Toledo

And not the one in Ohio. Although, while in Toledo, the medieval capital of the Spanish kingdom of Castille, we did pass Toledo Ohio Street. Apparently they're sister cities. But so are Toledo and Corpus Christi according to Wikipedia. I digress.

Toledo is 20 minutes from Madrid, so during our recent trip, we took the high speed train to Spain's most famous walled city. It's a beautiful place, set on a tall hilltop, overlooking the vast plains of central Spain. It had been the chief city of the Iberian peninsula for millennia, passing from Roman rule to the Visigoths, then to the Moors before finally returning to Spanish rule around a thousand years ago.

We arrived just before noon, so our first order of business after walking the mile or so from the train station up into the city was finding lunch. Our guide book mentioned a place that was popular with blue collar workers on their lunch breaks, so we decided to check it out. We made a good decision because for eight euros each, we got wine, bread, an appetizer, a main entree and a dessert. It was also fun to eat lunch in a place where we were the only tourists and no one spoke English. Luckily, our use of Portanhol (Spanishified Portuguese) was enough to get by.

After lunch, we did a walking tour of the city. It was fun to wind our way through tiny medieval streets. Toledo is known for having Muslim, Jewish and Christian influences, which was evident in the architecture. The old mosque was converted to a church after the Spanish reconquest and the synagogues are nothing more than museums, but it still maintains some of its charm. Toledo was also the home of Miguel Cervantes, who wrote Don Quixote. We pose with him here.

Spring in Madrid

We just returned from a 5 day trip to Madrid. The flight was $65 round trip, so we couldn't pass up the opportunity. We did our fair share of sightseeing, but of course, food was the most important part of this trip. A friend joined us for the first few days and fortunately, she had similar priorities.

I had always thought tapas were a little overrated, but I've seen the light. Madrid has the most bars and restaurants per capita of any city in the world, so it was a really nice place to spend a few days. We spent a few evenings in the La Latina neighborhood, which is just filled with tapas bars. We hopped between bars, getting a glass of wine or sangria and a small snack at each place.
Enjoy some of the photo highlights.

After a day of touring Madrid's royal palace, we went to Casa Mingo, a restaurant off the tourist trail that's famous with locals for good cider and great grilled chicken.

Sharing paella and enjoying the sunshine near Plaza Mayor. It was a little touristy, but the food was good and the sunshine was great.

Conspiradores in La Latina now holds a special place in our hearts for its cheap sangria and awesome spicy chorizo.

Madrid's most famous statue is this bear and tree. I don't really get it, but we took the obligatory photos.

Pretty impressive building. Especially when you realize it's just the post office.

Tapas crawl #2 meant more good wine, chorizo and manchego cheese.

We asked this guy to take our picture and afterwards we started chatting. It turns out he lives in Bali, so we reminisced about the best restaurants and places to hang out.

And we ended a night of tapas hopping with churros dipped in chocolate sauce at 1 a.m. Apparently, they do their best business a couple hours later.

Porto

Now that you know the port wine essentials, we can tell you a little bit about our trip to Porto. We rode the train since our car was on a boat in the Atlantic, which was the way to do it since the Porto train station is in the middle of the town and you don't have to worry about parking.

Porto is a beautiful city, which is known for its five bridges stretching over the Douro river. It's a very medieval town that never experienced mass renovation during the Enlightenment like some large European cities. As a result the streets are narrow and wind through giant city walls.

It was a great trip. We ate really good food, like francesinha, a specialty of Porto. Since it was Valentine's Day, we also ate at a really cool restaurant down by the water's edge where we had an awesome dish of pork tenderloin and chestnuts.

And of course there was port wine. On the other side of the river from Porto is Villa Nova de Gaia, home to all of the port wine cellars. We toured a few cellars and of course tasted some of the port they had on offer. It was also the weekend of Carnaval, which is much more subdued in Portugal than Brazil. But some of the kids went all out with their costumes since it's like their Halloween.

It was a great trip, and I'm sure we'll go back. During warmer weather, they have boat cruises up the Douro River, which we've heard are really great ways to spend a couple days and see the countryside.

A francesinha, "the little French girl," is a sandwich type dish filled with ham, sausage and beef, then covered with a tomato and beer sauce. It may seem strange, but it's really good.

Our waiter was the Portuguese Robert De Niro! Hillary asked him if he's heard the De Niro comparison and he said he gets it all the time.

Brief history of port wine

We finally have internet!!!!

Okay, now that we have that out of the way, how about we recap a recent trip.

We recently traveled to Porto as we had a Monday off for a holiday and the city was on our list of places to see. Porto is the second largest city in Portugal - about half the size of Lisbon. It is located at the mouth of the Douro river on the northern coast as you can see from the map.

Porto is the economic hub of one of the country's key wine-making regions, but it is most famously known for its signature wine, Port, which can only be produced in the Douro River valley. It is a sweet wine, fortified with extra alcohol to stop the fermentation process. It is aged in giant oak barrels, with some only reaching their peak after more than 50 years. Outside Portugal, Tawny Port is often served as an after dinner drink with dessert. But in Portugal, there are several varieties, including a white port (great as a pre-dinner drink).

Stay tuned for more photos and details about our trip.

Good News!

Let's see what we have:

1. We got our car last week! It's great to have it back; we found that we missed it. Plus this way it is easier to discover more of the city....and more restaurants.

2. We are supposed to get internet installed tomorrow. (We're not holding our breath.)

3. We bought a new couch, and they are delivering it Wednesday! Get this: the temporary couch that was issued to us was supposed to be retired in 1992. 1992!

4. My mom and my sister are all booked to come visit us in July!

5. We FINALLY got a renter for our condo. He moved in on Saturday. Thank you, Martin. Thank you so much.

6. We are vacationing in Madrid for five days, and we leave this Friday!

Out and about in Lisbon

We arrived in Lisbon on February 4 at around 11:00 a.m. We knew we'd be able to get on a normal sleeping schedule sooner if we stayed awake for the rest of the day. Even though a nap sounded great, we decided to explore our new city. We walked up a hill near our apartment and discovered this view.

The photo is from the top of Eduardo VII Park. The view is impressive, as you can see straight down to the Tejo river. We followed the city's main tree-lined avenue until we reached the baixa, the city's historic center, located right at the water's edge. All the sidewalks are cobblestone, and while we love the European feel, they can sometimes be tricky to walk on. We love being able to walk wherever we go after two years of taking taxis everywhere in Jakarta.

Some other pictures from around town:

A street car passing near Lisbon's medieval cathedral.

Lisbon's Se Cathedral, built in 1147

A colorful block near our apartment

Internet...sort of

We've been trying to get internet and cable installed at home for close to seven weeks now. Unfortunately, the end is not in sight. After we switched to a new company, we ran into all sorts of new bureaucratic problems (we just found out that the original problem was caused by our building being historic and needing special permits for any type of modification). We thought it had all been sorted out and at 9:30 p.m. on the night before our scheduled installation, the company called us and said they had to cancel because of the same problems we'd been having.

Normally the embassy is able to take care of this huge hassle, but since nothing else was working, I went down to our local finance office to get the Portuguese equivalent of a social security number. Everything was going along smoothly until they realized that one had already been issued for me when we opened a local bank account. That number could only be used for banking transactions, however, so they now have to request that someone at their headquarters delete it and issue me a new one. How ironic - we opened the bank account so that we could pay our cable and internet bill. The joys of living overseas.

But the good news is, we recently found a weak pay-as-you-go wireless internet signal that's been working intermittently at home, so we're able to post some of the pictures we've taken around Lisbon.

Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Day Laborer

Currently I am still looking for a job. It's allowed me some time to get our apartment in order, but really I am ready for work. I know, I know - as soon as I have a job a day off will look pretty appealing. Right now there are a couple opportunities on the horizon, but for now I am playing the waiting game, as we STILL are with getting our internet, TV and phone installed!

I recently had the opportunity to help volunteer with a group to paint the inside walls of a children's home/school north of Lisbon. It's a building that houses kids taken out of unsuitable homes, and it has a school and cafeteria in addition to housing all the children. I knew it would be a bit of work, but by the end of the day I was worn out! Painting continuously from 9:30am to 4:30 pm with a 45 minute break for lunch was tough. I don't think I could paint like that as a full-time job, that's for sure. Although it would be a job....... Hopefully there will be more opportunities to help out like this in the future. Here are some pics:



Our much-needed lunch break



Our group posing in the building's church

"Little Honda"

This was the last time we saw our car - being picked up by a nice man in front of our apartment in DC.

John just told me that the ship carrying our car "broke down" somewhere in the big blue Atlantic.

I was actually a little relieved to hear the ship broke down. Why, you might ask? Because I thought John was going to finish the sentence as "broke apart", "broke in half", or just simply "broke".

In the words of the Beach Boys, "Honda, Honda, hang on tight!"

Weather or not

No doubt, the weather has been very strange around the world these past few months. Snow in places that rarely see snow, and tons of snow in places where they don't normally see that much. (DC anyone?)

Lisbon has had some of the worst winter weather they have seen in a long time. (Of course this would coincide with our moving here...) No kidding, it has rained almost every day since we got here. Apparently Lisbon had it's coldest winter in 10 years; they even got some snow 30 miles outside of Lisbon, which never happens. January had the most rain of any month in 30 years, and February had the most rain of any month in 24 years. And February is a short month I must add.

Since we arrived, every single person here keeps saying that they've "Never seen the weather like this", and "The winters are usually so mild", and "Normally the sun shines and it's not cold during these months". Needless to say we are really ready for things to warm up and dry out here. With all that said, yesterday and today have been wonderful, and I know there is much more of it to come. Take a look for yourself: http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstraveler/tenday/POXX0016