a curious cat in cacela velha.
ps – oh hey look! we’ve just crossed a full whole year of this series! :)
Month: October 2015
Categories
abatanado
not being able to drink milk has made me crave a longer caffeinated drink to replace my beloved meia de leite, one that i can warm my hands on and take my time drinking. espressos are nice, but a bit too short. so over the years, i’ve turned to americanos or long black coffees, to scratch my itch.
when we moved back to portugal though, i thought my days of americanos were over. the portuguese are a bit set in their ways, and the right way to drink coffee is always an espresso — period. that is what “a coffee” is, around here. so imagine my surprise when, a few months after moving here (and already resigned to my fate), i heard someone ahead of me in the café ask for something that sounded funny… and receiving exactly what i wanted! a looooong-expresso-on-a-tea-mug kind of drink! :D
i pointed to the other lady’s cup and said “i want that as well… what do you call it?“, and the barista explained it was an a-ba-ta-na-do. oh, happy happy day! it existed! it had a name! :D
look at all that caffeinated beauty! next to it, the boy’s espresso looks tiny in comparison:
i don’t remember anyone mentioning abatanados in the north of the country, but everyone seems to know them here in the south, which suits me fine! it has become my #1 coffee drink, when outside of the house, and i’m really happy to have inadvertently stumbled on it! *glup* :)
Categories
the berlin marathon
so, as i was saying a couple of posts ago, the boy who runs ran the whole berlin marathon in 3 hours and 12 minutes, which was brilliant! he says he was disappointed he didn’t make his target time of 3:10… but what’s 2 minutes anyway? pffff….
here he is, in the customary before and after photos:
tasked with the delivery of energy gels at regular intervals, i was too scared to miss paulo in the crowd of runners to take any photos while it was ongoing… but luckily, a number of our friends showed up to cheer him on and record the day! our friends anke and sabine were in town, and enthusiastically helped energise our athlete with the banner anke had done for postcrossing’s 10th anniversary! sabine took these photos as paulo zoomed by:
and our friends filipe and cecilia made this beautiful animated gif of him passing by hermannplatz, which somehow still manages to make me a little teary eyed, even after a few weeks…
awww, right? i got 2 quick kisses throughout the race, and one high-five towards the end! :D paulo says the last 10km were particularly hard, and next time, i shall plan to see him at more regular intervals in that part of the race… that is, if he ever does it again! (he’s undecided at this point…)
i almost missed him going through the brandenburg gate due to a very delayed s-bahn ride… but got out of the station and up on a bench juuuust in time to see him run by! uff! he did it, he really did! :D
words cannot describe how proud i am of the boy… not just for finishing his first marathon with a super quick time, but also for all the effort he put into it, especially training in the southern mediterranean summer. this race was months in the making — but he set his mind to it, and, as always, pulled it through with flying colors!
i’m very, very thankful of our friends as well, who braved the chill to root for paulo and all the other racers — you were brilliant! and last but not least, berlin itself was magic. the atmosphere during the marathon here is always electric, you can feel it in the banners, the confetti, the bands playing by the road, the hoots and bravos, the relentless clapping and cheering… berliners are proud of their tradition of cheering the last runner as enthusiastically as the first one that passed by. they take it to heart, and i think it helps all the runners who pass by and smile at the strangers cheering them on… with a little extra spring in their step.
a very hot day in vila real de santo antónio, some months ago.
Categories
stationery in prague: papelote
though it definitely has its perks, living in a quiet little village in the south does present some challenges… like the complete lack of nice stationery shops nearby. this might be a blessing for my wallet, but it’s also a curse for a paper-and-mail aficionado like me. which is why these days, i tend to go a bit overboard on the paper purchases when we find ourselves interesting places! :) i wanted to write about a few of the things we brought back from our recent trips, because some of these make me really happy, and maybe some of you will enjoy them as well.
so, first off, prague! on our last day in town, we walked by papelote, a small stationery studio and shop, which turned out to be a highlight of the trip. far from being an ordinary stationery shop, these guys take paper to a whole other level, designing products that are familiar but with a twist, making you take a second look and wonder.
anyway, enough of the poetry… off to the bounty!
their mail-related items were some of my favourite. i’m a big fan of aerogrammes and other small mail formats, and was quite happy to discover they have a whole line of beautiful photographic aerogrammes, with different black-and-white motives. (why are the normal aerogrammes so boring?)
these were part of their writing set, which also included cartographic postcards, a brilliant island-letter (which i liked so much, i ended up using before i got the chance to photograph it!), as well as a pencil, writing paper and a letter opener.
we also couldn’t resist their spiral notebooks, and ended up bringing back a couple, plus a very handy elastic band which has been a comforting addition to my traveling kit. i can never pick just one writing utensil to travel with me, so it’s nice to have something which can hold a few of them simultaneously — but not toooo many.
the little dots à la leuchturm and the pleasing texture of the paper on the notebooks made me very happy indeed.
papelote’s love for paper is obvious in all the things they do, so i’m looking forward to our next trip to prague, and to see what they will come up with next! :)