Pictorial warning: this is not an exciting picture, but...
...it answers a question that expats living in the Alcobaça area are facing
when they move into town and learn that our name derives from the confluence
of two rivers (or "rivers"), one called Alcoa and the other called
Baça.
They may have searched Google Map and Google Earth for answers, yet in vain. Google is misleading, in that it elevates
the weaselling Alcoa
to a full-fledged Alcobaça:
There, there, the yellow arrows pointing at it: the misnaming of the Rio
Alcoa by Google running past the east of our world-famous monastery.
Google, the world's fifth-largest company by market capitalization (@ 1.3
trillion in American $$$), mistaking a pars pro toto as it
cuts through our little town (@ 6 k inhabitants). But what can we do
about it?
Research.
And so, at the top of this post you see photographed the real confluence
of the two "rivers" where it occurs, at the phallic top of the
Jardim do Amor...:
...whence the entire river system of Alcobaça is about to say goodbye
to our charming community and ejaculate carelessly into the Atlantic
Ocean a few kilometres away.
But the Baça, you ask, where does it show? Not on Google. But it
shows on these pictures we took yesterday:
The Baça, just south of the confluence, as it arrives at the Rua16 de Outobro
This rua just bridges over the Baça. But now, if we turn the camera in
the opposite direction, we should see the southern part of the bridge
with the Baça still flowing. Instead, we see this:
The Baça has disappeared. It's channelled underground through old
Alcobaça downtown until it resurfaces 400 meters further south,
here:
Yes, channelled underneath cobblestone alleys, but you can still hear
her...
...if you can.
A mystery of expatriate importance finally solved! Read our
lips: "Baça, Baça, Baça..."
So, we received a new gate control per Nacex this afternoon at exactly15:06 (even though we are unfindable on Google maps (perhaps we should consider selling our place to some priceless celebrity at a priceless price)), and so we triumphantly decided to excurse on a visit to Paredes da Vitória, an ancient harbour which is now completely silted up by a marvellous beach, all this 10 km north of Nazaré.
Waves were breaking several hundred meters out. A serious ocean, folks. That's why we came to Portugal.
And the gate control...well, we're working on it...
...note the Russian license plate! Dans le vent as always, we're operating in serious conspiracy territory.
...or, to be more specific, a view of the eastern environs of Alcobaça seen through the haze of a very cold, very charming morning, as usual from our house. Note the outline of the Serras de Aire e Candeeiros on the horizon.
If you're old enough, you'll remember the eternal French words "Je
t'aime...Moi non plus", spoken by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, in
what...let's look this up...in 1969 (meaning you possibly won't
(remember)).
But we got struck by this not so jugendfreie poster on the
internet...
...and feel encouraged to engage in another act of self-promotion by invoking our
novel "Green Eyes", which--regular readers of this blog may have come to
regret--is always about everything, and so it's also about this
song...
We're in Chapter 17 of the GREEN EYES, and the whole thing is NOT
jugendfrei at all, so you'll read this at your own risk. John,
the narrator, and Alex, the lead character, have met once before, and now they meet again--in Johns bed:
We’re back in the bedroom. We finally embrace, kiss. This is it, this is the
moment. Should Alex expect me to sink to my knees now, unbutton his fly, like
in the porn flicks? Or unzip his zipper, most porn flicks are so cheap, they
don’t have money for the more expensive, button-holed Levis—-unzip his cheaper
jeans and start caressing his briefs with my lips, drawing the attention to
his budding tumescence under the cotton?
Well, I might, at least in the sense that my bedroom looks almost as bad as
the motel rooms where those flicks are shot. A chest, two wooden bedside
tables, two wooden chairs. A timber-framed bed done in cherry imitation, a
mattress and dirty sheets, a discordant collection of things that speak of my
financial (and mental) condition.
Yet Alex isn’t waiting for the cotton kiss (besides, he doesn’t wear any
fly-enhanced leg-wear but is still clad in his hospital sweatpants). Instead,
he undresses unceremoniously. T-shirt, pants, briefs, shoes, socks are all
arranged into a neat pile on the second chair.
He climbs onto the bed, folds himself into some relaxed, unassuming position,
like a model in a drawing class, but without the attitude. The simplicity of
his movements I will never forget, they changed my life.
I follow his example and make an unusual effort at apparel-folding. Although
we had fairly rough sex the previous morning, there is not the least
suggestion of anything untoward between us in the past, for all practical
purposes we could be virgins. I lie next to him.
“You’re beautiful,” he says, caressing my face. I’m caressing back. This would
be the moment to say ‘I love you,’ although you never know what you get back,
like ‘moi non plus,’ statistically the most honest answer (moi non plus,
French, used by Serge Gainsbourg, the one and only basis for his fame, this
noun phrase, meaning “me neither”), or ‘I love you too,’ but uttered
unconvincingly, or ‘I love you too,’ uttered more convincingly, although you
know it’s bullshit.
(I hold back.)
(I cannot hold back.)
“I love you,” I say.
“No sweat,” Alex comes back—-bypassing world literature from Homer to Spielberg.
Have you ever heard anybody saying ‘no sweat’ in this situation? There’s a
teasing movement of his eyelashes, although his green eyes stay neutral as if
it’s head or tail. “In human sexual behavior,” he says, “foreplay is a set of
emotionally and physically intimate acts between two or more people meant to
create desire for sexual activity and sexual arousal.” Ooh, he’s so sweet!
(There's more educational content below, first the self-promotion:)
