Doors and Knockers

Oh, I can't seem to stop myself from sleeping and rummaging through my photographs. I want to show some more! I want to sleep some more! I'd like to get back on track too but so far that hasn't happened yet. If this is jet lag it is the worst case I've ever had. So here is a wooden saint that I love, don't you?

And religious figures in snow globes. Of course. Why didn't I think of that?

My husband has very short legs but I like him anyway. Oh wait, I get it, he's pointing out how little the door is.

More knockers. It's the internet's fault that I got interested in these. I kept seeing them on other people's blogs and then when I got to Europe they kept jumping out at me. They really are cool.

There was a song in the 50's named "Green Door". OK, never mind, nobody is old enough besides me to remember that.

More knockers. Think of all the energy we could save if we pulled out our electric doorbells and installed door knockers. When did we start making everything more complicated than necessary?

Light and color on the cathedral floor. I almost walked past this but John stopped me and pointed it out.

I can tell the shots from Lisbon by the chunks of limestone they use in paving their streets. They must have moved mountains of rocks; it's a big city.

Lots of tile used in the facades of the buildings and homes. No upkeep; it lasts for centures without repainting.

A big ochre facade and battered wooden door to bring up the rear. I sure hope I'm done with the pictures from my trip now but I can't promise.

Catching Up

I can almost hear you saying, "where's the art?" Well, this is what I have been staring at and loving since my return home. Beloved katie sent this to me in my absence - a beautiful gift to surprise me on my very first day back. Can you see the writing on the frame? Like everything katie does it is beguiling and odd; I could never put into words what her paintings do for me and that is surely a good sign. They work on a deeper level than speech or logic. I am learning from katie that the way to get to "that" place is to let go and trust your instincts. That part of you that knows but doesn't know how it knows. Thank you katie, for this lovely gift and for your special gift as a teacher. I keep learning from you.

And you thought I was finished boring you with my vacation pictures, eh? Nyah hah hah, not so fast there. I still have a few more up my sleeve. I loved the old building above for the most obvious reason; distressed plaster, stone, paint. If only I could get this surface in my paintings!

The stores in Fatima were chock full of Marys. I stocked up.

One of a zillion photographs I took of graffiti. This will end up in my journal somewhere; a collaboration with an unknown artist. I love doing that.

Creepy mannequins. Brrrrr, I love that feeling.

Took way too many photos of door knockers. Come to think about it, disembodied hands are kind of creepy too. I remember a movie once about a monkey's paw that could come to life and scamper across the room. Yick, I couldn't sleep for days.

I am still getting caught up and have put a huge limit on my computer time until I do. If you have written and not heard from me, that is why. I'll come out to play again sometime this weekend.

xxooxx

Third - Everything Else

I gathered a pile of beach glass along the Costa del Sol - the southern shore of Spain that sits on the Mediterranean. Here are located fabulously expensive resort homes and beautiful shopping areas. It is beautiful but nothing compared to combing the shore of the Mediterranean for beach glass. That was one of my favorite moments.

This photograph was taken in the former fishing village of Nazare. The streets are narrow and wind up steep hills. We ate a memorable lunch here in a beautiful old restaurant filled with cuban mahogany and brass. The waitress spoke perfect english and her friendliness added a dimension to the experience.

Nazare sits on a rugged coast of the Atlantic. The weather is windy and harsh; the surrounding shoreline shows evidence of deep erosion and some homes are in danger of tumbling down the rocky cliffs. You can't help but reflect on the difficulties people there faced in eking out a living. It reminded me of a story I once read of a village of Japanese fishermen who, faced with imminent starvation, built bonfires on the beach to lure shipping vessels to flounder so that they could plunder them and thus survive. What a dreadful choice; to starve or be forced into predatory behavior. Survival is not always easy and crime is not always a black and white affair.

This is Ronda, the beautiful town spanning two sides of a vast chasm. There is a turbulent river below and the views will make your stomach flip. Some of the houses sat perilously close to the lip of the canyon. I don't have the make-up to live in such a house. I am a person who always pictures disaster; I can't seem to help myself.

This is the Gaudi house the locals refer to as the stone pile. If I have the story straight I understand that the wealthy woman who employed Gaudi to build it for her was displeased because she had an extensive art collection and none of the interior walls were flat enough to hang her pictures on. Gaudi, Gaudi, Gaudi, you imp!

One of my favorite churches was this one; the Batalha Monastery in a quaint little town in Portugal (sorry, don't have the name on the tip of my tongue). I took pictures all around of the doors and windows to Photoshop and use in my paintings. Spent several hours last night doing that and got a wonderful page to use.

Here are the three musketeers posing in front of Toledo before a drenching downpour arrived. There is more to tell; things are happening here so fast that I can't keep up with them. In my next post I will try to get my feet back on the ground as far as what is going on here - life goes on with you or without you and so I have two weeks of "home" to enjoy and organize too.

Happy Tuesday and thanks for stopping by. I will answer e-mails asap. Thank you for all the comments and well wishes; your words keep me going.

Second, the Food

I love the new tastes and variety that I find that on the road. I ate as a vegetarian for many years but I think that to really enjoy the world you must partake of the cuisine of the world. Plus, a hungry man will eat what he can get if he is wise. And so I offer up a few pictures to show you just some of the food that went down my pie hole in the last two weeks. I don't regret a single calorie.

Cafe and milk is what the Spaniards and Portugese know the tourists prefer. The milk is as hot as the coffee which imparts a gentle caramel softness to the flavor. Of course the espresso makes your hair stand on end. Gives you the jolt you need to take in all the novelty that awaits you.

Spain and Portugal share a long sea coast and so their diet includes a lot of delicacies from the sea. They serve the fish whole as a general rule.

And pasta. I had it more than once as I love this dish served very spicy with lots of olives and artichokes and anchovies. Oh yes, I love anchovies.

Wonderful light salads everywhere we visited. Hothouse tomatoes that tasted like tomatoes should.

A little (!) regional wine to soften the edges of the evening. You can save a lot of dinero by purchasing the wine at the grocery store (around $1 U S per bottle). Much more expensive in the restaurants but it usually is included in the fixed price lunches.

Spinach salad with beef medallions.

I'm going to do an entry just on gelato but this one will give you a preview. I ate it daily and one day I ate it 3 times. I don't know if it is the coldness, the beauty of it or just the feel and taste of it on my tongue but it is a passion of mine.

Beautiful spices and healing tinctures from all over the globe. Some things I recognized but most I did not.

A little cheesecake to go with all the gelato. We ate lots and lots of fruit here as they grow everything in the warm sunny climate. Even apples and peaches in the higher elevations. Of course what they grow the most of is olives and grapes. *sigh*

Another tasty salad. For all my love of sweets I am very fond of the green stuff too.

My beloved daughter Shellie came along with us on this trip. Here she is enjoying the bounty too. She is a delightful traveling companion and this is the 3rd trip John and I have taken with her. She is a nurse and knew just what to do when John got the erps in Madrid. We won't go there though.

Just a few little breakfast pastries to go with the eggs, ham, juice, yoghurt and so on. An army travels on its stomach, doesn't it?

More seafood at the open air market in Barcelona. We had to wait for a place at the bar and then the chef cooked our order right in front of us. Fresh and tasty with a cold beer.

I hadn't seen this fruit before. It is called Pita Haya. I should have googled it for you and given more information but dang, I'm sure spending a lot of time on the computer for someone who has a jillion things I should be doing. I didn't taste it but isn't it curious.

Another gelato shot. Maybe I should do a book of pictures of gelato. It reminds me of the beautiful colors I love to paint with. And it looks a lot like acrylic reverse painted on glass. Maybe that's the connection.

The Barcelona market again. It is large and wonderful with every kind of food and eye candy you can dream of.

John loves the hams so I took this picture for him. He lived in Germany for a couple of years and developed a taste for the regional sausages and hams of Europe. They are very rich, air cured and not cooked and contain no nitrates or preservatives. They are very clean and safe to eat.

The airlines in the U S have all but stopped serving food in the cattle car but this is the wonderous meal that we received on British Airways along with all the wine we could drink, eyeshades, socks, toothbrushes and toothpaste and comfortable seats. A very pleasant experience.

Whew!! That's it for today.

First - The Journal

No, dear reader, I have not yet answered my e-mail, unpacked my bags or read all of my mail but here I am thinking of you and wanting to get something up after 2 weeks of nada. Spain was magnificent and Portugal almost better; everything went off without a hitch and we are back home again to our lonely little cat-boy and thriving garden. We owe all of our joy to our good friends here who watched our house and watered our plants; our dear Kay even had snacks waiting for us on our arrival home last night for which we were very grateful.

We ate like gluttons and drank like fish; walked all over every town we visited and I took over 750 photographs. Most of my photos are not very high quality but good enough to share over the web; who prints out pictures anymore? Unless, of course, we plan to collage them somewhere. But that's another story.

I took lots of pictures of castle windows and doors; door-knockers and graffiti. I met a bullfighter in the lobby of our hotel after watching him on the TV in the bar deliver the coup d'grace to a thundering bull (I know, I felt sorry for the bull too but the matador was oooh-la-la and the bull was huge and scary so you have to admit that it was amazing of him to have faced such terror). The suit of lights was fabulous, his physique amazing and his face to die for. Sheesh, what a thrill! I love me a matador.

We all agreed that Barcelona was the city with the most going for it from our perspective; the Gaudi architecture and tiles, the fun on the Rambles, the enormous outdoor market there, the tapa bars, the people from everywhere to marvel over. Exotic and yet familiar; it felt perfectly perfect.

I fell in love with the Alhambra like so many before me. I have always been attracted to moorish design and the gentle architecture of that place which communicated to me a spirit of people both poetic and gentle. Lovers of beauty and grace. Likewise the Mezquita in Seville, that former mosque with the light and dark arches. Photos coming; not too many but a few to share.

My other favorites were Rondo (Hemingway, Rilke, Orson Welles also loved this town) and Obidos. I feel guilty leaving anything or any place out. It was all good; eye opening and transforming.

But for now I must go and get some laundry done. Back to the nuts and bolts of daily life.