by tragedy.

The Thai people begged us to stay. Good for you. Good for Thailand. These words were used over and over by people talking to us. So we stayed. Loved the country, the people and the food, and returned home with a conflicted feeling about our time away.

Until I arrived in Nazare, I did not realize how deeply the trip had affected me.
My first two weeks here I spent listening to the waves at night with an anxiety that took me days to understand. After a week or so I started to love the sound of the waves at night. They lulled me to sleep.

And so I tucked into bed with the sound of the waves in the background thinking that I understood what Carlos had been talking about. That night walking Kootenay the waves seemed huge.

That all changed in the morning. K and I got up to do our morning walk. As we headed to the beach I noticed that there seemed to be more people than normal on the streets, and fewer cars than I was used to. By the time we were down the hill I could see that the night had changed the sea front of the town. There was sand and water covering the first two blocks. And the reason there were so few cars was that the street was covered with sand and receding water. Storefront windows had been broken and water flowed in and out at will.

And I, with my newfound comfort in the sound of waves had slept through it all.

Alentejo Blue Baby

I am back from Alentejo. It was great. After reading guidebooks and Monica Ali’s book Alentejo Blue I was prepared to find a depressed area filled with old people that was as flat as the prairies and as dry as Nevada. But instead I found myself riding a horse along a reservoir created by the Alqueva Dam. It was beautiful. There was olive, orange, lemon and cork trees. And the Gaudiana River, which feeds a patchwork of small local farms, excited Kootenay. I had to keep her on a leash or I would have had one very wet dog. I don’t think Vitor would have wanted her dripping all over his nice leather seats.

When Sofi and Vitor offered me the chance to tag along with them to see the area I took them up on it. We piled the three of us, and two dogs into Vitor’s car and headed out. I was prepared for a road trip Canadian style. You get up in the morning and drive all day, with hours of driving separating cities. Here is it a little different. We left Nazare at about 11 and promptly stopped for some breakfast. Then we drove to Evora. This took maybe two and a half hours.

Evora is a beautiful old town with an ancient core that is a UNESCO heritage site. It also houses a very modern university. We strolled through the center of the city had lunch and took in the Diana Temple, which is really the Roman Temple of Evora. Then we were off to our hotel.

The cork trees we passed along the way are really cool. Their bark is harvested about every ten years. The tree is stripped of its bark leaving it with a rusty red trunk. Eventually the bark grows back leaving it ready to be stripped once again. The yummy black pig hangs out underneath and eats the acorns that fall from the tree. So the tree is responsible for the cork in the wine and the yummy dinner that I had with it. You gotta love a tree that committed to my happiness.

We stayed at Horta Da Moura. It is an old family farm that has been transformed into a hotel as part of a rural tourism program in Portugal. On our first night we went into Monsaraz for dinner. The hotel recommended we try O Alcaide. Great suggestion. That is where I first tasted black pork. The pig is black not the meat. Yummy. And the potatoes that we were served were fantastic. They were cut like potato chips and then fried and salted. With a little local red wine to wash it down with I was a happy girl.

The next day we went back to the town for lunch and tried another restaurant. Vitor ordered the meal of the day that day. He had Alentejo pork. It is small cubes of pork served with clams or mussels and a wine and paprika sauce. This time we tired a local wine that was produced for the restaurant. The Portuguese know how to flavour pork and how to make wine. The total bill for two jugs of wine, three lunches, fresh cheese, olives, and bread came to about thirty euros, pretty damn reasonable to me.

Monsaraz is a tiny town/castle that sits on top of a hill keeping on eye on Spain. It is a pre-historic town that has had many occupiers. Right now there are about 60 residents and the day we were there; twice that many tourists. Cobblestone streets, white washed houses with the Alentejo blue trim, and bull fighting rings were the amongst the sites.

Somehow we also managed to find ourselves heading to Spain looking for cheese to go with the local wine we had picked up. Unfortunately for Spain everything was closed. So we took a quick look at another castle and headed back to Portugal. We stopped just across the border and found a local cheese maker and some crackers and made it back to Horta da Moura in time for dinner.

Quite a weekend eh… and I am haven’t even told you about the lunch on the way home (great in case you were wondering) and the fantastic view from the windmill that I now want to buy and live in.

Check out Vitor's website to see the pictures.

Hot Water Anyone?

From 36 hours to 3.6 minutes.
The hot water tank and stove are run on butane gas. You have to get the tank from a shop down the street. Drag it home. Hook it up. And then light the pilot light for the hot water tank. The stove you light each time you use an element.
A cousin of my friend Isabel showed my how to do this when I first arrived in Nazare. It took me three months to burn through that first tank. In February I had to do the first switch. Unhooking the tank was really easy. Hooking it back up proved to be more problematic. Although I thought I was paying attention to the steps when I first saw them when I tried to repeat them I could not get the gas to flow. I could not figure out how to get the hose attachment secured to the tank. I kept trying over and over again, but I was doing the same steps. So I kept getting the same result. No flame.
After a few hours of this I thought I would get my dictionary out and ask my neighbour for help. My neighbour is a tough old lady. I can hear her yelling at her kids, grandkids, neighbourhood dogs, and neighbours through the walls. She runs a tight ship. I figured she would be able to help me out. I went and knocked on her door with my little Portuguese phrase book. She couldn’t understand a thing that I was saying. She just kept smiling and nodding. I motioned for her to come with me. Then showed her the tank and the hose. AH…. She says. Then she shook her head. No No she says and taps her chest. My Yuri. Then she smiled and walked away. She wasn’t going to be any help.
I decided to leave it unhooked. I figured if I went for a walk, and got a pizza I could look at it with fresh eyes. It took until the next morning for me to realize what I had been doing wrong. All I had to do was turn the lever on the hose the other direction. Thirty-six hours to realize this. I relit the pilot light on the hot water tank and took a shower to celebrate. I had started to smell worse than Kootenay.
Last week I ran out of gas again. This time I managed to unhook the empty tank, hook up the new full one, and relight the hot water heater in under 4 minutes. This old dog learned a new trick

Friends!!

I have two friends…. Okay. So I have a few friends at home, but here I haven’t made real friends until now. Vitor works at the cultural center and is a great photographer. Sofi is his partner. Sofi and I don’t know each other very well, but she offered to teach me some Portuguese. Hopefully she will still hang out with me when she finds out how hopeless I am at languages.

They are coming over for dinner tonight. Last week they had me over and made a really yummy duck and rice casserole. We drank a few bottles of wine and had a lovely time.

How did she meet them, you may be asking yourself. Well. One night I was walking Kootenay and Vitor was walking Spock, who may be cuter than Kootenay. We stopped to chat and it turns out that we had run into each other at the Cultural Center. It took the dogs to get us to chat long enough to make friends.

So tonight I am going to try and make garlic ginger chicken with rice. Hopefully I can pull it off with my two elements and electric frying pan. I have few bottles of wine and some bread and cheese if the dinner doesn’t turn out.

Life

You are more emotional now that the Moon is in Aquarius, but you also may feel a bit isolated. You may think you need to show up and do your job, without making a big deal about your unfulfilled needs. You may not be able to solve your current problem on your own, so find an appropriate way to bring your questions out into the open.

This is what Rick Levine has to say about my little aquarian life. It is a bit creepy how much I identify with it right now.

This morning I sat on the beach with Kootenay and contemplated the big questions. You know… Who am I? Where am I going? Where is home? Where do I belong? What do I want my life to be?

When I started the day I had every intention of writing, but instead I watched the sea boil around Pedra do Guilhim. The photo doesn’t do justice to how big the outcropping is. It was amazing to see. Sitting there I realized that I seldom do something without thinking about what is next.

As Rick says that I may not be able to solve my current problems on my own, I am sending these thoughts out into the ether.

Carnaval or for you in Canada Carnival

Each month Nazare comes up with some reason to celebrate. The biggest celebration was during Carnaval. If you link to the description you will probably come away from reading it almost as confused as was experiencing it.

Apparently, if you want to build a float or be part of the parade you dream up your costume and then send your list of supplies to the local municipality. They have a warehouse space where you can work and store your creation and they will supply you with any materials that you need. There were floats on the back of flatbed trucks, cars with streamers, dogs in costumes, kids dressed as super heroes and bums, and wave after wave of women dressed in matching outfits each group dancing to its own song.

If you ask the people here what makes their Carnaval special they all answer the same thing. It is a local celebration… Not a copy of Brazil’s. Then they will shake their head and name a few Portuguese towns that are too “Brazil”. People who grew up here, people born elsewhere but whose parents were born here, and people who now live here all call themselves local. I don’t know enough Portuguese to understand the politics of these groups and know who truly is local, but during Carnaval they all claim local status.

The soundtrack to Carnaval is local. Even without an understanding of Portuguese you can make out the word Nazare in all the songs. By the end of the celebration I wanted to hunt down every copy of all the songs and erase them from the public domain. Now I kinda miss it.

People dress up and dance in the streets. There is a type of public joy you don’t see in Canada. You see people wearing elaborate costumes and right next to them people wearing long johns with a clown wig. And, each person is genuinely excited about the others costume. There is also a tremendous amount of drinking going on. And there is dance. Dance exists everywhere during this time. My favourite moments were when you would see grown men dancing with young girls. The costumed girls and their dad’s/uncle’s/family friend’s spontaneously dance in the streets.

At the start of carnival I woke up to the sound of drums. There appear to be large groups of drummers who parade down the main street drumming. They all wear uniforms and drum. To an outsider there seems to be very little organization behind who drums and marches and when. I am sure there are rules, but they elude me.

Here are the official Canaval photos. Take a look for yourself.

Centro Cultural

A few days each week I head down to the Centro Cultural and use their free internet to do research, email friends and family, and be surrounded by people. It is very much like the bookstore and library area where I work in Vancouver. Unlike Vancouver, where our users are usually quiet and reasonably well behaved adults, this place is used predominantly by people under the age of 16. Kids are not usually quiet and very often not well behaved.

There is a group of five girls who seem to travel the town in a pack. I see them on the beach and they come to the center most afternoons. They know maybe four phrases in English and like to try them out on me. My answers seem of little interest to them. They usually come in and sit on a wooden bench about three feet from me and take turns saying hello. Then they all giggle waiting for me to respond. Then I get a chorus of how are you today. After those two phrases they try to come up with something new each day. I think they are taking English in school and I get the “phrase of the day”.

The boys are even louder. They wrestle, talk loudly, throw things at each other and generally have a good time. Then they settle down to using up the bandwidth gaming online.

There are two guys who try to maintain order amidst the chaos. And they make me smile each day. They are gracious as the girls try out their flirting skills, and fun but firm big brothers to all the young boys that come and go. When they deal with me they smile at my badly translated Portuguese and switch to English to help me. Although, when we were trying to hook my computer into their wireless printer system I did get the phrase “well with normal computers we just do…” PC snobs. Apples rule.

When I sit here I try and imagine the reactions to this scene that the Robson Library staff would have. Yani, Michael, Eva, you guys would go crazy. I can’t wait to show Michael.

Obrigadinia!

I had visitors this week. Three friends from Robson came to town and they dragged with them a friend of theirs from Lisbon. Hopefully he will be a new friend for me as well, when he gets over how disgracefully drunk I got in his presence. These girls are quite a combo. Keenan has a way of making a paper bag fun. Elsa has a grace about her that I quite envy. Laura is starting on her first solo travel experience and I hope it is as fun as she is. Jayme is a friend of Keenan’s and I am really glad to have met him. The four of them shook me out of my routine. We travelled to Fatima, Alcobaca, and Batalha. While we were spared the burden of a vision of Mary, we did see some great sites. There was a true devotee in Fatima who crawled on her knees to the shrine for worship. If only my beliefs were as devote and clear.

We then hit up a local bar and managed to embody the best and worst images of travelling girls. I need to apologize to MVS for the drunk dialing we did. I know how little he cares of it, but we did it anyway. We missed our other Robson folks and wanted to say hi. Elsa managed to captivate a lovely Portuguese flyboy named Carlos and later two cute Italians. Although I understand now that all the email address have gone missing. I guess fate will be in control of the future. Keenan managed to captivate the rest of bar. The owner even started buying us a few free rounds. This was the beginning of my downfall I think. And Laura did not smoke while she was there. I crushed a little on our bar manager Carlos. Who is a lovely guy and I am sure he and his girlfriend will be very happy together. Oh well. Hopefully he will turn into another English speaking friend for me. We helped him close down the bar and then everyone headed back to my place. Why I don’t know. After we got there I remembered that we had drank all the alcohol there before we left. But, that is probably a good thing. I don’t know that I would have had the sense to stop if there had been more. As it was, I spent the next day almost entirely on the sofa. I only got up to walk the dog, shower, drink some water and take Tylenol.

In Portugal waiters will often bring things to your table that you have not ordered. If you eat them you pay for them. This custom drives me a little nuts, because it is not always universally applied. The first night the gang arrived we headed out to dinner. The waiter brought us buns, olives, and cheese before we had even ordered. Luckily they are all so yummy that if you know you are paying for them, you are happy to see them. When poor Carlos (bar manager) brought us a bowl of faba beans to snack on that night we immediately asked… how much. The concern about charges makes it difficult to be gracious. They were free, not particularly tasty, and we ate bowl after bowl.

So, thanks to Keenan, Elsa, Laura, Jayme, and Carlos for such an enjoyable few days.

Now back to work. A novel won’t write itself.

What Up?

I have a question for the men of Portugal.

What is up with the manshake?

There seems to be a complicated number of hand movements that are required each time you see each other. There is the palm slap, the back of the hand slap, the fist bumping top, bottom and knuckle to knuckle. And, all this is often followed by the lean in chest bump with your arms curling around the back of your friend. This is not quite a hug, but more close contact than I am used to seeing in men or boys.

I asked a new friend about this the other day. He is partially Portuguese and is living in Lisbon right now. He had now idea what it is about, but when I asked him about it he new immediately what I was talking about. He has seen it as well.

I see it everywhere. The guys who come into the Centro Cultural where I spend my afternoons trying to write engage in varying degrees of it. Each pair seems to have a different set of motions they go through. I wonder if the level of intimacy between the shakers sets up the guidelines for what they do.

Casual friends = bank of hand and palm slap
School Chums = do the above and add fist bump
Close Friends = do all of the above and add the chest bump

Jayme has even seen the ticket checkers on the subway doing it. It is everywhere man.

So there is my question.

0h by the way, I love the eyeglasses and shoes you wear.

Mondays

Kootenay dug a hole today.
This was not the normal bury your tennis ball hole. This was a deep, my owner is not paying attention to me hole. A nice South Carolina couple and I chatted about pets, travel, life and vinho verde. They rescued greyhounds and the husband carried dog treats with him when he travelled so he would not feel far from his pets.
Elderly American tourists are starting to appear with regularity here. When they ask me where I am from and I say Vancouver Canada a surprising number of them have been there. And they often feel the need to tell me how they really liked the city. Despite the homeless and drug (they whisper pot) problems the add. Friends and family would be proud of my restraint. I have, so far, managed to bite back my thoughts about the tulmult their current government has thrust upon the rest of the world.
Kootenay took my inattention as an opportunity to dig a hole big enough to fit a 50-pound dog or an eight year old in. When this couple and I looked up from our conversation all we could see of Koot were her hind legs and tail. The tail was wagging with abandon like a flag on a child’s sandcastle. The joy she personifies when allowed to dig with abandon was palpable. When I called her to us she backed up out of the hole with the remains of her ball in her mouth. What was left of the tennis ball managed to look like someone had painted a bright yellow smile on her furry face.
How will I ever go back to working?

Wine Anyone?

Portuguese wine rocks. I was going to dinner at a new friend’s house the other night. Wanting to be a good dinner guest I made my way to the wine store to bring an offering. When i say wine store i mean store that has wine. Because, here you can buy wine at the supermarket, at the corner store, at the shoe store….
I went to a store down the street. It specialized in wine and hand woven cotton mats. How these two services found a home together is beyond my grasp of Portuguese. But, they have, and this is where I went to get a bottle of wine. I have been drinking vihno verde. This is a cheap white wine that has a bit of a sparkle to it. I love it. If you can find it go get it. Here it runs about 2.95 euros per bottle.
But, as I was a guest, I thought I should splurge on a nice bottle of red. There were three types of wine over 20 euros. There were a ton of wines for less than 4 euros. It turns out that splurging here is about 7 euros. So I splashed out. I bought an 8 euro bottle of wine and was assured by the man behind the rug counter that my dinner companions would like it. I am used to BC wine prices. I almost felt bad bringing a bottle that seems so cheap.
My hosts were suitable impressed.

Language Barrier

Kootenay and I had the ultimate inter-cultural experience the other day. We were doing our usual morning beach routine. I had a nice cup of tea in my travel mug and was enjoying it in the sun while Koot ran after her ball.

A bus loaded with tourists pulled up and off loaded fifty or so Japanese tourists. When they walked down the seawall one woman caught sight of Kootenay playing and was overcome with excitement. She stood beside me and laughed and giggled each time Kootenay caught the ball and then applauded when K brought it back to us. After a few minutes of this we ended up with the busload of people standing around us. Then Koot’s original fan started to ask me a question. Despite the language barrier I quickly caught on that she wanted to take her picture with K. Not with me.

The tour guide came up to me to ask me some questions. This is where things got complicated. I had no idea what he was saying. I told him, in my best Portuguese, that I spoke English and was from Canada. Turns out that he could speak a bit of French. So I stretched my high school French and came to understand that all of the women from the bus wanted their pictures taken with K. I asked the guide if they knew that she wasn’t Portuguese. He indicated that they did, but they didn’t care.

So now pictures of Kootenay on a beach in Portugal will be in the holiday albums of about thirty Japanese families.

Missing

People have been asking me what I miss. Living here has meant that I have had to adjust. Food tastes different here. There is more seafood than I am comfortable with. My hot water tank and stove run off a tank of butane that I must refill. And, lighting the pilot light for the hat water is not easy. It is also difficult when you don’t speak the same language as the people around you. It can make a task like getting a cell phone fixed a real challenge. It took me three weeks of going from store to store until I found a place that both sold my phone and had someone working there who was willing to use their little bit of English, my little bit or Portuguese and sign language to help me fix the problem. Mostly it is family and friends that I miss. But, there are some comforting things I miss…

I miss Hawkins Cheezies. Little crunchy bits of heaven. The junk food here runs mainly to sweets, and I am a savoury girl.

I miss good loose tea. Luckily I brought with me a few bags of Creamy Earl Grey tea with me, but I am running out.

I miss bags for picking up dog poo. I haven’t been here long enough to just leave it where it falls, like the locals do. I went out and bought some cheap sandwich bags that I use, but see through poo bags are a little gross.

Kootenay misses a few things as well.

She misses her Kong, which I forgot at home. Now if I leave the house without her she gets a treat, but it doesn’t last long.

She misses the little orange balls that are usually used by road hockey players. But for her, they are things to run after that don’t fall apart halfway through a good came of fetch. Tennis balls are too easy to crush.

Nightmares

I don’t have nightmares. Or at least I haven’t had them in many years. The last time I can remember being truly frightened at night was after I watched The Exorcist. I saw that when I was sixteen. Wait. That isn’t entirely true. I did get a little freaked out when I saw Seven. But, neither of those movies gave me nightmares.

Last week I read Irene Nemirovsky’s book Suite Francaise. I was fine if I read it during the day, but when I read it at night I would wake up with nightmares. I have no idea why it bothered me so much. It is not a “scary” book. It takes place during the German invasion of France in WWII, and follows a few characters as they leave Paris prior to its occupation. Then it shifts to depict a number of people in a small town during the German occupation.

The author’s ability to show the best and worst of people under duress gave me nightmares.

Guess I will have to go back to watching scary movies so that I can get some sleep.

And you should look past the ugly cover and read the book.

A Friend for Jer and Ken

This note is for Jerry and Ken. I have met a man who you would both envy. He’s a semi retired marine engineer. He and his mother have driven down here from England in a big motor home and are living down in the harbour. That is where he keeps his 50 foot retired British Navy boat. He has it out of the water right now and is working on it.

He bumped into me in Modela (supermarket chain). He said sorry. I said no problem and we went on our separate paths. I could tell he wasn’t a local by his clothes. He was wearing royal blue short, an old sweater, white mid-calf sport socks, and beat up runners. No ,one from here would be wearing something that unfashionable.

We met up again in the checkout lineup. That is when it occurred to him that I had answered him in English and that my English did not have a Portuguese accent. Well hello, he said. Where are you from?

I gave him my brief outline. I am here from Canada. Renting a place from a friend in Vancouver. Blah blah blah.

Well have a good day. Hopefully we will run into each other again. He replies as he loads his groceries into bags and heads out to the parking lot.

This was the longest sustained English conversation I have had for a while so I nod and say bye.

I gathered up my groceries and headed out the parking lot to untie the Koot and start to lug our groceries back to the house.

You didn’t bring her from Canada as well did you? I stood up and looked around. There was my English man loading his groceries into a basket on his moped.

I sure did. And I have done it more than once now. I replied and made my way over to his bike. I could tell he wanted to ask me about Kootenay. She is the starter for so many conversations. And this one i will understand.

He plied me with a list of questions… How did she fly? She didn’t fly she’s a dog. Ha Ha. She sat in a crate in a plane that carried us here. Were there problems at the borders? No, despite having done a pile of research, and having the dog micro chipped, inoculated, inspected by the Official Canadian Vet, and all the paperwork to prove these steps have occurred not one person has looked at any of her paperwork. We have flown into Germany twice, Portugal twice and once back to Canada. It is amazing when you think about how we and our luggage are x-rayed, swabbed and wanded down so much that I worry about wearing an underwire bra on flights that no one seems worried about a giant fluffy dog and her enormous crate.

Then he moves onto the fun questions. What kind of dog is that? I have never seen one quite like her. She’s part poodle and part golden retriever I reply.

I have been thinking about getting a dog, he tells me. I was thinking about border collie, but I am worried about it on the boat. Before I get a chance to reply he fills me in on his life. He and his mom are down here. He keeps his boat here and then heads out all over from here. He has been to the Azores. Liked it. Sailed down to the Algarve where is sister lives. Hated it. Too many British he says, and the people in Nazare are nicer. The list goes on… Greece, Turkey, France etc. He wants to head over to Canada and the east coast of the US, but that depends on Mum. I am not sure what he means by that. Is he waiting for her to be well enough or….

His boat is a 50 footer. He bought it from the Royal Navy when it was decommissioned. Now he is researching the history of its’ war years. He keeps his moped on it so that he can explore whatever port he finds himself in. He is semi-retired so he spends six or seven months a year doing this and then heads home for the summer. Sound like a life you could live?

They may be ugly, but...

Crocs are comfortable. They may be ugly, but they are comfy. I keep hoping they will hurt my feet. If they did I would be able to stop wearing them. I could put them on in the house like slippers and be sure that they didn’t make their way out to streets. But, instead I find myself two blocks from home, and the look on people’s faces tells me that I have bright green, comfy, foam shoes on. In Nazare these shoes stand out. People and, in particular, women dress up. There seems to be no such thing as casual Friday. Even when they are “dressing down” they are fancy folks. My always-practical Birkenstocks and comfy Crocs scream visitor/tourist.

Someone who had travelled to Nazare asked me if I had noticed the unusual number of people on crutches in town. I had noticed it, but had not really given it much thought. Now I have a few theories. First the fancy shoes and cobblestones really don’t mix. If you take high heels, smooth soles and mix in cobblestones it is a recipe for hurt. If you add moisture, navigation becomes a delicate ballet where only the seasoned survive. You are more likely to lose your dignity than maintain it. My rule on rainy days is to wear pants. If you wear a skirt make sure your underwear are clean, because you are likely to be showing them off.

Here people walking the seawall on a Sunday afternoon would look over dressed on Robson Street in Vancouver. Men are wearing dress pants with collared shirts, and if they do dress down with jeans and runner, they have tucked in cotton shirts and gold and silver lame runners. I have not seen a pair of Chucks and 501s anywhere. The women amaze me. They stroll the cobblestone walkways in delicate heels, pointy-toed high heel boots, wearing bedazzled and faux furred jackets and pants. No one seems concerned with comfort. I seem to be the only person who owns Lycra. Unlike in Vancouver, I am the only person wearing Lululemon clothing here. And I am also the only woman wearing comfortable shoes.

The cleaning lady just asked me to move my chair so she could sweep around me. I could tell she was coming up behind me by the clacking of her heeled mules on the stone floor.

Dalmatian Dad

Your dog is very self-sufficient he said to me today. He has a beautiful Dalmatian that dearly wants to play with Kootenay. I was totally shocked. He spoke to me in perfect English. There was a pause in our conversation while my mind processed the fact that I understood him. Usually I smile nod my head and say fala English while pointing at my self.

She just really loves her ball I end up stuttering out in rely.

No. Even when you don’t have the ball she is just as happy following you down the beach with her nose to the sand. My dog is desperate for another dog to play with him. It is the only time he gets any real exercise. Replies the man who will from now forward be known as Dalmatian Dad.

She is easy to exercise. I reply. Just throw a ball and wait. She brings it back and demands that you do it again. The only drawback is the slobber stains on my shoes. I can’t figure out why I can’t come with something else to say. I seem to have lost any ability to engage in small talk. Have I been out of normal life for too long? I have really enjoyed my days of walking on the beach, reading and even fitting in a little writing. But, could this have all lead to me becoming, gasp, even more socially awkward. And, why is he walking away.

Bye I call out. What I really want to do is scream. She really only plays with dogs she knows. If Dalmatian wants to get to know her she will be happy to run in the waves with him. Then I wonder…. Is this really about K?

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

I think my boyfriend and I broke up today. Guess I should tell you a little bit about him. Kootenay and I met him on the beach. We stand out in Nazare. People here don’t often play with their dogs. The dogs run around and then check back at their owners a few times during the day. Add the fact that I “play” with my dog and I walk around with her on leash and we stand out….

People along the seawall have become intrigued with my ball chucker.

He came up and tried to ask about it. He wanted to try it. So we stood there and “chatted”. What I mean by chatting is that we exchanged the few words I know in Portuguese and the few that he knew in English, and then we smiled and watched Kootenay run up and down the beach.

We ran into each other at the community center the next day. He started walking me home and then I would get K and we would all trek to the beach for some dog exercise time. It was nice.

But, tonight some young hussy came and took him away. He looked at me gave me a little smile and shrugged his shoulders as he left with her. I guess that is what happens when your boyfriend is 12 and he is more interested in your dog than you.

Have I Become James?

I am sitting at a small table in the Community Center / Library using there free internet. I have become a regular. It feels a little weird, because it reminds me of home. I have become the weird foreigner that comes in everyday to use the internet. We had a few at work back in Vancouver. And to top it off I don’t even speak the same language, so no one has a clue who I am or why I am here. So people here are free to make up my back-story. Hopefully it is more interesting than the truth. I am sitting here looking at People magazine on line and ichatting with my sister. But I can hear the waves hitting the shore and if I angle my computer just right I can see them as well.

Post Feminist World?

I miss my MVS, and Matt, and George… They could always be counted on to challenge me and help me hone my opinions. Matt, MVS and I worked together and spent many slow afternoons debating the state of the world. Seems crazy to miss those days when I am sitting with my dog in the sun’s warmth on a beach in a foreign country, but I do. There is no one here with enough English skills to talk to about my most recent rant.

I watched Blood Diamond and thought it was a good film. Then, because I hear so little English, and because it was a DVD and had a directors commentary on it, I watched the show again. The director impressed me at first. He talked about how filming and being in Africa deeply affected him, the crew and the stars.

Then as he was describing a scene that introduced the love interest for the main character he talked about her being a reporter in a post feminist world. He talked about female war reporters who dressed in dresses despite their surroundings and who had relationships with “inappropriate” men and used these as examples of this post feminist world. He seemed to find it odd that despite the circumstances the reporter didn’t want to lose her femininity. It was as if in his mind one must chose between feminism and femininity.

That is when I started to look at the movie a bit differently. At first it was just a buddy movie that turned conventions a little. I was happy that a movie would try to challenge the narrow view of life that Hollywood often brings us.

One point in this movie even moved outside the regular Hollywood path. The female character stepped outside the role of victim and managed to thwart a militia attack. But even this moment was cheapened when a soldier was required to say a line about her reminding him of his wife. In the director’s commentary you find out that she was originally supposed to cling to Leo the antihero, but came up with this idea instead.

The other thing that amazed me about this movie was the implied guilt meted out for women who have, or want a diamond ring. Again the lone female character is forced to defend all women while separating herself from them by declaring that “Not all women want a diamond ring” and “women wouldn’t want a diamond if the new it cost someone their arm”. It turns out that when men treat each other inhumanely, enslave each other to amass vast wealth, and rape and plunder nations it is because of outside pressures….

Okay, it was not that simple an analogy, but it feels that way today.

Where are you guys when I need to talk to you????

Moving...

My dog changed my life. Before she came into my life I lived a nice, quiet, safe life. I had a good job. It was not my passion, but it paid a living wage and had health benefits. I bought a safe fixer up style of apartment in a nice neighbourhoood and fixed it up. I was average and glad of it. While my friends went about marrying, breaking up, and living overseas I was happy to offer them a bed when they needed it and live my quiet life.

Then came Kootenay. Soon after she came into my home the people in my building decided that she was too big to live in our building and offered me a choice. Either I had to get rid of her or move out of the building. This was a difficult time. I had made friends with many of the people in the building and then had to choose between this dog I had just adopted and the security and friendship of the people in the building I had been living in for four years. I chose the dog. It was my first moment of madness. I am not sure I would have been able to make that choice had my sister not been around. She, in her ever practical and capable way, made the choice of moving because of my new dog an easy one. “Of course you’ll move,” she said. As if selling the home I had lived in for four years for a dog I had for only four weeks was the most normal choice in the world.

So with her help and the support of all my family and friends I put my put my house up for sale and planned a future in a new neighbourhood with my new pet.

Luckily I have a friend who knows almost all of Vancouver. Michael introduced me to Tim, who took on selling my place. It was not an easy task. The strata minutes were messy. We, the building residents, had started down a path of unkindness to each other that would be hard to stop. Neighbour picking on neighbour is a difficult thing when you live in such close quarters and like all negative emotions, once you start focusing on the negative it becomes difficult to stop. As sad as I was at losing the friends I had made in the building moving was the right choice. If a dog could cause so many people to be so unhappy it was better to not live there.

So, I sold the place and started looking for a new one. This time I would have a better idea how to read strata minutes and making sure my dog was welcome would be the top concern.