Alcobaça this morning, on Michael's morning walk

(Pictures by Chang Man Yoon)

The giant wave

This surf figures in the Guinness Book of records, but it is rare (happening twice per year perhaps) and very local (just at the tip of the Sitio rock, in front of the Forte de São):

  

 "More or less (?)", you ask? Yes, because we are located in Alcobaça, the town next to Nazaré (lower right of the map)...

...and the Praia do Norte (northern beach), where the surf happens and the Forte is located, is ca. 10km away:

An interesting feature, which explains part of the popularity of the region, has to do with the two beaches. The northern beach is wild at all times, and untameable under the unrelenting drift of northerly winds---providing a perfect backdrop for hippies of all generations. In contrast, the southern beach is protected by the cliff---gladly accommodating families with small children and strong preference for sunburns.

The week in pictures

The entrance with two newly acquired geranium pots

Fleas on the newly acquired bougainvilliids

Sheep on Michael's morning walk

The living room on Sunday morning

The living room again

Rambo, Charlie's dog

Acres of artificial grass...

 ...not acres, in fact, but the grass-floor of the pergola is indeed artificial. The swing--which we called Hollywood-swing in previous editions (our friend Sacha informs us that said expression is only used in Germany and unintelligible to normal people)--so, said swing is from Belliani, a Portuguese outfit. The two deck chairs are from LaRedoute:

We ordered four canvas chairs (director's chairs in German), so stay tuned.

On closer inspection, the natural grass looks artificial as well, but that's just an artefact induced by Chang's lawn-mowing plus the dry high winds of the last couple of days. The swing swings with the wind, very nice.

Acres of hardwood...

It took a little while, because Michael got sick in the meantime, but here we are: this is the living room as of May 17, 2021:

 Any progress? Well, here's an earlier shot of the room, dating back to Nov 29, 2020:

The language of love

 

Smoking kills you (2)

https://ali-almusawy.tumblr.com/post/647640350686674944

Smoking kills you

 

Art by William Wray

Guilt! -- The Muppets

(We post this for our friend Sacha; you need to switch on the sound:) 

 

https://internclarabelle.tumblr.com/post/643287403672616960/obsessed-with-this-muppet-clip-where-gonzo-breaks

IQ-test -- Fill in the blanks

 

Zeitgeist -- How to stay afloat in the days of Twitter

(1) Twitter didn't even exist when Monica Lewinsky was comforting Bill Clinton in the off-room of the Oval Office;

(2) That was 25 years ago;

(3) And now what? How to stay afloat 25 years later?

(4) Study physics and outdo Einstein?

(5) Or...

(6) Well, while you are studying physics, we study expressions such as:

(7) "Yesterday"...

(8) "All my troubles seemed so far away" (Beatles)

(9) "On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my head..." (Eagles)

(10) Not quite, instead:

(11) "i [sic] hadn't driven on a highway i [sic] hadn't driven on in years"...

(12) ...and then, of course: "My dark decade"...

(12a) ("dark" (?)  -- don't they have electricity in the Oval Office?):

 

(13) Note the subtle tiptoeing around her own gender ("(she/her)"), as if she would be in doubt herself;

(14) We are so politically-incorrect here, it's intentional terrible intentional terrible...

(15) But we do this because 50% or more of all Twitter posts are like this: undiluted self-promotion of has-beens and non-entities.

(16) We know, we know, we are one of them.

Broken promises -- It's raining cats and dogs

We once assured you that there would never do a dog-or-cat post on this blog. Well, there you have it (the third one is the best):

Alcoa-Baça

 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 Rua 16 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..."

Waiting for...

...our friend Glenn sends this...

..."Godot", yes, Godot.

Paredes da Vitória this afternoon (updated)

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. 

Alcobaça, this morning...

...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.

"I love you...Me neither" (updated)

 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...

We added the fig-leaves after having read a beautiful essay in The New Yorker about Nabokov's Lolita 

...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:)

"Click"

(And now the educational stuff:)

 

 (And the lyrics:)

Je t'aime, je t'aime

Oh oui, je t'aime

Moi non plus

Oh, mon amour

Comme la vague irrésolue

Je vais, je vais et je viens

Entre tes reins

Je vais et je viens

Entre tes reins

Et je me retiens

Je t'aime, je t'aime

Oh oui, je t'aime

Moi non plus

Oh, mon amour

Tu es la vague, moi l'île nue

Tu vas, tu vas et tu viens

Entre mes reins

Tu vas et tu viens

Entre mes reins

Et je te rejoins

Je t'aime, je t'aime

Oh oui, je t'aime

Moi non plus

Oh, mon amour

Comme la vague irrésolue

Je vais, je vais et je viens

Entre tes reins

Je vais et je viens

Entre tes reins

Et je me retiens

Tu vas, tu vas et tu viens

Entre…

Today

So, while SCOTUS ruled in an unsigned court order sans dissent that Trump has to hand over his tax declarations to the NY prosecutor (almost ascertaining his future as a convict in orange jump suit and shackles), we, in blissful ignorance* of said ruling, went to the Praia do Norte nearby, which holds the Guinness Book of Records for the highest surfable waves on the planet.  (continues below)

The killer surf happens twice a year or so, but we had never seen the sea this agitated, with breakers perhaps 7 meters high (max is something like 38 meters). They are caused by the Canyon de Nazaré, an underwater fold of the continental shelf that reaches the floor of the Atlantic Plate 3000 meters down very quickly and echoes/reinforces the waves'  amplitude.

---

*Nassim Kaleb, the author of The Black Swan, writes in his book that it's practically useless to follow the news. Almost nothing really important ever happens, he holds--until a Black Swan Event occurs.

(Ask us in a comment if the link is not informative enough).

Hold the presses

Our friend Glenn sends this:

(If you are puzzled, leave a comment, and we'll explain)

Spring has arrived -- updated

 

Our garden, as yet untended, on Feb 12, at 11 AM; we are at: 39°32′30.7″ N, 8°58′54.3″ W in Alcobaça, PT

The same garden on Feb 15, at 11:30 AM, now under reconstruction by Louis, our trusted gardener