Books: O Meu Irmão, Afonso Reis Cabral

This is the first in a new species of posts, about books (in case you hadn't guessed from the title). The idea is that I'll write a little bit about Portuguese-language literature I've been reading, or re-reading. To begin with, it'll be about 'leisure' reading - maybe later I'll write about literature I've read for university work. Or maybe not...

Anyway, this post is about O Meu Irmão, by Afonso Reis Cabral. As you might know, I was lucky enough to meet Afonso at the book club in the Livraria Ler. I hadn't actually finished reading the book then, but I did finish it not long afterwards, and have been meaning to write a small post on it here.

I really enjoyed this novel. Set partly in a tiny Portuguese village, partly in Porto and partly in Lisbon, it follows the story of two brothers, one of whom has Down's syndrome. The other brother narrates the story of their lives, from childhood to the present day. The narrative is split between the past and the present in alternating chapters, so matters that are mentioned in the 'present' story are gradually explained in the 'past' chapters. This structure makes the book really gripping, because the explanation of a key plot point is left right until the end.

What makes the book so interesting? Well, one of the aspects I most enjoyed is the sense of place. The author manages to completely immerse the reader in the environment the characters are experiencing, whether the middle-of-nowhere village, or the backstreets of Porto at night. The narrator's confidential tone means the reader can feel like they're present at every moment.

The variety of characters is also impressive. Although some of them, particularly the female ones, seem a bit 2D (Portuguese stereotypes), I think this is more down to the narrator's outlook than the author's. There is a real sense of insight into the narrator's slightly twisted mind, helped by frequent 'asides' within the text, which mark out darker thoughts.

Would I recommend the book? Definitely! If you read Portuguese, that is. Otherwise, you're going to have a hard time.

Vou matar as saudades, até já

Or, I'm going to visit what I've been missing, see you soon

It's not very long since I last wrote here, but now feels like a good time to post. Why, you may ask? Well, there is a simple answer - I'm leaving Lisbon for a few days. I'll be back soon, after 'killing my "saudades"'. I can see I'm going to have to explain better...

Winter in Lisbon isn't that bad

'Saudade' is an excellent Portuguese word for the feeling of missing something/someone. So, you can 'ter saudades de X' (miss X) and then 'matar as saudades' (take away that feeling by seeing the person/thing). And that's exactly what my trip back to England is for!

Rowing in front of the Torre de Belém (picture by Filipe)

So, to bring you up to date... Since my last post, I had a lovely weekend, and three good weekdays. On Saturday I went rowing, which was fun, then went on a sightseeing expedition with some of the rowers. We'd been planning something similar for a while because the rowers were convinced I hadn't seen much of Lisbon (regular readers might disagree...). Anyway, originally the rowers were all going to bring people with them (husbands, wives, friends etc.), but in the end they didn't - although I'd already invited Carly to come with me, so the two of us had a good chance to practise our Portuguese together with three rowers. 

We started off with an excellent lunch in the food court of the Mercado da Ribeira near Cais do Sodré. Carly and I had food from a Madeiran stall, which included 'bolo de caco' - a special type of bread, baked with chouriço and cheese inside, then reheated and spread with garlic butter inside. It was absolutely delicious. 

Enjoying our food! (Filipe's picture)

The Elevador - essentially, a funicular pretending to be a tram

The main sightseeing part of things took us through quite a lot of central Lisbon - we took the Elevador da Bica (upwards, of course), went into a few churches (most of whose names I can't now remember), climbed up to the castle (but didn't go in), and saw a few historic shops in Chiado, including the oldest bookshop in Europe. Oh, and of course there was a pastel da nata stop on the way, at the Manteigaria, which is renowned for its version of the speciality, and justifiably - they were very good.

Our day out - Filipe, Carly, Ana, Cristina

The famous pasteis de nata (photo by Filipe)

For the first time in ages, I began Sunday not by going to church. Instead I met Carly for breakfast at the Quiosque (yes, that says kiosk in Portuguese) in the Jardim das Amoreiras. It was a lovely way to start the day. We carried on to church, and stayed well into the afternoon, because there had been a baptism, so some of the Nigerian families had brought lots of food for everyone - great party atmosphere!

Breakfast! Oh, and Carly.

At the post-baptism party with Carly and Feyikemi (Feyikemi's photo)

Carly and I had a bit of a walk around the Rato/Estrela zone, then I met Janice and Sarah for a drink/snack at Tentadora, my favourite café - introducing the two Australians I know to each other, which seemed to go well! We all had a lot of fun. I wandered round Lisbon some more, partly with Janice, then met up with Carly and Jesse, who had been watching a football game. We went to another kiosk, this time on Avenida de Liberdade, for a quick drink. Jesse has gone back to his home university in Geneva, but will be back in Lisbon next month, so it was nice to say goodbye to him. Back at the flat, I had another quiet-ish evening, including a bit of Oxford-related work (or bureaucracy, depending on how you look at it). 

This week of work - hardly a week, as it has only been three days - has been fun. Sarah and I have had a few projects to work on together, and I've had some translation to do as well. We had another office birthday today as well, which livened things up. You can't complain about copious cake...

Another exciting development was that yesterday after work Sarah and I went to an Indonesian language class at the Indonesian embassy. Sarah had found out about it from a contact and asked me if I wanted to come along - obviously it was hard to say no! It's been a while since I began a new language (unless you count my online German learning, which is fun, but doesn't feel very academic), but it felt really good to be back in a classroom writing down vocabulary! I finished off the evening with a meal out with Carly, Kinsey and Janice at our usual restaurant - excellent food and company. What could be better?

Dinner with the girls (Carly's photo)

So, that's about it for now. I hope you enjoyed reading! Until next time.

A view down to Rossio

Velhos são os trapos

Or, "rags are old" - age is just a number

I seem to have broken the run of weekly diary updates, so here's nearly two weeks of news from life in and around Lisbon. I hope you find it interesting.

Not in Lisbon - read on to find out more

There's not much to report from the office about last week (9th to 13th). On Monday I went out for dinner with Carly and Lauren to celebrate Carly's 25th birthday - she says she feels old so this blog's title is dedicated to her. It's a great idiom that I learned at work. There were three birthdays in the office during the week (and therefore three birthday cakes too :-D ), which led a lot of colleagues to pronounce on how I make them feel old, even though they're only a few years older than me. Maybe living abroad has made me grow up fast, so people forget I'm still the "office baby" until they ask my age.

At the weekend I didn't do very much worth telling you about in great detail. A rowing session on Saturday morning, a bit of wandering around Lisbon with Carly on Saturday afternoon, and a quiet evening at home talking to people on Skype (not least Stephen, as it was Valentine's day). On Sunday I went to church, then had an excellent 'English breakfast' at a nearby café with some of the growing church gang - Carly, Janice, Kinsey (a new joiner from the USA - the first person I've met living alone out here who's younger than me!) and Jesse. Also pictured below at coffee in the church hall are Feyikemi and Chris.

The 'church gang' - my friends!

Side note - Jesse speaks very Brazilian Portuguese, and Janice and Kinsey speak not much Portuguese. Carly and I speak Lisbon Portuguese and found it hilarious when Jesse asked the waiter for 'LAY-chee' rather than 'layt' ('leite', milk). That took some explaining...

Carly and I spent the afternoon preparing for her proper birthday party, mainly by making fruit kebabs and chocolate crispy cakes. Lots of people came round to her flat in the evening, bringing good food and excellent company. That party is also the reason why I didn't update the blog in my normal Sunday evening slot - and a very good reason indeed. It was a lovely occasion.

This working week has been more interesting - first because Tuesday was a holiday (it's not an official 'feriado' or public holiday, but many companies give their employees a day off), and second because a new colleague, who's working in my room in the office, arrived on Wednesday. She seems nice, and I'm sure I'll get to know her really well. (Who knows, she might end up featuring in the blog properly? That would be a high privilege for a work colleague...)

Torres Vedras - more information below

So, on to the major excitement since I last wrote - Shrove Tuesday, aka Carnaval here in Portugal. I spent most of the day in Torres Vedras, a small town about 45 minutes' bus journey away, which is renowned, at this time of the year at least, for its Carnaval celebrations. Carly and I went with Tosin, who had been at her party at the weekend - we decided to make an expedition of it because we'd both heard it would be good. We got the Rede Expressos coach from Lisbon at 12.30 in brilliant sunshine, and were pleased to see it was just as bright when we arrived. We immediately saw the castle, sitting at the top of a hill, and decided to go and have a look. It happened to be closed (because of Carnaval, of course) so we couldn't go in, but just wandered round the area and headed slowly down towards the main event - once we'd worked out where we were meant to be going...

Carly at the castle

After finding the right place, and purchasing our tickets, we went in to the area where the parade would be taking place, a small part of the centre of town that was closed to anyone ticket-less. Since there wasn't much going on when we arrived, we walked all round the zone, having a sneak preview of some of the floats, and found some lunch from one of the stalls on the streets.

Gradually the parade got going - and it was extraordinary! Carnaval in Torres Vedras is said to be based on "social and political satire" - as well as huge 3D caricatures of politicians and other public figures, there were marching bands and hundreds of people in a variety of costumes, some more shocking than others... it's very hard to describe the whole range in words, so you'll have to believe the pictures.

Cristiano Ronaldo and assorted sportspeople

The Carnaval organising committee

Papa Francisco 

Umm... a walking romantic restaruant?

The Banco Espirito Santo group

And trust me when I say that this wasn't even the half of it! We stayed for a good few hours, until it was more or less over, then had a warming drink and headed back to the bus station ready to go home to Lisbon. Since we are both still very English, Carly and I decided the day couldn't be complete without making some pancakes, which we duly did at her flat. (I hope her flatmates aren't worried that I'm going to move in - it does seem like I've spent a lot of time there recently!)

Then it was back to work on Wednesday for the rest of the week - it's gone in a flash. I rowed on Monday and Wednesday, and went to the office gym class yesterday (Thursday), and went out for dinner with Carly yesterday as well. We were both going to have pork as our main course (as well as our soup, pudding, drink, and coffee... did I mention this restaurant charges €7.50 per person for all of that?), but there was only one left, so Carly ended up eating chicken gizzards, which in fact were delicious (I tried some too). When in Rome...

Lemons, just for fun.

Language progress

I am here to learn to speak Portuguese better, after all - here's a little update. I'm definitely becoming more fluent and confident in Portuguese (yay). However, in the last couple of weeks I've become much more aware of Portuguese people laughing at me when I pronounce things badly (e.g. 'trinta', thirty, or 'tão', so).

I can think of a few reasons this might be the case:
1. I've unconsciously stopped avoiding saying words that I know I pronounce badly (like anything with a difficult 'r' in it). Possible, but seems unlikely.
2. I didn't previously realise when people were laughing at me. Possible, also seems unlikely.
3. I now speak well enough that Portuguese people think it's sufficiently unusual to be funny when I say things badly. Much as I'd like this to be true, I don't think it is.
4. I'm suddenly spending more time with people with a cruel sense of humour. I don't think this is the case.
5. My Portuguese has got noticeably worse. I hope this isn't the case.
6. It was just a few coincidences, with a bit of confirmation bias. Probably the most logical conclusion.

No relevance, I just like the photo.

A brush with celebrity

You might remember I met with a Brazilian journalist, Luciana Reis, a few weeks ago. It turns out she was writing a feature for this week's edition of Visão, which is quite a mainstream Portuguese current affairs-type magazine. And I'm mentioned in her article, which is about book clubs in Lisbon. Not only that, part of me also appears in a photograph. I'm practically famous!

Can you spot me?

The article says "Among the participants, Amanda Thomas, 21, stands out because of her accent. The English girl, who studies Linguistics at Oxford University, has lived in Lisbon for about four months. The penultimate year of the course includes an internship linked to the language being studied (and Amanda chose Portuguese, partly influenced by her parents, who lived in Lisbon for two years). Participating in the book club helps her practise her Portuguese, and experience sharing information about a different world and striking characters. Amanda brought her friend Nicki Biggs, also English, to take part in the group. The students remark on the importance of book clubs in England, which are widespread and traditional, where small groups meet to discuss a book."

As always, thank you for reading!

Read my article for new online magazine All Abroad

Hello everyone!

If you can't get enough of my blog, head over to All Abroad magazine, where you can read an article I wrote about Lisbon.

"Sebastianismo, waiting for a mythical king to return and restore Portugal’s greatness, was a national pastime for many centuries, and maybe some of that attitude hangs on today, even after the great changes brought by the 1974 revolution."

It's a bit rambly, but you might find parts of it interesting. And be sure to have a look at the other articles too. They have all been written by Oxford languages students spending the year all around the world, meaning that the magazine has a unique and international perspective.

About All Abroad 

"This site is ‘yet another year-abroad-blog’ with a difference. Here we provide a platform for language students on their year abroad around the world to share a bit about their experiences through a personal perspective of their choosing."

Quem arrisca não petisca

Or, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Another week has sped by, bringing the usual combination of work and play. I hope you find an interesting nugget in here, or at least enjoy the pictures.

Blue skies, blue river, red bridge

Office life continues as normal. I did add a little excitement on Friday by going out for lunch with my ex-colleagues, which was entertaining - lovely to catch up with them. Otherwise, more translations, research tasks, gym classes, and café meals. The office was recently named one of the 20 best places to work in Portugal, so I really have nothing to complain about!

This is why I row (hopefully better than these people)

Rowing has been fun this week - particularly  yesterday (Saturday), when we rowed in the opposite direction from normal, up past the Praça do Comércio. It was very scenic and sunny. I sadly missed Monday's session (just missed a bus...) so did an erg on my lonesome, but we managed to have an outing on Wednesday evening, which was beautiful in the moonlight.

Sopa do dia

Now to describe the rest of the weekend! After rowing I met Carly and we enjoyed a delicious meal near the boat club, including vegetable soup, steak and garlic sandwich (for me), octopus (for Carly), Sumol (for me), wine (for Carly) and coffee. All very Portuguese.

I promise Sumol don't sponsor me, I just love it so much...

We then walked up towards Belém, still enjoying the sunshine, and even spotted a replica old-style Portuguese sailing boat, which I think was a caravel, but I may be wrong. We visited the Museu de Electricidade which had various interesting exhibits - lots of information about the old power station, some artwork, and even a Science Museum-type hands-on section for children... which of course appealed to both of us (very young at heart).

After getting the bus back into the centre of Lisbon we got some food, then I went home for a while, before going to cook and eat with Carly - we had been intending to go to the cinema or have a drink out later, but ended up staying in, before I went home.

Who's that person in the way? Oh... Carly...!

Of course, we met up again this morning in church - I read the first lesson so Carly and I were on the coffee rota as well, with its associated entertainment. We didn't leave church until about 1.45 - it was a long service to begin with, and people took a while to leave... so the washing up went on a bit! Eventually we left, picked up supplies from Pingo Doce, and got the 727 bus to Belém again to have a picnic in a pretty spot we´d seen yesterday. Again, plenty of sunshine and food to make us happy.

Carly and Jesse

We then got the bus to Praça da Figueira and walked to Martim Moniz where we met our new friend Jesse (from church - yes, another new church friend), then walked all the way up the hill to Carly's favourite Miradouro - Nossa Senhora do Monte - to watch the sunset and discuss all sorts of things (including Fernão Mendes Pinto, Portuguese Renaissance author... a bit of a niche interest...). It was a perfect way to end the weekend.

Night arrives in Lisbon

As always, thank you for reading!

SAL, Pimenta e Ferreira Rocha

Or, law firms in Mozambique

First, I should explain my title. One piece of work I've done in the office was a briefing on the different law firms in Mozambique. I'm quite easily amused and so found it hilarious that one was called SAL (salt), one was called Pimenta (pepper). and one was called Ferreira Rocha (Smith Rock - two surnames, but it sounds to me like Ferrero Rocher chocolates...)

Oranges on a tree in a park... definitely not something you'd see in the UK

Anyway, now I've got that out of the way, time to update you on my week! Again, it's been dominated by work and food, with the odd gym class and rowing session thrown in. There isn't much to report from either the first or the latter two - in brief, a struggle with Lisbon traffic on Monday meant my 15 minute bus journey took 50 and I missed most of the erg session, Wednesday brought a tank session (i.e. rowing from a concrete boat-like structure in a tank of water, for the uninitiated), and on Saturday we finally made it out in a crew of 4, which was great fun. The gym classes at work are fun and surprisingly good exercise...

Mouth full of cake + coffee in hand = happy Carly

Onto the exciting thing, i.e. food, which is a pretty effective summary of my weekend post-rowing. On Saturday afternoon I had arranged to meet a Brazilian journalist, who had come to the  book club and wanted to find out why English people might be interesting in Portuguese literature, in a pastelaria (café) in Campo de Ourique. Then I went to meet Carly (I saw the oranges above in the Jardim de Estrela on the way) and we went to another pastelaria in Rato (pictured), before wandering the streets a bit. I also found a copy of a Portuguese book that I've been looking for for ages because it's nearly impossible to find, so that was satisfying. We then ended up going to Park, which is a bar at the top of a multi-storey car park - highly recommended by various people, with excellent views. Then we made the spontaneous decision to go to a Goan restaurant called Cantinho do Paz, which I think my parents had mentioned as somewhere they used to go... In any case, it was delicious (if a little extravagant compared to our normal budget) and I survived a curry that the waitress told me was 'quite spicy'...

Cake, Compal. Not the Goan restaurant.

At church this morning Carly and I met Janice, who has just arrived in Portugal from Australia, and is staying for five months studying. We had a good chat over coffee then Janice agreed to come with us to the Museu Nacional do Traje (national costume/fashion museum), way up the metro - after a spot of lunch, of course. We enjoyed looking round both that museum and the Museu Nacional do Teatro - no prizes for guessing what that's about. They were both full of interesting things. And yes, we had another stop for refreshments in the café afterwards...

Flapper fashions

Old underwear

We headed back towards the centre of town and walked around the Marquês de Pombal area for a while, showing Janice where to find things and generally trying to be helpful. Eventually we decided it was dinner time... instead of another meal out, we picked up some groceries and went back to Carly's to cook. I don't think Janice will mind me writing this here, but Carly and I both thought it was sweet that she was surprised that cooking food at home can be so cheap and easy! All in all we had a great day together and I'm sure we'll be seeing more of Janice later.

Oooh museum things

These blogs seem to get shorter and less interesting every time, but I hope you've enjoyed hearing my news. Whether or not there's something more entertaining next week, I will probably end up writing about it all here again. :-)

Thank you for reading!