1. Make chocolate brownie mix. If you don't have a tried and tested recipe of your own, pinch somebody elses. I used this one from the BBC.
2. Add as much chilli as you dare. I used a mix of piri-piri powder (lethal stuff) and crushed dried piri-piri peppers.
3. Bake
4. Eat
5. Burn
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Lisbon
We spent a few days in Lisbon last week. As Portugal's rail network is (a) sparse, and not very useful (we would have had to get a bus and three trains) and (b) not that cheap, we decided to get the bus. This involved a half hour trip to Chaves, followed by a change and an approximately eight hour journey to Lisbon via Vila Real, Regua, Viseu, Coimbra and Fatima. It was nice to see some more of the country, we learned that not all of Portugal is as mountainous as the area we're in, but there are some very beautiful parts, especially the river Mondego near Coimbra. It's just a shame the bus driver was a bit crazy and by the time we reached Viseu (notable for the windiness of its roads) I was green in the face and desperate to stop, fortunately we got a 45 minute lunch break there which provided ample recovery, and the journey thereafter wasn't so bad.
We reached Lisbon at about 4:30pm and took the train to Cascais (seaside resort where dgym's mum was staying with some friends). We found ourselves a residencial, met up with everybody, and soon were reunited with our long lost love, curry.
The next day we took the train (about 45 minutes) into Lisbon to take a look around. Lisbon is very steep in places, and paved with small white bricks which can be very slippery in the wrong shoes (e.g. cycling shoes with metal cleats in the bottom), and probably gets its fair share of injuries on a rainy day. Fortunately it wasn't raining. Unfortunately, Lisbon was filled with noisy beered-up green Scots (although there was considerable debate as to whether they were Scottish or Irish) due to a Celtic football match happening nearby, so we did what any sensible English person does when confronted with his football-obsessed fellow countrymen abroad - felt a bit ashamed and embarrassed, tried to tell ourselves they were Irish and therefore from another country, and even if they are Scottish that's kind of another country, and tried to steer clear of the rowdy green masses. Not a Portuguese fan in sight...
We went up to the castle, which cost 5euro even to get into the grounds, but was worth it - it's pretty high up, and the views over the city and out to sea are just stunning.
Pictures of Lisbon
The next day, Thursday, we stayed in Cascais and went for a walk along the beach.
Friday we got on the bus and travelled back to Valpacos - this time the driver was better, and the bus went up the motorway to Porto so most of the journey (distance-wise) was smooth and painless. However, the roads are smaller and bendier in the north east, whichever way you go, so it wasn't quite so pleasant towards the end.
Fishy Advice
This is a warning to anybody who is considering eating Portuguese fresh sardines: They don't take the insides out. This is important information, as it may kind of put a damper on your eating experience to get a mouthful of the wrong stuff.
PS. We ate pig guts yesterday.
We reached Lisbon at about 4:30pm and took the train to Cascais (seaside resort where dgym's mum was staying with some friends). We found ourselves a residencial, met up with everybody, and soon were reunited with our long lost love, curry.
The next day we took the train (about 45 minutes) into Lisbon to take a look around. Lisbon is very steep in places, and paved with small white bricks which can be very slippery in the wrong shoes (e.g. cycling shoes with metal cleats in the bottom), and probably gets its fair share of injuries on a rainy day. Fortunately it wasn't raining. Unfortunately, Lisbon was filled with noisy beered-up green Scots (although there was considerable debate as to whether they were Scottish or Irish) due to a Celtic football match happening nearby, so we did what any sensible English person does when confronted with his football-obsessed fellow countrymen abroad - felt a bit ashamed and embarrassed, tried to tell ourselves they were Irish and therefore from another country, and even if they are Scottish that's kind of another country, and tried to steer clear of the rowdy green masses. Not a Portuguese fan in sight...
We went up to the castle, which cost 5euro even to get into the grounds, but was worth it - it's pretty high up, and the views over the city and out to sea are just stunning.
Pictures of Lisbon
The next day, Thursday, we stayed in Cascais and went for a walk along the beach.
Friday we got on the bus and travelled back to Valpacos - this time the driver was better, and the bus went up the motorway to Porto so most of the journey (distance-wise) was smooth and painless. However, the roads are smaller and bendier in the north east, whichever way you go, so it wasn't quite so pleasant towards the end.
Fishy Advice
This is a warning to anybody who is considering eating Portuguese fresh sardines: They don't take the insides out. This is important information, as it may kind of put a damper on your eating experience to get a mouthful of the wrong stuff.
PS. We ate pig guts yesterday.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
By popular request
We've been staying in Valpacos for a couple of weeks now, having mostly got used to the idea that people were so willing to help two wet, smelly foreign strangers and welcome us into their lives. Strange isn't the right word for it, it's sad that such things might be considered strange - but it is very much at odds with what we are used to.
We are living with Manuela, her father, and a Ukrainian girl who speaks good Portuguese. We still don't understand much of what is said, but are learning to pick out words, and are coming to the conclusion that most conversations are about food. Everybody cooks for everybody in the house - huge pots of soup (including a fantastic Ukrainian red soup), stews, roasted castanhas (chestnuts)... We have been working our way through a selection of delicious sausages which hang over the fireplace, some made with bread and some with honey. Unfortunately, we have provided suitable representation for English cuisine by cooking such delights as a bland, tasteless stew that I don't think anybody really liked, and a bolognese that nobody complained about but ultimately ended up in the dog's bowl.
We did make an apple crumble, and as many of you will know, Dgym is an expert in the field of crumbly goodness. We couldn't find cooking apples, only sweet eating ones, so it wasn't really fruity enough. A couple of plums helped, but it could have been a lot better. It is quite possible that they are trying to keep us from cooking by getting up early to make lunch. In the UK I think we rely a lot more upon exotic and/or pre-prepared ingredients, rather than knowing how to work with the basics. We would welcome any suggestions as to how we can make a favourable culinary impression upon people who seem to be able to whip up the most delicious meal from a few basic ingredients. (We're good at washing up though)
At the moment, we're not quite sure where we want to end up living, but we think it's probably not here. Here is lovely in many ways, but too far from our friends and families, and too far from any decent cycling - and one thing we have learned this year is that cycle touring is great fun and we want to do lots more of it. Portugal would be great cycling if the drivers weren't psycho, and Spain would be even better cycling if they actually served food there. At the moment we're thinking France (lovely mountains, great cycling, quite convenient for exploring the continent by bike) or Scotland (low population density, very beautiful, the exact opposite of convenient for exploring the continent by bike but still lots of good cycling, and a good deal more convenient for getting back to Southern England). Both have nice houses we can afford, and both are close enough.
We will probably leave here in January, and then start focusing on finding somewhere we do want to live.
We are living with Manuela, her father, and a Ukrainian girl who speaks good Portuguese. We still don't understand much of what is said, but are learning to pick out words, and are coming to the conclusion that most conversations are about food. Everybody cooks for everybody in the house - huge pots of soup (including a fantastic Ukrainian red soup), stews, roasted castanhas (chestnuts)... We have been working our way through a selection of delicious sausages which hang over the fireplace, some made with bread and some with honey. Unfortunately, we have provided suitable representation for English cuisine by cooking such delights as a bland, tasteless stew that I don't think anybody really liked, and a bolognese that nobody complained about but ultimately ended up in the dog's bowl.
We did make an apple crumble, and as many of you will know, Dgym is an expert in the field of crumbly goodness. We couldn't find cooking apples, only sweet eating ones, so it wasn't really fruity enough. A couple of plums helped, but it could have been a lot better. It is quite possible that they are trying to keep us from cooking by getting up early to make lunch. In the UK I think we rely a lot more upon exotic and/or pre-prepared ingredients, rather than knowing how to work with the basics. We would welcome any suggestions as to how we can make a favourable culinary impression upon people who seem to be able to whip up the most delicious meal from a few basic ingredients. (We're good at washing up though)
At the moment, we're not quite sure where we want to end up living, but we think it's probably not here. Here is lovely in many ways, but too far from our friends and families, and too far from any decent cycling - and one thing we have learned this year is that cycle touring is great fun and we want to do lots more of it. Portugal would be great cycling if the drivers weren't psycho, and Spain would be even better cycling if they actually served food there. At the moment we're thinking France (lovely mountains, great cycling, quite convenient for exploring the continent by bike) or Scotland (low population density, very beautiful, the exact opposite of convenient for exploring the continent by bike but still lots of good cycling, and a good deal more convenient for getting back to Southern England). Both have nice houses we can afford, and both are close enough.
We will probably leave here in January, and then start focusing on finding somewhere we do want to live.
Monday, October 23, 2006
Wednesday 18th October - A strange day
dgym
Our last day of planned cycling in a country usually goes slightly awry, either because we can't find accomodation where we were hoping to (France, Netherlands, Germany, Spain) or because we got horribly lost (Belgium) or just because we have to cross 2 miles of London. This time it was raining and we had a hill to get over, but other than having to get off and push because a cobbled street was too slippery for our tyres nothing too strange happened and we made it back to Valpacos in reasonable time.
Comming in to town we headed straight for the cafe we had stopped at last time, we were both wet and it was raining too hard to eat lunch outside and we knew we could get some sandwiches there. The trike attracted some attention as ever and when we sat down one of the locals tried a bit French with us. Upon learning that we were English he tapped his friend on the shoulder who turned round and said hello with a definite cockney accent - he was Portuguese but had moved to London more than 35 years ago.
We got chatting and when I told him that we were looking for somewhere to rent over the winter he asked the barman and before we knew it we were being shown around an apartment just a few doors down. It was large, with two bedrooms a kitchen and a dinning room, but the bathroom was horrible and we hoped that we could do better for 200 euros a month. So we all went back to the cafe and then things got really weird. Tony (at least I think that is his name) was going to drive us to see somewhere else, but then we ended up just walking around the corner and talking to a few people, and then walked back to a house on the square and knocking on someone's door. There we met Maria who had already been told we were looking for somewhere to stay and she said this was her father's house and they had a spare room and they didn't want any rent but if we could help out with the bills we could stay with them for a few months.
The families here seem to be very large (or at least people know a lot more of their family) and I think Maria is related to the owner of the cafe who Tony was talking to so maybe that is how it happened, but it was all rather strange and rapid none the less. So now we have somewhere to stay that is obviously within our budget, and fully furnished too. We are learning Portuguese from Maria (who has recently returned after spending 6 years in Ireland, and I thought the cockney-portuguese accent was strange) and living very close to the centre of town and being introduced to more and more people daily.
Hopefully we should be getting broadband installed over the next few days and then we should be all set for the winter in this strange and wonderful place.
Our last day of planned cycling in a country usually goes slightly awry, either because we can't find accomodation where we were hoping to (France, Netherlands, Germany, Spain) or because we got horribly lost (Belgium) or just because we have to cross 2 miles of London. This time it was raining and we had a hill to get over, but other than having to get off and push because a cobbled street was too slippery for our tyres nothing too strange happened and we made it back to Valpacos in reasonable time.
Comming in to town we headed straight for the cafe we had stopped at last time, we were both wet and it was raining too hard to eat lunch outside and we knew we could get some sandwiches there. The trike attracted some attention as ever and when we sat down one of the locals tried a bit French with us. Upon learning that we were English he tapped his friend on the shoulder who turned round and said hello with a definite cockney accent - he was Portuguese but had moved to London more than 35 years ago.
We got chatting and when I told him that we were looking for somewhere to rent over the winter he asked the barman and before we knew it we were being shown around an apartment just a few doors down. It was large, with two bedrooms a kitchen and a dinning room, but the bathroom was horrible and we hoped that we could do better for 200 euros a month. So we all went back to the cafe and then things got really weird. Tony (at least I think that is his name) was going to drive us to see somewhere else, but then we ended up just walking around the corner and talking to a few people, and then walked back to a house on the square and knocking on someone's door. There we met Maria who had already been told we were looking for somewhere to stay and she said this was her father's house and they had a spare room and they didn't want any rent but if we could help out with the bills we could stay with them for a few months.
The families here seem to be very large (or at least people know a lot more of their family) and I think Maria is related to the owner of the cafe who Tony was talking to so maybe that is how it happened, but it was all rather strange and rapid none the less. So now we have somewhere to stay that is obviously within our budget, and fully furnished too. We are learning Portuguese from Maria (who has recently returned after spending 6 years in Ireland, and I thought the cockney-portuguese accent was strange) and living very close to the centre of town and being introduced to more and more people daily.
Hopefully we should be getting broadband installed over the next few days and then we should be all set for the winter in this strange and wonderful place.
Sunday 15th October - Dogs
The dog thing is ridiculous here. This morning in Pinhao we were awoken at quarter past six by somebody driving around with a trailer full of yippy little creatures making noises that belonged not to dogs, but to tortured budgies. Tonight in Alijo we are staying next door to a concrete enclosure of yet more impossibly high-pitched animals and the sleep prospects are not good. As much as we wanted a decent meal in Spain, we want a decent night's sleep in Portugal. We made the mistake of opening the windows in our room and were quickly inundated with swarms of flies. A quick trip into town stocked us up with plenty of fly paper and now we are having some fun collecting tiny corpses on a bit of sticky paper. It's like watching the footy, only much better.
We stopped considering Poland as a potential place to live - it's not that we particularly disliked anything about it, we just didn't particularly like anything about it either (well there were the cherries, and the nice cake shop, but that's not really enough) - it didn't really grab us as somewhere we wanted to live. Portugal is different - it grabs us in lots of ways. The food is fantastic (we really do applaud the quality of the baking in particular), people are friendly, and there are some lovely houses here. However, we have found there to be certain things lacking from what we would consider to be quality of life for us - the concept of peace and quiet seems completely foreign to most people. The idea of making any effort to ward off swarms of flies is also foreign to most cafe owners - (but that's also true in Spain). We are probably experiencing the noise problem a lot because we are staying in residencials which are almost invariably on busy main streets of towns, and put you in close confinement with other people. I can see the problem being greatly reduced by enough double glazing and / or distance from busy areas, in fact that would be essential to our being able to live here - but if the real problem is that we're just incompatible with Portugal, it would likely catch up with us eventually. I suppose we are doing what we came here to do, which is find out what life is like in Portugal.
Today we cycled north again from the Douro. The gradients stopped being completely insane - still mostly an uphill day, and still pretty average by mountain standards, but it was nice to feel the effects of having built up a lot more strength over the past few days, and be able to climb a little more easily (although I don't think Dgym's legs were really up for anything more than holding up his laptop today)
We stopped considering Poland as a potential place to live - it's not that we particularly disliked anything about it, we just didn't particularly like anything about it either (well there were the cherries, and the nice cake shop, but that's not really enough) - it didn't really grab us as somewhere we wanted to live. Portugal is different - it grabs us in lots of ways. The food is fantastic (we really do applaud the quality of the baking in particular), people are friendly, and there are some lovely houses here. However, we have found there to be certain things lacking from what we would consider to be quality of life for us - the concept of peace and quiet seems completely foreign to most people. The idea of making any effort to ward off swarms of flies is also foreign to most cafe owners - (but that's also true in Spain). We are probably experiencing the noise problem a lot because we are staying in residencials which are almost invariably on busy main streets of towns, and put you in close confinement with other people. I can see the problem being greatly reduced by enough double glazing and / or distance from busy areas, in fact that would be essential to our being able to live here - but if the real problem is that we're just incompatible with Portugal, it would likely catch up with us eventually. I suppose we are doing what we came here to do, which is find out what life is like in Portugal.
Today we cycled north again from the Douro. The gradients stopped being completely insane - still mostly an uphill day, and still pretty average by mountain standards, but it was nice to feel the effects of having built up a lot more strength over the past few days, and be able to climb a little more easily (although I don't think Dgym's legs were really up for anything more than holding up his laptop today)
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