Category: Uncategorized
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Graceland
If you were to take the state of Tennessee, spin it clockwise 90 degrees and squint, you’re looking at the basic size, shape, and orientation of Portugal. That thought experiment also puts Memphis (and Graceland, “thank you, thank you very much”) in the northwest corner, right on the Atlantic. That’s precisely where we are looking…
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New: Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
As we have settled into the first week of our latest Portuguese odyssey, I have been hemming and hawing whether I was even going to blog this particular adventure (and if you’ve ever hemmed and/or hawed at my age, you know the fall risk). Since my entire schtick is Stranger-in-a-Strange-Land/fish-out-of-water observations, I didn’t feel like…
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Portu-gone
Well, it’s time to say goodbye to Portugal and their comically affordable healthcare, their cod-scented grocery stores, and their counterintuitive, rectangular toilets (apparently “a round peg in a square hole” is not so much a metaphor there as it is literal, potty training instructions). And yet, I am admittedly melancholy (as well as 4 mini-bottles…
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Planes, Trains & Automobiles
Since this Iberian odyssey began, we’ve 1) mastered the multi-headed hydra that is the train nexus out of Porto (first class definitely ain’t the worst class), 2) blew most of our tip budget on Ubers and Taxis (where we were exposed to enough saucy, traffic-induced Portuguese to make a Tourette’s sufferer take pause), 3) cursed…
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So SATA to see you go.
There are basically two airlines that fly between the Azores and the mainland on a regular basis. One is TAP, a Brazilian carrier that we have actually flown before in another hemisphere and is memorable because passengers clap each time the plane lands (“Yay, the pilot didn’t kill us!). The other is SATA, which is…
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Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
After yesterday’s unexpected foray into extreme tourism, we decided that our mud-covered clothing deserved a play date with a washing machine or the last leg of our journey in Porto was going to be done primarily in the nude, and I only advocate public nudity at the KLM lounge in Amsterdam. The hotel desk clerk…
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Signs
When we woke up this morning, the weather had finally cleared, and a rainbow seemed to be emanating from the Catholic Church in town. Patty thought it might be a sign to try and go back to the volcano at Sete Cidades and atone for all the “taking of the Lord’s name in vain” that…
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Take Me to the Riber
Before we begin today, here’s a self-serving reminder that it’s easy (and free) to subscribe. Just type your email address in the below box and then click on the “Subscribe” button. If my mother can do it, so can you! I promise not to sell your information to anyone except Nigerian princes recently separated from…
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Weather or Not
Unfortunately, the weather has not been as predictable on this trip as we would have liked, so plans are always in flux. Before getting here, we read that the Azores is a place you can experience all four seasons in one day. Big deal. Muncie, Indiana makes the same claim. Frankly, every shit-show north of…
The Hillbilly Viking 