The Expected & the Unexpected: Visitors, Pneumonia, & Colds in the Country

As you may know, the person who rented my parents the Lisbon apartment from which I wrote all the blogs you have read up until now was due back at the end of March, so we had to move (more friends left behind, though these can still stop by). We moved to a quinta (a sort of a country summer house, once a working farm, with old stables now overgrown with weeds and stuffed with bundles of magazines) in Sintra. Our quinta is great. It has gardens, labyrinths, a tangerine grove, a swimming pool, a bench covered in Azuleijos, and wilder parts further out, past the fence at the end of the backyard. We live in a two-story stucco house, with freezing tile floors in front of a fireplace my parents haven’t lit, and a metal spiral staircase. I’m writing from a great little house that’s built on the grounds of the old chicken coop; the only thing cooped up there these days is my mother (whenever she can escape to write). The only slightly bad thing is how the cold seeps into my bones on rainy days in our little house. Even though it’s spring, it still feels like winter in there sometimes. Not only my dad, but all of us kids are sniffling and coughing with spring colds. Our house is also a little small, but I could seriously live here forever! I mean, not really. I could live here forever if it was summer forever and my friends and family came to visit. And Portugal started making Mac ‘n’ Cheese. But my point is, the quinta is great.

This Easter I went to a beach. My mom drove around curving back roads for so long that Kati (my sister) got sick. Oh well, thank goodness we hadn’t thrown out the pretzel bag yet. It was too cold to swim, but there was a GIANT sand hill. I slid down it countless times, but now I’m STILL trying to get sand out of my socks.

At the quinta, we also get lots of animals. If you just kick a rock, a few lizards scurry out from under it. There are some cats and toads, too, and my dad goes bird watching almost every day. He once saw a bird with a bright red eye. The plants are also amazing. There are lemons and oranges in the wilder part, and a bush with edible flowers. They taste sort of minty with a drop of honey, but not really sweet. Nobody but Kati and I are brave enough to try them. It’s a great place to live for the summer.

Mummies in a Ruined Convent

One morning at the end of March, while my dad was still sitting in his chair at home, working up to pneumonia and reading mystery novels, the rest of us finally headed off to see the mysteries from the Archeological Museum in the ruins of the Carmo Convent, destroyed by the Terramoto (earthquake) of 1755. All the people were in the church when earthquakes shook down the roof and the candles. The candles burned the remains of the church, and later monsoons added to the whole thing. I had wanted to go for a long time, though I only knew about the mummies (which were as wonderful as I had thought, except that my macabre mother compared them to me and my little brother Isaac—I’m still waiting for the nightmares).

Um passeio em Lisboa: Na segunda-feira, dia 22 de Março, eu fui à Baixa em Lisboa com o Isaac, a Kati, e a minha mãe. Saímos do metro na Rua do Crucifixo e comprámos pão, salgados, e argolas de ovo. Depois descemos pela travessa e virámos à esquerda na Rua do Ouro. Aí subimos no Elevador de Santa Justa até ao Largo do Carmo onde parámos para comer antes de ir ao Museu Arqueológico no Convento do Carmo. Apresento-vos o Convento do Carmo:

Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and Arpad Sizenes's Art

Last Monday, before heading to music theory, I went to a museum featuring artwork by Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and her husband, Arpad Sizenes. She was the more famous artist, but his work was also amazing. They both developed modern art styles, but Viera’s paintings were alive, active with violent colors, while her husband’s work was more calm. He painted geometric cities and abstract seagulls and the sea, while she painted cities like swirling labyrinths and myths, like Orpheus, and burning libraries. Born in Portugal, she studied and lived in Paris and Rio de Janeiro. When she missed Lisbon, she painted it from memory. Sizenes, who was originally Hungarian, painted Budapest as a “City of Martyrs.”

Szenes

Vieira da Silva, "Biblioteque"

Vieira da Silva’s self portrait is black and grey, but Arpad's portraits of his wife are more colorful and lively.

My favorite painting by Vieira da Silva looked like a huge haunted house with tons of trap doors. A very rough translation of its French title (“Au Fur et à mesure”) is “as one goes along” or “gradually” as if one were winding her way through this dark labyrinth. My favorite piece by Sizenes was titled “Mermaids.” Even though it is abstract, you can almost see the mermaids. It seems as though they are swimming in the sky and the water is below them.

The museum also had a temporary exhibit of paintings by Mily Possoz, another Portuguese painter, who lived and worked abroad, befriended Vieira da Silva, and seemed to like depicting ladies and cats. My favorite, not the one below, also pictured a fancy lady sitting at the window with her cat in her lap.

I only brought home half of what I wanted from the gift shop—but that’s better than usual. I would have liked a print of that haunted house—instead, my mom bought me a book (not that I don’t like that). I looked through another book called Os Desastres de Sofia (The Disasters of Sofia), illustrated by Vieira da Silva.

Vieira da Silva, "L'issue lumineuse"

Here are a couple of my own illustrations, based on a recent reading of Grimm's fairytales:

My Uncle Doug's Visit

My Uncle Doug came to visit us a couple weeks ago, on his way home from Iraq. We had a long wait at the airport, but he finally arrived. In five days, we went to most parts of the city, and to Belem and Sintra. Some of the sights: the acquarium, Pena Palace, Jeronimos monastery, Gulbenkian museum. Sounds: Mozart and Beethoven rehearsed by the Metropolitan Orchestra (see below) and I taught him a little bit of Portuguese. In the final strip of my comic, Uncle Doug is showing off his Portuguese. The translation is below, adapted as if a Portugese tourist in the USA were saying it.

1: Surrey, where is iiis de Bathrooom?

2: "I don't speeek Portuguese. I speeek Engleesh."

3: "Would you like sunglasses?" "No."

4: "Would you like ice cream?" "YES! YES! YES! YES!"

On the last night, Uncle Doug ordered calimari, seafood stew, steak sizzling on a stone, and custard in Carnide. I thought he was underestimating the size of Portugese dinners, but I was underestimating the size of his apetite.

During my Uncle Doug's visit, I made it to two concerts. The first, with my Dad, was a performance at the Gulbenkian of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, parts of which I'm also singing with my choir at the Instituto Gregoriano. "Gloria" was glorious, but I dreamed other parts of the concert--literally, since it only started at 21h30 (time, recorded in Portuguese). I've attached below my sketches on the program from the Orquestra Metropolitana rehearsal I attended, with Uncle Doug and my folks, Ike (watching and listening in astonishment) and Kati (sleeping through most of it, like I had the night before). It was amazing to sit two meters from the orchestra and watch them work with the conductor. And, I had a chance to talk to Ana Claudia Serao, whom I'd heard perform earlier this year at the Museu do Oriente, and who also studied with my cello teacher, Anne Hernant.

My Grandparent's Visit

When my mother was a kid, she, along with my grandparents and my two uncles, lived in Portugal. My grandparents returned recently for 10 days—the 10 days I’ve most looked forward to during the whole first half of our stay.

They arrived on a Saturday that we spent wandering around downtown. We eventually made our way up to the Castelo, for the view. My mom used to go there with my grandparents when she was little. I told my grandpa the Martim Moniz story. Kati, Isaac, my mom, and my grandpa went up on the castle wall, but my grandma stayed down in the courtyard, listening to the guy playing Portuguese guitar. I stayed down too, because I’m not so sure I like how high it is up there. Isaac fell twice in the mud and once on the castle wall (but don’t worry, he didn’t fall off the wall).



On the first Sunday, we went to one of the churches that they used to go to. Everybody was very excited to see them again (for some reason everyone’s voice kept getting higher and louder as they talked). We went to another church on the next Sunday. At the end of the service, my grandpa talked a little bit. He said that he remembered everyone when they were younger, like the preacher was 11 when they first came. And then he said that a man with gray hair used to have black hair, and my grandma said to my grandpa, “You used to HAVE hair!”

I took them back to one of my favorite places, the Museu da Marioneta, a couple days later. My grandma did puppetry when she lived in Lisboa, and my grandpa, who is a woodcarver, has also designed tree houses, gigantic sling shots, and puppet theaters. A school group was there, crowded around the creepy creatures from Malasia, so we started at the back so as to avoid them. My grandma said that it was a wonderful museum. She was amazed at the buffalo skin shadow puppets.

That same afternoon, I went on an outing with my grandma. We went to the doll hospital where my grandma used to buy miniatures for my mom and we ate pastries at the Confeitaria Nacional (which used to make pastries for the monarchy), displaying every sugary, eggy, edible thing you can imagine. My choices: um coelhinho (a little bunny) and thick hot cocoa. We were supposed to be back by 6:00, and my watch said 2:30. But it was getting dark already, so we asked someone what time it was. He said, “São cinco e meia (it’s five thirty)!” We both gasped at the same time, and I thought my mom might eat us alive if we weren’t back to eat her dinner.

On our outings, my grandpa (who is a woodcarver) kept getting distracted. He likes to talk to every guy who looks interesting—street sweepers, grounds keepers, poets who write about trees (really, he ran into one while he was trimming branches. She came up to him and started the conversation, “I like clover.”) He ALWAYS talked to any guy cutting branches, even if he didn’t look interesting. Ike thought my grandpa was really interesting. He sat next to him on the metro, on walls, on castles....




We visited ancient castles and monasteries, the modern expo, the thieves' market, and lots of cafés...



We also went to the beach. It was too cold to swim or wade, so we just walked along the shore. My grandma told me that she used to take my mom there almost every day. I discovered that sand that has just been covered by a wave makes interesting footprints, but, unfortunately, I wasn’t quick enough getting away when the next wave came and I got soaked.



Speaking of soaking, I couldn’t seem to soak in enough time with my grandparents. You know, even if they were here for 9 months, 29 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds out of the 10 months we are staying here, it wouldn’t be any closer to being enough than the 10 days they stayed here. But, I think we all had fun.

Fire & Water

FIRE

This morning I was wishing something exiting would happen when my dad, who was eating breakfast by the window, said, “Come look at this!”
We (my sister, my brother, and I) rushed over to see that the 11th floor of the apartment building across the street was on fire.
Smoke was billowing out of a charred window frame and people were coming out of the building. Surprisingly, they stayed in the courtyard, talked on their cell phones, “and they were smoking of all things,” my dad said later. I think my little sister just liked looking at the cute pets that the people brought with them.
Finally the firemen arrived, just as the burnt window shutter fell off in pieces, exposing raging flames. They licked the outside wall of the building, trying to spread. Then, with a puff of smoke, the flames went out.
I later found out from my friend’s mother that the fire had started in the daughter’s bedroom and that the mother had been home when it started.


Water

Yesterday my mother and I went to the grocery store in the pouring rain. When we arrived, she said, “Oh no! I forgot my coupons. Now I have to go—Hey! You could go get them! They’re on the fridge.” And with that, I left.
I followed the construction that would have led me straight up to my house had it not been raining so hard. All that water made my glasses fog up so that I could see better without them, which is not seeing very well at all. So, I got hopelessly lost.
After wandering a while, I finally saw a large gray blur with some brightly colored squiggles on it. Had I not been blind, I would have recognized it as a large cement grocery store with a brightly colored sign on it. But being blind, I wasn’t really sure if the blur was the grocery store, but it was worth a try.
By the time I got the lady at the checkout counter to call my mom and my mom showed me the way home, I had at least an inch of water in my shoes and my shirt was sticking to my skin.

Language Laughs no. 2: O Rei dos Coelhos

Recently, Isaac went to the Talho (butcher) with my mother to buy a rabbit to roast for dinner. When the butcher prepared it by GUTTING it and CHOPPING OFF ITS HEAD, Isaac watched wide-eyed. Later, after a yummy rabbit, I caught Isaac killing his stuffed rabbit in about ten different ways. (He does love his bunny, though, and he sleeps with it every night.)




Translation:

(mom, boy/rabbit, girl)

I want to be a king.

OK.

(Rabbit) (King) (Cow) (Princess)
...

I'm not a king!

I don't like carrots, mom!

You have to eat them.

I don't want to sleep here. I need a bed.

But you're a rabbit! No.

I want to be a boy...