8/17/22 Board the Ship

We got to breakfast and the line for the bus assignments a few minutes before 7am when the restaurant was due to open. Apparently there were a bunch of people who understood the plan better than we did, because by the time we got to the head of the line, the first 2 busses were already full. That taught us to arrive at least 15 minutes before requested which served us well and allowed us to get on our bus second to select seat near the front.

The bus driver was also sort of a tour guide and tried to help us find wild life and understand the surroundings as we went. He claimed there was a bald eagle on a rock in the bay along the road, but it just looked like a tall rock. Later as we got on the ship, we saw an eagle flying low along the length of the ship. He also told us to look for beluga whales in the bay and apparently there were several. What we saw were several random white caps which apparently was the belugas quickly surfacing and diving. What we did see for sure was several red salmon in a small river on their way to spawn. He said that you don’t want to try to catch one then, that they stop eating on their way to the spawning ground and basically use up their bodies on the way to their destination.

We boarded our ship around 1pm with a minimum of hassles. Cabins were due to be ready no later than 2:30, so we had a buffet lunch with champagne included. Since we had reservations at a steak specialty restaurant at 7 to celebrate Jim’s birthday, we wanted to eat relatively light.

Cabins were ready early so we went to ours and discovered birthday decorations and a bottle of champagne for Jim. We unpacked what we had and set out to explore. The Seven Seas Mariner carries around 700 passengers, making it the biggest ship I have been on. We found the theater, several restaurants, a casino, shops, a running track, putting green, and pool (with temperatures in the low 60s, we skipped bringing swimsuits) and the spa, where I got a massage reservation for the next day. Our luggage did arrive before dinner which allowed us to make a couple changes to the plan for the evening, but it only came about an hour or less before dinner, so I was VERY glad we were ready for the worst.

Easy to tell what day it is....

Above: The view from our cabin when we arrived.
Below: the view when the sun appeared.

 

We set sail around 5pm and the seas were pretty rough for a while. Thankfully, they calmed down during dinner. We ate at a shared table since I hadn’t been able to get a table for two and met Lynn (the husband) and Gale (whose middle name was Lynne) from Maryland and Kimberly from Washington D.C. At the end, Jim got a special dessert (big enough to share around the table) and the wait staff all sang ‘Happy Birthday’ (which I have always been asked NOT to instigate).

8/16/22 North to Alaska

We actually got started on this trip on 8/15 when we got a required PCR test after the tour we led in Chinatown and then went to visit Erika and Jesse and help with the boys until after dinner when we checked into an airport hotel and got a room with a view of San Francisco Bay.

We got up at 3am to catch our 6:30am flight to Anchorage, Alaska by way of Seattle. We were originally unhappy about having a nearly 3.5 hour layover in Seattle. However, our plane had technical problems and we were DE-boarded after about an hour and several people were moved to other flights due to tighter connections. We were told as long as we departed by 10sm, we would make our connection and we actually ended up with about an hour in Seattle, enough to grab a hot sandwich for lunch.

The arrival to Anchorage was uneventful (this is good) and on time. Our room at the Anchorage Hilton even has a view of the inlet to the Gulf of Alaska. 

The view from our room

Dinner on the ship requires ‘Country Club’ or ‘Elegant’ Casual which means no polo shirts, tees, jeans, or hiking clothing and there was no guarantee on when precisely our luggage would arrive in our room, so we totally rearranged using a collapsible bag we brought along to move one night’s dinner clothing to this bag so we could carry it on the bus tomorrow to get to Seward where the ship is.

We were greeted by a group that checked all of our required documentation (vaccine card, passport, negative PCR test, and Canadian arrival documentation – this one needed work and the staff there quickly resolved our questions) and got a ticket which allowed us to get a bus assignment the next day. Seward is 140 miles south of Anchorage and the bus takes almost 3 hours. A later bus means more time to explore Anchorage and less time to settle into the ship and explore it, so we planned to get to breakfast when it started to get an early ticket.

For dinner, we selected a nearby Thai restaurant vs the many seafood options, since we anticipate a wealth of seafood on the trip. It was not busy and we were a bit concerned, but the issue was that it was only 5:45pm AND Monday. The food was quite tasty.

5/4/22 -- Home Again

The good news is we got back to the US around 2pm. The bad news is that to do it, we went to bed at 3pm PDT and woke up at 6:30 pm PDT (or 11pm to 2:30am in Portugal's time zone).  

We were concerned about our connection in Paris since we find that internal flights frequently get bused to gates and we only had 1.5 hours between flights, plus we had to go through passport control. However, we landed at an actual gate, the passport wait only took 5 minutes, and we were in a closer terminal than usual. The flight was somewhat delayed because of a problem with a water chiller, so we did arrive a little later than scheduled. 

Once we landed, we discovered that the Global Entry process is now a single screen instead of several. The hardest part was figuring out that I had to get shorter to be close enough to the camera to have my face fill the screen image. That was it -- it printed a photo, we waited for about a minute for the photo to be compared to our passports and faces and we were in. No questions about how much we spent and if we were bringing in food. No forms handed out in the airplane.

We collected our car from Erika and Jesse and headed home by way of the grocery store. It is totally unusual for us to have anything fresh in the fridge after a long trip, so being able to relax in the evening and be ready to cook breakfast the next day was a treat.

I did discover that one disadvantage of having a mechanical knee is that I trigger virtually every screening device and have to allow time to get wanded and patted down. However, being able to walk freely without pain definitely makes the occasional pat down a small price to pay. 

We had a wonderful time and now we have a full day to readjust to CA time, do the laundry, catch up on email, snail mail, and finances so we can start working for the county elections department on Friday, training for our new roles as Vote Center Coordinators.

5/3/22 -- Antigen Test, Pack, Try Ceramics Painting

This morning was dedicated to packing our luggage for the trip home and getting the covid test we needed to re-enter the US. Since our flight leaves at 5:40AM and we leave the hotel at 3AM to catch it, we wanted everything packed and secure to the extent possible. Part of the design goal was to have all the dirty clothes that would fit in one big bag along with padding for the wine and the clean clothes in the other big bag, with purchases in our carry on. 

This still gave us time to relax and to work on the blog. We caught a light lunch in a nearby cafe and then hopped on a bus to travel south of Lisbon to a very old residence in Azeitao which became a winery (no tasting this time) and also had an adjoining tile 'factory'. 

Just before we arrived a the villa, I looked at Facebook on my phone and saw that my cousin Anna had posted twice -- once that she was on her way to Lisbon and second that she had arrived! We exchanged a number of texts as I was walking around the gardens, establishing that, in theory we had about an hour when we were both supposed to be free. The difficulty was that her hotel was a 10 minute walk downhill from mine, which would mean more than that uphill and I would need a shower before I could be presentable for our farewell dinner. As it was, our bus was 45 minutes late getting back, so even Uber wouldn't have saved the date. But what a small world to have her end up here the same day as me. I have stopped posting our travels on Facebook til after we return, so she had no idea I was there.

First we toured the grounds and house and learned of its history. Quinta da Bacalhoa (a play on a slur for a woman in the cod fishing industry) was first purchased 1275 and built on in the 1300s.. It changed hands several times until 1609 when one family controlled it until 1901. It acquired its last owner in 1936 after it had become derelict. Photos at the bottom show the before and afters of a couple places. It was put up for sale for 130,000 of whatever the currency was then. However the buyer, Orlena Zabriskie Scoville turned out to be a tireless and hard bargainer and got it for 12,000.

Above and below: entry courtyard.

This appears to have been a swimming pool
as the depth varies from one end to the other,

We walked  thru the rooms behind the arches which were
decorated with many different tiles from centuries ago.

Not sure where the water is coming from
but I liked the look

These were the most interesting tiles we
saw. They were three dimensional and
the three brown dots you can see on the
tile below are where little legs were placed
to keep the raised parts separated so they
didn't flatten in the kiln. Then the legs
were broken off, leaving the unglazed spots.

Much of what we walked through looked
like this.

Above and below: before (1936 purchase
status) and after renovation. I am
pretty sure it cost more than the 120,000
Mrs. Scoville shaved off the price.

After getting a brief introduction to how some of the tiles were made, we had the opportunity to paint one each. Because of the firing time involved, finishing them there was not an option so we opted to bring our two tiles home and see if we will be able to find someplace to fire them. I have no illusions that they are great artwork. The good news is that the factory had stencils we could use as a pattern and we each got one very fine brush and one fat one. Unfortunately, they appear to do this kind of thing a lot because my fine brush had definitely seen better days and barely carried any paint, so long thin lines were out of the question. I have long fat lines instead. I'll add photos of the finished product when we find somewhere to fire them.

Back at the hotel, we prepped for our farewell dinner and an early rising time to fly home.

5/2/22 Explore Lisbon

 We set off in a bus to see more of Lisbon and ended up with a walking tour of the old downtown parts of the city. It is reminiscent of San Francisco in that it is built on hills, has a tram system, and was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami in 1755. Our first stop was a park (with lots of somewhat aggressive vendors --if you showed interest in something, they followed you around, but if you ignored them, they returned the favor). This is the location of the Torre de Belem which also had a replica of the first plane to cross the Atlantic at its widest. The tower has several animals depicted on the corners, including the first rhinoceros to set foot in Europe since Roman times. It was a gift from India to Portugal, it had a short and sad life there.

A huge grain silo across the bay with cranes for loading
and unloading.

A replica of the seaplane that made the historic trip in
1922. They made several stops along the way and used
three different planes in a trip that took 2.5 months,
mostly due to waiting for replacements.

 The Torre de Belem is a small fort at the entry to the
Tagus River in Lisbon, built in the 16th century.

The fort in the distance is currently
a lighthouse.

The rhinoceros sculpture is badly eroded limestone.

Above and two below: other sculptures on the corners.

Looking inland from the tower, you can see a bridge that is a close replica of the Golden Gate Bridge (minus the Art Deco style) and a statue reminiscent of the Rio De Janerio Christ the Redeemer statue. The bridge opened in  1966 and was originally named for Salazar, the dictator, and was renamed for the date of his overthrow in 1974. In 1999, they added a lower deck for a train, which was originally in plan, but constructed later. The bridge had first been proposed in 1935 and designs submitted including on from the eventual builder. When they decided a second time to build it, one of the original design teams won. They were from the US and had connections to the construction of the Golden Gate.

The next site we visited was a statue celebrating Henry the Navigator and many of the intrepid folks who explored the world for Portugal..It is called the Monument to Discoveries and was originally built in 1935 for the Portuguese 1940 Expo. Like many such structures, it was not built to last and was demolished and rebuilt in 1958. Henry wasn't really a navigator, but he sponsored the age of discovery. 

Map of the world showing Portuguese discoveries.

After that, we headed to the old part of town, Alfama. It is famous for a type of music called 'fado' played on a 6 or 12 string guitar that uses a totally different tuning plan than a modern guitar. The streets were narrow and in the early stages of being decorated for some big festival that starts in several weeks. We also got an opportunity to try a cherry liqueur called Ginja that apparently is served in little chocolate cups. Talk about heaven!

 

 

Our refreshment break!

Tiles representing the Fado culture - not
considered a high-brow form of
entertainment.

Decorations on this apartment building also
related to Fado

The metal plate on the street is where
a wall once was.

Then we walked up to the Lisbon Cathedral, originally built in 1147 and renovated and rebuilt and added to several times since then. Tile is also a very big thing in Lisbon and has led to theft. People will pull tiles off an old building and market them as antiques. The pictures below are majorly out of sequence but disappear if I try to move them.

The front of the Cathdral, which is up a
long hill

This is how far up we have walked from
sea level. There is a nearby elevator to
ease the ascent from below.

One side of the cathedral, showing an old section

Above and below: samples of building
tiles.

Above and below: the oldest visible sections of the cathedral.

Nearby is a church dedicated to Santo Antonio who is supposed to be the patron saint of lovers. If you are able to throw and land a coin in his book in the statue in front of the church, you will find a new (or better) partner. The museum dedicated to him had a large display of plates of varying sentiments related to his help.

After lunch we walked back to the hotel and got back just in time to meet up with a friend who now lives in Lisbon. She was a docent with me for the Chinese Culture Center and used to split her time between San Francisco and Lisbon until about 12 years ago, she moved permanently to Lisbon. We had a fun time catching up and comparing pandemic stories.

5/1/22 Drive from Portimao, Portugal to Lisbon

 Our ship docked on the southern coast of Portugal and we took a bus to Lisbon to avoid the frequent delays in the past due to nasty sailing conditions. To make the 3 hour ride more interesting, we stopped at a  hotel/vineyard/olive grove/restaurant for a few hours. It included wine tasting and olive oil tasting which they produce on site. We bought a couple bottles of wine for a surprisingly low $8 total. We learned that their olive oil was not available for purchase onsite, but could be found in the US at TJ Maxx of all places!

We saw lots of stork nests along the way,
including this one on top of the main
section of the hotel.

Look closely at the the nest: there are a bunch of little
birds flitting around and some brownish protrusions on
the big nest - it looks like dozens of the little guys are
homesteading in the huge stork nest.

A few of the oak barrels in the cellar --
looked more like a demonstration space
vs. a working cellar.

Olive processing machinery -- only used
during the harvest.

We completed our jaunt to Lisbon at the end of the day and found our very modern looking hotel, which was conveniently located. The downside was, it is at the top of a hill, but getting back into hill walking will make getting around at home again easier. Marcel led us to seafood place that specialized in 'fish and rice' near the hotel for our dinner.

This statue is at the top of the main
downtown street, Ave de Liberdade. It
represents Marques de Pombal who led
Lisbon's recovery from a devastating
earthquake in 1755.