Healthy Food, Exercise & Vitamin D

Saturday morning. The sun was shining brightly and it was market day. So my youngest and me head off down to Cascais to buy fruit and veggies for the week. We parked a little way away, since as always, it's completely futile to attempt to park anywhere close to the market, but I didn't mind, because like I said, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. I grabbed my large green canvas bag, sunglasses and wallet from the glove box, freed my lad from the confines of his safety seat, locked the car and we headed off. As we walked down the hill past the shopping mall I could feel the sun beating down on the back of my neck. I looked up to a cloudless sky and thought to myself, "How wonderful. This is it. Summer is on it's way."  The sun had clearly shone enough to fill up my body with vitamin D and it had put me in a tremendously good mood as I crossed the road and went down the ramp into the market place.

The market was busy, as it always is, but most definitely a nice kind of busy. I like to wander about a bit to start with when I get to the market, checking out the prices, familiarising myself with which stalls sell which veggies and generally just taking in the market atmosphere. I settled on a stall in the centre of the market that had most of the vegetables on my list; potatoes, onions, a few other veggies and the one thing I really mustn't forget, a nice cauliflower for the chick pea and cauliflower curry I had planned for tea that night. Next I found the stall that sells the bags of dried beans. It's so much cheaper to buy dried ones from the market and soak them overnight than buying canned from the supermercado, so that was the next two things crossed off my list; chick peas (to replace the ones currently in soak at home) and kidney beans. Only fruit to go. I'd already decided to do the healthy thing and pay a wide berth to the bakery stall with all it's deliciously tempting cakes. The bread would have to wait until the supermarket later! Besides, my lad was starting to get bored of the market, so I quickly found a fruit stall. All the usual stuff, apples, pears, and oh, look, plums back in season. A little on the expensive side, but they looked so nice that I couldn't resist getting a few. I thought for a moment about buying a melon, but they were slightly over-ripe, however, it was while I was looking at the melons that, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the anonas (or custard apples) at 2 euro per kilo, a euro cheaper than the plums. As I mentioned in my previous blog, I'd never had them before, so it was a complete guess as to what might constitute a ripe one, so I just simply picked three at random. So, having loaded up my green bag with almost too much to carry, I paid the stallholder and then, just as I turned to walk away, I remembered that I hadn't bought any bananas. And all my kids love bananas, so what sort of Dad would I be if I turned up at home after spending the entire morning at the market and forgot the bananas? I'd obviously overstepped the mark though in my son's eyes, since just as I paying for the bananas, he reached out, grabbed and apple and took a bite. I was horrified. The grocer wasn't though, thankfully, and he even refused my offer of payment for it. And that was the shopping done, so we set off back towards the car.

It was on the way back up the hill past the shopping mall that I realised that I could no longer feel the sun on my neck. And then I realised that since I was walking in the opposite direction, I should be able to feel it on my face. My hopes for a sunny day had been dashed away. It wasn't raining but the clouds were very dark and if it wasn't for the hilarity of my cheeky monkey of a son stealing an apple at the market my whole mood would have been a very different one to the mood that occupied my soul on the walk into the market an hour or so earlier. I wasn't too surprised though, because I'm sad to say that the weather here has taken a turn for the worse. I'm sure farmers and gardeners all over the country are feeling a little happier about things since the nice heavy rains a few weeks back at the end of March. However, I do think it really is about time that Spring got here and actually sprung without recoiling back into winter again. I have some friends coming over from England in a couple of weeks time and I really do hope that the current cloudy, windy, drizzly (Erm, yup, drizzle!) weather dissipates and the sun comes shining through. The last thing they will want is to come to Portugal to experience what could quite adequately be described as "Very English Weather." But enough about the weather...

This morning I went out for a walk, determined to get myself a little slimmer. When I first arrived in Portugal last summer I walked everywhere. I had to. I didn't have a car and so there was a lot of walking to get the older kids to and from school, to get to the shops, or just for the exercise and the gorgeous views along the promenade. Of late though, my walks seem to have become less frequent. And so in the knowledge that I would be frequenting the bar later for the Chelsea v Barcelona match, I set off bright and early, with my little apple-stealer strapped firmly into his three wheeler, towards the promenade to make a pre-emptive strike against a belly full of beer. My son and I made a quick stop off at the bird park in Monte Estoril for him to have a few minutes out of his buggy to play on the swings and slide, during which time the sun came peeking out from behind the clouds, filling us both up with vitamin D. We resumed our trek down to the promenade just as the clouds obscured the sun once more. Usually the prom is busy in the mornings with people exercising, walking, striding very purposefully along, and a few runners too. But not this cloudy morning. It seemed that I was one of just a few people who had decided to throw caution to the not inconsiderable wind and risk the ever threatening rain. So I did my walk. In fact, I went a little farther along the prom than I usually do before turning around for the return journey back up the long steep hill to home. What's more, with a couple of hundred yards to go the sun decided to peek out around the clouds once again. A round trip of two hours. That should sort me out for at least 4 or 5 beers!

Oh, nearly forgot. The custard apples. Quite possibly the most annoying fruit to prepare. I was not sure whether the skin was edible, so being cautious, I peeled it away leaving a creamy white pear-like fruit beneath. Delving deeper into the flesh reveals lots of hard black seeds spread throughout which needed removing before the children could be let loose. Finally, the taste. Well, I prepared two of them for our family to share, one in hindsight a little more ripe than the other. The harder one had a kind of sweet and sour taste to it with the texture of a hard pear. The second softer one had much less of a sourness to it, leading me to believe that the first was not quite ready to be eaten yet. The third anona remains in the fruit bowl, ripening, to eat another day. Hopefully a sunny day!

Gorgeous Architecture

I've decided to post another photo blog, this time with pictures that I've taken of some of the many marvelous buildings in Cascais, Estoril, Sintra and Lisboa. However, before I start I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not in any way an architect or a historian, but merely a person that thinks that these buildings are nice to look at and impressive in their construction. Please forgive me if I get anything wrong!

Many Portuguese buildings seem to have a feeling about them that someone, somewhere put a great deal of effort into making sure that it looked nice. Admittedly, there are buildings that are more mundane in their design, offering more towards functionality where needed, such as offices and warehouses, but clearly, you don't want me to fill my blog with pictures of boring square glass-walled office blocks. That said, there is one building exactly fitting this description in Cascais, and I might, if I pass it, take a photo of it for you, purely for curiosity and a brief but intense 70's nostalgia moment. But that's another blog. These pictures show a more thoughtful perspective. Sometimes traditional, sometimes modern, but always aesthetically pleasing. I'm not entirely sure if it's the archways, or tiled walls, or perhaps the balconies that give the architecture that quintessential Mediterranean feel that you can't help but love. However, deep down inside I feel that I already know the answer. It's when all these features come together to form an aesthetic asymmetrical combination equal to a lot more than the sum of its parts. The following pictures exemplify exactly what i mean.

To start with, look at how many different styles of arch there are on the building pictured below. Also, around the top of the building, just below the roof line, you can see an intricate painted tile feature and just beneath that there is a moulded (or possibly sculpted) detail running around the circumference of the building, mirroring the arches over the larger windows. The roof itself is tiled in a criss-cross diamond pattern with angled sections that meet with the apexes at different heights. It seems that wherever you look on this building there is another level of detail. Bay windows, balconies, balustrades, arches within arches. Simply beautiful.

Many of the houses along the promenade that runs between Estoril and Cascais have circular or octagonal towers topped with pointy spires, giving impressions of the kind of castle one would expect to see in the opening credits of a certain brand of children's film. And again, this asymmetry only seems to add to the overall character of the buildings.

These next few houses don't have the spires, but the balconies and pointed arches over the windows compliment completely the stone edging to the colour washed walls.

The following building is not a house as such, but a museum, namely the Museu Condes de Castro Guimarães, situated in the Parque Marechal Carmona in Cascais. I believe it was once a house, and a rather splendid one at that, complete with it's own fountain equipped courtyard. Again the yellow wash and stone detail work together to impress.

Not all the buildings are completely asymmetrical though. In the following three examples you can see that rooftop windows and painted tile features for example are repeated giving a far more regular and rectangular feel to the buildings.

I've often wondered why the words "Monte" and "Estoril" on the train station wall were not neatly in line. It's almost as if there was a third word that has since been erased?

Isn't the painted tile work on this Sintra house just fantastic? (Wiki - Azulejo)

Not an archway in sight in these modern houses near the Casino in Estoril, and yet the balconies still give them a very solid southern European quality.

This water fountain in Sintra features some excellent arches inside arches coupled with some fantastic tile work and stone masonry. Tiles are a big feature in many Portuguese houses, especially it seems, in the city.

Tiled walls on apartment blocks seem to go hand in hand with urban living in Lisbon. This isn't exactly the loveliest building now, but I'm sure that when all those tiles were fresh and new it was an incredibly impressive sight to behold.

Continuing with the "City" theme, here are a variety of photo's of Lisboa, starting off with the monuments at the top of the park of Eduardo VII, and following on into a brief "guided tour" of Lisboa.

A view down a street near Lisboa's Cathedral, Sé. The cathedral is a wonderful building too. Maybe one day I'll do a blog on it.

Isn't there a building like this in Dubai?

One of the fountains in Rossio. Up to the left you can see the very top of the Elevador de Santa Justa which takes you up to the Carmo Convent, which thanks to my wonderful photographic skills, is deftly obscured by the fountain.

The archway in the Praça Do Comércio‎. Through the archway is a street teaming with restaurants and leads you directly up to Rossio. This part of Lisbon, Baixa, was destroyed by an earthquake in 1755 and rebuilt under the strict directions of the then Prime Minister, Sebastião de Melo, Marquès de Pombal, and the style is now referred to as Pombaline in his honour.  Following on from Rossio, you can follow the Avenida da Liberdade right the way up to the Marquès de Pombal roundabout which features an enormous statue of the aforementioned Marquis.

Typical houses in the district near the Castle of São Jorge, complete with white-washed walls, stone window frames and plant pots.

Office buildings and apartments in Cais de Sodre, Lisboa. All done out with pink and yellow wash.

Finally, a very modern building in Lisboa. This photo really doesn't do it justice, but the design gives the impression that the building is splitting into three, with the two outside sections falling away. The building is in the very modern area of Lisboa, near the "Park of Nations" where the ESPO was held a few years back, and therefore understandably modern. It could almost be London...

Phew. Some fantastic buildings though eh?

Squid Or Onion Rings?

Shortly after arriving in Portugal, I went shopping and bought a bag of what I believed to be onion rings. They weren't. They were squid rings. They looked like onion rings on the bag, but for a staunch vegetarian like me the distinction between squid and onion is an important one.  It was only after I started cooking them and my wife subsequently said, "There's a funny smell coming from the oven" that I realised my mistake. It's not the first time that I've been to the shops and returned with something that I later found out to be something completely different to what I initially thought it was. Even back in England I was prone to buying chicken soup thinking it was mushroom, because I wasn't paying enough attention and the colouring on the labels is often similar! So, anyway, the whole "squid or onion" thing only served to emphasise to me that I needed to be able to read the words on the packets if I was to prevent myself making the same mistake again. Since then the walls of my kitchen have been steadily acquiring a new wallpaper of A4 sheets of handwritten lists of nouns and conjugations of verbs in a vain attempt to help me learn Portuguese. I sticky-taped up a couple more this morning entitled, "Useful Joining Words" and "Family"

In fact, there are many Portuguese words that, without any knowledge of Portuguese, are so similar to the English spelling that one could easily be fooled into thinking that learning Portuguese is a piece of cake. It's not, but lets put that thought to one side for a moment. Consider the Portuguese words "informação" and "educação" for example. A person could be quite happy in assuming (and in this case, correctly) that these words are "information" and "education" without batting an eyelid. Seemingly dropping the "tion" and replacing it with "ção" works for thousands of words and at this point on my Portuguese language learning curve I would be quite happy to guess that the Portuguese for "pronunciation" is in fact simply "pronunciação", if it were not for fear of the embarrassment of being wrong. (I'll go and check it in a few minutes!)

Anonas Fruit.

Moving on. To Market! Saturdays and Wednesdays are market days in Cascais and the market is a very lovely and vibrant place to shop. So much nicer than a trip to the supermarket. And having been here for a few months now I kind of know most of the Portuguese names for the fruit and vegetables that I buy, even if sometimes I struggle to pronounce them properly. And I did say most. I came across a new fruit last week that I'd never seen before called Anonas, which I promptly looked up on the Internet upon returning home. I think that next week I may even buy some, after all, I do preach to my children that it is good to try new things. Anyway, the market stall holders never seem to mind if my pronunciation is terrible, as long as I buy their veggies! And this in itself presents a small problem in trying to learn a new language, in that my pronunciation is never going to improve unless my mistakes are pointed out in the first place. I'm not at all certain which vowel of the word "Anonas" to place the stress on, or whether the final "S" is pronounced "S" or "SH" although my Portuguese instinct tells me to say "anOnash". Only time will tell, when the stall holder gives me that oh so familiar quizzical look when I try and buy some.

So anyway, I've just been and made myself a lovely cup of tea and happened to walk past the bookcase with the dictionary on. And I was wrong! A right royal slap in the face from the powers that be! I did say that learning Portuguese wasn't easy and, just to prove me wrong, fate had me pick a word where the "ção" thing does not hold true! The correct translation, for anyone who is genuinely interested, is "pronúncia".

This revelation does neatly bring me on to what I was building up to though. (Just trying to salvage something from fate's terrible blow!) In my dictionary there is a section with blue pages of useful stuff, such as numbers, weekdays, and, the section I want to talk about, False Friends. This is a small, but certainly not definitive, list of words that sound alike or are spelled similarly in both languages but have different meanings. You certainly don't want to be asking for 3 metres of "fábrica" unless you want to rent a small area of factory and it could turn out to be quite embarrassing getting through busy shop doors if you were mistakenly pushing on the door labelled "Puxar" (pronounced "Poo-shar") which means "Pull". "Esperto" does not mean expert, "locação" does not mean location, "êxito" does not mean exit. And the list goes on. And on. And then, of course, there are literally thousands of words in the Portuguese language that have no similarity whatsoever to the English translation.

However, everything I've said so far pales into insignificance compared to the bug bear of learning any new language - verbs. Now I grew up and went to school in England of the 80's and as a consequence didn't really study grammar. I'll try refrain from climbing up onto some political soapbox for a jolly good rant, but suffice to say that at the time I really didn't think much about it, being only a child, but now my homeland's pedagogical politics of the of 80's is coming back with a vengeance to bite me on the bum. If only I understood a little about Imperfect Subjunctives, Past Participles and Personal Infinitives I'd have a starting point. But I don't. So I keep on having to look them up. Then I have to translate "Past Participle" and "Pluperfect" into Portuguese, because of course, my Portuguese verb book naturally lists these things in Portuguese. And finally I have to try and conjugate the verb I'm trying to learn and figure which version to use when. By this time I've usually forgotten what a Future Subjunctive is and have to start all over again. Why, oh why won't these things stay in my head? I'm sure they will eventually. They need to. And there is another of our False Friends, the verb "to need", which in Portuguese is "precisar". Confused? Precisely! But as the saying goes, practice makes perfect.

So learning Portuguese is not a piece of cake. But talking of cake, take biscuits, which in Portuguese is bolachas (pr. bolashash). Now if I tell you two more Portuguese words, "bola" and "bolo", one of which means ball and the other cake, which one would you guess means cake? Of course you probably saw right through my little game, but doesn't that seem the wrong way round to you?