Journey Juju

#best09 - Aha Moment

What do you need to be happy?

What makes you feel alive?

I was mashing potatoes at a friend's pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner when I felt it.

I felt it, then I thought it, and I knew it was true.

I'm best when helping.

Lagos,Portugal

Gleaning #3: A Fish Can Change Your Life

Almost a year into my Creative Leap, I dish on what I’ve learned – the good, the bad, the cringe-worthy. Tune in all through February for the daily gleanings from my life as a Creative Nomad.

As a former vegetarian (17 years!), eating a whole fish was about the last thing I wanted to do. But living in Portugal, you get a lot of fish, and it doesn’t come all neat and tidy in a fillet. It comes whole fish, head, tail and all.

It was humbling hacking away at sardines. João patiently showed me how to use the knife more than the fork to get in between the bones and extract the soft meat. I had to set my ego aside and learn how to be patient or go hungry.

But when I was served a whole fish the other night in a French restaurant, I didn’t even blink. I knew what to do and enjoyed the fish. Okay, I did avoid looking at its face too much.

From this I learned that I can change more easily than I thought. Expanding beyond my perceived limits and try new things expands my capacity. And I liked the fish!

How about you? What’s your whole fish? When have you surprised yourself with how easily you can shift?

Thousands of Pastelerias

London has its pubs, Paris its cafés, and Lisbon its Pastelerias. These diner-type joints sprout one, two, three to a street. They remind me of classic American diners – sparse décor, formica or zinc countertops, simple setting, simple food.

They are everywhere in Lisbon and Portugal. There must be thousands in Lisbon alone. They’re not just for pastries, though you can get the usual suspects: pastel de nata, French pastries such as croissants and madeleines, as well as savory pastries like pastel de bacchalau (codfish fritter). You can also get basic sandwiches: cheese and ham on the great Portuguese bread, or a tosta: the Portuguese grilled cheese with or without ham.

It’s typical to see the specials of the day handwritten on the paper used to cover the tables. Portuguese fare: grilled fish, octopus rice, beef dishes.

A common formula for lunch: soup of the day, sandwich, juice. A lot of soup and fresh juices are served in pastelerias. Fresh juice (sumo) is drunk a lot here.

Drop in for a coffee, stand at the counter and enjoy one of Portugal’s greatest institutions. You'll have no problem finding one.

Random Notes about Life in Portugal

When I walk around Lisbon, I make little mental sticky notes: blog about that. Remember to write about that. It really helps to write these notes down in my Moleskine reporter's notebook. Then I bring them back to the computer in the hopes of compiling a decent blog post. Sometimes they're just bits of things, so here today you'll find a list of random things I think are interesting about Portugal. There's a lot more than this that I love about Portugal, but here's what I've got today.

1. You’ll often see people at cafes double fisting it. Not with two of the same drink, but with two of the greatest drinks that fuel people the world over: beer and coffee. Try this at home and you'll feel really Portuguese without having to go there. But you should go there because it's a wonderful place.

2. I LOVE the bread in Portugal. This was the biggest surprise, how great the bread is. Small buns of light bread with crispy outside and soft inside make the perfect salad sandwich. My absolute favorite is a small, chipmunk-shaped bread with raisins, cinnamon and walnuts. It’s slightly sweet and absolutely impeccable. This bread was the first thing I really fell in love with about Portugal. I also love these seeded buns.

3. I have decided that while during the day Lisbon is brilliant with sun and waving palm trees, she’s really a city to be experienced at night. I love the moody feel evoked by the breeze from the Tejo river under the night sky, and the way the imperfections of the dilapidated buildings are in shadow.  Best of all is the lighting of the city – street lamps hanging off buildings cast a haunting yellow light over the cobblestones that provoke a feeling of magic and mystery.

4. Portuguese men are not lecherous like you imagine they are in other Latin countries. Maybe it’s just that they’re not looking at me, but I never feel ogled in Portugal, which is nice.

5. Portuguese wine is really good. And cheap. Deep reds from Alentejo and fizzy vinho verde from the north of Portugal.

6. The dollar is inching its way back up. I use my debit card at ATMs to get cash, usually taking out 200 euros at a time, which since I’ve been here equaled $317 or so. Now it only costs me $294 to get 200 euros. Keep going, dollar! Every little bit helps. But I think it all equals out. I lived in Boulder, one of the most expensive places in the US to live. One night I went to get apples to make a pie. I buy organic food, which is expensive. I paid $12.00 for six pieces of fruit. The other day I bought a bunch of bananas, five peaches, six plums, eight apples and eight honey drop figs for under six euros, or around eight to nine bucks. So you see that while the dollar is weak, things are cheaper in Portugal.

7. Lisbon is a hip city and attracts a lot of tourists. I see tons of Euro-couples, young couples wandering the streets clutching maps and guidebooks. Italians, French, Dutch…not so many Americans. You also see a lot of Euro-hippies, wearing baggy clothes and selling handmade jewelry on the streets.

8. When you want to say something is intense or cool, you say “Brutal!”

Chica Gri Gri* - Climbing in Azoia

I never wanted or planned to be a climber, but when I came to Portugal to stay with my climber boyfriend, it was inevitable that I would hit the wall.

I have had a couple of climbing outings with João. Clambering over boulders in Geres, hanging from a wall overlooking the ocean. It was discovered that I am a natural, which I attribute to yoga and my sometimes stubborn will. It was fun, but I didn’t plan to add climbing to the list of things I am working on improving. I’ve got my hands full with trying to be a better writer, coach and person while living in the unknown.

But when João told me about Chica GriGri - a women’s climbing festival in nearby Azoia, of course I wanted to go. Since I am leaving Portugal, I also want to enjoy its natural beauty as much as I can.

We packed our tent and sleeping bags, a few clothes and my journals. I had no idea what to expect but thought I may have some time on Sunday to relax, write, draw, and not worry about life and my next move. We got a ride with João’s friend Pedro.

Over 100 people were at the festival, both men and women. We registered, gathered our stuff, and headed down the hill to the cliffs. This was the first place I climbed and I was delighted to see this incredible view again.

There were three different sectors, but we stayed only at one. In a big, craggy, open cave, the men were setting up and climbing routes that involved hanging upside down and sideways and all kinds of crazy contortions. The women were set up on the outer part of the cliffs where the climbs were a little smoother.

Why Travel? Twelve Reasons We Hit the Road

All my life I’ve yearned to travel. An avid reader as a child, books allowed a certain kind of travel - escaping what I considered a boring life in Ohio for lands more exotic and interesting.

 Now that distant lands are accessible to me first-hand, I find myself questioning this urge to travel. Now, as an adult, I’m not bored but still love to travel. I’ve had the fortune to travel regularly. I have a life goal of seeing as many places as possible. I know that travel stimulates the creative process in powerful ways, and moving through the world mimics some of the characteristics of the creative process.

On my recent trips to Italy, Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris and in Portugal, I found myself asking again and again: why do I travel? People travel for work, education and for humanitarian purposes. The kind of travel I am talking about is tourism, an incredible luxury that we may not have for much longer. With the increase in the environmental and financial costs of travel, I fear that in the future our travel will be limited. Travel seems at once more precious and more mundane. Why go?

This inquiry was my companion on a recent trip to Italy, so I spent some time writing down my ideas on why we travel. Some motives are more pure than others.

To explore. The unknown is exotic. Dwelling in and engaging in the unknown is one of the most important factors in the creative process. Being able to occupy a place of not knowing is essential to creating, and travel is rife with opportunities to be a dummy.

But be careful when you travel – you may wind up a cog on a well-worn path if you don’t step off the track to explore on your own. I prefer to avoid the ‘sights’ and crawl the neighborhoods instead. Exploring areas where no one is carrying a guide book is more satisfying to me than being among the hordes throwing coins into the Trevi fountain. Walking down via Giulia with no one around, stopping to see a church devoted to death, imagining the essence of grief that is contained in that church is so much more valuable to me than checking sights off a list. It’s amazing to me what stillness and depth can be found just steps away from the crowd.

Try this: in any heavily touristed area, wander away a few streets and relish the quiet of the place. See what you discover as an explorer rather than a tourist.

To be inspired. I can’t travel without wanting to be a better person. What I see, feel and experience gives me insights into myself and my personal and creative process. I always keep a list in my notebook of things I will do or change when I get home.

To create. I like to engage with the voyage through my own creativity. Using my Creative Travel Tools helps me deepen my experience and fend off touristic overwhelm. Pausing to sketch something gives me a much deeper experience than if I were just snapping a photo.

To eat. Traveling for me is a lot about the food. I anticipate, seek and enjoy the food of a place more than almost anything. The food of a place is such a huge expression of it’s culture. Having the ‘gout de terroir’ – the taste of the land – on your tongue and in your belly is a way to literally take that place inside you.

To be uncomfortable. Let’s face it, travel is physically, emotionally and psychologically difficult. Hauling luggage, schlepping around a city by foot, dealing with the unknown at every turn, all challenge us on every level. Why bother? Being uncomfortable is required for creating anything. When you write a story, paint a painting, develop a business, you are rubbing against the edges of your comfort zone. Travel allows you to befriend discomfort, and bringing that back to your creative process strengthens your ability to stay with what’s uncomfortable.

To be transformed. Only by leaving our comfort zone can we be transformed. The aforementioned challenges cause us to reflect on who we are and how we live in the world. Being out in the world can offer a giant mirror to your faults and strengths, if you are willing to use the outside to look inside. On recent trips I have learned that I am not the excellent communicator I thought I was and that I have incredible reserves of energy. I can endure and enjoy extreme circumstances, (staying up all night, wandering the streets of Milan, sleeping outside in a festival grounds in Portugal, eating only pizza and pasta for a week) but when I am ‘done’ I am done.

To connect. Meeting new people while traveling gives us a real opportunity to experience a place. João is always talking to people, even about the smallest things. Everyone in Italy asked him where he was from, and was surprised when he said Portugal. They were even more surprised when I said I was American. Actually, it was a real conversation stopper; you should have seen the looks on people’s faces. I couldn’t interpret the expression. We didn’t know if it was from surprise or distaste for the American government. So we started saying I was from France. Still, we got surprise – perhaps surprise that a Portuguese and a French person were together. I can’t say I felt good lying and saying I was French, but it was a fun experiment. I don’t advocate lying as a way to connect authentically. 

To gain status. Telling people we’re going somewhere makes us look cool. Oddly, the inverse isn’t true – telling people you’ve been somewhere just bores people. You can see their eyes glaze over when you start to tell them about your trip.

To take good pictures. The proliferation of good, cheap cameras and cameras on phones has turned all of into amateur photographers. But often people are so glued to their camera that they are having only a virtual experience of the place. We’re so used to seeing the world through a screen that we can’t take the lens off long enough to see it first-hand. We’re more concerned with capturing an impression for later than with having one now, really seeing the light bounce off a Roman wall, really feeling the breeze that has blown over an ancient wall for centuries….

My absolute biggest peeve that drives me NUTS is seeing people in museums taking photos of everything with their cell phones. How stupid is that? You pay to get in to see world-class art and spend all your time taking bad photos? If you want a photo, just buy a book or a frickin’ postcard! Which leads me to…

To buy stuff. I sense this may be a particularly American trait, that when we travel we want to buy stuff. We want to bring home a piece of place to remember our trip, we want to exercise our American right to buy, buy, buy. We want to own a piece of the world. I am guilty of this and feel that museum gift shops have altered my experience of the art. I always have a little thought in the back of my mind when I am blown away by a work of art – Can I buy the postcard in the gift shop? I’m also disturbed by this: almost every American I overhear while traveling is commenting on how much things cost and/or how they got ripped off. No kidding.

To overturn common conceptions. I was told how dirty Naples was. In the words of a friend who has family there – “Naples is a fucking mess.” I was also warned about how dangerous, how really terribly dangerous Naples is. Like, don’t bring your camera or wallet or money or…gosh, just stay home it’s so nasty.

Well guess what? I loved Naples. I loved the gritty honesty of it. The trash piled up everywhere was shocking. The city was alive with zooming motorcycles, funky and perverse graffiti, and rampant and delicious opportunities to eat well. The best part? The people of Naples were amazing. Everyone we encountered was incredibly kind and interested in chatting.

If I had listened to the common conceptions of Naples, I might not have gone. Instead I heard them and then set them aside, deciding to have my own experience.

To see things. The internet has brought the world into your home, but there’s still nothing like seeing something in person. But there’s a difference between ‘seeing’ and ‘doing. In Lisbon I see people carrying books of Top Ten Lisbon. This idea of checking off the sites of a place seems incredibly limited. I dislike the notion that there are only a handful of things to see and that we can ‘do’ them. I ‘did’ the Coliseum in Rome. I ‘did’ the Pantheon. We go to these megaliths or must-sees and then what? We’re told how important they are and now that we’ve ‘done’ them, what’s different? Were we able to have an experience that went beyond the shoulds?

I have a hard time at these sights because I get so distracted by the crowds. I tend to watch them interact with each other and the sight and am unable to focus on the beauty of the Pantheon, the depth of the history in the Coliseum.

That said, I have had amazing experiences seeing things despite the overwhelming crowds. Rounding a corner and coming upon the Trevi Fountain took my breath away. Seeing my first Van Gogh painting (Starry Night, Musée d’Orsay) in person stunned me. I have to work on filtering out the crowds and focus.

Did you recognize your own reasons for travel here? I bet you have other motives. I’d love to know why you travel and what travel does for you. Leave your thoughts in a comment below.

Wherever You Go, There You Are

When I asked what people wanted to read on the JJ blog, I got great responses that have helped me shape what I share. Watch for posts about Couchsurfing, how to get by in a foreign country and tidbits about the food. For now, I want to answer a question that someone asked me.

Q: How is it living there? Do you think you would have stayed even if you had not met someone?

A: Living here is great. It’s very mellow in Portugal. I really appreciate how casual people are. This isn’t to say that people aren’t stylish; they are; it’s just more relaxed here.

I try not to compare Lisbon to Paris, but sometimes I cannot help myself. Paris has a lot of action, a lot of activity, and a lot of distractions. Lisbon is a bit mellower, without so much happening. If I think of which place is better to write my novel, I think Lisbon might be a good choice due to less distractions. And Lisbon has a lot of cool bookstores that I can prowl for inspiration.

Would I have stayed here if it weren’t for João? No. I was headed to Florence. I wanted to be in Italy but wasn’t completely sold on Florence. Frankly, I was open to being anywhere. I wanted to try a different culture. I love France but my life isn’t dedicated to just one country. So I was open to coming back to Portugal.

I’m glad I did. It’s inexpensive to live here, the food is good, the people friendly and the weather wonderful. Of course, who knows what winter and fall will bring! Cold winds off the Tejo and melancholy Portuguese people!

I’ve found that living here is much like living anywhere. I love that adage “Wherever you go, there you are.” That’s so true. My life here is much like the life I had in Boulder. I get up and go to the other room to work, fueled by some tea. Later I go out to yoga or to meet friends. I left Boulder to be out more in the world, since I felt isolated working at home in Boulder.

Ironically, I’m much more isolated here. I don’t have much of a social life here yet; I’ve been too busy working to make the effort it takes to make friends. I think this happens when you are focused on something you want to achieve – other things can be seen as distractions. Still, I will make the effort to get out and meet people because I want to. And I have to practice my Portuguese. Luckily I spent a lot of time alone as a child and in my home office in Boulder, so spending so much time alone is normal for me, and I know how to be with myself without being lonely.

Still, several times I have questioned why I am doing this. If this is so similar to home, why not just be there, surrounded by friends and a familiar environment? It sure would be easier. So why stay?

Speaking Portuguese

My Portuguese class ended last week and I am happy to say that after four weeks of daily classes, I am now fluent in Portuguese. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Turns out I am a linguistic wunderkind and can absorb new languages no problem. It helps to be embedded in the culture, with a native companion who can ensure the proper pronunciation and offer lots of opportunities for practice.

Okay, so I’m not fluent. But I want to be. One of my life goals is to learn as many languages as possible. Portuguese is #3, after French and of course, English. João told me that Portuguese is a gateway language, and that once I have Portuguese I can have all the Latin languages. He told me that with Portuguese under my belt, Spanish is a given. He snapped his fingers when he said that, and I love the idea that learning this somewhat challenging language has a bonus – extra! Spanish included!

How to learn a new language

My class was great. After years of working at home, I enjoyed the routine of getting up, doing my homework or reading the dictionary on the metro to class and being in the flow of the city in the morning. Along with two Norwegian young bucks, a Canadian woman and a Hungarian woman, we muddled our way through nine chapters of our lesson book. Tania, our teacher, wrote endless verb conjugations on the board, told us stories about Portuguese culture and patiently waited while we stumbled through the sea of shh sounds and bad usage.We had one class in the Gulbenkian Gardens after a picnic together.

It’s very humbling to learn a new language. You’re a kid again. The book uses cartoon-y pictures to illustrate points. At the beginning the exercises were easy. But going from the book to real life presented a steep learning curve. Imagine a group of adults trying to tell time in Portuguese. It took at least two minutes for each of us to spit out the correct time. How long does it take to tell the time in your own language? One second.

It’s easy for me to learn by the book. My background in French allowed me to recognize the basics that are inherent to all Latin languages. This was enormously helpful because I didn’t need to understand the strange sentence constructions; I learned all those back in high school. Taking the Italian class in Boulder in April also helped. I like seeing how one teaches a language to adults. It starts with the most important stuff: where am I from, how to order food in a restaurant and how to make plans with friends. It builds slowly from there, adding verbs, nouns, adjectives, past and future tenses.

Just speak, but listen more

Overcome by Octopus

I became a vegetarian in 1989. After a year in France eating every conceivable kind of meat, I was ready for a change. During my last year of school, I had a vegetarian roommate and it was easy to shift to a plant-based diet. But in 2005, on my tour in Paris, I started eating fish. It’s much easier to travel in Europe if you eat fish, and I like it. The protein is good for me; when I eat fish I eat less sugar. I came to Portugal partly because of the fish I could eat here.

But little did I know that I would be forging my way into the bodies of sardines, flaking away the meat with my knife while holding the bones apart with my fork. I also didn’t know the extent of seafood eating in Portugal. Clams, snails, mussels, crab, all kinds of fish and shrimp…it’s endless.

With João as my guide, I’ve tried a lot of different things. I even ate a few bites of octopus salad at a restaurant. The flavor – great. The consistency – chewy. So when João planned to make his octopus rice for me and our guests from Italy, I was happy for him and less enthusiastic for me. I figured I could eat around the ‘puss, filling up on rice, cheese, bread and wine. Not a balanced meal, but a diplomatic way to eat.

I watched João cook the meal. The biggest surprise was that the ingredients he used are identical to the ingredients in my heritage food from Louisiana. I grew up with my mom cooking variations of rice, tomatoes, peppers, and seafood. João used these things as well as bay leaves, salt, pepper and cilantro in the octopus rice. How cool that our ingredients are the same. But the execution is where it all changes.

Whirlwind Tour of Portugal

On the way to Gerês, we stopped in five Portuguese cities. I had been south in Portugal to Odeciexe and Lagos, and was eager to see more of Portugal. What a beautiful country! Almost immediately after you leave a city, you’re driving through beautiful terrain – pine trees, hills and vistas of the sea. It feels like driving through a national park the whole time.

Rather than bore you with a blow-by-blow, I’ll share highlights of the trip. Renting a car is expensive (A tank of gas costs 60 euros, or $90!) but it was worth it to be able to stop and see the following:

Obidos, where we stopped for a picnic lunch, is a charming medieval city encircled with an ancient wall. We walked through the town, sampling ginjinha (cherry liqueur) and navigating the tiny town streets thronged with tourists and horse-drawn carriages. We made our way back along the wall of the castle, a long and high trek with views into people’s gardens, scents of olive and fig trees and the rush that comes from walking a high and narrow precipice. We made our lunch with nori rolls, leftover octopus rice and octopus salad that João had made.

Onward to Leiria, João’s birthplace and home to a castle in the middle of the city. As we drove into the city, the radio played Bjork’s song Big Time Sensuality, which I thought was an appropriate ode to João and his birthplace. The refrain of the song goes “It takes courage to enjoy it.” The more I listen to the song, the more I think it suits me and João.

We didn’t stop in Leiria but took a whirlwind tour of João’s old haunts. Driving up a narrow tree-lined street, we passed his middle school on the right and the castle on the left. I tried to imagine what it was like to grow up next to a castle and failed to even comprehend what that would do to a person’s sense of time.

It took about an hour to get to Coimbra, where the whiff of old books, the scent of history and learning was in the air. Coimbra is home to one of Portugal’s greatest universities, which is also considered the oldest university in the Portuguese-speaking world. We had a beer in the empty student café with a view to the river.

On to Aveiro, where João went to university. Driving through the city, he took his own drive down memory lane, recounting stories from his college days. We had dinner with a friend of his and his wife and afterward, on the way to get a drink, I fell in love with Aveiro. The architecture of this city by the sea is amazing – a beautiful blend of Art Nouveau and Mediterranean style. Aveiro also has a lot of cool bars, shops and café that cater to the students and townspeople alike. I had a fantasy of moving here and hunkering down to finish my novel. That lasted until João informed me of the reality of living in a coastal city – lots of rain, wind and bleak days.

Wild Camping

That night, we made our way to the beach where we staked out a spot for our tent. I’ve never camped on the beach. This was the inaugural sleep in our tent and it held up great in the sand and wind. The roar of the ocean and the wind accompanied our sleep and when we woke up in the morning, the first thing I did was unzip the tent door to greet the sea. We practiced yoga facing the ocean and left feeling completely peaceful after our sleep by the sea. 

Flor da sal

On the way back to town to get pastries and coffee before heading to Geres, João took me to some salt flats. I had seen signs for flor da sal, flower of salt, and wanted to get some. I usually bring a lot of this salt back from France and had brought two containers with me from Paris. I didn’t know that Portugal produced this fine salt that is only for use at the table. Fleur de sal is carefully cultivated flowers that grow on top of the salt flats. It takes a lot to harvest the salt and it’s fairly expensive. 

We drove up to a small shack next to the salt beds. A couple of wizened men talked to João about the salt production while we stood next to a giant cone of salt. We decided to buy some flor da sal and some regular salt. The flor da sel costs five euros per kilo and the regular salt two euros per kilo. I got a half kilo of flor da sel and now am wondering why I didn’t get a whole kilo. There’s only so much salt you can haul home and use. When we told the guy how much of the regular salt we wanted, he took a plastic bag and went out among the salt flats. About ten minutes later, he was back with a heavy bag of salt. I’m not sure why he didn’t take it from the salt pillar but I was grateful for his efforts for only a few euros. João told me that they don’t do it to make money, but because they love it. How many creative endeavors are like that? 

I’m sending some of the flor da sel to my friend Elizabeth, who is storing my stuff and who recently went through my clothes and sent a package of my clothes to my parents, who are visiting me next month. She’s worth her weight in salt!

We went to a pastry shop for coffee and pastries. The local specialty is ovos mohos. João ordered two and they came on a small plate. These little barrels of meringue were filled with sweet egg yolk. I confess I couldn’t eat it. I love eggs and eat them all the time but there was something gross about sweet egg yolks. I satisfied my pastry needs with a flaky pastry filled with a yellow custard cream.

The last city before we reached the wilds of Gerês was Braga. We were stopping her only for a coffee and to pick up a few supplies for camping food. Instead of a brief and simple stop, we were trapped in Braga for hours. It took forever to get into the city and park and he store didn’t open until 3:00, and a low blood-sugar induced meltdown hit me after the coffee. I couldn’t find a snack to save my life and as we circled the city trying to leave, a fight erupted between me and João. I laugh about it now, zooming the camera back to see the hungry cranky couple going round and round the roundabout trying to communicate by shouting at each other. There’s no exit and it’s the typical scenario for a fight.

A couple of final food notes about this trip – this region in the north of Portugal is known for the production of Vinho Verde – green wine, which is light and slightly sparkling. João and I drank it a couple of times while we were there and after a day in the hot sun, the wine was quite refreshing.

When we emerged from the park, João saw a roadside stand and we zoomed to a stop. You’d think we hadn’t seen fruit and vegetables for days by the way we descended upon the fruits and vegetables at the stand. We got two kinds of plums, two kinds of apples, a bulging bag of tomatoes, some onions, peaches and pears. Even thought we’d already bought a kilo of honey, we got another kilo and a half, as well as a giant round of cheese, an enormous round of hearty bread and a link of sausage (for João). Basically we got one of everything they had. We had eaten most of the food we’d brought and wanted to return to Lisbon with some food for the week.