Portugal and Covid

 Our first day in Lisbon after arriving from Dulles started as soon as we woke up from our lovely post-flight nap.  We went downstairs and had a hot breakfast which was delicious (another good reason to have reserved a room the night before arrival). Anyone who has ever been to Portugal always remembers one food: Pasteis de Nata.  These lovely, delicate custard-based pastries are a mainstay of every breakfast and we always have one on the first day to let our stomachs know we are in Portugal.

We took a long wake-up walk around the neighborhood marveling once again at the lovely architecture, wide avenues and stylish people. Since this was a new area for us we did our best to get in as much walking as possible before heading back to the room to get cleaned up and into clean clothes. Directly across the street from us was a huge covered market filled with some of the finest and freshest seafood you will ever see. Mammoth slabs of tuna and swordfish, delicate sardines in all sizes, and fish that I’ve never seen before but wanted to eat nonetheless.  The market also had lots of fresh vegetables, cheeses of all shape and size, and a lot of butchers peddling whole pigs, sides of beef, and all manner of poultry. Sadly we saw no goat or lamb but when you are next to the sea, you eat from the sea!

By about 1:30 we were getting peckish so we located a small restaurant in the market right near the fresh seafood. Using our best Portuguese we were escorted to a vinyl table top for two, presented with utensils and a paper place mat and told to go choose our fish. While Cindy went to the window that held the iced fish, I managed to get us a small pitcher of Vinho Verde (a lightly effervescent young wine with only 9-10% alcohol) and a half bottle of more serious wine. Cindy returned and announced what was for lunch. She had selected tuna for me and calamari for her, and in about five minutes out came the perfectly cooked fish and each plate had enough boiled potatoes and carrots to feed three, all swimming in melted butter. What a feast!  We had a nice coffee after lunch and then the server came and took out a pen and scribbled on our paper tablecloth. That was our bill!! Twenty-five euros for all the food and drink, about $30. No wonder everyone wants to go to Portugal; it is the least expensive vacation spot for all Europeans and has sun and surf to boot.

The following day we wandered into more neighborhoods before going back to pack up to move to the Intercontinental Lisboa where we normally stay. We had two free night certificates that needed to be used by the end of the year so we took a short cab ride to the hotel and settled in for two nights. For lunch that afternoon we headed to one of the best Italian places in town, one we had enjoyed a few times before and knew was really Italian since everyone spoke the language and we could order without pointing! It was truly a lot of fun and we just beat the rain getting back to the hotel in time for our afternoon nap.

That night we had a drink in the bar before dinner and found that our bartender friend from two years ago was still there. He caught us up on all that had happened to the hotel during the pandemic. The government covered almost everyone’s full wages for six months and half their wages for another six months. Everyone was so happy to be back at work and it showed. Our dinner at the hotel was fantastic thanks in large part to Pedro our Maitre D’, whom we have know for awhile from previous visits. He took care of everything, including ordering a marvelous bottle of local wine that was not on the wine list. We had a wonderful evening of fine food and conversation, ending with Pedro making a dinner reservation for us for the next night. 

The hotel was hosting a large convention that was to begin on the 31st. They also had a large Sunday Brunch celebrating Halloween. The following day was a holiday in Europe, All Saints Day, so all day Sunday and Sunday night the joint was jumping. We had long walks and a normal nap and appeared at the restaurant on schedule. Unfortunately, we were the only ones on schedule. The place was chaotic and we stood there for ten minutes while wait staff were scurrying about. Finally we were seated in a not-so-great location mostly out of sight of the rest of the dining room (which means out of sight of all the servers). We asked for Pedro but were told he was supervising room service since there was a higher than expected demand due to the conference.  I’ll spare you the details of the lousy experience but I did not spare them in the letter I wrote to the general manager. Had we not been such frequent guests we would have had a terrible feeling about the hotel but we knew this was a one-off and we will return on the 17th of November for two nights before the cruise.

Portugal enjoys one of the lowest rates of infection from Covid in the world. The reason is that early on the government made the decision to treat Covid the way you would treat anything threatening your citizens and they considered Covid to be an enemy of the state. They wisely placed an admiral from the Navy to be in charge of vaccinations. He is always shown in his battle dress, sending a not too subtle message that he is fighting this disease. From what we read he is personable to the point of being charming but he takes no prisoners. He is quoted as saying there are only two options, you are all going to help fight this enemy or you are going to be part of the problem and will be dealt with accordingly. Thus a 98% vaccination rate!!  No politics, no false science, no exemptions, just two choices - one good the other not so good.  Everyone wears a mask, everyone follows the protocols, and everyone is happy to do so since it means that they can conduct business, tourists are flocking in, (provided they meet the strict requirements of entry) and everyone is happy. Bravo Portugal!  On to Nice.  Best to all, Cindy and Wm

PS Cindy just pointed out to me that these blogs mention an awfully high rate of nap-taking!  The pandemic has made naps endemic as a way of marking time (that is our excuse, at any rate).

  

Our detailed luncheon bill!  

Coffee and Vinho Verde

Europe Adventure in the time of Covid

Greetings from Nice!

After having been shut-ins for twenty-plus months, we were given a serious incentive to get out of the house. And I do mean out, as in out of money and out of opportunities to keep postponing. Two years ago we had plans for two weeks in Nice and had booked an apartment and paid in full, then came Covid.  The rental agency would not refund the money but allowed us to postpone until Americans were allowed back into France. Strike One!

We had long ago booked a cruise on Silversea from Anchorage to Tokyo, then along came Covid. They would have allowed us a refund, but they also offered to give us a future cruise credit of 125% of the price we had paid for the cruise, plus they would credit us with the fourteen days we would have cruised, getting us to within that magical 100 nights making us eligible for FREE laundry!  We took the offer, Strike Two!

We had booked and paid in full for business class tickets to Europe with TAP, the official carrier of Portugal. Then, guess what, along came Covid.  They are not the most organized carrier we have worked with but after lots of calls and emails we did get a voucher for future travel which had to be used by the end of this year. Strike Three.

With all these reasons to spend our money rather than lose it, we decided to bite the bullet and come to France for two weeks and then to Portugal to board Silversea (the Silver Moon) back to Florida.  While travel was allowed, there were obstacles that needed to be overcome before we could fly.  The first, and most important, was getting a French Pass Sanitaire, a EU recognized document that attests to the fact that we are fully vaccinated. The online form promised that it would take from two to four days but it took two weeks and that was with prodding. The day before travel we finally received our Passes and made multiple copies, physical and digital, just to make sure. (In the meantime we were able to get our boosters but didn’t want to burden the French with that information.)

We were now ready to travel for the first time in almost two years and headed to the airport confident that we had what we needed but also apprehensive as to what lay ahead. As it turns out, we should have been apprehensive!  We approached the TAP check-in which was chaotic, clogged with people waving papers at the agents and also yelling at them which just added to the confusion. I learned long ago that if we have lots of luggage, and we did because of the cruise, I get a Redcap to take our baggage. These folks know the ropes and ours was a gem and maneuvered  through the crowd all the while talking to the agents, all of whom he seemed to know. Flying Business has some rewards and a separate check-in counter is one of them. However, that seemed to be where all the problems were (apparently everyone thought they were entitled to Business) so he pushed his way to the front of the coach line, unloaded our bags onto the scales and happily accepted an overly generous but well deserved tip.

We had to show them our Passenger Locator Form, something we had completed online which allows the Portuguese government to track you down if there was an incident involving infection on the flight. Then they wanted to see a document verifying that we had had a negative Covid test within the last 48 hours. We told them we had an EU approved Pass, which no one seemed to understand. Finally the station manager for TAP showed up, took one look at our Passes and told staff that this was all we needed! At last we were on our way to TSA security with our boarding passes.

We first went to Clear, a “pay for less hassle” outfit that works with TSA. They scanned my eyeballs and checked my boarding pass and I was ready to go. Cindy however was stopped because her boarding pass did not have the “TSA Pre” stamp. Since I had already been checked I had to stay where I was as Cindy went back to get TAP to reissue her boarding pass. She came back dejected since despite showing TAP her TSA card, they would not reissue the boarding pass with the TSA Pre checkmark. 

I then left the secure area and we both went down to the normal check-in where we would be able to use Clear to avoid long lines. Once again they scanned me, no trouble, but they said Cindy’s Clear membership had expired. Okay, please renew it I said, knowing that I had paid her membership when I renewed as a family. The folks at Clear could not have done more or have been more professional but it still took a half hour for them to get things fixed!!  Now we could go through security - which we did with no further issue. 

We finally got to the lounge that TAP uses for Business Class with just fifteen minutes before boarding and we both wanted a glass of Champagne.  Only one bartender and two people ahead of me but wouldn’t you know they wanted Mojitos, the most time consuming drink a bartender can make.  We finally had our drinks and sat for five minutes collecting our thoughts and laughing a bit over all that had happened before even boarding the flight!

The trip to Lisbon was thankfully uneventful. Our seats were comfortable, the food and drink just fine and the staff very friendly. No inflight rage as I had read about, just a smooth, fast flight with everyone wearing masks and staying calm.  We landed early, very early at five in the morning Lisbon time. We were the first flight in and praise the luggage handlers, ours were the first bags out. Immigration was a breeze and we were in a taxi within thirty-five minutes of landing and at the Hilton before six AM.

Since I knew we were going to be arriving at the crack of dawn, I had booked our room for arrival the day before so that it would be ready for our early morning arrival. I communicated directly with the front desk to make sure they knew my intentions, and sure enough upon entering the hotel they gave me my room key and we were in a lovely fresh bed by 6:15 and we slept for three hours.  This certainly was preferable to wandering around Lisbon until the normal check-in time of 3 PM!  

Paw Paw

 What with everything else going on since the start of the New Year, we have continued to be hermits trying not to be distracted by the pandemic and its associated restrictions. Following the guidelines, yes; but distracted, no.  Starting with Cindy’s birthday on June 3rd, we decided we needed to get out and about, but in a safe, very safe, fashion.

We celebrated Cindy’s 70th in grand style. There is a lovely hotel/restaurant complex about 20 miles from our house that is perched on a bluff high above the Potomac River called The Bavarian Inn.  We have stayed there a few times when there was an evening event we were attending and didn’t want to drive late at night. The food is truly Bavarian and drinking the beer is like taking a cheap trip to Munich. We had an al fresco luncheon, our first lunch out in 18 months, and then a short walk to our room overlooking the river for a nap. They had provided Cindy with a chilled bottle of sparking wine and note of congratulations on her birthday. After a brisk post-nap walk, we returned to dress for dinner and then ambled up to the restaurant.

Since it was a special occasion and we had not been out to dinner in eighteen months, we pulled out all the stops and had a delightful meal, with Champagne, Chablis and Beaujolais Villages to accompany our scallops and lamb chops. I’m sure there was dessert but I’ll be damned if I can remember it!  The next morning after a long walk we headed back to our hermitage where we have been holed up for so very long.  Soon after this experience we decided that we needed to get out and do things so we established our "anything can happen day," which means that once a week we do something we haven’t done or go somewhere we haven’t been.

Which brings us to Paw Paw.  For years I’ve wanted to go there:  It is a little village right on the Potomac that is celebrated for the Paw Paw Tunnel, which was built in the middle 1800’s as a way of speeding up transit for C&O canal boats.  You can read all about it here.  It was a truly remarkable feat of engineering and even today it is a bit awe-inspiring knowing what tools and science they had available for the big dig.  We parked at the camping site and had to walk in, about half a mile to get to the tunnel. Normally the canal would be filled with water but they are doing construction to clean it up so it was just a dry canal bed filled with wild grasses and seedlings.  The tunnel is dark, I mean really dark and even at noon the middle is so dark that you need to have a flashlight so as to not trip and either hit the tunnel side or spill over into the canal. They have diverted water from the river right at the tunnel entrance so that it is filled with frogs, turtles, small fish and other aquatic animals.

As for the name, Paw Paw was named for the abundance of Paw Paw trees in the area.  We kept looking for the fruit but didn't see a single one!

The ride from our house to Paw Paw was absolutely lovely. We went through lots of itsy-bitsy towns and past large farms filled with tall corn, alfalfa and other grains waving in the dappled sunlight. We passed a real Castle in the town of Berkeley Springs, which is noted for having therapeutic waters that George Washington used to take to relieve his aches and pains.  Even today it is a very popular spot for those wishing to take the waters and has an old classy hotel for that purpose.

We took a less scenic route home since we wanted to head to Winchester, VA to our closest Costco (about 40 minutes from our house). Having read that the Champagne area of France was walloped with evil weather I guessed that Champagne prices would be jumping sometime soon, so we stopped for a case of Kirkland Champagne. If you belong to Costco and you enjoy Champagne, do yourself a favor and try a bottle.  At $20 a pop, get it, POP, you will not be disappointed. While there we of course got one of their rotisserie chickens and a variety of fruit that is always fresher than it is in the supermarkets.

All and all we declared it a marvelous "anything can happen day," and yes we stole that name from the Micky Mouse Club!

Best to all, Cindy and William

  

Sad News from Florida

 It is with great sadness that I must let you know that our darling daughter Megan died last night at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville Florida after a three and a half year battle with Multiple Myeloma.  Our Megan has always been a fighter and battled this cancer with the same energy and positive attitude she exhibited in everything she did. We have been taking care of her for the past ten days since she had lost the use of her arms and needed 24/7 care, and we cherish that time together. Last Friday we took her to Mayo and she never left.  On Monday she wanted to have a mushroom pizza from her favorite pizza joint in Jacksonville Beach so Cindy went and got it, delivered it to the front door of Mayo and I rushed it up to her still hot. (Meg was only allowed one visitor the entire duration due to Covid.) She ate half the pie with gusto as we talked about our next trips to Italy. Sometime in the early morning hours she had a catastrophic event in her lungs due to the cancer and she was placed in a medically induced coma from which she never recovered. She died peacefully with her family next to her at 10 pm on Tuesday January 12th.

The entire staff at the Mayo Clinic has been fantastic, there is a reason they are World Class. In lieu of flowers, if you are so inclined you may make a contribution to the Mayo Clinic Department of Development, 200 First Street SW, Rochester, MN 55905. In the memo line indicate that the donation is in memory of Megan Byxbee. You may also do this online at: https://philanthropy.mayoclinic.org/donatemc. Under tribute information indicate that the gift is in Memory of Megan Byxbee.

With best wishes for happier times,  Cindy and William

On the Road Again, second try

 August and September were pretty much the same, except September has three more letters.  Daily schedule never changed: wake up, exercise, coffee, read, second walk, breakfast, shop every ten days or so, lunch, read, nap, walk, BBC news at 6, dance at 7, cocktails at 7:05, dinner 7:35! Not grueling, not exciting, not much to write about!  Which is why we jumped at the chance to drive to Florida to help out with some of Megan’s needs such as appointments.

We hopped in Petite Rouge on the morning of October 1st and headed south. We got to South Carolina and spent the night near Hilton Head. We walked to shake off having been seated for nine hours and were amazed that everyone we saw was acting like it was 2019. Restaurants jumping, no masks, outdoor bars packed with folks singing while sitting rather close together; we were dumbfounded. Cindy had packed our cocktails and dinner so that once we got in the room we didn’t leave. The next morning we were offered a very lovely breakfast and since no one was near us in the breakfast room we sat and enjoyed a hot meal before getting back on the road. Our first meal out in seven months!!  Stupid Covid!

We arrived in North Port on Friday afternoon Oct. 2 and checked into our rental home that Cindy had found online a few days prior. It is a lovely three bedroom, two and a half bath Florida home with a huge pool, hot tub and lanai. In the past two weeks Cindy used the pool twice to cool down after a run and I put my feet in just to say I used the pool. I have spent most of my time in the kitchen cooking meals for us and for Megan and her son Blake.  We bring their dinners to them at about 4:30 and sit with them - at a distance with masks on - until about 6. Sometimes we head over to see Valley, Kent and Aidan for a quick hello and then head back here to make our dinner. The location has changed the routine has not.  Stupid Covid!

We have rented another home in North Port because this one is not available and we’ll move there on Saturday; it seems to be quite similar to this one which has been very good for us. Planning on departing on the 24th and arriving home on the 25th at which time we’ll hibernate in West by god Virginia at least until the end of November when we’ll most likely come back here for a month or so.  It seems so weird to be here and not to be able to kiss and hug and sit close and chat over wine and dinner.  Stupid Covid!

Stay well, stay happy and this too shall pass.    Cindy and William

On The Road Again

October 15, 2020

On the Road Again

 August and September were pretty much the same, except September has three more letters.  Daily schedule never changed: wake up, exercise, coffee, read, second walk, breakfast, shop every ten days or so, lunch, read, nap, walk, BBC news at 6, dance at 7, cocktails at 7:05, dinner 7:35! Not grueling, not exciting, not much to write about!  Which is why we jumped at the chance to drive to Florida to help out with some of Megan’s needs such as appointments.

We hopped in Petite Rouge on the morning of October 1st and headed south. We got to South Carolina and spent the night near Hilton Head. We walked to shake off having been seated for nine hours and were amazed that everyone we saw was acting like it was 2019. Restaurants jumping, no masks, outdoor bars packed with folks singing while sitting rather close together; we were dumbfounded. Cindy had packed our cocktails and dinner so that once we got in the room we didn’t leave. The next morning we were offered a very lovely breakfast and since no one was near us in the breakfast room we sat and enjoyed a hot meal before getting back on the road. Our first meal out in seven months!!  Stupid Covid!

We arrived in North Port on Friday afternoon Oct. 2 and checked into our rental home that Cindy had found online a few days prior. It is a lovely three bedroom, two and a half bath Florida home with a huge pool, hot tub and lanai. In the past two weeks Cindy used the pool twice to cool down after a run and I put my feet in just to say I used the pool. I have spent most of my time in the kitchen cooking meals for us and for Megan and her son Blake.  We bring their dinners to them at about 4:30 and sit with them - at a distance with masks on - until about 6. Sometimes we head over to see Valley, Kent and Aidan for a quick hello and then head back here to make our dinner. The location has changed the routine has not.  Stupid Covid!

We have rented another home in North Port because this one is not available and we’ll move there on Saturday; it seems to be quite similar to this one which has been very good for us. Planning on departing on the 24th and arriving home on the 25th at which time we’ll hibernate in West by god Virginia at least until the end of November when we’ll most likely come back here for a month or so.  It seems so weird to be here and not to be able to kiss and hug and sit close and chat over wine and dinner.  Stupid Covid!

Stay well, stay happy and this too shall pass.    Cindy and William

August Already

Goodness, how time flies - even in a pandemic with a halfhearted lockdown.  We only brace for the worst as we see no improvement in the statistics for Covid19.  

Nevertheless, I've started to hit my stride with a few attempts at travel planning and that feels good.  Plans are for the fall of 2021 - which on the one hand seems far away but on the other hand is probably way too soon for us to get on an airplane and head for Europe. "Time will tell" has  probably never been more apt so I'll spend a lot of time keeping an eye on cancellation deadlines.  The good news is that the cruises we canceled for 2020 have resulted in a 125% refund that must be used within two years. This means we have more moolah to apply to the next cruise(s) and we can spring for a bigger cabin just in case we are quarantined on the ship. 

Speaking of which, as we tentatively start to plan cruises for next year we note with some discomfort the fact that two ships, one in Norway the other in the South Pacific, started cruising last week and guess what?  Yep, despite what they called state of the art preventive techniques both ships are now docked for two weeks' quarantine since crew members and guests contracted Covid. As the great Yogi Berra once said,"It is deja vu all over again!"

I asked Cindy to glance through her daily journal for ideas that we might want to include in this blog, and she lost count of the number of times these words appear:  mowing, weeding, and mulch. Pretty exciting times here at Casa Embee, and of course the references to mulch included buying, hauling, unloading, and spreading ... and by the end of June we realized we needed some help in the form of a truck.

Therefore we have swapped out our fleet of vehicles. We are giving Cindy’s beloved Tweetie Bird, a bright yellow 2006 Chevy Aveo with only 25K miles, to granddaughter Emily so that she has a reliable ride when and if Florida State opens again. Cindy has greatly missed her old Ford Ranger so we looked around and found a lovely 2008 ebony-colored Ford Ranger to replace Tweetie.  It is in great shape and with all of our gardening needs, we really needed a pickup not only for mulch but for rock, sod and sand. Her name is Vol de Nuit!  Here is a story Cindy wrote about her first solo flight in Vol de Nuit.

No Good Deed Shall Go Unpunished

 - or -

The Good Idea That Wasn't

The first was my title; Wm weighed in with the second one ... trying to make a long story short here, but we've had a minor issue in the neighborhood with tree branches hanging over the sidewalks.  This forced the walkers and runners into the street so I posted a nice message on our "Next Door" app requesting residents to trim their trees. It was amazing how much action ensued - almost everyone with offending branches cut them (including me; those trees keep growing).  The other morning I was running past one of the last hold-outs and he happened to be outside mowing, so I stopped and asked him if I could cut the lower branches off his tree. He was only too happy to accept, so an hour later I drove the truck over, loppers and gloves on board.  

I started my work and within a few minutes he joined me and offered to help. I started to put branches into the truck bed and he said he'd take them, but Smart Cindy said, oh no - I'll take those branches (since I was thinking that was part of my offer to help).  In my defense, I was only planning to cut 3 or 4 small branches.  But Jorge (or whatever his name is) decided to trim the entire tree, all the way around, far beyond what was needed to clear the sidewalk.  See attached photo! I was very glad that Wm was in the backyard and did not see my pyrrhic victory before I had time to get all the branches out of the truck and bound together.

Those of you who reply, don't be TOO hard on me.  Ha.

Stay healthy and don’t worry, be happy!    Cindy and Wm 

Vol de Nuit and the Yard Crew

Heaping Helping of Greens