We're in Switzerland: a more efficient version of Germany, if that's possible. In the lounge we have settled in for drinks, the Wings Lounge along the Limmatquai, we are surrounded by different accents: German, French, even some English; but mostly, German. India is squarely in our sights, as tomorrow morning, we will board a flight that will take us the better part of the day, and land us in Delhi.
The last few weeks have been helpful in preparing us for India. Crossing the border into Spain, nothing was familiar, but after a few days (weeks?) we picked up the words and sense of the country to get by just fine. We figure we will have a bit of culture shock in India, but we'll adjust.
I skipped over Madrid quite quickly in the last dispatch, and we did do some fun things there: a few people have asked how we spent Christmas, and the truth of it is that it was a bit lonesome. The city shut down a bit as people went home to celebrate with their families, and of course, you think of yours when you're away for times like Christmas.
But we made up for it in style: our Christmas present to ourselves was a day at the spa, wandering from different steam rooms and baths, getting pounded by different jets of water to untie knots that muscles had formed themselves into by carrying our packs across Europe.
The tourist visa experience improved dramatically on our return: we were recognized immediately by the girl who had served us the first time, and she processed "part-two" application very efficiently. I felt a little trepidation in handing over the passport for a couple of days, but when we returned a few days later as required, the passports were waiting for us with equal enthusiasm.
So we were able to catch our flight to Faro, in the Algarve - the sunny southern province of Portugal. Apart from being the airport gateway into the Algarve, Faro isn't much to write home about, but it did form a good base for us to hang out over New Year's before heading further west to Lagos for a few more days. We actually spent most of the four days we slept in Faro, making day trips to beaches accessed by taking a ferry from nearby Olhao. The temperature didn't drop below seventeen for the time we were there... I could get used to this.
When we arrived in Lagos, we were greeted at the train station by Manuel, a native to the area who was wondering if we were interested in a place to sleep for the night. Normally I'm a bit skeptical of people who meet you at the station, but after some discussion we figured it would be worth a look. And indeed it was: an upper-floor apartment with a roof-top terrace, a kitchen, for an extremely reasonable price. It turns out that Manuel and his wife Marie live in the ground floor with their two young boys and two dogs, so they're very particular about who they offer the apartments to: we must have looked respectable enough.
The real highlight in Lagos are the grottos. The city is built on the coast of the Atlantic ocean, and the ocean has created some interesting rock formations as a result of thousands of years of erosion. The resulting grottos and beaches look like impossible carvings, mountains of multi-hued rock towering hundreds of feet into the air, surrounded by turquoise-green ocean. On a boat tour of the coast (the pilot gave us the "tour" by announcing the name of each beach as we passed it) I think I filled up every flash card I took with photographs.
After spending a few more sun-soaked days in Lagos we made our way east, back into Spain, to meet up with Amy's mum who came to visit us in Seville. It was a great visit, as we spent a few days in Seville, and then a few days in Granada, to visit the Al'hambra. Interestingly, in Seville, there exists a Moorish castle called the Real Alcazar (royal palace) which exhibits what I might call exactly the same carving styles, amazing architecture, and peaceful serenity. Not that we didn't appreciate the tour of the Al'hambra, which is indeed as awe-inspiring as its reputation would suggest it should have, but if you only had a chance to visit Seville, you'd get a pretty good sense of what was in store at the Al'hambra.
We also got a chance to see a Flamenco dance performance, which was pretty stunning: a guitarist, a singer, and a dancer, all working in coordination. By chance we would happen to speak to a Flamenco guitar student, who could answer my main questions about Flamenco: who takes the lead? The music is so rhythmically difficult (they operate in time signatures like 13/7 or some such) that if you're not extremely well-versed in the rhythm, you'll mess everything up. In the show we watched, everything was in perfect sync. As it happens, the songs are generally well-known among all Flamenco performers, so any couple of professionals can get together and put on a show without any practice (the better ones would put on a better show, I imagine). But like a jazz performance, they take cues from one another: for example, if the singer is extending his rendition of a verse, the guitarist will just have to repeat the stanza he was playing until he gets the sense the singer is done. As well, the dancer can influence the beat of the song by the way she taps her feet, at times, moving the song along onto its next direction.
The oranges, and fresh-squeezed orange juice in Seville (if not all of Andalucia) were and was amazing. They have a special machine for cutting and pressing the oranges which probably jacks up the price, but really, it's worth every penny.
We bid our goodbyes to Margaret back in Seville, spent the night and moved on to Malaga, another sunny part of the Costa del Sol in the south of Spain, and found enough neat places to eat and visit to almost regret not spending more time there - almost - but India was calling. We had bumped up our schedule by a few days in order to spend more time in India. We've spent a fair chunk of time in what has become a familiar place, Europe: time for something new, or at least as new as Europe was when we first got off the plane in Paris.
So perhaps it's appropriate that we're counting down the hours in a lounge inspired by aviation: some of the chairs are actually reclining airplane seats and the whole area has the feel of a 70's-era first class airport waiting lounge. We probably won't see anything like this for a while in India.
I'm not sure what kind of connectivity we'll have in India, so if a post doesn't show up in your email for a few weeks, it's probably either because there's no internet to take advantage of, or I've been felled by a case of Delhi belly!
Showing posts with label ryanair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ryanair. Show all posts
France and Spain and Portugal, oh my
Happy Boxing day! I hope the Canadians reading this have many boxes to plow through this Christmas, and are enjoying the unseasonal weather in Canada. For the non-Canadians, I hope you are enjoying or tolerating whatever weather you are either lucky or unlucky enough to receive. There's a rather longish missive following, as I struggle to recap our last few weeks.
After toiling in the soil for two weeks, Amy and I had decided to pass through the south of France before crossing the Pyrenees towards Spain. We considered a few places we'd read or been told about: Carcassone, a medieval city and Nice and Cannes, higher-end beach cities, to name but three. In the end we figured we'd visited quite a few medieval cities, and after spending a few weeks in the rustic Ardeche, we decided to visit Montpellier, a vibrant city with a big student population.
Montpellier has made great strides in becoming very pedestrian-friendly. The first of which are large blue trams which run along the major streets, connecting the vast majority of the city. In fact, most of the downtown core is open only to pedestrian traffic. The feeling towards cars seems to be very strict; even at stop lights, the city has gone one step further than just relying on the driver to halt at the command of the light: solid steel pylons with flashing red lights raise up out of the street to form an obstacle, and descend when the light is green.
The highlight of our brief visit to Montpellier was a wine tour of the city. Given that we were well outside the height of the tourist season, the local vintners have opted for a different approach to wine tours: instead of hoping people will come to your vineyard where grapes aren't growing, bring your wine to the city. In coordination with the tourist office, a group of about twenty of us walked to three different historical sites in the city and sampled wines from three different winemakers. Our arrival also happened during the release of the new Beaujolais for the year, so these were the wines to be tasted. Our three historical sites were the city's opera house, an ancient apothecary, and a subterranean church. At each stop, a rep from the vineyard was there to describe his or her vineyard's style and offerings, and answer any questions about the wine we were tasting. I didn't retain much from the wine tasting other than they were good, the company was very nice, and being able to taste the wines in a triplet of unique settings was a neat experience. Beaujolais isn't a wine to be cellared, apparently, which seemed to be just fine for Montpellier, where huge street parties were underway to celebrate the release of the stuff. Of the wines we've drunk, I'd say that Beaujolais is one that your average wine-drinker would associate as being the most "winey" - that is, if you were to conjure up a mental image of what red wine tastes like, ie., fruity, jammy, with berries and currant - you'd probably be hitting a Beaujolais.
We were fairly noteworthy in the wine tasting party as being Canadian, and we got questions from several people in the group about Canada. Mostly, did we get certain wines from France? Had we tasted them? They were more than a little surprised to here us defend Canadian wines, and the fact that we have a thriving industry of our own. The only thing Canada seems to be known for abroad are a few things: Dessert wines, Canadian Club whiskey, and Labatt Blue.
I guess we didn't get enough of a taste of wine, so we hopped a train to Bordeaux. I found Bordeaux to be like a smaller and more easily tackled version of Paris: big boulevards, monuments in roundabouts, and most annoyingly, bakers that bake fantastic bread but don't serve coffee. I know it's a French thing, that they do things differently there, but I just don't get it: you bake up mouth-watering croissants, and expect people to buy them to take away. Where? To a cafe, where they brew some coffee to eat them with. And then you have to hope that they don't serve croissants of their own, or else you might feel guilty for having brought food into the joint... it's all very complicated.
It was in Bordeaux that I found it: a boulangerie which actually served coffee. And had tables to sit at. I figure it can only be attributed to the higher-than-normal student population, but for whatever reason, it was a nice way to end our trip through France. The food was good, the coffee was nice (it isn't always the case in France) and the prices were very reasonable. So if you're going to Bordeaux any time soon, check them out: Les Pains d'Alfredo, 14bis rue Duffour-Dubergier, where the street ends at Cours Pasteur. Also a plus: non-smoking interior, with a patio for anyone who wishes to puff away happily.
The other nice find for us in Bordeaux was concerning, of course, wine. It seems that if you're a wine producer and you produce wines in the Bordeaux region, and more importantly if you want to be able to label your wine as an official "Bordeaux" wine, you have to send a sample of your wine to the Bordeaux Institute in, well, Bordeaux, for analysis and qualification. The building for this institute was right down the street from the hotel where we stayed, and had recently decided to remodel their downstairs from an office space to a presentation space, where they would host events and more importantly, offer tastings of twenty different wines from the region on a rotating basis. Le Bar au Vins was not officially open in its grand capacity, but they had dipped their toes into the water by opening the corner bar while the rest of the joint was having its renovations finished. We did get an informal tour of the redone interior, with its hardwood floors, luxuriously comfortable couches and tables, tasteful statuary and high ceilings. I can only imagine the receptions and parties that will be held here, and unfortunately, we wouldn't be able to stay for the grand opening just a week away.
For a few euros per generous glass, we sampled over our two visits a dozen wines; deep, ruby reds, sparkling whites, and a rosé that tasted like a red. Essentially, wines that we would only dream would cross the Atlantic. Some do, but most don't. We were served by the knowledgeable Martin, who answered all of our questions and went into the extremely technical end of winemaking when we asked questions which demanded more complicated answers. I suppose if there are people that really know wine, they probably work in Bordeaux.
I was intrigued by one of his comments, concerning how different wine producers approach the creation of wines. It echoed a theory I have about producers, in that there are essentially two kinds: those who produce a wine to have a specific flavour that is generally accepted by the public as the way a wine is supposed to taste, and those who produce a wine in such a way as to let whatever taste it is meant to have to come through on its own. I think I prefer the second to the first, and Martin was quick to mention that he's had to taste some undrinkable wines because they taste of nothing but the oak barrels they have been aged in. These wines don't get the nod of certification, but they still get sold somewhere. In that case, if the taste of oak is a mark of quality, than I guess there are some that are drowning in it.
While we were at the Bar au Vins, we met an astounding number of non-French people (Maybe it's a tourist thing: we're more on the lookout for interesting places to go in a city than the people that live there. It was the same when we lived in Toronto). One couple we met lived in London, but had come to Bordeaux for the weekend. Airlines like Ryanair are really revolutionizing the way people in Europe live in that continent; if you book far enough in advance (far enough being about two to three weeks), you can get a flight for one penny plus the gate taxes to just about anywhere you can think of. And living in London, it must have made sense for them: a cost for a weekend away in England is much more expensive than it is in France, plus, it's a bit more exotic to be in an entirely different country. While it's revolutionizing leisure travel, if the economic model continues to operate like this, it could even revolutionize a work model. Imagine working five days a week in one country, and then flying home for the weekend. Or flying to Portugal to do your clothes shopping because it's half the price there. The only thing you'd have to put up with, of course, is the actual drudgery of flying.
One last thing about Bordeaux: we saw a movie there. Babel, with Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt. It was alright, if being a bit vague about why it had earned its title. The real highlight there was the theatre we saw the movie in, a converted cathedral named Utopia. A cafe downstairs and five theatres, it's a cinema-buff's delight, as evidenced by the packed theatre we saw our movie in. Our theatre was actually on the top floor of the building, and was decorated with frescoes and statues of Greek gods. Quite the environment.
We'd toyed with a few different Spanish destinations to start our trek into Spain and Portugal. Really, we had only a few weeks to occupy before connecting with our next WWOOF visit in the north of Portugal, and the weather had been souring in Bordeaux by the time we were preparing to leave. So we did what any sane person does when it starts to rain, head for the beaches. We decided to go to San Sebastian, in the Spanish Basque region on the other side of the Pyrenees mountain range.
The more Europe seems to be the same, the more I find myself looking for differences. The first thing I was hoping to find was that the electrical plugs would be different in each country, owing to the fact that I shelled out a few bucks for an extraordinarily nifty adapter which converts any plug to North American. With the exception of Ireland and Italy, this has not been the case. I don't know which country came up with the same plug that every other one seems to be using, but the end result is my fancy adapter has not been getting much of a workout. The differences aren't as extreme as I was looking forward to, other than the language: coffee is appreciated as a religion the further south and west you go it seems, but apart from that, the urbanites are all crazy about cell phones and dress like they just stepped off of a movie set.
However, Spain and Portugal have one noteable difference: their trains run on a track that is a different gauge from France, the only nation sharing a border. Thus, at some point in your journey, you have to switch trains. When we had enquired about trains to Spain in Montpellier, the guy at the counter told us that we'd have to switch at a border town called Irun. But when I ended up buying the tickets in Bordeaux, the lady scoffed at my Irun suggestion and told me that we'd be switching trains in Hendaye. I have to tell you it was a bit unnerving, having one's travel assumptions casually discarded by another official from the same company. Our conversation when something like this:
SNCF woman: Où voulez-vous voyager monsieur?
Me: San Sebastian en Espagne. Je comprend qu'il y a un train à onze heures, avec un changement en Irun?
SNCF woman: No... you switch in Hendaye. I will find it for you.
This happens more often than I'd like: they speak French, I speak French, they switch to English. I don't know whether it's because they want to practice their English, or they want to make me feel comfortable by speaking my (obviously) native language, or whether they want me to please for God's sake stop the massacre of their language with that accent of mine.
Me: (Not giving in) Hendaye? Mais un autre employé de la SNCF m'a dit que c'était Irun ou nous changeions. Aussi, j'ai vue la même au site-web SNCF.
SNCF woman: No, you go to Hendaye. The cost is eleven euros. How did you wish to pay?
Me: (Giving in) Do you take VISA?
As it turns out, you can switch in Irun or Hendaye, and it's actually more efficient to make the change in Hendaye, which is on the same run and twelve minutes earlier. I get now that she was being efficient at finding us the best route and best price, but at the time, I couldn't help feeling that somehow, somewhere, this woman's decision-making was going to haunt us. But it did work out, and we switched trains with plenty of time to spare.
Meanwhile, in Basque Spain, there has been a dramatic campaign to reinforce the distinctive identity of the region. All street and roadsigns are now in both Basque and Spanish, and services are offered in both languages (as well as English, French, and a host of other languages; it still amazes me how many languages most people of Europe are able to speak). The result for me was that the first train ride into Spain was very other-worldly: normally we'd have seen signs that we could translate from French; now we had signs in Spanish and Basque, both of which meant very little in those first few hours. The Basque, especially. Apparently it's a very old language to which linguists are still having a problem trying to identify the origin.
We found quite quickly that things run a bit differently in Spain. For one thing, English is not very common, less common than French (which makes sense, given the proximity of that country as a neighbour across the mountains); in contrast to Portugal, where television and movies are subtitled, everything is dubbed in Spanish. The next difference is that people running pensions (boarding houses) don't necessarily sit around at home all day waiting for people to call; our first attempt at finding a place to stay was met with us ringing a doorbell and not getting any response. However we stopped in at a nearby internet café, and the proprietor, a woman named Cristina, not only answered many of our questions about San Sebastian, but even called up a friend of hers who ran a pension just down the street.
Eating in Spain tends to be a bit differently structured in Spain, as well. While most of Europe subscribes to the theory of having a mid-afternoon break, the generally hotter Spain spreads its schedule out a bit later in both directions. In a conversation with David, a local we'd chance to meet during our visit to San Sebastian, the meal schedule tends to work out like this:
| Time | Event |
| 7 AM | Breakfast; coffee and a bun |
| 10-11 AM | Morning snack; a light sandwich |
| 1-2 PM | Lunch; generally a two-hour affair with several course, wine and coffee. The major meal of the day, preceded or followed by a nap |
| 5-7 PM | Evening snack, sometimes |
| 10-11 PM | Dinner; similar to lunch, but a bit smaller, often earlier in winter due to the shorter day |
In short, David boggled at the North American (and perhaps British) standard of three meals per day, the last at six o'clock at night. As well, the fact that we didn't take a siesta and had only an hour for lunch (or less) was very disconcerting to him.
It's even a bit different in San Sebastian, owing to the Basque heritage. There are certainly formal meals available, but most folks head to the bars, where dozens of different bite-sized (or two-bite sized, in some cases) portions of food are spread out for easy consumption. We did this a couple of times with varying degrees of success: some places made sure the food was fresh, while others I suspect let it linger a little longer than it should. As a result, I came down with my very first travel illness.
We spent longer than we'd originally intended in San Sebastian, mostly because it rained the second day and we wanted to give it a bit more of a chance, and gambled that it would clear up the next day. In the meantime, while it rained, we visited a wine and food convention that featured vendors from a great variety of food-related concerns. Mostly, meat and wine, but also chocolate producers, kitchen utensils and equipment, and coffee. A few observations:
Blue Mountain coffee is some of the most expensive coffee in the world, coming in at around fifty dollars (USD) per kilogram, harvested from Jamaica. I did get a chance to try a cup, and I can testify it has a very rich, robust flavour, but I don't know if I'd pay eight dollars for a demi-tasse cup. Apparently it is meticulously inspected for quality, so that only good beans are shipped. But the real reason for its high price is that over eight percent of the crop is purchased by Japanese middlemen, who keep the price artificially high. I suppose it doesn't help that this particular variety of coffee doesn't grow anywhere else.
Kyocera makes a series of knives out of ceramic instead of traditional metals, interesting in their design in that their blades are pure white. The advantage is that when cutting vegetables, the part that's just been sliced doesn't oxidize; they're also really, really sharp. And they're pretty reasonably priced.
But before I could look forward to that, we visited the nearby city of Bilbao, with its fancy Guggenheim museum (I know there is a Guggenheim museum in Venice, so the Guggenheims must get around), designed by noneother than Frank Gehry. It is an amazing space, with curving hallways that look down into other parts of the museum, cavernous spaces to host exhibitions, and what seems to be a permanent installation of immensely large shaped steel formations. Picture taking long sections of sheet metal and putting them into curves, circules, and waves; the sheets are easily fourteen feet high, so these are installations you walk through.
And then I lost a few days to being sick; not much to speak of there. Just a cold and flu, so those of you with overactive imaginations don't need to be recoiling in horror. While it was unfortunate to be sick in a nice place, it was a good location to be sick in; we had access to a kitchen and the room was inexpensive, so at least we weren't paying a fortune for me to be sick.
Eventually, I got better and we moved on to Madrid. Apart from visiting the city, there were really only two reasons for us to be there: to secure our tourist visas in order to visit India, and to catch a cheap Ryanair flight over to Portugal. We took a bus, which was actually faster and less expensive than a train; it also gave us an idea of just how big Madrid turned out to be. As far as cities go, it's got Toronto beat by a mile; the backup of traffic began an hour outside the city and we inched forward for most of it. Thankfully, the bus company must have built this delay into the schedule, as we arrived almost exactly on time.
Our visit to the Indian embassy will stand out in my memory as an example of how I would not organize an embassy's consular section for the purpose of acquiring a visa. To visit India, citizens of Canada require a visa of some sort: business, tourist, student (and probably a few others). All of these are pretty expensive: a tourist visa is fifty euros, plus (for us) a fee of twenty-two euros to fax our applications back to Canada to make sure we're not terrorists. Amy had diligently done some advance calling to see what would be required, and if we would need to leave our passports there. We were assured we would not. So we showed up to the embassy in the morning (applications are only processed in the morning) to find a room the size of a kitchen, packed with people. Two wickets were open, with an LED display above each showing a number. The numbers were not in sequence, so there was clearly a delineation of service of some time, but there was absolutely no indication of what it was. I decided to take a number for each line and wait.
And wait we did - almost two hours as the numbers inched by. Our mood wasn't improved by meeting an American who had applied for a working visa two weeks ago, only to be told that it would take two to three months to be processed. I could well understand his impatience. However in the intervening time we were able to get English forms for our application (none were available - nor did there have to be, I admit, after all we were in Spain - Amy had to bud in the line to make a quick plea for two) and get them filled out before our first number was called. The wrong number, as it turned out - that line was only for Indian citizens. So we waited some more, and were called. A few keystrokes later, we handed over our money and our passports, and were told that our visas (and passports) would be ready in two weeks. Not good news for us, as we were to take a plane to Portugal the following day. Again, we'd been assured that we wouldn't have to surrender our passports. So much for absolute information.
I'll admit I was ready to lose it; I was on the verge of telling them to stick their country, their tourist cash-grab and their backwards bureaucracy somewhere inappropriate, but Amy was much more politic than I. With a smile and a word, she was able to convince the desk staff of our plight, and they managed what I can only imagine they viewed was an exception for us - they photocopied our passports, and returned the originals to us. To their credit, they did explain that the visa itself must be sealed into the passport, so I understand that they needed to have it for that, but at the time, I wasn't seeing much logic. In the end we've left it that we are to return to Madrid with our (hopefully) approved application waiting for us, and then hand them our passports for two to three days for the consular staff to finish them off.
The rest of our stay in Madrid was essentially a waiting game for our flight to Portugal. It's a lovely city but we expect to spend more time in it on our return from our next WWOOF visit. While we were there, we ate well, walked around the drizzly city and generally tried to get a very small feeling of this immense place. Like most cities, it's broken down into neighbourhoods, and the one we were in seemed to be filled with import/export companies that all showed the same cheaply made blouses and pants. These are the kinds of places (it would seem) that you buy by the hundred. We'll give it more of a chance on our return.
Flying with Ryanair (a budget airline in Europe) has been quite simple to organize - you book and buy your seats online - but the actual doing of it has had its ups and downs. Our trip from Madrid to Porto was no exception. We arrived in plenty of time, checked our bags, and waltzed through security to gate 42. We waited there right up until the takeoff time with no hint from the staff of a delay. It was only when the sign changed from the Ryanair flight details to a flight with Air France details that the crowd went up in arms and wrung some information out of the staff: the plane was delayed. Gradually, new details surfaced: our flight would be departing from gate 46. So a hundred travellers and their carry-on luggage meandered down the hallway to gate 46, to set up a new vigil there. We would wait for fifteen more minutes before someone revealed we would be in fact departing from gate 47: another shuffling of a hundred passengers. We waited a good fifteen minutes there, only to be transferred back to gate 46; we barely had time to put our bags down when we were directed back to gate 47. But by this time they were taking our tickets, so I suppose someone had decided somewhere that this was really going to be the gate, and we all wandered past the gate and down the departure hall, where we waited for another ten minutes.
When they finally advanced the queue of people again, we were let out onto the tarmac where a but awaited us. I can only imagine what was going on with the bus while we the passengers were shuffling around in the airport: the bus going to gate 47 while we were going to gate 46. I'm sure there was a lot of fists waving in the air. At any rate, we finally got to the plane, but not without dozens of people making the joke that in all likelihood we would end up in Barcelona, not Porto.
So here's what I learned about port wine: the port that's fortified with brandy tends to be sold after three years (the "tawny" style) and the red port is just extra fermented and is sold after ten, twenty or thirty years. There's also a white port, drunk more as an aperatif. We sampled the red and the white, and while I'm not terribly partial to the stuff I could definitely see having the white port before dinner. My memories of port, from those who described its proper usage to me, were that it was supposed to "burn a hole through the food in your stomach" to allow you to eat more. Not a great introduction to it, I suppose, but if you drink enough of it, it does feel like its proper usage.
Porto also features a grand bridge of two levels, that allows the local metro to pass on the top and car traffic to pass on the bottom. The elevation difference between the two levels is at least three hundred feet, and it was designed by the same Eiffel who produced something special in Paris, so it does catch the eye. Not in the same way as the tower does, mind you, but it is pretty spectacular.
While we'd thought to stay in Porto and other places in the north for a few days, running into a fellow Canadian, an exchange student named Luke, convinced us that it would be worth taking a quick trip down to Lisbon to see the sights there; we'd also met a Portuguese fellow named José during our circus-act flight to Porto who gave us a few suggestions on what to see during our stay. So we embarked on a quick dip down south and back north again, stopping in Lisbon and Coimbra, before taking a final train up north towards our second WWOOF visit with Norman and Noeme in Valenca.
Like Madrid, Lisbon is a night-owl's paradise, but it is equally majestic with its share of huge buildings, monuments, promenades and parks. While we were there the city was in full swing to Christmas celebrations and you didn't see anyone walking through the shopping districts without at least two or three parcels or bags slung over their wrists.
Lisbon has a pretty simple subway system, but effective: one thing I haven't yet gotten used to are the difference between European subways and the Toronto subway. In Madrid and Lisbon (I've forgotten about Paris's, if we took it at all) the trains arrive from the right: in Toronto, it's from the left. Lisbon has about six routes while Madrid has twelve (it's a big spaghetti mess of lines). But the trains are nice, efficient, and relatively unpacked when we choose to board them. In Madrid the trains are blessedly free of advertising: I'm sure this will not last. Lisbon has the most comfortable seats I've ever sat in.
The other visit was to the Belem area of Lisbon, a suburb to the west, famous for its Pasteleria de Belem, where they serve up a type of pastry they're famous for. Neither Amy or I are great fans of custard, but that's essentially what they are, and they're delicious. The bakery is constantly pumping out dozens of the things, waiters bringing out table-sized trays of piping hot Pastels de Belem where they are bought up by patrons either to eat at tables or to take to go.
From Lisbon we hopped on another bus to Coimbra, a student town, with a long-reaching history of academic tradition that continues to this day. You will still see students dressed in traditional ensembles of black suits and cowls with a white collar; apparently (according to José) there is a strict social system and rivalry between the different academic years. Whole gangs of students get together at the gates of the old city at night, on the prowl for younger-year students that are out after midnight curfew. If they find them, the older ones can cut the hair of the younger; as well, an older-year student can "save" a younger-year. It seems like it'd be a fun place to go to school...
Coimbra was also an exceedingly cheap place to eat, probably given the student population. There are at least two cafeterias that served up huge portions for a pittance: given that I was recovering from a cold at the time, the addage of feeding a cold was well-served. The food was simple, but well-cooked; a welcome relief from some restaurants that feel you have to douse your food in oil, butter and salt to overcome any problems with taste.
We stayed at another pension in Coimbra, where another José tended to us over the four days we stayed there. As we were the only guests during the week, it wasn't that complex for him; he's a short, older guy with snow-white hair and stubby fingers. Any time we saw him, he was dressed in a dark blue wool overcoat and looked very much like he'd just walked up from the docks. He was a really neat guy from which to get the low-down of the city, but the most memorable moment for us was our discussion of what to do with the room key he'd given us. As we were planning to stay for the week, we hadn't figured this would be an issue, but he began by assuring us that when we went out in the morning, we could just leave the key in the door, which we were obviously less comfortable with than just taking the key with us. I will never forget him exclaiming in a heavily-accented English, "It's not hard - when you go out, you just to leave the key, in the door. It is no problem."
We were trying to figure it out after we hesitantly agreed to do so and he left, when he came back a few moments later and explained that he'd been a bit confused and then remembered we were staying for a few days. What he'd described was the procedure for when we were going to leave Coimbra. He would also forget the next day that we'd paid him for the previous night, which lead to a lot of fretting for us whether or not we would be paying again. But in the end he managed to find our money.
It rained a lot while we were in Coimbra: buckets of rain at times, but we really can't complain as we've had such good weather up until now. And as it happened, we brought sun to Norman and Noeme, but I'll save that for the next dispatch. Happy Christmas to all!
Norman and Noeme in North Portugal
It seems we bring good weather wherever we go, and our second WWOOF visit was no exception. Most of Portugal had experienced massive rains and flooding in the two weeks preceding our visit, and heavy rains had been drenching the countryside right up until our arrival. But for the two weeks after we started our visit to Rio Torto in Valenca, it didn't rain a drop, the sun was out, and we were having lunch in the garden.
Our first day, however, didn't look promising, at least as far as the weather was concerned. Our hosts on the other hand, Norman and Noeme, owners of the Rio Torto villa just outside Valenca, proved to be just as charming as the emails we'd exchanged had suggested they might be. We had agreed that we'd call them when we were in Porto, before hopping on the regional train that would carry us to Valenca, and they would pick us up from there. It always amazes me how people can sound differently between different media of communication; on email, Norman sounded conservative and reserved; on the phone, he was jovial to the point of goofy, energetic and full of life. I was caught off-guard because we didn't do the traditional exchange of names and "how-are-yous" that seems to ground a telephone call; he jumped into how good it was to hear us, how much they were looking forward to seeing us and that he'd be there to meet us at the station. When I hung up the phone I had a moment of uncertainty that I might not have dialled the right number, but as I would find out, this is very much a part of who Norman is.
A short while later we were in an extremely rainy Valenca. It was the kind of rain that comes down in five minute torrents of hard-hitting rain, coming in at funny angles, and the fizzles out for ten minutes, only to do it again. Norman had no trouble recognizing us: we were the only western-looking tourists with front- and backpacks bearing Canadian flags to get off the train. Norman also stands out from the rest of the Portuguese: literally, as he's quite tall. Retired from the off-shore banking industry, he's full of life and exuberance, enjoying every waking minute of the day and not afraid to make a big fuss about it. This is underscored by, as he would soon tell us, a health scare that he survived, that has clearly led him onto the smell-the-roses and seize-the-day paths of life to which we should all be paying attention.
On our short car ride back to Rio Torto, the name of their house just outside of Valenca, Norm let us know a little about the area and how they came to be there. Northern Portugal is one of the poorest regions of Portugal, if not the European Union (possibly pre-Romania and -Bulgaria); consequently, if you have saved up a fair amount from working a job that pays you in English Pounds, your money can go quite a far way. Norman retired from his job and bought the property; by western standards it's fairly modest, but their Portuguese neighbours think he's really wealthy.
Their property was quite a contrast to our first WWOOF experience; where Honoré and Ronna have a working farm property that is their primary source of income, Norm and Noeme have (essentially) a house with a large garden, half of it ornamental and the other half undeveloped, but judging from the massive weeds that had sprung up in just six months, extremely fertile. The property has both a front and back yard, with trees filling the front (apple, orange, fig and persimmon) and the ornamental garden filling the back, with trees and smaller plants surrounded by rocks and gravel in an Asian-inspired capacity.
So our job was essentially to remove the weeds, and if we had time for anything else, perfect. I'll admit that the sight of the weeds made me question whether we would actually get them cleared within the two weeks we were to stay. I'm not kidding, these things were massive. The common weed that was completely spread out across any hint of soil was bracken, a brown fern-like weed that had fronds up to two feet in height. The roots of this stuff are very pernicious, burrowing deep into the soil in one long, rope-like tendril. To completely remove it you have to dig deep into the soil with a pitchfork. But the real shockers were a type of weed we couldn't find the name for: "gigantic fuschia mini-trees" might come close to approximating what they looked like. The stalks were indeed fuschia in colour, and for the larger ones, at least ten inches in diameter. The weed shoots straight up and then forks several times, giving it the appearance of a tree, but it doesn't really have leaves; rather, at the end of the forks you have big clusters of what look to be purple blueberries. We didn't try any to taste, but they did leave marvellous purple blots on our clothes.
We met Noeme as soon as we got to the house; much younger than Norman, they had met by coincidence when Norm bought something from Hong Kong, where Noeme was working. It must have been a truly excellent example of customer service as not shortly after Norman was taking a flight for a visit (many emails later, we're assured) and not long after that, they were married. She's a bundle of energy - not used to being retired yet, I suspect - and would often refuse to stop working when the rest of us had taken a break. With her dark hair and Oriental complexion (a bit misleading, as she's originally from the Philippines) she was very generous and lively, and the perfect foil for Norm's boundless energy.
A great example of the two of them together is on the car rides we would take: Norm can't drive what I would call a "normal" car, with the steering wheel on the left; his car is a right-hand drive (or is it left-hand drive? You know, the kind of car designed to drive in Great Britain, on the wrong side of the road). Thus, on certain corners, it's difficult to do a shoulder check to see if the way is clear, and Noeme would have to provide a second set of eyes. And constantly remind him to drive on the right side of the road. They have probably been driving for years, but still they're working out how to signal that the way is clear; it had been "yes" for clear and "no" for not clear, but there was at least one misunderstanding in which Norm had asked whether there were any cars coming and Noeme had replied "No" in keeping with the no-for-not-clear system and the car lurched forward a bit to a squeal of "stop stop stop!" from Noeme. It was only when I manned the passenger seat and was assigned the role of second-set-of-eyes that the "all-clear" rule was developed: that is, regardless of the question asked, the response has to be "clear" in order for the driver to proceed. I'm hoping they're still using this system... Actually, this system has its roots from our first WWOOF visit in the Ardeche, where a similar question would be asked by Ronna on our drive out into town. In typical Canadian fashion, I would respond "You're good" which isn't a very erudite or even grammatically correct way to answer the question. As a part of our long conversation about what makes up the "correct" usage of language, we determined that just answering "the way is clear" would be perfect.
After just the first day we found we had much in common with Norm and Noeme and got along extremely well. When we did start to tackle the garden, we worked mostly by hand to pull out the more tenacious pieces of bracken from the ornamental garden, moving around rocks to make the soil directly accessible. It took us a few days but it was extremely rewarding to see everything take shape. Meanwhile, Noeme started the arduous process of pruning the trees, and after only a couple of days things were dramatically transformed. In addition, we were building up some substantial piles of weeds, the intention of which was to reduce them to ash with some good bonfires.
The fun didn't really begin until we began to tackle the back plots which were slated for use as a vegetable garden. Being completely overrun with bracken and purple monsters, you could hardly see through to the end of the property. It was then that Norm brought out the secret weapon: a gas-powered brush cutter. Six horsepower of harness-carried swinging cutting power, it cut through the bracken like a hot knife through butter, and toppled the purple monsters in a single swoop. It didn't take us more than two days to completely clear the back plot and reduce it to four piles suitable for burning. Very satisfying.
The burning, however, would take some work. We had dreams of being able to throw a single match onto the dry bracken and watch a towering inferno reduce the weeds in mere minutes; this was not to be the case. Quite the opposite, actually. The bonfire strategy went through several stages, including adding various forms of starters (paper, rolled-up cardboard, unpaid bills) to the mix of weeds; adding various accelerants including alcohol, paraffin and petrol, in a pyrotechnic but highly-controlled (Mum, I assure you) way; to finally, constructing a stone "burning table" out of cinder blocks and granite pillars. This final bonfire was the end of a cumulation of highly unsatisfactory burns; the purple monsters were completely filled up with water, so we ended up separating them into a separate pile to let them dry out over the next few months. The main burning area was an area about thirty feet by thirty feet, in the shade of the house, to which they had been slowly adding burnables from last year. The result was a massive pile about fifteen feet tall filled with composting bracken, suitcases, sticks, twigs, tree limbs, and old suitcases. I realized this thing was never going to burn unless we separated it out and started over (I realized this, of course, from a previously unsuccessful burn). So separate it we did, into more or less burnable items, large and small, the purple monster twigs and the bracken. Then we reassembled it into what was going to be the final, "if this doesn't work, we'll bury it" effort, complete with five starter boxes (cardboard boxes filled with two wooden stumps for lasting power, rolled up cardboard, paper, and liberal splashings of petrol) on top of the stone table. I'm happy to report that the thing went up with a great vacuum of air, and a flash of yellow fire that would have been guaranteed to remove eyebrows and lashes if it weren't for the Tiki torch that was used to light the boxes.
Now, I know what some of the more organically-inclined among you are probably thinking: petrol and paraffin accelerants? Suitcases on the fire? Isn't this supposed to be "world-wide opportunities on organic farms"? Yes, there were some conversations about long term consequences, but we also decided to remove all the ash from the yard. It will be some time before the soil could ever be called organic, and my feeling is Norm, when it comes to maintaining the crops he will be planting, will not be adding pesticides or GMO fertilizers; rather, he's the kind of guy that will plant things and be happy if anything manages to sprout at all. And the soil is really, really fertile; there were the weeds to prove it.
In the end, though, there was no way that pile was ever going to burn without something to help it. Believe me, we tried. And the moral of the story is, if you ever have a hard time keeping a bonfire going, just add another suitcase to it; they go up remarkably well. Perhaps some brands better than others.
During our stay, we learned a lot about persimmons. I knew of the name, but couldn't pick it out of a fruit lineup if you paid me; we learned a lot about them because Norm and Noeme had two growing on their property and were wondering what the heck to do with them. So if you've ever wondered what a persimmon is, and what to do with them, here is a brief synopsis of what I learned.
It's a fruit that comes in many shapes and sizes, but mostly, you see a reddish-orange variety about the size of an apple. There are two main varieties: a popular variety which is ready to eat as soon as it is gently plucked from the tree; a sweet, juicy fruit with a few, small seeds in the middle. Unfortunately for Norm and Noeme, this wasn't what they had growing on their property. Rather, they had a variety which can't be eaten without further assistance unless it's so ripe it falls off with a messy splat onto the ground. It doesn't really get to this point because it's attacked by bugs and birds when it approaches this level of ripeness. If you tried to eat one before this, you'd find (as we did) the fruit is so astringent that as the fruit touches your tongue it drains it of all wetness available, leaving your mouth feeling as if you've been sucking on sand. I can't say I enjoyed it. However, the astringency can be removed in a variety of ways: freezing it, exposing it to carbon dioxide (such as the CO2 that's produced by a ripening banana) or letting the fruit ruminate in alcohol. In fact, for the British variety of the fruit, called "Sharon fruit", this is exactly what they do: treat it chemically to remove the astringency.
So, while we tried to come up with things to help them go through their crop of persimmons, I don't know how successful we were. I'm sure there is some more experimenting to be done, but from my perspective, the best thing about the tree is its look when it's hung low with fruit. As well, I'm told the foliage and flowers are nice to look at.
Or, maybe the neighbours will be interested in them, using a secret Portuguese method to turn them into something divine. It would be a very useful trade, and would leave Norm and Noeme feeling a bit better, as their incredibly generous neighbours have a tendency to shower them with fresh lemons, oranges, and eggs; Norm and Noeme haven't got anything to trade back yet, but do suspect that their neighbours happily helped themselves to the figs from their wonderfully productive tree when they were away last summer. So some guilt could be being assuaged here. In the meantime, the neighbours have been very grateful for Noeme's trade back, spring rolls she expertly creates with a delicious recipe.
The weed clearing took us through the first week, so we decided to plunge into the planting of a vegetable garden, to which I had been assigned to design and orchestrate. What the heck do I know about gardening? I think I helped water some string beans when I was four years old in my mother's garden, and remember with some fondness pulling half-grown carrots from the ground and washing them straight in the rain barrel. Apart from that, gardens are where people who know things about gardening, well, do their thing. So it was a bit of a crash course through the Royal Botanical Society's Encyclopaedia of Horticulture (a.k.a. the bible for all things gardening) and "winging it". I was assigned as leader of this particular project mostly for my optimism, not for any particular skill or talent, or even promise of such. In fact I'm sure if Amy had been the one to say "sure, I suppose we could try our hand at that" it would have been her coming up with a plot plan and an idea of what goes where.
Nothing was going to get planted, however until we turned over the soil. For that, Norman decided he needed to purchase one more piece of garden equipment: a rotovator (I think in Canada we might call this thing a roto-tiller). Picture an engine on two wheels, with a set of adjustable wheelbarrow handles that let you steer; beneath the engine, the main event, six coarse steel sickles, which turn at a high enough torque that the earth gets chewed up magnificently. It took a little while to figure out, but when all the parts were fitted together properly we went over the entire plot area, turning up the earth like a hot knife through butter (I'm aware I'm using the same analogy twice. But when something really does work that easily, it truly is the best analogy to use). I can't express the satisfaction I felt when the rotovator went over a purple monster root, bounced around like a bucking bronco for a few seconds, and then produced in its wake softball-sized pieces of root. Much better than spending ten minutes with a pitchfork and shovel to produce a sore back and a few pieces of root.
It was into this fertile, brown-as-chocolate soil that we were going to plant vegetables. What kind of vegetables? In Norman's mind, pretty much whatever he could get his hands on. We went to the market to collect some, and fifty-odd euros later, we came back with a car so packed full of plants and vegetable cuttings Amy had a lemon tree pressing her up against the back seat. We negotiated with the seller to buy dozens of cabbage plants, lettuces, parsley, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and cauliflowers. Our transaction was conducted in a marvellous trifecta of translation: French was our common language, and it required us to translate back to Norman, and the seller to translate to his partner in Portuguese. But nothing would deter Norman; with peals of joy and excitement, he would say "oh yes! Let's have a dozen of those!" and into a bag they would go.
We didn't end up planting all of the cabbage, as we soon discovered that each bunch of cabbage contained a hundred plants, and we had bought at least a dozen bunches. I believe a tribute was given to one of the neighbours of those that were left over from the planting. In the end we planted about three hundred cabbages, all the different varieties of lettuce, and about a dozen each of cauliflower, broccoli and brussels sprouts. Of course it remains to be seen that these plants are actually what they were indicated to be; we can't be sure of what we asked for in French, and what was given to us in Portuguese. We can't even be sure that we were supposed to plant them now or later. It didn't help that it started to frost in the mornings, and at least one of our neighbours shook her head in a way that suggested she didn't think much was going to come of this exercise. But we set up some fabric over top of the fledgling plants to help protect them from frost, and if we're lucky, Norman will be sending us some very promising photographs in the weeks to come.
Our stay with Norm and Noeme was very rewarding, again confirming for me that the WWOOF experience might not be for everyone, but for the most part, is an excellent way to get behind the veil of the country and see it from the inside out. Perhaps less so for this visit than with Ronna and Honoré, as Norm and Noeme aren't from the area themselves, but it certainly helped assuage the culture shock we were feeling in Portugal and was a welcome taste of home (or home-like). Were it not for our mandatory return to Madrid to collect our Indian tourist visas, we would have liked to take them up on their offer to stay over Christmas.
We flew out from Porto back to Madrid where we were pleasantly surprised that our hosts were awaiting our return and we had the same room as before. Our time in Madrid was almost purely devoted to awaiting our Indian tourist visas, us having booked cheap flights to the south of Portugal on the following weekend (we figured if it hadn't come through by then, we'd only be out a little money). So when the visa experience worked out as completely positively as we could have hoped, complete with smiles of recognition and being pulled to the front of the queue, we were at a bit of a loss for what to do with ourselves. In the end, we wandered, I took photographs, we read, we dined, we toured.
And in the end, we took a comparatively boring Ryanair flight to Faro, where we would spend the next two weeks in relative sun and surf in the Algarve.
Our first day, however, didn't look promising, at least as far as the weather was concerned. Our hosts on the other hand, Norman and Noeme, owners of the Rio Torto villa just outside Valenca, proved to be just as charming as the emails we'd exchanged had suggested they might be. We had agreed that we'd call them when we were in Porto, before hopping on the regional train that would carry us to Valenca, and they would pick us up from there. It always amazes me how people can sound differently between different media of communication; on email, Norman sounded conservative and reserved; on the phone, he was jovial to the point of goofy, energetic and full of life. I was caught off-guard because we didn't do the traditional exchange of names and "how-are-yous" that seems to ground a telephone call; he jumped into how good it was to hear us, how much they were looking forward to seeing us and that he'd be there to meet us at the station. When I hung up the phone I had a moment of uncertainty that I might not have dialled the right number, but as I would find out, this is very much a part of who Norman is.
A short while later we were in an extremely rainy Valenca. It was the kind of rain that comes down in five minute torrents of hard-hitting rain, coming in at funny angles, and the fizzles out for ten minutes, only to do it again. Norman had no trouble recognizing us: we were the only western-looking tourists with front- and backpacks bearing Canadian flags to get off the train. Norman also stands out from the rest of the Portuguese: literally, as he's quite tall. Retired from the off-shore banking industry, he's full of life and exuberance, enjoying every waking minute of the day and not afraid to make a big fuss about it. This is underscored by, as he would soon tell us, a health scare that he survived, that has clearly led him onto the smell-the-roses and seize-the-day paths of life to which we should all be paying attention.
On our short car ride back to Rio Torto, the name of their house just outside of Valenca, Norm let us know a little about the area and how they came to be there. Northern Portugal is one of the poorest regions of Portugal, if not the European Union (possibly pre-Romania and -Bulgaria); consequently, if you have saved up a fair amount from working a job that pays you in English Pounds, your money can go quite a far way. Norman retired from his job and bought the property; by western standards it's fairly modest, but their Portuguese neighbours think he's really wealthy.
Their property was quite a contrast to our first WWOOF experience; where Honoré and Ronna have a working farm property that is their primary source of income, Norm and Noeme have (essentially) a house with a large garden, half of it ornamental and the other half undeveloped, but judging from the massive weeds that had sprung up in just six months, extremely fertile. The property has both a front and back yard, with trees filling the front (apple, orange, fig and persimmon) and the ornamental garden filling the back, with trees and smaller plants surrounded by rocks and gravel in an Asian-inspired capacity.
So our job was essentially to remove the weeds, and if we had time for anything else, perfect. I'll admit that the sight of the weeds made me question whether we would actually get them cleared within the two weeks we were to stay. I'm not kidding, these things were massive. The common weed that was completely spread out across any hint of soil was bracken, a brown fern-like weed that had fronds up to two feet in height. The roots of this stuff are very pernicious, burrowing deep into the soil in one long, rope-like tendril. To completely remove it you have to dig deep into the soil with a pitchfork. But the real shockers were a type of weed we couldn't find the name for: "gigantic fuschia mini-trees" might come close to approximating what they looked like. The stalks were indeed fuschia in colour, and for the larger ones, at least ten inches in diameter. The weed shoots straight up and then forks several times, giving it the appearance of a tree, but it doesn't really have leaves; rather, at the end of the forks you have big clusters of what look to be purple blueberries. We didn't try any to taste, but they did leave marvellous purple blots on our clothes.
We met Noeme as soon as we got to the house; much younger than Norman, they had met by coincidence when Norm bought something from Hong Kong, where Noeme was working. It must have been a truly excellent example of customer service as not shortly after Norman was taking a flight for a visit (many emails later, we're assured) and not long after that, they were married. She's a bundle of energy - not used to being retired yet, I suspect - and would often refuse to stop working when the rest of us had taken a break. With her dark hair and Oriental complexion (a bit misleading, as she's originally from the Philippines) she was very generous and lively, and the perfect foil for Norm's boundless energy.
A great example of the two of them together is on the car rides we would take: Norm can't drive what I would call a "normal" car, with the steering wheel on the left; his car is a right-hand drive (or is it left-hand drive? You know, the kind of car designed to drive in Great Britain, on the wrong side of the road). Thus, on certain corners, it's difficult to do a shoulder check to see if the way is clear, and Noeme would have to provide a second set of eyes. And constantly remind him to drive on the right side of the road. They have probably been driving for years, but still they're working out how to signal that the way is clear; it had been "yes" for clear and "no" for not clear, but there was at least one misunderstanding in which Norm had asked whether there were any cars coming and Noeme had replied "No" in keeping with the no-for-not-clear system and the car lurched forward a bit to a squeal of "stop stop stop!" from Noeme. It was only when I manned the passenger seat and was assigned the role of second-set-of-eyes that the "all-clear" rule was developed: that is, regardless of the question asked, the response has to be "clear" in order for the driver to proceed. I'm hoping they're still using this system... Actually, this system has its roots from our first WWOOF visit in the Ardeche, where a similar question would be asked by Ronna on our drive out into town. In typical Canadian fashion, I would respond "You're good" which isn't a very erudite or even grammatically correct way to answer the question. As a part of our long conversation about what makes up the "correct" usage of language, we determined that just answering "the way is clear" would be perfect.
After just the first day we found we had much in common with Norm and Noeme and got along extremely well. When we did start to tackle the garden, we worked mostly by hand to pull out the more tenacious pieces of bracken from the ornamental garden, moving around rocks to make the soil directly accessible. It took us a few days but it was extremely rewarding to see everything take shape. Meanwhile, Noeme started the arduous process of pruning the trees, and after only a couple of days things were dramatically transformed. In addition, we were building up some substantial piles of weeds, the intention of which was to reduce them to ash with some good bonfires.
The fun didn't really begin until we began to tackle the back plots which were slated for use as a vegetable garden. Being completely overrun with bracken and purple monsters, you could hardly see through to the end of the property. It was then that Norm brought out the secret weapon: a gas-powered brush cutter. Six horsepower of harness-carried swinging cutting power, it cut through the bracken like a hot knife through butter, and toppled the purple monsters in a single swoop. It didn't take us more than two days to completely clear the back plot and reduce it to four piles suitable for burning. Very satisfying.
The burning, however, would take some work. We had dreams of being able to throw a single match onto the dry bracken and watch a towering inferno reduce the weeds in mere minutes; this was not to be the case. Quite the opposite, actually. The bonfire strategy went through several stages, including adding various forms of starters (paper, rolled-up cardboard, unpaid bills) to the mix of weeds; adding various accelerants including alcohol, paraffin and petrol, in a pyrotechnic but highly-controlled (Mum, I assure you) way; to finally, constructing a stone "burning table" out of cinder blocks and granite pillars. This final bonfire was the end of a cumulation of highly unsatisfactory burns; the purple monsters were completely filled up with water, so we ended up separating them into a separate pile to let them dry out over the next few months. The main burning area was an area about thirty feet by thirty feet, in the shade of the house, to which they had been slowly adding burnables from last year. The result was a massive pile about fifteen feet tall filled with composting bracken, suitcases, sticks, twigs, tree limbs, and old suitcases. I realized this thing was never going to burn unless we separated it out and started over (I realized this, of course, from a previously unsuccessful burn). So separate it we did, into more or less burnable items, large and small, the purple monster twigs and the bracken. Then we reassembled it into what was going to be the final, "if this doesn't work, we'll bury it" effort, complete with five starter boxes (cardboard boxes filled with two wooden stumps for lasting power, rolled up cardboard, paper, and liberal splashings of petrol) on top of the stone table. I'm happy to report that the thing went up with a great vacuum of air, and a flash of yellow fire that would have been guaranteed to remove eyebrows and lashes if it weren't for the Tiki torch that was used to light the boxes.
Now, I know what some of the more organically-inclined among you are probably thinking: petrol and paraffin accelerants? Suitcases on the fire? Isn't this supposed to be "world-wide opportunities on organic farms"? Yes, there were some conversations about long term consequences, but we also decided to remove all the ash from the yard. It will be some time before the soil could ever be called organic, and my feeling is Norm, when it comes to maintaining the crops he will be planting, will not be adding pesticides or GMO fertilizers; rather, he's the kind of guy that will plant things and be happy if anything manages to sprout at all. And the soil is really, really fertile; there were the weeds to prove it.
In the end, though, there was no way that pile was ever going to burn without something to help it. Believe me, we tried. And the moral of the story is, if you ever have a hard time keeping a bonfire going, just add another suitcase to it; they go up remarkably well. Perhaps some brands better than others.
During our stay, we learned a lot about persimmons. I knew of the name, but couldn't pick it out of a fruit lineup if you paid me; we learned a lot about them because Norm and Noeme had two growing on their property and were wondering what the heck to do with them. So if you've ever wondered what a persimmon is, and what to do with them, here is a brief synopsis of what I learned.
It's a fruit that comes in many shapes and sizes, but mostly, you see a reddish-orange variety about the size of an apple. There are two main varieties: a popular variety which is ready to eat as soon as it is gently plucked from the tree; a sweet, juicy fruit with a few, small seeds in the middle. Unfortunately for Norm and Noeme, this wasn't what they had growing on their property. Rather, they had a variety which can't be eaten without further assistance unless it's so ripe it falls off with a messy splat onto the ground. It doesn't really get to this point because it's attacked by bugs and birds when it approaches this level of ripeness. If you tried to eat one before this, you'd find (as we did) the fruit is so astringent that as the fruit touches your tongue it drains it of all wetness available, leaving your mouth feeling as if you've been sucking on sand. I can't say I enjoyed it. However, the astringency can be removed in a variety of ways: freezing it, exposing it to carbon dioxide (such as the CO2 that's produced by a ripening banana) or letting the fruit ruminate in alcohol. In fact, for the British variety of the fruit, called "Sharon fruit", this is exactly what they do: treat it chemically to remove the astringency.
So, while we tried to come up with things to help them go through their crop of persimmons, I don't know how successful we were. I'm sure there is some more experimenting to be done, but from my perspective, the best thing about the tree is its look when it's hung low with fruit. As well, I'm told the foliage and flowers are nice to look at.
Or, maybe the neighbours will be interested in them, using a secret Portuguese method to turn them into something divine. It would be a very useful trade, and would leave Norm and Noeme feeling a bit better, as their incredibly generous neighbours have a tendency to shower them with fresh lemons, oranges, and eggs; Norm and Noeme haven't got anything to trade back yet, but do suspect that their neighbours happily helped themselves to the figs from their wonderfully productive tree when they were away last summer. So some guilt could be being assuaged here. In the meantime, the neighbours have been very grateful for Noeme's trade back, spring rolls she expertly creates with a delicious recipe.
The weed clearing took us through the first week, so we decided to plunge into the planting of a vegetable garden, to which I had been assigned to design and orchestrate. What the heck do I know about gardening? I think I helped water some string beans when I was four years old in my mother's garden, and remember with some fondness pulling half-grown carrots from the ground and washing them straight in the rain barrel. Apart from that, gardens are where people who know things about gardening, well, do their thing. So it was a bit of a crash course through the Royal Botanical Society's Encyclopaedia of Horticulture (a.k.a. the bible for all things gardening) and "winging it". I was assigned as leader of this particular project mostly for my optimism, not for any particular skill or talent, or even promise of such. In fact I'm sure if Amy had been the one to say "sure, I suppose we could try our hand at that" it would have been her coming up with a plot plan and an idea of what goes where.
Nothing was going to get planted, however until we turned over the soil. For that, Norman decided he needed to purchase one more piece of garden equipment: a rotovator (I think in Canada we might call this thing a roto-tiller). Picture an engine on two wheels, with a set of adjustable wheelbarrow handles that let you steer; beneath the engine, the main event, six coarse steel sickles, which turn at a high enough torque that the earth gets chewed up magnificently. It took a little while to figure out, but when all the parts were fitted together properly we went over the entire plot area, turning up the earth like a hot knife through butter (I'm aware I'm using the same analogy twice. But when something really does work that easily, it truly is the best analogy to use). I can't express the satisfaction I felt when the rotovator went over a purple monster root, bounced around like a bucking bronco for a few seconds, and then produced in its wake softball-sized pieces of root. Much better than spending ten minutes with a pitchfork and shovel to produce a sore back and a few pieces of root.
It was into this fertile, brown-as-chocolate soil that we were going to plant vegetables. What kind of vegetables? In Norman's mind, pretty much whatever he could get his hands on. We went to the market to collect some, and fifty-odd euros later, we came back with a car so packed full of plants and vegetable cuttings Amy had a lemon tree pressing her up against the back seat. We negotiated with the seller to buy dozens of cabbage plants, lettuces, parsley, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and cauliflowers. Our transaction was conducted in a marvellous trifecta of translation: French was our common language, and it required us to translate back to Norman, and the seller to translate to his partner in Portuguese. But nothing would deter Norman; with peals of joy and excitement, he would say "oh yes! Let's have a dozen of those!" and into a bag they would go.
We didn't end up planting all of the cabbage, as we soon discovered that each bunch of cabbage contained a hundred plants, and we had bought at least a dozen bunches. I believe a tribute was given to one of the neighbours of those that were left over from the planting. In the end we planted about three hundred cabbages, all the different varieties of lettuce, and about a dozen each of cauliflower, broccoli and brussels sprouts. Of course it remains to be seen that these plants are actually what they were indicated to be; we can't be sure of what we asked for in French, and what was given to us in Portuguese. We can't even be sure that we were supposed to plant them now or later. It didn't help that it started to frost in the mornings, and at least one of our neighbours shook her head in a way that suggested she didn't think much was going to come of this exercise. But we set up some fabric over top of the fledgling plants to help protect them from frost, and if we're lucky, Norman will be sending us some very promising photographs in the weeks to come.
Our stay with Norm and Noeme was very rewarding, again confirming for me that the WWOOF experience might not be for everyone, but for the most part, is an excellent way to get behind the veil of the country and see it from the inside out. Perhaps less so for this visit than with Ronna and Honoré, as Norm and Noeme aren't from the area themselves, but it certainly helped assuage the culture shock we were feeling in Portugal and was a welcome taste of home (or home-like). Were it not for our mandatory return to Madrid to collect our Indian tourist visas, we would have liked to take them up on their offer to stay over Christmas.
We flew out from Porto back to Madrid where we were pleasantly surprised that our hosts were awaiting our return and we had the same room as before. Our time in Madrid was almost purely devoted to awaiting our Indian tourist visas, us having booked cheap flights to the south of Portugal on the following weekend (we figured if it hadn't come through by then, we'd only be out a little money). So when the visa experience worked out as completely positively as we could have hoped, complete with smiles of recognition and being pulled to the front of the queue, we were at a bit of a loss for what to do with ourselves. In the end, we wandered, I took photographs, we read, we dined, we toured.
And in the end, we took a comparatively boring Ryanair flight to Faro, where we would spend the next two weeks in relative sun and surf in the Algarve.
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