Goodbye and thank you for all the fish

A tribute to my lit professor, of which the following are my favorite quotes and Portuguese expressions he taught us. I apologize for botching the translations

"Time is the best teacher. The problem is it kills all the students. (Or possibly boredom kills all the students.)"

"The Portuguese excuse for everything is 'I'm working.'"
"I'm working so it's cool that I park my car in the middle of the road!"

"O dificil faz-se ja. O impossivel liva um pouco mais tempo."
The difficult is already done. The impossible takes a little longer. (I couldn't read my own handwriting on this one so I have no idea if it's right...sorry Abel)

"Brazil is a boy. Portugal is an old man."

"I'm tired. Why do we have to have class?"

"This is a very Portuguese saying. Better to rely on God-given talents than to be a hard worker."

"You can't teach a donkey new languages."

And my personal favorite..."Goodbye and thank you for all the fish"

Then Sarah knocked over three water bottles

Last night I went to a fado club to hear traditional Portuguese fado music. The best way I can describe it is Portuguese blues, but the term that the Portuguese use is saudades. This is also really difficult to describe. From what I understand, it encompasses a certain nostalgia and heartache and has no equivalent term in English. The Iberian Music class professor organized the trip and graciously invited the rest of the CIEE students along and since I hadn't been yet, and I really had no desire to write papers, I decided to go.

It was a really wonderful evening. The place we had originally been headed to was closed so after dodging an overly eager woman who wanted us to go to her fado club, and stalked us through Bairro Alto while popping bubble wrap (just plain weird...) we ended up inside a very traditional fado house where we were, at the early hour of 9 pm, the only customers. Lucky for them it was a CIEE-sponsored event so we feasted and brought in more than enough dinheiro to pay for their evening. One of the things I really love about Portugal during the holiday season is that everybody here goes nuts for Christmas decorating. It's a fairly Catholic country although most of the Portuguese people I've met are non-practicing but Lisbon goes all out in the blinking light department. Everywhere you go has at least some kind of decoration. Whereas in the US it gets pretty obnoxious (see my next-door neighbors, whose reindeer farm could power a small island) the decor here involves lots of lights strung everywhere and "Boas Festas!" signs. It's also relatively uncommercialized in most places, if that's even the right word I'm looking for and it probably isn't. What I mean is this. At the fado club there were strings of lights on the wall but they didn't look like they'd been strung by a professional lighting team. There was a golden-bellied Santa statue and some shooting star lights on the wall and a couple of strings of lights that had been taped up using clear packing tape. I guess I just like that it's authentic and intimate rather than mass-produced. That could also be a byproduct of being in a local, family-owned traditional fado house. There were lots of people coming and going all night but they all knew each other and/or were related. And you can imagine my surprise when, after the first round of singing by two men concluded, our waiter came to the front and burst out in sorrowful singing. And then the owner. And then the wife. At one point a set of young parents with twin toddlers came in and I was half-expecting the little girls to burst out in song. I think they were related to one of the cooks because a man came out that we hadn't seen yet and scooped up the girls into his arms while the 'rents chatted with the singers and the owner and the waiter. It felt like a scene out of a movie the way they all knew each other. The music was interesting, although I think i would've felt more moved by it if I had understood all the words. The emotion, however, was very tangible. The Portuguese people in the room all looked so sad and while I didn't feel blue, I definitely felt the music in my heart and started dwelling on how painful it is going to be to say goodbye to Lisbon.

On a side note, I ate the most delicious grilled salmon I've ever had in my life. I'm not a huge fish eater in this country partly because they love codfish, they don't love sauces, and I never know what I'm ordering. But I felt the urge to eat fish one more time before leaving so I went with that impulse and it paid off beautifully. I was so full I couldn't even finish my chocolate mousse (a rare occurrence!)

Then, in a moment so fully representative of my experience in Lisbon, the restaurant did not accept credit cards. And we had a 300euro bill. The moment definitely called for laughing although we did have to be serious long enough to pool enough cash to avoid dish washing. Yet, it totally fit the traditional Portuguese evening. In the words of one of my classmates, the great thing about Portugal is that its very informal, unstructured, and nobody seems to be able to explain why but it works.

I wish I could say the same about all of my final papers that I'm trying to finish. For some reason, they are not working even though I am. In other news, today at school there was an impromptu choir concert in the foyer of the main building. It was actually pretty cool except that they had set up in a semicircular formation in front of the cantina so to get to lunch, you had to go back outside and use the exterior staircase to go up to the first floor, go inside and then go back downstairs. Also, there are cats that run around the university campus and they were all inside today so I spent lunch watching them dart around, pondering the fact that in the U.S. I don't think health regulations would allow stray cats to be wandering through the dining hall.

There's also a serious health problem going on with the pigeons. Ok, one pigeon. There's one pigeon that we see nearly every day when we have breakfast on the patio on campus that looks like it's suffering from a drug problem. We call him the crack pigeon which I guess isn't really that funny except that he really is just the ugliest bird in the history of the universe. He also has slow reflexes so when you shoo him away, he doesn't really leave. Oh, cats and crack pigeon, I'm going to miss you! I could write an ode in honor of my poetry paper due this week but I don't have time. Or rather, I choose to spend that free time writing blog posts instead of poems and papers etc. Or packing. At some point in the next 2 1/2 days, I have to pack. We'll see how that goes.

TCHAU

Can you pass the joy, por favor?

Today was an intense day. I had a final this afternoon that I didn't feel prepared for so that was sort of hanging over me all day. And yesterday I had a final that prevented me from studying all day for today's test and you get the idea. This morning we had a festa with all of the Americans (all 11 of us) in Portuguese. We combined the beginner and advanced classes and ate chocolate salami (no meat involved) pastel de nata and sandwiches and quickly relapsed into speaking English. After the festa in my literature class my professor, who had professed last week that we shouldn't skip class Tuesday because he had a surprise for us, gave us all organic bourbon vanilla chocolate from this specialty shop downtown and it was muito delicious. It gave me a much needed energy boost to go to the flea market and do some souvenir hunting. I was supposed to go Saturday morning but the pouring rain and gusting wind made the outdoor market a less appealing option than staying in my PJs and going back to sleep.

I scored big at the flea market and this one couple liked me so much they gave me a free vintage shot glass that has a picture of birds and flying plums on it. Exactly when plums learned to fly is beyond me but it was another great example of Portuguese people being extremely nice and so receptive to my mangling of the Portuguese language.

No electrico (on the tram) on the way back, two men started yelling at each other in Portuguese and one of them stood up looking like he was about to hit the other man, who was very old, and the tram driver stopped the tram in the middle of the street and jumped up to break up the potential fight. I unfortunately have no idea what they were yelling about but everybody on the tram got very involved and this one woman, who I had thought was crazy because she was talking to herself the entire time, stands up and makes some gesture at the men, grabs her friend from the front of the tram and gets off. I realized that she wasn't talking to herself the whole time but I was really confused because we were sitting at the back of the tram and her friend was at the front but her voice wasn't any louder than a normal face-to-face conversation. Muito bizarre. Then I studied and went to take my test and now I feel a huge sense of relief that I have only two papers left to write and then I'm finished with all my work.

Why do I bother writing this? First, because the incident on the tram was hilarious/frightening. Second, because yesterday my Brazilian friends left and I was extremely sad all day so it was nice today to be back in some kind of a routine even though the dorm is unspeakably lonely without my group. To remedy this, we are going to a fado club tonight. Fado is traditional Portuguese music and it's very intense. It's the one really touristy thing I figured I would do here that I haven't done yet so the last week seems like as good a time as any to squeeze it in. I have just three days left and then Saturday morning I fly home. It's an occasion that feels like it calls for some kind of final blog post or something but I just don't think I have it in me. And I think I'd rather spend the time walking around the city visiting my favorite places and soaking up as much of the Portuguese sun as possible before heading home.

So if I don't make it back to Portublog before I make it back to the states, boas festas and thanks for letting me share my experiences.

OH! And before I forget...a neat little discovery. The really big expensive grocery store near my dorm has a whole fresh cheese section that I only recently began indulging in because of expense and overwhelming pastry addiction. Yesterday I couldn't decide what kind of cheese to get and that's when I discovered dun dun dun......a cheese sampler!! Instead of a whole wheel or a half wheel of one kind of cheese, I got smaller half-wheels of four different kinds, all still individually wrapped so I can enjoy them separately and cut them myself and everything! And that's when I realized that I felt extremely uncultured because I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to cut some of them with my Chinese store butter knife. A discovery that would've been great to make three months ago but a great one nonetheless.

Tchau tchau os meus amigos! Ate logo (literally)

What do cow print, chandeliers and the solar system have in common?

Well, it seems that I fail at blogging because I am now officially three weeks behind. Yikes! So much has happened over the past few weeks and I so want to do it justice but I simply do not have time because finals are upon me and the next two weeks are going to be full of nothing but papers and tests. All of that on top of trying to get souvenirs, pack and say the sad goodbyes that are inevitably coming no matter how much I try to slow down time. B-L-A-H. I'm procrastinating as it is just to write this.

Here is the briefest of briefs to recap the past three weekends:

1. Surf trip to Peniche, Portugal. A beautiful and relatively secluded beach in a pretty, simple beach town with a big group of friends. We drove out there which was great because I got to see a different part of the countryside than I would've on a train, which to this point is the only way I've traveled around the country. I was half terrified, half excited about the surf lessons. Terrified, because who willingly runs into the Atlantic Ocean in November?! Excited for obvious reasons. The lesson was a great success. I got up on the first try (and then promptly fell over) and managed to actually ride a few waves before frostbite kicked in and I realized that the wetsuit I was wearing was wet. i.e., freezing. I want to say more, but time is ticking. A fantastic weekend. I took the bus back to Lisbon because I wanted to get back Saturday night and that, too, was actually pretty amazing. Again, seeing a different part of the country in a different way. In a truly Portuguese fashion, the bus station was closed, even though the bus was scheduled, so I had to get off at the next station and purchase a ticket. I wouldn't mind going back to that beach or taking more surf lessons. Both were great. The fact that they were in the same day is just beyond words.

2. The Holy Seat. ROMA! I went to Rome for Thanksgiving weekend, which was a long weekend for me because the Monday after was a Portuguese national holiday. It was great to travel, be with family (Hi Daniel, Aunt Nancy and Uncle Mark!!) see a beautiful city full of famous landmarks and eat gelato. I was bummed about not getting to see the Pope BUT I did get a different kind of holy experience. After a cold, rainy afternoon walking around Rome (seeing the Ecstasy of St. Theresa, among other things!) we stopped in a beautiful Gothic church. I needed to use the bathroom so I asked a monk (selling postcards, no less) and he said in Italian that I needed a key. So Aunt Nancy helped me ask for the key and he sort of sighed and then reached under the table for a huge key ring and then beckoned for me to follow. I trotted along behind him into a side hallway, where he unlocked an iron gate, beyond which was a darkened chapel leading off to other chapels. Turns out it was the sacristry. There was a long row of huge wooden confessional-looking booths along the side of the room, so you can imagine my surprise when he crosses the chapel and starts fiddling with the key at one of the booths.

No worries. This pit stop did not require confession. The door actually led to a stone hallway behind the sacristry where I finally found the bathroom. There were buckets of roses on the stairs and the monk turned around and left me in peace. I was a little surprised at the complete and total abandonment in this clearly off-limit area of the church and was even more surprised when I went back into the sacristry and all the lights were off and the gate was closed. Uh oh. Luckily, he had cracked the gate a tiny bit so I could get out and then I hurried back into the church where my aunt and uncle are bursting with laughter as I come out with what could've only been a seriously surprised and confused look on my face. I guess you have to See it to believe it.

3. ESPANHA! This past weekend, another long weekend, I went with my friends to Salamanca and Madrid, Spain. Another fantastic weekend that again deserves way more blog time than I can give it. I was really excited to realize that my Portuguese this semester really paid off because I could understand and actually speak a little Spanish. Sad that I had to go to Spain to realize I could speak Portuguese, but still, better late than never. We discovered a sandwich chain called "100 Montaditos" a sandwich shop that offers 100 different montaditos, small baguette style sandwiches. Sarah and I ate there three times because it was just THAT GOOD. I could probably rant about food all day because we ate so well but I will content myself with saying that while Rome was amazing from a historical point of view and I got to be with family, especially for Thanksgiving, traveling with friends was a completely different and wonderful experience. I laughed to the point of tears, danced in the country's biggest club, got lost, feasted on churros, laughed, laughed, and laughed some more, surrounded by the people who had really made this semester what it has been. It was a really amazing way to cap off the most incredible semester. My brazilian friends leave this weekend and I leave the next so it was really special to have a long weekend away together. Also, everybody had told me before the trip that I should go to Barcelona instead of Madrid so I didn't have super high expectations. But if you want my recommendation, Madrid is a fantastic city and the people are, for the most part, wonderful. And now for one story, very different from the holy toilet tale: In Lisbon if you're looking for nightlife you go to Bairro Alto and wander from bar to bar listening to music, meeting people, etc. It's a very street-oriented culture. In Madrid, you still wander around a lot on the street but since the streets are wider, it's less stand-around-outside and more wander from place to place; it's destination-oriented. So to get you to come inside, the bars station employees outside on the street to talk to people and engage them in conversation and eventually convince them to visit the bar and then lead them to said bar and get them in without paying a cover charge. Since I was with spanish-speakers, this was easily done and we were able to get into bars and clubs for free. One of the places we went had bright orange walls with cow print accent walls, glass chandeliers and plasma TV screens playing pictures of the solar system.

The solar system and cow print.

I don't know what else to say other than it's been an exhausting three weeks but I wouldn't trade any of it for more sleep or more free time because it's been exciting, fantastic and so much fun. Time to buckle down for finals and somehow find it in me to focus and go to class instead of enjoying the beautiful sunshine that we STILL have even though it's December and it's raining across the rest of Europe.

TCHAU!


No time to rotate, sorry!



The answer, before I even ask the rhetorical question, is "No, it doesn't get any better than this."

Onde e o Papa?

I am so busy I should not be allowed anywhere near the internet, but I have neglected o Portublogo for just a bit too long so I am writing...really only to say that I don't have time to write right now.

If you would like to help me write one of my papers or sit in for an exam, I will gladly update my blog. Otherwise, be content with the tiny update that I went to Rome this past weekend for Thanksgiving and the Pope stood me up for our gelato date.

How rude. Be back sometime soon, hopefully. If not, it is only three weeks until I return to my home continent, as my parents and my calendar seem to constantly remind me. No time to dwell on that though. I have to work, work, work so I have time to enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. Tchau! Don't let the winter weather get you down.

Queluz? No, QueLOST.

As these things sometimes happen, I sort of accidentally went to the wrong town for my art history visit on Friday.

It was an honest mistake, really. We had been talking about visiting Queluz for a few weeks and then my professor switched the visit the week before. With no email reminder, and no working computer with which to check said nonexistent email reminder, I sort of just forgot we were going to Oeiras and went to Queluz instead. Whoops.

Annina, Sarah, Rene and I wandered through the town, enjoying yet another indescribably beautiful day. The town's main feature is a large Baroque palace nestled at the foot of an undeveloped hill, which basically means that when you stand in front of the palace and look out to the left, you honestly feel like you have been transported into a different century. When we first got off the train, we hopped into a pastelaria to ask for directions to the palace and, surprisingly, did not stop for a pastry. I did see a small sign in the window for "pasteis de cervejas," or "beer pastries." Intriguing, but I found it amazingly easy to pass up that particular opportunity. The instructions we received were "walk past the rotary and then pass 3 more." What he really meant was walk past 4 rotaries and then keep walking down the long tree-lined boulevard, past the old men in their boinas sitting on the ledge until you come into a large empty cobblestoned square and you'll eventually see it, as it's impossible to miss. And it wa. Even though a few times we thought we were probably going the wrong direction, it wasn't until we eventually arrived at the palace that we figured out we were in the wrong town. The first clue was that no one else from our class was there even though we were 20 minutes late. The second clue was when we opened Sarah's notebook and saw the note about going to Oeiras. And the final clue was when we called our professor and explained that we were in Queluz and she said "oh, well you should be in Oeiras."

These incredible detective skills are just one of the many talents I've picked up in Portugal.

After realizing that finding the bus to Oeiras and getting there would consume the better part of an hour, we decided to stay in Queluz. After all, there is a palace there, too. We wandered around the main (empty) square in front of the palace and waltzed into a cafe for a little afternoon caffeine boost. The cafe was decorated in velvet zebra print on the outside, i.e., a complete and utter clash with the baroque palace looming behind us. Sunshine mandated that we sit outdoors and we spent the next twenty minutes squinting, partly at my IceTea which came in a glass with ice. Crazy. We went back to the palace and the lady behind the desk in the ticket office gave us the "Are you back to ask more ridiculous questions about a palace that is not in this city and a teacher that isn't here?" look but we got the last laugh because the tickets were free since we are os estudantes.

I knew a tiny bit about Queluz before we went, mainly that it is the Portuguese attempt at Versailles. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting but what I saw was amazing.



I've never been to Versailles, but this was gorgeous. Notables: Almost every room had a different chandelier, many of which were quite extravagant. Most ceilings were painted, too. The only room entirely covered in azulejos is a room that I don't think even has a proper name. The sign said that the room was used as a storage space for the glass tubes that protected candles from draughts.

An entire room for glass candle coverings. Wow.

The other reason Queluz is so famous in Portugal is its beautiful gardens. Only a small portion of the gardens are currently open to the public, which is why our field trip was switched in the first place, but the part that is open is stunning. Pictures cannot accurately convey but I'll attempt anyways because words fail me. You get one:

Ok, two:


And finally, one more note on the palace for which I do, thankfully have words: as we wandered through pretending to be art history students (standing back from a painting or tiled wall or piece of furniture and looking thoughtful) and discussed the various Rococo and Baroque and Neoclassic elements etc., we skirted around groups of school children on a field trip. We wandered through one room and lo and behold, there is a man in a powder wig and tights plucking at some kind of instrument. Again, what century is this?! Giggling and asking in Portuguese if we're allowed to take pictures, we skip through to the next room, a royal receiving room where even more of the anomalous 18th century nobles are dancing as part of a performance for the little Portuguese kiddos. We plopped down on the floor with the school groups and stifled our laughter and amazement as yet another little unexpected moment completely made my afternoon. I've seen plenty of reenactments in museums before, but for whatever reason these actors seemed to add to the authenticity of the scene rather than seriously detract from it.

After making our way through the palace and the gardens, we attempted a different route, through the town rather than around it, to get back to the train station. Even in the main part of town, Queluz is a quiet, intimate place. The locals were incredibly friendly, smiling and waving on the street and not hesitating to help us when we asked for directions. A town right out of a fairy tale. We stopped for hot popcorn and hot castanhos (roasted chestnuts) from street vendors, making friends along the way. The Portuguese are just so friendly. It's wonderful to feel welcomed.


Queluz was one of the better mistakes I've made while I've been here. We get lost all the time on our way to art history visits and we do get to see a lot of the city that way. But there was something about ending up in Queluz on a gorgeous quiet Friday afternoon that just made it special. Maybe it was the sense of freedom that the weekend brings, or the guys in the car that thought we were taking pictures of them so they started waving, or the lush green rolling hills rising gently above the pink palace...it was so utterly peaceful and relaxed. A truly wonderful afternoon.

Before I move on to the rest of my weekend, I have to backtrack to embellish my descriptions of the Palace of Ajuda, if only because it was the coming out party of my newly repaired camera and my return to being trigger-happy. Interesting trivia: After the earthquake, King Jose was terrified to sleep in a stone building so he moved the entire court to a royal complex at Ajuda where they all lived in tents. For a time, the Portuguese monarchy lived in and operated from a set of tents and a single coach where the Marques de Pombal organized the rebuilding of the city. This strikes me as so utterly Portuguese. Running a country from a tent in the wake of major disaster... They were all about business; they didn't waste time building a palace first and then building the city. Yet a tent is such a temporary structure and is completely incompatible with the grand palaces of 18th century Europe. How contradictory, and how perfectly Portuguese.

Anyways, Ajuda was originally supposed to be even bigger than it actually is but they ran out of money to complete it. And when I say ran out of money, they literally ran dry and just stopped wherever they were.





(Oops)


And the library. You can tell I'm sneaking this picture because I was half-hiding the camera behind the bookshelf in the bottom of the frame.

One final thought: when I went to drop off my computer the other day I was so excited to have discovered the bus that goes directly to the front door of the computer repair shop that I didn't even pay attention to which direction the bus was going until after I ended up on an unfamiliar highway. After getting off the highway, the street curved and the side of the highway was covered in a 15m high rainbow of azulejos. Stunning. Even the highways are covered in tiles here. I don't think I could ever get sick of little surprises like this. Every single day is full of them and it's one of the many, many things I love about living in Lisbon.

Oh, and it's Christmastime in the city. The malls are completely decked out for the holidays without Thanksgiving to discourage them from starting in November. (Actually, the department store near my dorm started decorating in October but that's another post for another time)


The closest thing to snow this city ever experiences, considering that the day I took this picture in mid-November it was 21 degrees Celsius. (approximately 69 degrees Fahrenheit)

TCHAU!

TexMex...sort of.

I am a full week behind in posting so it's back to bullet form:

• Sunday afternoon, in a celebration of my new freedom after 2 terribly busy weeks, I went to the Gulbenkian garden to read. I sat in the grass and eventually took off my shoes, digging my toes into the cool carpet beneath my feet. I took off my sweater, getting some sun on my bare arms, and I munched on a pear while I wished my sunglasses weren't broken. Did I mention it's November? I think it got up to somewhere in the 70s that afternoon, hotter in the sun. I was so grateful for not having to stay inside and work, no matter how short-lived that respite would be. It's a sin to pass up such beautiful fall weather.
  
• Sunday was my roommate's birthday so after convincing her not to buy her own birthday cake, we took her to dinner and threw her a surprise party. We went to a Mexican restaurant in Belem overlooking the river. It was dark, and I was amazed to see that even on the edge of the river, there aren't a whole lot of lights along the banks. It felt very peaceful; still in the city, yet removed from the hustle and bustle. My first fajitas in 3 months were not quite up to TexMex par, but they were still delicious. You could definitely tell that it was Mexican food being cooked in Portugal: the beef was decidedly unmarinated. The Portuguese don't really believe in sauces or flavoring when it comes to carne...Despite the obvious differences, the food was really good and it was a nice taste of home. Guacamole tastes that much better when you haven't had it in months. Our waiter was Brazilian and I got really excited when I could distinguish the different accent. Ana taught us how to make cat ears out of napkins so that's how we passed most of the night when we weren't eating or singing happy birthday. Upon return to the dorm we hurried to blow up the balloons and light the candles without Tati noticing and then we told her to come to the study room where we blew whistles and woke up most of the 2nd floor. Whoops.
  
• Monday evening we went to a reception at City Hall for International Students Day. The room in which the reception was being held was super fancy, a Baroque bubble in downtown. Red velvet curtains sweeping 30ft down from the ceiling, which was painted and gilded with portraits of famous lisboetas, marble columns, chandeliers...although the mayor spoke mostly Portuguese, he did address us briefly in English. After that, Sarah and I retreated through the crowd to get some air in the foyer, whose ceiling is painted to look like it's carved. That's when we found the food. Normally, when I think "reception," I think non-messy finger food like cheese and crackers, generic chocolate chip cookies and soft drinks, maybe fruit juice. Apparently when the Portuguese think student reception, they think port wine and savoury pastries. If I ate shrimp, I could've made a meal out of this reception. The fancy room opened up to a balcony overlooking the square in front of City Hall, where my friends spent much of the evening looking at the stars and enjoying ourselves. Then a DJ started playing in the big room so we hopped back inside to dance. It was pretty cool showing up to what I thought would be a generic reception and staying to dance. Apparently Lisbon really wants to show its international students a good time. I don't have the vocabulary to tell the mayor that he really doesn't have to put on a reception for us to enjoy this beautiful city.
  
• Wednesday we went to the Palacio de Ajuda for my art history class. It's a massive neoclassic palace built after the earthquake with one of the most complex and beautiful entryways. The entry is a set of 2 round statue galleries, full of statues personifying the qualities of the king. In my opinion, it was a bit vain and contradictory, decorating your palace with statues claiming your humility and generosity to the people, while you build yourself a massive palace. The interior has been completely modernized to house the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, but the library is intact. The two stories are stacked floor to ceiling with books in peeling covers. To access the higher shelves you have to climb a rickety 15ft ladder. One of the librarians was wearing a white lab coat and brushing the pages of an extremely large, old volume. The paper crinkled as she steadily turned page after page, looking for stray eyelashes and dust. It literally felt like walking into another century. My professor gave me the "I'm disappointed that you'd be so crass as to take pictures in such a sacred place" look, but I snuck in a few anyways. I had just gotten my camera back less than 24 hours before. After a month of not being able to take pictures, I wasn't about to pass up such a beautiful place. (When I get my computer back I will post said pictures so you can fully understand the fairy tale quality of this library)
• I used the Gulbenkian library for the first time this week. Talk about complicated. It's free to get a library card but the online registration is entirely in Portuguese so it took a few minutes. After filling out the form on the computer, you go into the library itself and into this tiny Reference office. There, you sit with one of the librarians, for lack of a better word, where they go over your registration form and print you off your library card. Once you have your library card, you go back to the computer room, where you scan in your barcode and type in a password. Then you can search. Once a list comes up with your hits, you click on each individual link to see if it's what you need. If it is, you click another link which takes you to another page that says "are you sure you want this item?" You click yes, and a little machine prints off a receipt with a number on it. Then you wait for that number to be called up on the screens around the room and only then can you finally retrieve your materials. I can understand the desire to not have students browsing through the collections making a mess of things, but it's a whole lot of procedure. The library has huge windows looking out onto the garden. On the one hand, it's nice that I can still enjoy the beautiful day from inside. On the other hand, it's torture to have to be inside researching while such a beautiful day beckons from the outside. I guess I can't complain too much. It's November and warm enough for short sleeves.

My computer is waiting to be picked up at the repair shop so once I pick it up tomorrow, I will have both my camera and my computer and I promise I will post some pictures of the weather I can't help but brag about. Until then, tchau!