valencia on a bit of luck

today, june 27th, we flew from porto to valencia via madrid... sometime in march, i bought plane tickets on iberian air... very simple, very normal... now, me being the genius that i am thought i was purchasing tickets to fly on the 27th of june. like i wanted... but apparently, i bought tickets to travel on the 27th of july... i screwed up. and we got to the airport and had problems and then the iberia lady was like, ahh, your tickets are for 27 july, thats why tehre is a problem, so she changed the tickets no problemo. and off we were to madrid... the fun part of the airport in madrid was the screen with the flights and gates gave us a gate, but not a gate number... and didnt give us a gate number until 10 minutes before we were supposed to board... this was a very tiny plane (see picture) and i was seated in the emergncy row, just behind the engine... so it was a bumpy ride across spain, not that i mind a little turbulence. its just i was in the emergnency row, so i couldnt have my backpack under my seat, and it wouldnt fit in an overhead compartment... BUT the stewardesses didnt see it, so i kept it between my legs the whole flight... with my book on my lap, covering it up... glad i have a navy/black backpack... and most airplanes have navy carpeting... so its hard to see the dark on dark in the dark... iberian air's regional carrier is called air nostrum... they have the hottest flight attendants ever. czech air's are nice, iberian's are nice.. ive heard good things about air france... but one of our flight attendants looked like jessica alba, but she never smiled, so that was sad. so then we landed, and the bmw excursions people werent there, and mom was like they should be here, look around and see if you find them. and then one of the guys in a bmw oracle shirt walked in, and i was like, hi, we're the lancasters, and we cant find anyone. and apparently, they had us coming in tommorow... (they also had us coming in on a flight that landed on 27th july...) oops! which was fine, because that flight landed at 13:05... and we landed somewhere closer to 15:00 so we got to the hotel at 16:00something... and everything is hunky dory now.

porto

one should arrive in porto by train from the south on a foggy/overcast day. one minute youre traveling along by the beaches of some atlantic town... and the next youre making a sharp curve to head towards one of the bridges over the rio douro... the city is perched on bluffs overlookin the river on both sides. the city tumbles down to the river. when teh river emerges out of the fogs and clouds, and you see the bridges over the douro and then the town, its a very dramatic entrance... in the neighbourhoods around the river, the riberia, the buildings look ramshackled and cobbled together from whatever comes to hand... some have tile fronts in the portuguese fashion, some have plain stucco, some have red tiles made to look like bricks, some have corrugated steel, and some have what look like wooden shingles covering sides of the buildings... the only thing uniform in the appearance of the buildings are the terra cotta roofing tiles. the riberia is a unesco world heritage site now, so the style of the buildings cant be changed. the vegetation is lush and green, its a very charming place indeed. to me, strolling along the streets and the view of the town from the river, are how i would picture an antillean town in the 18th century. and indeed, this is probably somewhat how they would have looked, because the luso-spanish architecture was fairly prevalent... if i was filming a movie aboth the caribbean, and i needed a place for filming the town... porto's water front would be the place. the only major complaint i have in about porto is the sea gulls/pigeons poop with little regard for the inhabitants... in two days i was pooped on twice by sea gulls... once on each side of the douro. porto is famous for port wine, the grapes are grown waaay up the douro river, like 100km inland. the wine gets brought down the river to porto, technically villa nova de gaia, directly across the river. the port ages in warehouses in villa nova de gaia, and today, the port houses let people come to look and enjoy and taste their port. they used to use these viking-esque looking boats to carry barrels of port from the warehouses to ships waiting to take it to england and other places... but mostly england. and every year on the sunday after st john the baptist's festival they have the races... about 15 oft he port boats race up the rio douro... and it ended right in front of our hotel room. so that was fun to watch.. some of the other port boats have been converted to take tourists up the river on cruises... and thats fun as well. but those use motors instead of sails so it's not quite the same... but porto is great. unlike most of spain, it's rarely hot here. the atlantic breezes keep the temperature down. the highs have been in the 70s and lows in the 50s... so its nice during teh day and cool at night. and there are not large numbers of americans here, so its nice... although i have seen lots of russian tourists in big giant groups...

sea gulls suck... i wonder how they taste. the joys of porto.

im poaching wireless right now from someone else. i'm in porto right now. which is 3 hours or so north of lisbon by high speed train... we got up to 225kmh... porto is good. i will talk about it more later... but a sea gull popped on me today. i now have a vendetta against the rats of the sea... that is all. for now.

sintra and the tragi-comedy of driving in europe.

so, yesterday we were in sintra, which is about 30 miles or so from lisbon. sintra is at the top of a ridge named after the town... the roads are incredibly narrow, with lots of sharp turns with obstructed views. the whole area is lush and green and cool, the temperatures seem to stay in the 60s. the town sometimes reminds me of a german town at the foot of the alps, partially because the pena palace was, i think, designed by a german architect (possibly the same one who built schloss neuschwanstein in bavaria) the moors built a castle on the heights not far from pena palace, and part of the national palace of sintra (first picture) as well. today that castle is mostly ruins, picturesque ruins high on a peak above the town. the moorish influence extends into the design of the town, which has many narrow tiled streets, with twists, turns, and arches... the muslims were expelled from portugal and the town became popular in the 19th century as a vacation spot close to lisbon for the royal family. the royal family had german connections, which explains a little of why the town in some parts resembles a bavarian village, if it was set in the hills and forests of portugal. today it is a relaxing tourist spot. the pace of life is fairly slow compared to lisbon, and the city is much, much, much cleaner. the fun part of today was trying to leave, our plan was to proceed from palacio seteais to obidos, about 100km north of sintra, and spend the night at the pousada there. pousadas are gov't run hotels some of which are set in historical buildings (similar to the spanish paradors) but, mom was having difficulty handling a stickshift in the hills, and i've never driven a standard (except for 5 minutes in an east german trabant, where the stickshift is on the steering column, when i was 16.) so we stalled out multiple times going up a hill, and there was a guardia nacional republicana trooper behind us, and mom asked him for help, and he drove it a little ways up the hill, and then stopped, because the car was ok. and then, mom couldnt get it going again, so she flagged down two german tourists (they have to know how to drive a volkswagen, right?) and they took it into town and parked it, and i told mom we should get out, and walk along, and relax and let her calm down. so, we decided that was enough of the car and that we would go back to lisbon today, and tommorow, and take the train to porto on sunday. we went to the tourist information office, because we didnt know what else to do, and the man there helped mom deal with hertz rental car, they wanted mom to bring the car to the nearest rental place, which was 15 miles away in cascais, mom didnt want to drive it in sintra, so the tourist office man offered to help us, and drove us out of sintra, and then mom took over driving to cascais. while mom was talking to the car rental people, i went outside to book a hotel room in lisbon for the two nights we'd be there... where we had a whole new comedy begin to ensue. i called amex, and asked if there were any places available at lapa palace or the york house, and then he said no, but there was a spot at the ritz carlton, thinking that was the ritz four seasons, i said, ok, thats fine. apparently, he had booked me in the ritz carlton, only it isnt in lisbon... it's 30km from here between cascais and sintra... in the mountains. when we got to cascais, we dropped off the car, and got a taxi to the ritz in lisbon. he brought us to the ritz four seasons, and i was having premonitions of being at the wrong hotel. these came true when i said i had reservations and they couldnt find them, but since i made them that day through amex, it was possible they didnt have them yet. so they gave us the daily rate, and said theyd change it when they got in touch with amex. when we got to the room, and i checked my email, it turns out, i was right, they had booked us at the ritz carlton, which was in the booneys, so we called amex, and complained about why in the world would we ask for a hotel in lisbon and not mean being in the city, especially when the two places i asked for where in the city. they saw the point, and fixed it. so that was quite an adventure in portugal today. the past three days we did lots of sightseeing, combined with the somewhat stressful morning for mom, we decided just to take it easy today. thats much easier when you have a nice view.

palacio de seteais

the first real palaces i saw were the zwinger in dresden (former home of augustus the strong of saxony, and sansouci and the neues palais in potsdam, seat of the hohenzollern family... ever since then, i've grown to love baroque and rococco architecture. so, when i found a hotel in one, i had to go, especially, when i found out it was just 30 kilometers from lisbon and next to the city of sintra, where the portuguese royal family used to vacation. i think this palace im staying in was built by the dutch ambassador to the court of portugal. outside, it's a fairly simple structure, two large square buildings connected by a triumphal arch. inside, its gorgeous. my room doesnt have wall paper, instead, it was painted to look like wall paper, pretty cool. i'm not sure if the furniture is period or replica, but its all really cool. its awesomeness... ive been slightly giddy all day. i really love this place. sintra is a nice 10 minute walk through dense forests and crazily narrow cobbled roads. its just such a lovely place. they brought a bottle of water and a bottle of port and four pesteis de sintra as a welcoming present. its a 1/3rd litre bottle of port... so i'll drink that tonight. i wonder what the hotel's restaurant is like... i wonder what they serve... but i bet it's good. i have to get ready to eat there tonight... on a different note. yesterday i saw a guy in a blue UCLA bruins tshirt... and as i walked back to my room just now, i saw the same guy in the same tshirt...

monasteries, museums, and explorers

today we went to belem... which used to be the last stop for sailors before the tagus estuary opened up into the atlantic... ships returning from africa, india, and brasil brought great wealth and prestige to portugal in the 15th and 16th centuries... the new found wealth allowed Portuguese kings to build triumphal architecture throughout lisbon... much of that was destroyed in 1755 in an earthquake, giving the prime minister the marques de Pombal a chance to rebuild the destroyed center of the city in the prevailing baroque style. still, in districts like belem, some of the older buildings survived undamaged, like the monastery of st jerome (or geronimos in portuguese.) king manuel I had it built in the 1498 as a place for the kings of portugal to be buried. it was paid for with a tax on pepper and spices from the portuguese trade routes. the church is still a church, although, it felt less like a church because of the number of tourists making their way through it today... so i hurried around the church and made my way to the cloister, where the size and scale and fountain made life quiet and peaceful... after destressing from the frantic pace of the church i went to the archeology museum next door... the monastery has been converted into two museums, the archeology museum and the naval museum. the archeology museum had several interesting exhibits, and one that upset me somewhat... they had an exhibit tracing religion in lusitania and iberia from pre-history into the roman era... which was interesting... lots of interesting statues in bronze and marble of various Gods... but the exhibit ended with roman tombstones found in iberia... which began to disturb me, then i went into the exhibit on egypt and was bothered by the mummy that they had on display.... there were two sarcophaguses, one closed and one open, and then one very well preserved mummy on display as well. just think, at one point that mummy was a man like anyone today, and he died and was buried in his tomb for eternity... then, his preserved corpse was sold to someone who brought it to lisbon and put it in a glass case for rambunctious school children to gawk at (when i was there, it was very quiet and peaceful, my mom and i were the only ones in the room, but still, its easy to picture a bunch of 8 year old huns running around the exhibit) so basically, what we as humans have to look forward to is death followed by exhibit to our very distant ancestors as skeletal remains and mummified bodies. the cool exhibit was greek vases. ive seen larger collections before at places in berlin on museum insel, but the germans penchant for organisation wasnt quite as nice as the portuguese exhibit despite the vastness of the collection. this exhibit only had 10-15 vases, but, they had the vase, and then an enlarged picture of the vase with an excerpt from a relevant poem... so there were quotes from greek poets, from sophocles, from mythology, and from the illiad. lots of scenes of Dionysus on drinking cups... which makes sense... that makes drinking wine a religious thing... so your bacchanalian is actually a religious ceremony then... or something like it. the naval museum is a naval museum pictures, paintings, model ships, and the like, and thats about it. one of my favourite monuments in the world is the monument to the explorers in belem. the figures faces just look so determined and proud, and i'm not sure how to describe it, but it's just so dramatic. i never get tired of looking at it.

of urinals, paving stones, and tiles

so, this post was originally going to be about tiles and patterns in rocks for sidewalks, but i just saw, probably the coolest thing i have ever seen in my life... toilet wise. it was a urinal of a type ive never seen before. my mom and i were walking up to castelo sao jorge, and we come up to the wall, and what do i see, but a curved piece of steel and an art nouveau sign that says urinal. i was flabbergasted. i was like, a urinal outdoors? awesome. i wanted to use it, but mom kept walking towards the castle, plus there was a policeman standing not far from it, and it just seems kind of wrong to use the facilities in the open air like that... in public. that said, i'm like so tempted to walk back up there (15-20 minutes) just to use it... it doesnt look like much, but it's more the concept. and the ability to go to the bathroom outdoors, its like camping, but in the city. so, to get back to the main original topic for this post, the sidewalks in lisbon are done in white and black stones formed into patterns. some of the patterns are types of ships and mermaids, and animals, and some of the patterns are just artistic, swirls, circles, triangles, all sorts of things. different squares have different patterns, and i just really like it. it adds a special flair, plus, because the stones are tiny, they give a little better traction than just flat stone would... since it rained this morning, and i was wandering around in the rain, i learned that... since i almost slipped and fell (in boat shoes!) on some random pieces of straight stone. portugal is famous for it's coloured tiles, the people use them for everything. theyre used on buildings inside and out. theyre very decorative, obviously. and alot of them are rather pretty, some are geometric patterns and some are painted to make big pictures. these two are examples of the blue and white tiles used to represent scenes from lisbon and the the life of st anthony and a scene oftagus. and now for something completely different. i think the police in lisbon have cracked down on the gypsies. its awesome, you can walk around the praca do comercio without being harrassed by 15 guys offering you hasish, cocaine, and cheap sunglasses at the same time... (the sunglasses are made out of cocaine)

lisbon

this is my third time in lisbon... and because i'm lazy, i still havent seen everything. although, i tended to explore different parts the past two times i was here... we're in a centrally located hotel this time, hotel metropole. which is interesting. its like 1950s decor, most of the stuff is from the 1950s... but it has a great location... very nice location. right on one of the big central squares, with views of the castle in lisbon. i made a mistake, sort of, when i booked the hotel, i thought that it was on the opposite side of the square, so i thought i was being smart by requesting the castle view that way i'd be on the back of the hotel and in a quieter spot, but the joke was on me because we have the street, but it's not too loud late at night, and the castle view too. of course, i think the whole hotel is smoking... which kinda sucks, but whatever. the bathroom is big and has lots of pretty painted tiles. regardless, here are two views from our hotel room window by daylight and nightlight. not too shabby, eh? yesterday, since our room wasnt ready until 230, we went for a little bit of sightseeing. we went down to the praca do commercio and took the tourist bus around the city... got to see the restored campo pequeno, which looks really nice. it looks kind of like a moorish type of a thing with big green domes... its the photo to the right.the campo pequeno is the bull fighting ring in lisbon. and once again, true to form, im missing the bull fight here by a day. story of my life. in lisbon the fights happen every thursday, and alot of it is on horseback and they dont kill the bulls like they do in spain. so take that peta. i was tempted to get off when the bus got to belem castle, because that's an easy way to get to/from belem. which is a bit of a hike from the rest of the city... i know because the first time i was here in 2000 i didnt realize how far it was, and we kind of walked almost all the way there... and were completely knackered. of course, that was the trip me and neill got three day hangovers. so we took the bus around, and then, went to eat at the hardrock cafe... i didnt want to eat there, but i was still feeling nauseous from the english muffin in houston, so i went and had a burger... then we came back and mom took a shower and went to sleep, and then i took a shower and fell aseep as well... but i woke up at 10pm, and then stayed up til 3am, and then woke back up at 7am... i woke up and came down to the lobby to get on the internet, because the wireless internet is significantly stronger. then a couple from california came down, a lawyer and his wife, and then two couples from the uk... one irish and livin outside manchester, and one english. the english went to bed, and then the californian and the irishman talked politics... which was amusing, because the californian was a republican and the irishman is a european. and never the twain shall meet. i spent most of my time somewhere in the middle explaining both of their posistions to the other one... although, the californian was quite rude at times... he also had probably had a glass of port too many. but it was certainly amusing, and then we talked about other stuff that was less controversial than foreign policy. which is much more polite. lots of travel talk and stuff. the californian had been an officer in the navy druing 'nam, so he had seen a little of the world, and enjoyed traveling, the irishman travled alot in europe because its easy for them to do so, and i've traveled a little, and have a good knowledge of geography and a list of places i want to go three miles long. today, i'll probably eat at this seafood restaurant we saw that serves barnacles... which will be interesting. and seeing as some of the scrapes i got from them in my life, which might or not not still include a scar where i got stitches from a cut, is fair play. .. it really depends on the weather though as to what i do today. ill probably retake this picture of praca do commercio because the lamp, which i included in the first one, is bothering me tremendously now.

english muffins are the devil.

well, sunday we flew out to lisbon... it was interesting to say the least. mostly because i had eaten an english muffin in the president's club in houston, and wanted to throw up until after i finally got to sleep 27 hours later in lisbon... oh, that was rough. nausea for a whole flight, maybe i'm a big whiner, but i def. wasnt feeling well for most of that, that makes flying a bit excruciating... now, you might ask, i thought europe was closer than 27 hours... well, it is, but. you have to wake up, shower, drive an hour to the airport, while getting there two-three hours early... then a 3 hour flight to newark, and then we changed planes in newark so we had a 3 or 4 hour layover. and then our 6 hour flight to lisbon... at least, since i didnt sleep but like 15 minutes on the flight (when we took off) i got to see a nice sunrise. we had us a bit of turbulence on the flight over, so, they didnt really do much... but it meant that they kept the lights on until halfway through the flight... the two movies they showed were the kid, with bruce willis, which had it's moments, but on the whole was kinday, eh... and the count of monte cristo, which is good, but old... by the end of the two movies we were just out of lisbon... customs in europe is a breeze... so we got a taxi to the hotel... there is an airport bus that stops not far from here, but, when i'm tired, i really dont want to take a bus... and besides, if the bus costs 3 euros per person and a cab is 14, and easier, and drops you off right infront of the hotel as opposed to a few blocks away, why not take the cab when youre exhausted? got to the hotel at 9am or so, but it wasnt ready for us until 230. and then i showered and went to sleep. before we got our room at the hotel we wandered around lisbon for awhile. i'll talk about that in another post though. i was kind of disappointed because the past two times we flew up the river tagus before we landed, so you got to see all of lisbon, however, this time, we flew south of town, and while you could see the tagus at times through heavy cloud cover, it was the far far bank, and we flew in and around and from behind... i had gotten an aisle seat specifically so i could take some fun pictures from the air of lisbon, but alas, that wasnt the case... this was all i could manage flying int he front of a plane ruins your ability to fly in coach ever again... especially on longhaul flights... but thats the sacrifice you make sometimes, when you dont have the miles or the elite status to get upgraded...

Remember Goliad!

about 70 miles inland from the ghost town of Indianola is Goliad. the site of presidio la bahia and a battle in the Texas revolution. following the french exploration of the texas coast, and Lasalle's fort on matagorda bay, the spaniards moved into the area and occupied it to prevent the british or french from establishing themselves on the texas coast and threatening mexico. originally, presidio la bahia was built a few miles from the coast, however, it was moved to its site at goliad. presidio la bahia is one of the only surviving spanish presidios in the us. in its history, it was actually captured in combat several times. during a major filibustering expedition in 1811-1812 the fort was siezed by the filibusterers, before they were subdued. then James Long (husband of Jane Long, a texas heroine) and his filibustering expedition captured the presidio and held it for three days before they were captured and marched to mexico city. long was shot during the march. following the successful mexican revolution the town of presidio la bahia was renamed goliad in honour of the mexican patrio hidalgo. then during the texas revolution the texans around goliad took the fort and declared independence dec. 20th, 1835... before the provisional government at washington on the brazos declared independence on march 2, 1836. these men fought at goliad under the severed arm flag, which represented their refusal to rejoin mexico under any circumstances. the final major act in goliad's history was the massacre of Colonel Fannin and his troops outside of the presidio. Colonel Fannin had organised 400 soldiers to fight for Texas Independence, and was preparing to march east to join up with Sam Houston and his troops. however, the Texans fought an engagement with the mexicans and were subsequently surrounded and forced to surrender. the mexican dictatory santa anna's standing orders called for all texans to be executed. in early march, the defenders of the Alamo were all killed during/following the storm of the mission. the men at Goliad were likewise executed. The men were marched out of the presidio in several directions and executed. some of their bodies were burned and some were left lying on the prarie. in June 1836, General Rusk, commander of the Texas forces moving west to take control of territory following the victory of San Jacinto in April, stopped to bury the dead. the monument was built in 1939 atop the burial mound. Goliad and the Alamo are the sites of two mexican massacres of Texan troops. at the battle of san jacinto, the Texans cried remember the Alamo! remember Goliad! today, Goliad seems almost a footnote in history, one small family, and one couple, along with myself were the only people touring the presidio. however, the alamo is frequently visited and the drama and heroism of those men is well known by all. it's important to remember the sacrifices of the men at Goliad. if you want to know more about the presidio, here is the link to their site. http://www.presidiolabahia.org/ it's owned by the Catholic Church and its only a few minutes off of 59, soon to be Interstate 69 the new superhighway to mexico...

Indianola, Texas

so, yesterday, i drove down to indianola, texas, to see what it looked like, its about 3 hours down the coast from where i live... it used to be a thriving port, and the port where alot of texas' german immigrants came in... however, in the 1870s, two hurricanes in five years completely destroyed the city, wiped it clear off the map. one of the things that made me want to go there, was this song by brian burns, it tells a pretty good story about the history of indianola. sieur de lasalle, the french explorer met his end near here. after passage from france, his ship arrived off of matagorda bay, and he assumed he was near the mouth of the mississippi, so they built a small fort. however, he was 500 miles from new orleans, he set out on foot to reach new orleans. somewhere in east texas his men got mad and killed him, they in turn were killed by indians and the climate. the men who had remained at the fort took to fightin themselves as well as attacks by hostile indians, and most of them died too. then the spanish came and burned down the fort.

Indianola MP3 Excerpt Brian Burns - (C)opr. 2002 - Brian Burns Music (BMI)

"I’ve slept on this shore for 300 years where the ocean gives rise to the plains. Where Sieur de La Salle first sailed into Texas not one single footprint remains. The wind and the waves sing me long lullabies, and I seldom find reason to open my eyes, no voice stirs my spirit, no sound and no scene, so I drift back to sleep... and I dream...”

And she looked out to sea, and on the horizon were ships bearing into her bay, and with sleep in her eyes, she stood in amazement and watched as they headed her way. And this bay it would come to be called Matagorda, a new settlers’ passage to the great Texas plains, bringing captains and soldiers and princes and paupers, and some would move inland and some would remain.

“My name is Johann, and I have brought settlers from Germany to the New World, they’ll soon stake their claims from here to New Braunfels, Gonzales, and Victoria. But I’ll make my home here on this sun-bleached shore, and I’ll build a city where none stood before, a sheltering harbor from water and wind; let the great ships of commerce roll in...”

And she looked out to sea, clear to the horizon her piers jutted into the bay, and she saw the lifeblood that bustled around her and gave her all reason to stay. And they named her the city of Indianola, they plied her deep waters with timber and steel, and they swore that no tempest could rattle or harm her, but the ocean is mighty and the wind has its will.

Now Indianola, she’s only a ghost on the jagged shoreline of the old Texas coast where the howling wild wind once raised up its hand and buried her dreams in the sand.

“My name is Isaac, I came here to bury the lost souls who perished that day when the ocean rose twenty miles onto on the prairie and washed it all into the bay. And nothing that stood could escape the concussion of an angry wave riding on a hurricane wind, her homes torn asunder and splintered to driftwood, till Indianola could not rise again.”

And nothing was left but a few broken spirits who wondered aloud where their fortunes might be, and the vibrant port city of Indianola now lies in the basin of God’s angry sea.

“My name is Brian, I’ve traveled from Fort Worth to stand where the sea meets the plains. Where Sieur de La Salle first sailed into Texas, now only his statue remains, and nobody comes here but seagulls and tourists, and not much remains but a few ragged scars, so I came here to take off my hat in her honor with a digital camera and a six-string guitar...”

Now Indianola, she’s only a ghost on the jagged shoreline of the old Texas coast where the howling wild wind can raise up its hand and bury your dreams in the sand.