museums and a fiesta

Hello, everyone.
As y'all know, we are in LIsbon for a jetlag recovery break before walking.
Today we went in search of museums and found a fiesta.
We left in search of the Museu del Azulejos (Tile Museum) this morning, and also train information. We rode the Lisbon Metro routes to Santa Appolonia which is the end of the line heading out toward Azambuja on our first day walking. (That day being tomorrow.) We discovered that the best way to the edge of town is not the train nor the metro. The BBC set way appears to be a city bus!
We also got direction s to the Tile Museum from the nice lady at the train information, who couldn't believe we intend ed to walk there. Then we got to talking and walked right past it. Eventually we go it. It was wonderful.

Tile mural of the Eucharist

Then, having discovered the city busses, which are included in our daily hop on hop off pass, we hopped the bus to the extreme other side of the city: Belen. This is a suburban city that is home to the Monasterio Jeronimo. We ate lunch (roasted Solha and roasted sardine, which we shared tastes of) and went to see the monastery it's church. It was beautiful. As had been the Tile Museum earlier.

Then we went in search of food__and found Castel Sao Jorge. We climbed over 140 steps, plus some slopes, and discovered the most interesting castle we've ever seen.

My sweetie in the top of one of the keep towers..
There is a lot of climbing in this castle. You want to have your walking shoes on.
Descending afterwards we found ourselves in the annual Fiesta del San Antonio, in an ancient neighborhood called the Alfambra. Talk about the happening place. We ate good food, drank , and watched the kids having a good time. Then we found our way back to the guest house for the night. Tomorrow we begin our trek.

Pilgrimage 2015 is on the road

Hello, everyone.
As y'all know already, we are going on pilgrimage again.
Yesterday we boarded the 0525 flight for the first phase. At 0830 today we landed in LIsbon, Portugal and officially began by taking the Lisbon metro from the airport downtown to get our first stamps:"carimbos."

We visited the shrine of St. Anthony ("of Padua" even though he was born in LIsbon!)
and the cathedral.
Then we found our guest house, took much needed nap and headed out to explore.

This is the old harbor entrance. It's a popular visiting spot. 

Tomorrow we intend to recover from the flight and possibly visit a museum or two.

Botes are ready!

Hello, everyone.

I think I mentioned that I had to change out the new insoles. They were too high for me at the arch. (Snapping sensation inside the instep, not good.) Switched to the Dr. Scholls Womens Work Gel insoles, yes these are the same ones they sell at HEB and Target and so on.

I also got new shoelaces: paracord! Orange! Maybe I can pick out my botes without so much cross-eyed confusion now:

The odd lacing is to lessen squashing of the top of the foot. I may change back to more conventional lacing on the bottom as we go, it's too soon to tell.

The paracord shoelaces come in a raft of colors, both bright and dull, and these were bought from the Amazon Sgt. Knots listing.

Other little bits about the Miami trip

Hello, everyone.

There were a couple of other little things I wanted to share with y'all about our trip to Miami for DD1's graduation and GS1's baptism.

One was a restaurant that we really enjoyed. It was called Latin2000 and we stopped there, in part, because we could see that it was popular. We went in and discovered that this was a place we could bust out our Spanish in. (My parents could use their English, too.) I had a burger like thing that was called something like Cubana Frita: beef and sausage patty, with cheese, shoestring potatoes, ketchup and maybe some onion. It was pretty good. I learned from DD1 later that the shoestring potatoes in a sandwich is a local thing. (They call it "potato sticks" on the menus.) My sweetie wanted to have a Tortilla Espanola ( potato and egg Spanish omelet) but he accidentally freaked them out. He asked for a "tortilla with ham, nothing else." They made it on the spot for him, egg and some ham bits, but no potatoes. I told him that his order was why he had no potatoes in his tortilla. But, really, their willingness to make it the way he asked for it is a good thing. Their Iced Tea came in cool promo cups and I took a picture of one:

The other thing I wanted to share with y'all was our experience on the way home. We were pretty tired of being on the road by then, so we skipped pretty much all sight-seeing. The first night on the road back was in Alabama, at the La Quinta there. It's right by the highway, and it's one of the most pleasant La Quintas I've ever stayed at. The lady gave us directions to the nearby grocery store, a Publix where we acquired excellent sandwiches and a bottle of wine, and she also was ready with the change when I needed quarters while doing wash. The room was clean and pleasant and roomy, too. So I give this La Quinta a Star for doing it right.

 On another subject, we're prepping to go on pilgrimage again, as you may know, and I finished a top to wear while walking:

This is orange trilobal nylon for the main fabric (you can see that it's a little bit see-through) and the piping is reflective piping. I am hoping that it may be useful when we're walking around sunrise in Portugal.

The plan, to the extent we have a plan, is to walk from Lisbon to Santarem, where there is a church that had a Eucharistic miracle some centuries back (look it up on Sacred Destinations.com) and then to Fatima. After that, we're thinking of catching a bus ride from Fatima to Tomar, which at one time was the world headquarters of the Knights Templar, those famous protectors of pilgrims, and see the Convento de Christo there. Then walk on to Porto--sample the famous wines--and walk to Santiago de Compostela. After we pay our respects to Saint James--possibly the scaffolding will be gone from the Porto da Gloria now so we can touch the sculpture in the doorway--we'll most likely catch a train to Madrid and go back to the Prada art museum. I have hopes to take pictures of details of one of the works there, Bramontini's "Risen Christ", and use them to make a picture to hang on my wall.

I'm not normally a fan of art museums, but the Prada, and the convent Real Descalzadas last year, have made me more aware of the value of viewing the art. (Also viewing the great numbers of works in their proper places--religious works hanging in churches--opened my eyes.)

If there is confusion in the posting in the next several weeks, it is because we're on the trail. We hope to use DH's Kindle Fire to take some pictures and post them to the blog while we're traveling. The rest of the photo goodies will wait until we're home.

I am personally also hoping to encounter many opportunities for adoration: Capilla del Santissimo, they call it in Spain, places where I can sink into the wonder of contemplating Jesus face to face. I did it in Rome, at the Cahpel of St. Nicolas in St. Peter's Basilica, and it was really the high point of the trip for me. I did it last year in Santiago de Compostela, where I sank down into the kneeler in the Cathedral and gave inarticulate silent thanks for bringing me through all the foot problems and weather and lessons in trust. I hope to do so again.

Just because...

Hello, everyone.

While I haven't gotten photos from my camera to DH's Kindle yet, I have wirelessly gotten them into my own desktop computer.

Opening blossoms on my Queen Victoria Agave

My buddy.

Gaillardia

Psycho Cat

 We walked yesterday afternoon--yes, the heat of the day!--for about 5 miles. Got where we were going in just under 2 hours, plenty hot. Sat in pool for about half an hour afterwards. But it was a pleasant walk overall, on a collection of mostly subdivision streets all the way.
Gear conclusion I have reached: the Spenco insoles I got are just not right for me. I kept having odd and uncomfortable feelings inside my soles. Yesterday I switched them out for the Dr. Scholl's Work Gel insoles that I had in my schleppy tennies. This was a great improvement.

Miami, with more about Gesu church

Hello, everyone.

We arrived in Miami for the whole point of the exercise: graduation for DD1 and baptism for GS1.

There was a short stroll in the South Beach area, where we viewed one of the new fashion "things": open lace used as pants over a swimsuit. This is laughably called a "coverup" although there isn't anything covered. (It will look okay if your swimsuit doesn't match so much that you look like you went out in just undies and the open lace. The first one we saw, the lace pants completely matched the color of the girl's two piece swimsuit. She looked like she was strolling the streets in bra, panties, and the lace pants. No top other than her swimsuit. Not a good look, in my opinion. No, I didn't take photos of people, they didn't  go out with the idea that they'd be all over the interwebs in whatever I saw them in.)

Sea-grape as I've never seen it before. (At South Padre Island, this plant is usually a small to medium sized shrub.)

Really yummy calves' liver, just before we snarfed the last bit up!

We ate lunch at a lovely Turkish restaurant called Babylon. The liver is to die for! They also had lovely hummus, eggplant, and so on. If you go to South Beach, you should definitely eat there.

The baptism was my second time to visit Gesu Church. (Y'all may remember my posts from a couple of months back, when I went to help out with GS1's arrival.) With DH on hand to help take pictures, and the kind explanations of the priest about the teaching scheme of the art, I have more to show you about Gesu.

Tympanum (?) mural showing things connected to the parish: St. Phillipine Duchenne, nun on left side, a missionary to the Indians, St. Francesca Cabrini, nun on right side, founder of hospitals and teacher of many immigrants to the US, military members representing the Army training camps during the world wars, representative Indians and farmers--and at the far right, the actual neighbors of the parish church when it was built, all joining the angels in adoration

Rose window in the choir loft. Musical angels surround the central figure of Mary. During the era of Gothic cathedral building, the rose window was a representation of the beauty of Heaven. 

The new Christian being presented to the Blessed Mother by his parents and godparents. (The family said a prayer at the statue, similar to the way many marrying couples greet the Virgin at the end of their wedding ceremony.) Above the altar, in the apse, many symbolic paintings around the edge. One is of a Eucharistic pelican.

View of the sanctuary area and the baptismal font. The font base has lovely ceramic statues of saints. Large statues in front, from left: St. Therese of the Child Jesus (the Little Flower), Mary, St. Ignatius (?), Jesus displaying His Sacred Heart, St. Francis Borgia whom I am not familiar with. Attentive readers will note that, like St. Paul's in Mission, Gesu has a painting of the Divine Mercy image of Jesus. 

Windows on the right depicting moments from the life of Christ. The windows on the left depict moments from the life of Mary. (I didn't get a good photo of them.) This picture also shows the elaborate, edifying Stations of the Cross in the church nave.

 In the March Miami post(s) there are a few more pictures of the church, showing the Last Supper carving below the Tabernacle and other items.

Ocala National Forest, Florida

Hello, everyone.

The last time I posted I brought our Miami trip up to arriving in the city of Ocala. Near Ocala is a national forest--a hybrid kind of area that isn't a park, because you can fish and collect things in it, but isn't privately owned woodland, because the harvesting contracts for commercial lumber and such go through the government. They seem to be part of the legacy of Muir, who was very fond of unpeopled lands and didn't want their mystical beauty to be mussed up by such things as tour operations, farming, logging, and so on. Mr. Muir had a very great influence on the US national park system. While I don't think he's directly connected to the national forests, the idea that the forests are "patrimony" of the entire nation and should not be let go into private hands was certainly gaining a lot of steam around the time he was active.

Ocala National Forest, according to its web site, is one of the most used forest properties in the entire country. It is convenient not only to the nearby city of Ocala, Florida, but also semi-convenient to Orlando, the Space Coast, and so on. I can well believe that a lot of people go there! It's pretty.

It's also occupied by the most rapacious, stubborn, sneaky, ugly ticks and chiggers we have ever seen in our lives. I am convinced that as soon as the spy-mites saw us pause to focus the camera, they waved a flag to the field officer, who blew his teensy-tiny bug whistle and hollered "CHARGE!" They were running up our shoes. They were parachuting down from trees. And we thought we had them well picked-off before departing, but there were still more that appeared when we sat down to chat with friends. Even after we checked into the hotel that evening and showered, there were still more of the evil things!

But I was saying that the forest is pretty, so it's only fair to post some pretty after that long rant.

Deer moss, a lichen that colonized patches on the forest floor

Pretty sure this is bull nettle, whose sting is legendary

The scrub oak forest was thick and we were the first ones to go through in a while.
Many spider webs across the path!

Lake with spatterdock lilies in the midst of the pines and scrub

Pretty moss cushion

The path here was on leaves. Other places it was mostly on white sugar sand, with the occasional leaf or moss bit. Palmetto shrubs on the left. Pines in the distance, with gray Spanish moss hanging down.

The interpretive signs call the scrub forest a "desert with water" because the sugar sands it is growing in don't retain any moisture at all from the frequent rains. We saw eastern forest yuccas (a succulent family plant, somewhat more shade tolerant than Spanish Dagger yuccas) growing in the ground near trees and fern fronds sprouting from any place the spores had landed on the tree trunks. And lichen, lichen everywhere: white deer moss, red round patches on trunks, gray frilly "leaves" on twigs.

It's a pretty place to walk--we did four miles of easy trail walking and picture taking--but you really, really need to put the bug repellant on your ankles, your shoes, your socks, your arms...you get the picture. There are a few benches along the trails we walked, but I didn't see any picnic tables. There was a facility, with the standard Forest Service pit potty, where we parked the car. Bring your own hand sanitizer. Also, like most Forest Service properties, there is not much in the way of concessionaires in the forest itself, so pack your drinks and your lunch, and get your fishing license before you head off to drown worms in the little patch of wild in the middle of Florida.