Lisbon

Spent last weekend in Lisbon staying with Sónia, my lab mate and her family in Carnaxide (not pronounced like I was heading to my death but Carneshide). Sonia has 7 dogs, 2 of which are St. Bernards…oh, and like 50 small tropical birds…oh, and 1 bunny. It was really fun to be in such a full house. Not to mention all the home-cooked meals and red wine. We spent the day shopping and then Sónia took off for the Benfica game, leaving me in the care of João Tiago and Rute. They took me to a World Press photo exhibit featuring many award-winning shots of everything from the Miss Senior Sweetheart pageant in Fall River, MA to body parts strewn across a street in Venezuela. It was fairly intense. Then we made the obligatory stop at Pasteis de Belém for their version of the pasteis de nata that everyone told me I must try. It was well worth the vulture-like waiting for a table.

That night we also shopped some more at Bairro Alto neighborhood and walked through the city digesting our sardine meals and taking photos. Some of those below are taken by João. Just a note: I have been told that Portuguese cuisine has more to offer than just grilled sardines so from now on I will be feasting on other whole carcass fish.

After a harrowing drive to the outer regions of Lisbon, we met up with Sónia in Amadora (a neighborhood with the largest Cape Verdian population outside of Cape Verde) at a bar that featured not only a Bon Jovi-esque cover band, low ceilings and an entrance that you had to buzzed in and out of, but also what must have been a very hefty fire insurance policy. As the band belted out G&R’s Paradise City, the entire bar counter was intentionally lit on fire about 5 feet behind me. I had no idea where I was. Logically, I knew it was Portugal but the cues around me were screaming West Warwick, RI. The next day Sónia took me to see Castelo de São Jorge which overlooks the entire Lisbon area, including the creative combination of Rio and SF in one view.

I had been to the castle 14 years ago with Dominique so it was all vaguely familiar.

Afterwards was lunch at the Massa house and then our last adventure of the weekend, Sintra. This town is ancient. Apparently, being the highest point in the area, the Romans held this as a sacred spot, something about the moon (João?). But the buildings were so beautiful and lined twisting steep cobblestone streets, dotted with pastry shops, wine sellers and restaurants. As you can imagine, I was completely camera happy in this locale.

And lastly, this is a shout out to Prof. Jessica Brasswell. The Massa family also employs the plastic-bag-filled-with-water technique to ward off house flies although they could not explain why it works either.

Hiking in Sagres

This weekend my adventure coordinator, Licinia, took me on an odyssey-like hike from Vila de Bispo to Sagres in the southwest corner of Portugal. Her initial itinerary was to hike along the coast, have a goose neck barnacle lunch at some local Sagres establishment, and then hike back. Each way was 12 km. This seems a bit long for an afternoon, no? She estimated 1.5-2 hrs each way. I never did check her math. But I was optimistic and it really felt good to walk. So we walked...and walked...and took in some amazingly dramatic ocean cliff views...and walked some more. 3 hrs later we finally saw Sagres, but it still seemed pretty far. We briefly pondered taking a detour to the cape to see one of the fortresses but Rushka, our little black furry friend (Xana, don't say it!), had a fit and demanded we head straight to town to get whatever sustenance we could find. I had to agree, the dirt road ahead of us did appear quite long. Around 3:30 we finally dragged our weary legs, hips, feet and shoulders into Sagres and sat down. Two tostas mistas and some batidos later, we had to face the fact that we were 12 km away from the car, buses don't like dogs and, according to Licinia, Portuguese taxis cannot be trusted. It all worked out though...Licinia took the bus herself to get the car while Rushka and I ate chocolate crepes at the restaurant. She really knew how to treat the American guest! After reuniting, we drove to the cape and were awed by the views once more. Here are some photos:

Our would-be preview of lunch, the slanted trees conditioned by relentless wind which makes the Sagres area a fantastic surfing spot.

These bushes looked so fluffy but were as hard as cement and made up of very sharp spikes that stung your skin for an hour after any accidental contact.

The south side of the coast:

The west side of the coast, 100 feet over:

Welcome to my world

Since returning from Lugano, I have immersed myself in the lab monotony I call my life. Well it isn’t that bad I guess. I am enjoying the productivity. I have 5 multiplexes of msat primers to run on all my samples and I am just about done with the first one and started the second today. Each one should take less than a week if no problems arise. Then Filipe gets back on the 3rd and I will start analyzing the data under his advise, getting as much done as possible before the end of September. Oh yeah, did I tell you? I am staying a few weeks extra, cutting my stay on the EC short. This may also allow me to squeeze in some more traveling in Europe (my new favorite tract of land – yeah, I think I love the whole damn thing, well maybe save certain eating establishments in Spain).

Anyway, this is what I have been doing the past two straight days:

It’s a chromatogram of 5 dna loci (locations along the genome) for one individual I collected in 2006. I have 200 individuals so I will have 5 pictures like this for each individual to analyze. It could be much worse actually, I have fewer samples than most geneticists I know. The different colors are the loci and there are either 1 or 2 peaks for that loci depending on if the individual is heterozygous or homozygous. I chose this one because it is really clean and very clearly shows this individual is heterozygous for 4 of the loci since you can see two red peaks, two blue peaks and so on. That means its parents were different from each other for those loci, got it? Sorry, but you have to suffer too…just a bit.

I have been having some fun too though. For instance, yesterday was a Catholic holiday celebrating some assumptions made by the virgin (not sure what assumptions she made, but I am almost positive they had nothing to do with the risk factors involved in using the rhythm method). Anyway, everything was closed in town, presumably so that all religiously minded Portuguese would be able to gather in the north under the pouring rain, singing and waving white handkerchiefs…at least, that is what it looked like on tv. Licinia and I took this chaste opportunity to visit Vila Real de Santo Antonio just on the border of Spain where, at the end of a long winding walk through the pines is a really nice beach. It was the perfect Wednesday. The mega-cool bonus was that Vila Real is probably one of the most pleasant towns I have been in, like a little Lisbon with very old beautiful buildings lining a wide river overlooking Spanish border towns. After the beach we strolled around and then feasted on grilled sardines, which has fast become my staple food item. I am even getting good at filleting them in a way that reduces the number of bones that will line my esophagus for hours.

I think this weekend we will head to Sagres on the southwestern tip of Portugal for some hiking...oh, and there’s that surfing championship happening too. Something to rid my brain of multicolored lines!

More on the real land of milk and honey

I am on my way back to Faro now. My visit to Lugano was perfect. We did none of the things I thought we would, save visiting my old dorm, but I would not change a thing. Mostly every night I stayed up with someone until 3-5am talking and sipping wine. We had so so much to discuss after all these years, spouses to get to know and new wines to try. I do not have the energy to give many details right now, these I will share in person for sure, but I wanted to show you some pictures. Generally, these are of the views from Arianna and Ryad's place, the double rainbow, around Lugano, panino stand, the lido bar, Arianna's best sofia lauren, making pancakes, Alfredo's arrival and the martini bar, Arianna and Ryad's new tree, Locarno film festival, thermal baths somewhere in german switzerland (I never did get to look at that map), Arianna's pool, dorm Giardino, dinner at Christina and Jake's and our reunion with Prof. McCormick at a grotto near Franklin. The more artistic shots were taken by Matteo, Arianna's talented cousin (I simply provided the machinery).

I will say that my two night stopover in Madrid was quite nice, except for the windowless dingy hostal room. I visited the Museo del Prado where I was able to experience Bosch's Garden of Earthy Delights (Beautiful is not really the word, but it is amazing to stare at and has got to be evidence that LSD was in fact invented by a Hoffmann precursor sometime in the late 15th century...it is filled with 70s style pink spaceships and other structures straight out of Sleeper). The Prado also has a great Goya collection from his black period, portrayals of country life in gray, black and brown each with something white in the center which gives every piece a feeling of infinite darkness surrounding some small hope...at least that is what I saw :) Also I caught the Van Gough exhibit at the Thyssen museum showing the 70+ pieces he produced during the last 70 days of his life...amazing. Afterwards I walked around the Gran Via and Puerta del Sol areas and then met Asun, a post doc I know from Faro, for drinks and pinchos.

My plane leaves in 2 hours, I need to buy sunglasses, and although there are things I do not want to leave, I think I am ready to get back to Faro and become a grad student again....