Santiago to Santiago

Hey there, friends, followers, visitors, and the merely curious! I realize we’re waaaaaaay behind with a blog post, so I thought I’d update you on our last several weeks. Truth is, we’ve been on the move a great deal, and the radio silence happened because we just haven’t found much time to sit back and write a lengthy recap of our activities. If you’re one of our Facebook friends you’ve seen small doses, but here’s what we’ve been up to:

Santiago, Chile

We spent a week in Santiago, but unfortunately a few things made it less-than-perfect. First off, it rained almost the entire time. We did get to see a bunch of sights, but we weren’t able to get to wine country as planned, and we actually spent one day in a mall (though it allowed us to go bowling on yet another continent).

The other issue is that Amy was sick for most of our stay in Santiago, so we spent a few days holed up in our AirBnB apartment, which was pretty nice, actually. We got it through a company called “Chile4Rent,” and that was also the wifi name. So every time we logged into the wifi, we would sing “CHILE FOR RENT!” to the tune of “Baby Come Back!” (Sing it with me: “Chile For Rent!”) The problem with spending two days holed up in the apartment was that we only had one English-speaking channel other than CNN, so we watched about 20 episodes of “Two-and-a-Half Men” in those 48 hours (mathematically that’s fifty men in 48 hours, or just over a man-per-hour). Jon Cryer does not get funnier when subtitled in Spanish. And if you work in cable TV, you know programming – you repeat the same episodes several times every day. So we saw the same fart jokes two to three times a day while eating some half-decent take-out pizza.

Side note: we also saw the same promo for an upcoming One Direction concert movie in just about commercial break. “That’s what makes you beautiful!…let’s go CRAZY, CRAZY, CRAZY til we see the sun! – you’ve got that…ONE THING!” I love One Direction now (or as I call them, “1D”). Harry Styles is the cutest, but they’re all very talented in their own right, and super-cute, and oh-my-god, I just can’t…

Speaking of Chilean food (like half-decent take-out pizza) – we did have a few great meals, including one at a place named Borago, which according to the good folks at the San Pellegrino list, is ranked #91 globally, and the 8th best restaurant in Latin America. And as the best restaurant in Santiago, Amy and I decided to get reservations. Borago is known for using locally foraged ingredients, and it has a 12-course “endemic” tasting menu that makes the most of some uniquely Chilean ingredients. Here’s a few of the courses:

This is “Tartar of Guanaco from Tierra del Fuego.” What’s guanaco? It’s basically llama. Check it out – llama tartar! And to answer your question, yes, it was very good.

This is “Quail Egg in the Nest with Mushrooms.” To me it looks like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, but the quail egg was fantastic. Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!!

If there was ever a dish that is evil incarnate, this was it. “Veal and its Milk.” I know some people don’t like eating veal. Now imagine the veal is prepared in “its milk.” The irony of this did not escape me. It was crazy. And it was crazy delicious.

(A side note: did you know that almost all veal is male? I learned this from my father, who befriended a number of farmers living in the rural area by my parents’ lake house. All farmers need is a lot of ladies for milking, and one very lucky bull. The young male calves: not so lucky…)

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present, the “Frozen Glacier.” Yeah, it looks like we’re making kissy-face lips. We’re not. We’re blowing sweet, cold, minty smoke into the air. Not tobacco smoke, but literally some kind of super-cooled dessert that looks and tastes like a freeze-dried Mento, and you blow out the cold air like when it’s freezing outside. It was totally cool, and I wish the picture did justice to the novelty of it all.

It was a great meal.

Brazil and the World Cup

You read a bit about this in our friend Mark’s previous post. We first spent two quick days walking along the beach in Rio de Janiero. It was great, and the city had World Cup fever. All sorts of television crews and people from around the globe. The highlight was the opening match between Brazil and Croatia. We watched the first half on TV, and then we had to get to the airport for our flight to Recife. We got to the airport in record time – the streets were completely empty because everyone was watching the game. It was seriously post-apocalyptic. If there’s ever some sort of virus that kills everyone off, it will be great for your commute, trust me.

Recife and Natal were fun beach towns in the north, and I can honestly say other than going to the games in each town, our time there was uneventful. We’d go see a match, or sit at an outdoor café/bar and watch another match. It was pretty relaxing, and we had a lot of fun with Mark, it was great having him around.

Going to the games was great as well, even if it wasn’t a USA match. There are so many people in great costumes, and the passion and pageantry are catchy.

One match of note, however: Mexico vs. Croatia. The Mexican fans are very passionate, and they had some pretty nasty words they called their opponents, in unison, regularly. It’s like the whole stadium had Tourette’s on cue. And as the match went on, and no one was scoring, the tequila-fueled mob (seriously – we’ve got photos) got restless. They started throwing cups and getting more angry. And when the breakthrough goal came, so did the mayhem. In the first half, a security guard gave Amy grief for putting her feet up on the chairs. By the second half, however, it was beyone control – he was overlooking the flying cups, flying beer, flying garbage, and the unruly nature of the Mexican fans. Fights erupted in various sections of the stands, and riot police (seriously!) came into one section.

With the Mexicans well ahead in the 85th minute, Amy requested we leave early to avoid whatever celebratory violence might occur at the final whistle. By the end of added time, we were on a bus headed back. Like Lot and Lot’s wife, I told Amy not to look back at the orgy of destruction, and fortunately, she did not, and thus did not turn into a pillar of salt. Otherwise she would have been used to make thousands of margaritas.

And before we leave South America, a note about death and loss. They say these often come in threes, and in this case, we lost three things very near to us during our stay in Brazil.

First, Amy’s favorite travel umbrella was confiscated by the security folks at the USA vs. Ghana match. Apparently you can carry a mock assault rifle to go with your Rambo costume, but no umbrellas, please. You could block someone’s view.

Second, please say a silent prayer for my blue button-down shirt. You’ve seen it in a hundred pictures until now. It had a big rip in the back near the bottom which happened about two months into the trip in Asia, a few paints spots from when I sat on a freshly-painted bench in India, and a greasy oil stain from some steak dinner in Argentina. And it was always wrinkled. But it was lightweight, and it served me well. And when we got into our cab to go to the airport (and Europe), I asked Amy if she had seen my shirt. And she hadn’t, because I left it perched on a nearby bicycle while I loaded the bags into the cab. You can’t see my eyes getting misty right now, but please, look away — I don’t want you to see me like this.

Lastly, and most painfully, while sitting at the gate waiting to board our flight to Europe, I dropped my watch on the tile floor of the airport. The face cracked, badly, all the way from 11 o’clock to 5 o’clock. I think this might be repairable, and if anyone out there knows anything about this, let me know. I’ve worn that watch every day for close to 10 years, and it’s traveled the globe with me several times, and they don’t make them anymore. So…any ideas?

Flight to Europe

Our flight to Europe was uneventful, but one thing was memorable. We flew the German discount airline Condor to Frankfurt, and it was like any other transcontinental flight, but we ate what was probably the most delicious coach airline meal we’ve ever had! I don’t know what the secret was, but it was some kind of chicken and rice dish that was… well…amazing! It was really fantastic. Sure, it came in the whole microwave/tinfoil dish thing, but I could have eaten two more of them. Kudos, Condor.

We then had a seven-hour layover in Frankfurt, and eventually got to Madrid at about 8pm that night. And in Madrid we picked up the newest member of our travel family. Please say a big blog hello to…CLEO!

For the next three months, we’ll be driving around in this brand new 2014 Renault Clio. We did the math and figured this long-term rental would be cheaper than all the trains to all the places we want to go, and the flexibility of it all helps a great deal. The name “Cleo” is pretty obvious, and generally it’s a pretty good vehicle.

But I do have one issue with Cleo. Cleo has a navigation system that clearly wants some attention. Instead of simply saying “stay on the motorway for the next 88 kilometers,” Cleo, at regular intervals, will turn down the radio, and say in her robot voice that sounds like Emma Thompson, “At the next exit, in two-point-five kilometers – go straight on the motorway. Keep left.” Then, “In one kilometer, stay straight.” Then, “In one-hundred meters, keep left…(you go 80 meters)…Keep left…” What?!! Tell me when to get OFF the highway, Cleo. Otherwise just shut up!! One Direction is on the radio!

Madrid

We spent two fantastic days in Madrid. We ate all kinds of great food, including a stop at the Museo Del Jamon – the Museum of Ham!

We also ate pig’s ears at a tapas bar…

We went to the Prado and were overwhelmed by great art.

And we ate at the oldest restaurant in the world, called Restaurant Botin. It was quite good, but it had this line on the bottom of the menu:

I’m hoping that’s just a cultural thing, and not a precursor to antibiotics.

We also visited this really fabulous bullfighting bar. There were all kinds of mounted bulls heads, all former bull greats, famous for battling the greatest matadors. It would be like walking into a bar and having a beer and marinated octopus, while the stuffed heads of Joe Louis, Sonny Liston, and Mike Tyson – if he was dead – looked down on you. (That’s actually not a bad idea for a bar, though I’m not sure it would be up to health code to have the stuffed corpses mingling with the stuffed peppers).

There were also fantastic pictures of bullfighting, some just utterly gruesome. Take a look at this guy – Dios Santo!!

Obidos

From Madrid we drove to Obidos, Portugal, on the recommendation of friends. We booked three nights there, but what the friends didn’t tell us is that Obidos is basically a day-trip. It’s a spectacular medieval walled city, and tourists come en masse to walk the fortress walls. We spent the first day exploring the town, then we watched some World Cup matches at a local bar. But then, at night, they roll up the welcome mats, and the place shuts down by 10pm. It’s eerily silent after dark! Nothing is open. So we went back to our hotel. On the second day, we explored more, met a dog (who we named Simon for no real reason), watched more World Cup, took a nap, went window shopping, and then at 10pm – BOOM BOOM. Out go the lights.

By Day Three we wised up. We hopped into Cleo, and explored some 800-year-old monasteries in a few neighboring towns. We also went to Fatima, the site of a vision of the Virgin Mary nearly 100 years ago. It’s huge, and tens of thousands of pilgrims visit every year to celebrate the miracle. But what I found interesting were the souvenir shops, where you can get a Fatima bucket hat for about 10 euro. There’s also the “Ave Maria” restaurant at the complex. I guess even pilgrims have to eat.

Porto

Our next stop was only a few hours away, in Porto, Portugal. We’d been there before, and really loved it. We arrived a bit after noon, and spent the afternoon exploring the hills of the city, drinking beer and wine down by the Douro River, and having a port wine tasting. I’ll tell you this about the port tasting – our host gave a generous pour. He also gave us four glasses for a three-glass tasting. And these were glasses full of rich syrupy dessert wine. We hadn’t really had that much to eat that day, so by the time we left, we were feeling slightly light-headed.

Later that evening, we walked around trying to find a place to watch the USA-Belgium World Cup match. We were about five minutes from kickoff, and still couldn’t find anywhere that looked full of people excited about the World Cup. And then the syrupy port wine caught up with me. There was a rumble in my stomach that indicated impending disaster. There we were, too far from our hotel, and nowhere near finding a place to watch the match. And if you know Amy, you know she hates to miss the National Anthem. Well, I’m sad to say, Amy tragically missed the Anthem that night. At the twilight’s last gleaming, she gave proof through the night, while I was deep in the bowels of a coffee shop, bombs bursting in air.

We did finally find a place to watch nearby, and it was totally empty, we were the only ones there for most of the first half. It seemed the excitement was lost on the Portuguese. I imagine being out of the tournament already, they couldn’t care less about the possible snooze-fest that was USA vs. Belgium. So we got on the bar’s wifi and searched for something more lively. And we found it. Right in the heart of the tourist area by the river, about a 10-minute walk away, was an Irish bar. This had to be the place. So at halftime, we gathered our things, and sprinted downhill to the bar. And when we walked in – it was dead. There was one Belgian couple, and of course the Flems were drinking Stella and eating frites. Well, you know how the game turned out…

Santiago de Compostela

Which brings us up to date. We’re now in Santiago de Compostela, in the Galician region of Spain. It’s the end of the “Way of Saint James,” in which pilgrims walk from France, along the length of northern Spain, to eventually finish here in Santiago (“Saint Tiago,” or “Saint James”). The remains of the Apostle James are located in the cathedral here, and for over a thousand years, people have been making the pilgrimage, which is believed to forgive you of your sins. It’s pretty cool, actually. The town is full of history, and we’ve enjoyed our two days here: exploring the cathedral and the medieval town, getting a tour of the roof of the cathedral, and generally enjoying sitting at cafes and watching the tired pilgrims finish a month-long walk across the country. Seeing the joy on their faces as they finish, it makes you want to give it a try.

I will also tell you this, though – a lot of them smell funky.