Miracle of miracles, after a long and exhausting day yesterday, Oliver and I managed to get ourselves up and out the door by 9:30 a.m. this morning, destination: Stuart Little.

We raced over the draw bridge and caught the Metro with seconds to spare. By the time we we arrived at the Casa da Música 30 minutes later, it had started to rain; we happened upon a taxi, asked him to take us to the Hotel Impanema Park, and were glad we did when it turned out to be just a little more than too far to walk, rain or no.

This morning’s programme — a screening of Stuart Little with sundry crafts activities surrounding, and a Happy Buffet to finish — was organized by the intriguing Associação para a Medicina, as Artes e as Ideias — the Association for Medicine, Arts and Ideas. Upon arrival at the hotel we were greeted by AMAI co-conspirator (the ebullient) Cristina Basto, lucky for us an English speaker, and she gave us the lay of the land. When she told us the film was to be screened in Portuguese — something, truth be told, I’d foolishly never considered — I calmly acted like I knew all along.

And so I’ve come to think that the test of a good childrens’ movie is if it can hold the attention of kids, and their parents, in a language they don’t understand at all. I’m happy to report that Stuart Little meets this standard; but for some confusion about the identity of the strange kidnapper mice who spirited Stuart off to the mini-golf course hideaway, both Oliver and I got the whole thing. I was especially happy that it was a bona fide film presentation, with real film and a real projector; nice to see that video projection hasn’t completely overtaken the world yet.

While we had planned to leave once the film was over, Cristina invited us to stay for the aforementioned Happy Buffet. This turned out to be a very kid-centric spread of soup, rice, potatos, hamburgers, fish cakes, sausages, potato chips, brownies, chocolate mousse, fruit salad, and a Stuart Little cake, all for 10 EUR each. Suffice to say Oliver and I got our money’s worth and Oliver, being ebullient in his own way, worked the room and managed to introduce himself to almost everyone (including Cristina’s husband Filipe and their two children), find out their names, and in some cases explain the intricacies of his jean jacket to them.

By the time we emerged into the drizzly afternoon at 2:00 p.m., we were well fed and happy and feeling that, as long as there are people willing to organize Sunday morning movies with Happy Buffets, all is right with the world.

Catherine rang in on the mobile to announce that she’d decided that she wanted to join our caravan of fun at this point, so we arranged to rendezvous at Fundação de Serralves where we’d had so much fun on Thursday. Catherine hopped on the 500 bus and Oliver and I, after buying an umbrella to ward off the rain, ended up walking for 5 blocks in the wrong direction before seeing the error of our ways and hopping on the 207 bus that took us almost to the Serralves front door.

By the time we hooked up with Catherine, the sky was blue and the sun was out and it was a beautiful, beautiful day. We started our visit where we’d left off on Thursday with a visit to the Casa Serralves, a mid-twentieth century home filled with art deco treasures the likes of which you seldom see all gathered together in one place:

We learned later that the entire collection in the house is owned by one collector. We wanted to move in. At the very least, I think I should have T-shirts printed up with “Bring Back Art Deco Now!” on them.

Famished by all the fab art deco action, we headed down to the mid-park Tea House and enjoyed tea served in beautiful china, warm scones, smoked salmon sandwiches and a piece of chocolate cake, all under the newly sunny skies. While Catherine and Oliver ran off to order the cake, I pulled out my mobile and had a brief instant messaging exchange with Olle up in Copenhagen, readying the ground for the next leg of our trip while still basking in the glow of the first one.

Before leaving Serralves for the day, we popped in to the book shop (if you are ever shopping for architecture books, this is the place: they have a very broad collection). Catherine and Oliver ran upstairs to the washoom, and while they were waiting for me to arrive, who should they run into by the aforementioned ebullient Cristina Basto, now ferrying around North Carolinian visitors. While in most cases bumping into someone like this would strike me as an amazing coincidence, life with Oliver is full of such things; his social aura is great.

Filled with art and tea and chance encounters, we hopped back on the 207 bus and took it down to near the mouth of the Douro and had a very pleasant walk along the waterfront towards the ocean. Along the way we got caught in a sudden downpour; our dampness was rewarded with a series of stunning rainbows over the city:

We finally reached the end (or is it the beginning?) of the Douro, and we turned right towards Matosinhos, stopping at the first restaurant we met, which happened to be a fondue place. Catherine has been wanting to pull me into her fondue cult since we met 15 years ago, and her dreams were finally realized; we shared a tasty meal of shrimp, bacon and cheese fondue followed by dessert of chocolate fondue (making Oliver’s chocolate intake for the take about 16 gallons). My only misgiving about the fondue lifestyle is fear of boiling oil spilling all over Oliver; I was running emergency extraction manoevers through my head throughout the meal — oil spills, I lunge in front of oil protecting Oliver, etc. Fortunately I never had to put them into action.

We finished off the evening by walking through to the end of the Esplanadas da Foz, and caught the handy 500 bus all the way back to where, 12 hours earlier, we’d begun our day.

And we thought we were exhausted yesterday. Way too many photos for my own good if you’re interested.

We spent a couple of days in downtown Porto at the end of this week.

Yesterday all three of us made a late trip in, taking the 502 bus all the way from Matosinhos into the Bolhão station. While the bus started out empty, by the time we got to the centre of Porto we were packed in like sardines and it felt good to get out of the can.

We wandered into the Mercado do Bolhão, and then grabbed a coffee, tea and hot chocolate (regular readers will recognize the drink assignments) at a small place called Deu 4 Deu around the corner. As it turns out, we missed the famous Majestic Café by just a block; we passed it as we made our way towards the river:

We didn’t mind, though, as the waiters at Deu 4 Deu were very nice, and accommodated Oliver’s eccentricities well.

We then walked up to the Funicular dos Guindais, which runs down the hillside to the Douro. When in Porto, don’t miss the opportunity to take this Funicular; it’s only a regular transit ticket fare, and the view is spectacular and the ride harrowing. At the bottom of the hill we found ourselves directly under the beautiful Ponte Luiz I:

Of course we also found ourselves at the bottom of Porto with a need to get back up to the top. We thought we had it made when we found an elevator that, for 1 EUR each, took us all the way to the top. Unfortunately this was some sort of trick elevator that didn’t actually allow one to get anywhere once at the top. Other than down. So we ended up walking halfway down the side of the hill again, and then through a large road tunnel into the lower part of the city.

Then it was up the hill again to the Metro where Catherine and Oliver rode all the way home and I diverted to buy clothes for Bob (Oliver’s doll and mentor) and other sundries at Norteshopping. We were all exhausted by all the up and down and slept well.

This morning Oliver and I headed out into a drizzly morning towards the Matosinhos Public Library. Unfortunately by the time we got there at 13h it was just closing, but we had an excellent snack at the library café on the mall (libraries here seem to have bars and cafés built in as matter of course; this is a Good Idea).

We then made our way through the almost-rain to the Metro, and rode back into the downtown hill country. This time we walked up the hill from São Bento station; on our way up, Oliver took the hand of a passerby. Said passerby, while initially shocked at the offer, was delighted by the Oliver, and proceeded to walk hand-in-hand with him all the way up. At the top we said our good-byes and then happened upon the wonderful Livraria Lello bookstore, an art deco paradise, and perhaps the nicest store I will ever be inside in my entire life:

I felt a strong obligation to buy things from them so as to offer my support to the beauty they maintain, so we spent 30 minutes browsing and walked away with a good selection of Portuguese childrens’ books.

We continued “down-river” through various interesting alleys and squares, eventually taking a very, very steep hill down towards the water. Halfway down the hill Oliver announced he had to pee; normally this would, hidden inside the rabbit warren of an old downtown as we were, present a grave problem. As it happened, however, he announced this exactly as we walked by some sort of city-run community laundry, shower and washroom facility. It was beautiful, clean, and just what we needed.

Sated, we continued down to the river where we caught the antique electric trolley down-river until its terminus where we hopped on a convenient bus 500 that took us right back to Matosinhos Mercado, by way of the stunning oceanside road.

As on Friday, all the up and down took it out of us, and as I type Oliver and Catherine are fast asleep. Oliver and I plan to get up tomorrow morning and make it into the Hotel Ipanema Park for 11h for a free showing of Stuart Little. It will be a miracle if we make it.

Last night I found myself in the café at the FNAC store at Norteshopping listening to a group of musicians who call themselves Oddawn provide live music for a showing of a film called Comboio de Sombras by director José Luis Guerín. It was a chance encounter, and the music was beautiful; I recorded a couple of audio snippets on my phone (hence the poor quality that does only vague justice to the music and the musicians).

Trying to figure out just exactly who Oddawn is, and where I can get some of their recorded music, has proved something of a challenge. The group is described here as follows:

Música é luz ou negra, é cor ou cinzento, é silêncio ou movimento, é rugosa, fria ou quente, ou, tão somente, puro sentimento. Oddawn pretende ser tudo isso, na fracção do tempo da sua existência.

This appears to translate to something like this (courtesy of Google Translate):

Music is light or black, it is color or cinereous, it is silence or movement, it is rugosa, cold or hot, or, so only, pure feeling. Oddawn intends to be everything this, in the portion of the time of its existence.

That doesn’t exactly clear things up. The members of the group, as of 2004, are listed as:

• Helena Guerreiro - voz
• Florbela António - acordeão e metalofone
• José Soares - guitarras
• Henrique Fernandes - contrabaixo
• Raúl Vieira da Silva - bateria
• Filipe Ferreira - guitarras e metalofone
• José Gabriel - sonoplastia

In other lives: vocalist Helena Guerreiro appears as part of group Trama in this recording of Caso Fora d’Horas / Sugar Cloud; accordion player Florbela António is part of the group Le Partisan (MP3s here); and standup bass player Henrique Fernandes is one of the Lost Gorbachevs. Everyone else appears to be, at least as far as the web is concerned, anonymous.

If you happen to know more, and can point to people or MP3s, please let me know. In the meantime, if you happen to be in Porto tomorrow, May 22nd, you can catch a repeat of the event at FNAC in the Gaiashopping mall at 17h.

Today was International Museum Day. I hope you knew that, because if you did you would have taken the day off and gone to the museum. And it would have been free, and you would have had a good time.

This morning Oliver and Catherine headed out early to the Museu da Quinta de Santiago, just 5 minutes from our house here in Leça da Palmeira. This being International Museum Day, the museum was unveiling its new audio guide, and Catherine and Oliver had the privilege of being the first users.

After lunch, we headed over the draw bridge to the Metro, and headed south to the Casa da Música station, located next to the Casa da Música, a building that deserves its own visit:

Once there we hopped on the 201 bus and headed towards the ocean, getting off about a mile later near the Fundação de Serralves, our destination.

Fundação de Serralves is a veritable museum-, art-, and park-lovers paradise: the sprawling verdant grounds house the Museu Serralves (a museum of contemporary art designed by Alvaro Siza — see my post about visiting the tea house he designed), Parque Serralves (home to a rose garden, scented garden, working farm and innumerable other delights), and Casa Serralves (an historic home, and extension of the museum).

Like the Casa de Chá Boa-Nova, Siza’s museum building feels like part of the landscape; this is not “big dick architecture,” but something rather more heartfelt and organic (although still monumental and awe-inspiring). In many ways Siza could be considered a sort of antithesis to Frank Gehry.

Having forgotten to eat lunch and thus being somewhat catatonic (see 2005), we began our visit with a trip to the fourth-floor cafeteria (although because of the nature of the building, the effect is more “second floor” than fourth) and had a tasty meal of pasta, sandwich and drinks.

Next we conducted a whirlwind tour of the contemporary art; nothing hit me over the head with a rake, but it was all interesting, and Oliver was especially impressed by a room full of paintings all of which incorporated the letter ‘T’ somehow.

After the museum, we headed down the entire length of the property towards what was promised as a “working farm.” In turn this took us past a rose garden, through a towering forest, past a tea house hidden in the woods, through a huge garden of scented plants and finally to an intriguing collection of stone farm buildings surrounded by an organic vegetable garden in full bloom. In one of the buildings we found some very, very long-horned cattle, some rabbits, a horse, some ducks, a turkey and a pheasant. It was all very bucolic. And thus a rather unusual part of a contemporary art museum.

The 7:00 p.m. closing time drawing nearer, we dashed up the spine of the park, through the rose garden, and made it to the front entrance just as things were winding down for the day.

We thought we would have plenty of time to spare, but as it turns out we’ll have to plan another visit to be able to see it all — we skipped half the grounds, and the entire Casa Serralves. I can’t think of a better way to have celebrated International Museum Day, though.

Catherine decided to take advantage of the early opening date for the Da Vinci Code movie here in Portugal (it opened here today, one day in advance of the U.S. and Canada), so she headed off to the multiplex at Norteshopping via bus and metro while Oliver and I hopped on the handy 502 bus that took us right back to the Mercado metro station, passing through the north end of Porto, by the ocean, and through Matosinhos on the way.

Oliver and I enjoyed a dinner of leftover pasta, codfish cakes and potatoes, read Pinocchio in Portuguese, and had some chocolate cake before dinner.

Who knows what we’ll do tomorrow.

As requested, here’s a photo of the Portuguese fruit that we can’t find an English name for:

Okay, here are two tasks for the smart ones in the readership to help me with.

First, I came across a well-designed OS X application that made manipulating Flickr photos and tags and descriptions much easier. It was heavy on the clean typography and was well-designed. Might have actually been a web app. Might have had a name like “Meebox” or something like that. Any ideas?

Second, we have purchased a type of fruit here in Portugal that is new to us. About the size of an apricot with an apple-like exterior and a consistency and taste somewhere between peach and pear. Two largish pits at the core. Orange or “ruddy” colour. Our local grocer can’t tell us what the name in English is.

Catherine takes photos too. Be prepared for many windows and doors and interesting buildings (as opposed to the “no dogs allowed” sign photos that you’ll see in my Flickr).

What’s the main problem with an invisible restaurant? It’s hard to find the door. Thus our problem finding our way into the Casa de Chá Boa-Nova — the Boa Nova Tea House, a restaurant of some reknown here in Leça da Palmeira designed in the mid-1960s by Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza. Siza’s design, it says here:

…is about ‘building the landscape’ of this marginal zone on the Atlantic - through a careful analysis of the weather and tides, existing plant life and rock formations, and the relationship to the avenue and city behind.

In other words, the place blends in in a deeply serious fashion. So we found ourselves coming around the back by mistake, and having to ramble over some serious boulders to get to the front door.

It was worth it. Catherine said it was like eating at Frank Lloyd Wright’s house — and it was:

As I’d managed to fumble my way through making a reservation over the phone, a table was waiting for us. But for a large German tour group spread out over half the restaurant, we almost had the place to ourselves.

Our head waiter was Balthazar — we know his name because Oliver asked him — and the service was a perfect in that “slightly officious but with knowing winks to let you know that everyone’s in on it” kind of way. I continue to be amazed at how taking Oliver to a chi chi place for dinner — in a way that we would never imagine doing at home — seems like second nature over here; he was well cared for.

We started with appetizers of seafood soup (me) and avocado and seafood (Catherine and Oliver). Main course was “sea perch” for Catherine (she said “like perch, but bigger”) and grilled hake for me, with Oliver sharing all ‘round. On the side was creamed spinach and boiled potatoes. Service was interesting: food was rolled to the side of the table on individual large platters and then served in two identical “settings,” each on a clean plate. It was very civilized and makes me think everyone should do it that way.

For dessert I had a chocolate mousse (I am a creature of habit) and Oliver and Catherine shared a banana split (when I say “shared” I mean “Catherine got one bite”). I finished off with a cup of strong black tea (it being casa de chá after all).

I can tell I’m getting euro-acclimated: the 1/2 bottle of wine for dinner is making me less loopy. At least I think it is.

After what ended up being an excellent dinner in a stunning sea-side location, we headed off on a brisk 30 minute walk home along the beach, which was a great way to end the night.

Every time I’ve set up my GSM mobile phone with a new SIM card (see What is a SIM card?) previously, it’s involved a somewhat complex process. For Croatia and France I ordered before traveling from Telestial and the complication was mostly in the time and expense (about $60 to get started each time). For the U.S. (T-Mobile) and Switzerland (United Mobile) I bought SIM cards once in-country, and there was, in both cases, lots of paperwork and showing of ID, and it took about 30 minutes. It took about the same amount of complication to get a Rogers SIM in Canada.

Last night I walked into the FNAC outlet at Norteshopping, picked up an Optimus SIM card package from the rack, paid 9,90 EUR at the checkout and walked out. It took about 2 minutes. This morning, Catherine walked up to the local post office and did something similar, for the same cost, and ended up with an UZO SIM card.

For both of us the process of getting our mobile phones working was: insert SIM card and turn on phone.

Both the Optimus and UZO packages had the phone number and PIN for the SIM card included in the pack. We didn’t have to dial up anyone to register or activate service; it just worked.

So we’re now both toting Internet-surfing, call-making mobile powerhouses (I’m carrying my Nokia N70 and Catherine’s got my old T610). Of course we’ll mostly just end up calling each other to see if we need anything from the bakery on our way home (although if you dial up Reinvented and “press 1 for Peter,” you’ll ring through automagically to Portugal too; I’m just waiting for my first telemarketing call).

What with all the vigorous museum going the day before, yesterday we took things slowly. That Oliver woke up at 6:00 a.m. forced Catherine and I into an extended bout of tag-team sleeping and child-rearing that let us both emerge, by noon, with our wits somewhat about us. We took the afternoon “off” and rambled about the house, had a tasty lunch of cheese sandwiches, and by 5:00 p.m. we were ready to climb back onto the horse of adventure.

While we like the museums and ye olde architecture and the old world ambience as much as the next couple, Catherine and I have a secret love of overseas retail as well; Europe might not have invented the shopping mall (well, I think they actually did, back in the middle ages) they’ve certainly refined it to high art. And we’re suckers for that. So Monday became “a day at the mall.”

Although I’m becoming better at figuring out how Portuguese works, I still found it somewhat difficult to figure out how to actually get to the mall by public transit. Either nobody every goes there that way (malls are, after all, a car-centric invention), or the directions were hidden away in Google behind a keyword I could never find, but when we headed out to the Metro, I was only about 25% confident that we weren’t going to have to jump across several freeways to get there.

As it turns out, it’s really, really easy to get to Norteshopping (“the mall”) by Metro: you just get off at the Sete Bicas station (only 15 minutes from Mercado near our house), and walk one block left out of the station and one block left from there; the mall is on your right (I had help from a policeman along the way, but it’s really very obvious).

Norteshopping didn’t disappoint. Here are some of the highlights:

• A food court to end all food courts; I had a bowl of hearty soup, a salad of green beans, lettuce and mushrooms, a fresh roll, and a glass of fresh-squeezed juice all for 5 EUR; Catherine and Oliver had what she called “the best Chinese food I’ve had since I was in Vancouver last year.”
• A “check in your children” centre: parents can enjoy the delights of the mall while their children are, for 2,50 EUR/hour, cared for by trained (English-speaking) staff in a centre that includes 10 “theme areas” running the gamut from “dance and movement” to “new technology.” Think “the IKEA ball room, but with intention.”

• Stores the likes of which you’ve never seen; for example: at least a dozen stores devoted entirely to children and mothers: maternity wear, strollers, car seats, furniture, shoes, toys.
• A giant working steam engine. For no seeming purpose whatsoever other than to illustrate the principles of steam engines. Oh, and the steam feeds an espresso bar.
• An art gallery. In the middle of the parking garage. You have to see it to believe it.

• A multi-plex with shows that run to 3:00 a.m. every day (!)

The whole mall itself is open until midnight every night. We came close to just moving in.

But 9:30 p.m., after experiencing all of the above and doing our grocery shopping to boot, we headed back home. Twenty minutes later we were ensconced in our little stone house back in the last century.