New Pictures Added to the Slideshow

We just uploaded 28 more pictures, from the last week or so, to the Slideshow on the side. Some of them are fuzzy, due to the fact that the churches and museums don't allow you to use flash. Enjoy!

The latest from Lisbon

We have been busy, in one form or another, over the last week. Katy has been slowly wrapping up her research, finishing up the last samples that will be useful for her data set. While I have been trying to soak up the last sights and places I want to go before we leave for Italy on Wednesday. I went out to the "local" bouldering area again on Monday, and finished all of the routes that I could climb...as my Mom commented, I posted a neat video of a simple climb with great background footage (the tide crashing on the rocks) on my bouldering site. Tuesday and Wednesday I met her for lunch near the museum, and did a little work myself at home...trying to get ahead for the fall semester.

Thursday, I went to the Modern Art Museum and the Gulbenkian Museum. The Gulbenkian is a world famous art museum donated to the people of Lisbon by a gentleman named Calouste Gulbenkian. He became very wealthy throughout his lifetime and had a passion for spending his money on fine art. As the second World War was raging in most of Europe, he fled to Lisbon for safety and found it to be the most welcoming and wonderful place he had ever lived, eventually in 1955 he died here. He felt a debt of gratitude to the people and beginning in 1956, the art he collected for over 4 decades was assembled, from his private collection and the pieces loaned to multiple museums of the world, to form the Gulbenkian museum. This place was truly first class with many example of ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman statues and art. He was also fascinated with oriental art, with a vast collection from Persia, Turkey, Syria, Armenia (his origin), India, China and Japan. Finally, he had a huge collection of European art, including pieces from many of the famous European artists...Rembrandt, Manet, Monet, and Rodin just to mention a few. I'm not too artsy myself, and museums can bore me rather quickly...but as you can tell, this museum made a lasting impression on me. I was so bored in the Modern Art Museum that I took a bunch of pictures, but so fascinated in the Gulbenkian, that I didn't take a single one. Thursday evening, we met up with Katy's buddy from the museum and had a great dinner at one of the many awesome restaurants in town.

Friday, we took a sightseeing tour of Lisbon Harbor, where the Tejo River starts to open up into the Atlantic, by boat. This was a great way to see some familiar parts of Lisbon, but from a different perspective. Friday night, there was a huge parade in town to celebrate St Anthony, the patron saint of Lisbon. We stayed for the first 45 minutes and realized that they had only had 3 of the 23 performances, and didn't think we could make it for the rest. This was a big to do with the locals, because each neighborhood of Lisbon had there own little performance and celebration of where they live. These people are very humble, but very proud of their neighborhoods and their accomplishments and individuality's. On our way home, we stopped off at an outdoor wine bar with a live band performing...OK, the truth is that there was a huge hill ahead of us and this was a good reason to take a break:) The band was very European with the main rhythm being supplied by a synthesizer/computer, with just accents of the bass and guitar...and of course the vocals were Portuguese. Before we knew it, the place was hopping and there were around 75-100 people dancing in the streets and area surrounding the stage. Its was a very fun atmosphere, but eventually we had to face the hill and head back to our apartment. I think I mentioned in a previous blog that Lisbon is the city of 7 hills, but I think they forgot to count a few! Its rare to walk on flat ground around here.

Yesterday, we went out to Estoril, near Cascais and my favorite climbing spot we've mentioned before. Estoril has one of the most popular beaches around, as well as what has been described as an upscale casino. The beach was really nice, but crowded. We rented an umbrella and chairs and spent most of the time lounging and enjoy the day. After we had left the beach and were going to see the casino, I realized that I had left my wedding ring in the bathroom...the shock and dread overwhelmed me. I threw the backpack at Katy and told her to meet me back at the bathrooms as I ran off in hopes of retrieving it. Once I got there, I snatched the ring just before the guy cleaning could pocket it...too close for my comfort! Just for those of you that are unfamiliar...I don't run very often, mainly due to my asthma. This might be the first time I have ran a 1/2 mile since high school gym class:) As the asthma was subsiding, we took a quick tour of the casino (you wouldn't find James Bond in this one...I've seen better on a cruise ship), and hopped the train back into Lisbon. We had big plans for the evening, that I was really excited about...Cirque du Soleil! We got ready, which including some cold showering because we ran out of gas to fire the water heater (our "landlord" gladly refilled it before we returned), and headed out to the show. If you haven't spent the ridiculous amount of money to go see one of the Cirque du Soleils yet...what are you waiting for? You wont be disappointed! One of the deciding factors was that the tickets were cheaper than in the US (45 euro, or about $65 for the same seats that are $125 in the states). When we got there, they informed us that our tickets had been upgraded to the 110 Euro seats because those didn't sell out! We were 6 rows back, almost dead center...perfect way to spend our 4 week wedding anniversary (hehe). The show was incredible, with some of the most talented gymnasts and acrobats I've seen. I really enjoyed the awe in Katy's eyes when I'd look over at her...look like a little kid staring at her favorite Christmas gift she'd just opened! It was really late afterwards and the Metro (subway) stops running at 1am. We caught a wild driving cab ride to take us from the show to the Metro, and had just enough time to make all the switches on the subway and catch the very last metro to our home station...thank goodness! We came in and nearly collapsed in the bed...but what an awesome day!

Today, we are planning on going to a weekly art fair they have in Belem, one of the neighborhoods/suburbs of Lisbon. We'll hopefully get a chance to blog one more time before we leave for Italy, and I'm going to try to put some new pictures up on the Slideshow so everyone can see the sights from this week. Lisbon is truly an incredible place, it doesn't take much to make you want to stay here forever, and its going to be tough to say goodbye!

NEW PICTURE SLIDESHOW!!!

We have just put up almost 100 pictures, that we have taken so far, as a slideshow on the side bar of our blog page. You can look at the pictures in more detail, and even save the pictures to your computer and print them up if you want. To do so, simply click on the picture that is currently rolling on the slideshow, and it will take you to the entire photo album website. There, you can use the arrows to move between pictures and see them in a bigger view. If you find one you want to keep, right click the mouse on the picture and then click "Save Picture As..." and save it to your computer. We hope you guys enjoy seeing more of our trip!

More News from Lisbon

Well, I thought I (Katy) would finally contribute to our blog. I was so sick last week with a stomach virus that we didn't get to do too much. I would drag myself to the museum for part of the day and spend most of the other time in bed. Brad took such good care of me, even figuring out the Portuguese word for diarrhea to tell the pharmacist :) I am happy to report that I am feeling much better. We went to two really good movies, X-men and Star Trek. The theaters were really nice and only 5 euros. On Saturday, we slept late and then went for a long walk around the city. We came across a free jazz festival in one of the city parks and enjoyed some good beer and music in the park. On Sunday, we woke up early and headed for the beach. We stopped in town for some pizza. After we ordered we watched the cook in the kitchen just standing around for a while. Then the cook handed the waiter a plastic bag, he left and came back a few minutes later with plates banging. I guess they must have ordered out and delivered it for us. But it was hot and good, so we couldn't complain. After lunch we headed out towards Brad's favorite climbing spot. Once we hiked the 2 km to the spot and set up our stuff, it started to pour. The look on Brad's face was so sad. So we headed back to town and found a beautiful spot on the water to drink a liter of Sanguira, the sun came out and it turned into a beautiful day. We found some bikes that are available for free and we rode out along the coast. So it turned out to be a pretty good day after all. After we got back to town we were totally exhausted, but we had made plans to go out with one of the other researchers at the museum. We met for dinner in Biarro Alto, which a neighborhood in Lisbon, and were getting ready to go home and we came across a bar that had a Brazilian jazz band playing, so we decided to stop, have a few drinks and listen. We are having a wonderful time and seeing lots of amazing sights. Miss you and will talk to you soon.

This Past Weekend in Serra da Estrela and Covilha

Sorry we haven’t posted anything for a little while...I've been trying to get Katy to post something, so y'all can hear what she has to say, but it just hasn’t happened yet. So I'll tell y'all a little about our past weekend.

We rented a car and headed north of Lisbon to a mountain range called Serra da Estrela, and a little town called Covilha. Covilha is a vibrant college town, right at the base of the mountains. The main road through the town heads steeply up into mountains and leaves the development behind quickly. Of course, I wanted to head here to do some climbing, but there was plenty to see and do besides that. We usually plan a lot of activities in our trips, but this time we just wanted to take it easy and relax a little. Friday, we picked the car up at the airport and hit the main highway leaving Lisbon, the A1. The speed limit is 120 km/hr, or about 75 mph, but it felt like the Autobahn with everyone passing us like we were sitting still. There were plenty of cars doing well over 200 km/hr, or around 125+ mph, that expected us to follow suit...but we didn’t go faster than 150km/hr. This still made it feel like our little car was going to burn up on re-entry:) Despite the local maniacs, the drive was nice and scenic. It took us about 3 hrs to get there from Lisbon, about 275 km away, and we immediately checked into the Hotel Solneve. The hotel was fairly inexpensive (only 38 Euro a night, about the same price as a Days Inn back home) but was one of the nicest places I've stayed...it had a marble bathroom and a balcony overlooking the main town center. We took a quick ride up into the mountains to get our bearings and find the best places to park for the climbing we had planned for the next day. We hiked out into a high mountain desert covered with boulders and a variety wildflowers, a real visual treat. After climbing around a little, we headed back to the hotel, took a dip in the pool to cool off, and had a wonderful dinner at Fernando's, the hotel restaurant. I love the Portuguese food and Fernando's didn’t disappoint! We finished the bottle of wine from dinner on our balcony and enjoyed the sights and sounds of the nightlife below us...I couldn’t imagine a better end to the day!

Saturday, we got up, had breakfast and headed back up to Pedra do Urso, the main climbing spot for the trip. Katy has been so busy with work and the wedding, so she hasn’t climbed much with me lately. I love to go climbing, but it is so much more fun when she goes and we're both rooting each other on to top out. We climbed for about 2-3 hours, until the heat became unbearable, and saw over half of the area we wanted to see...a pretty successful trip. Afterwards, we drove back down into the town and had lunch. After a quick nap, we headed back into the Serra for a sightseeing drive and the evening climbing session. We drove to the highest point in Portugal, Torres, at about 2000m, which had very scenic panoramic views. The road up to Torres was steep and made it feel like we were dangling off of the side of the mountains. The drop off of the road was usually in the 500ft range, but made for great views the whole time. Torres is known as a ski village in the winter, and there were still remnants of snow on the ground everywhere...amazing compared to the +90'F weather back down in Covilha. There were tons of interesting sights to see, but one of the highlights was a holy sight that translated to "Lady of the Holy Star". The image of the Lady, along with a few other images, were carved into the side of a rock face. There were several offerings at the foot of the carving, proof that it is still more than just a tourist stop. The plateau around this area was amazing. It was grassy with a small stream running through it, forming a waterfall that drained into the area of the carving. Surrounding all of this were giant rock faces and boulders with small hiking paths cut in between them...I really felt like I was in one of Indiana Jones' sites, rediscovering ancient secrets. This is one of the most remarkable and memorable places I've had the pleasure to climb and visit. After driving around and gawking at the sights for a little while longer, we headed back to Pedra do Urso and climbed around for another hour or so. We were able to explore most of the rest of the areas listed in the guidebook, as well as, some new areas not mentioned. After finally realizing how exhausted we were, and with the sun setting slowly, we dragged ourselves back to the car and back to the hotel. Once again, we ate some incredible food at Fernando's, and soon collapsed in the bed.

Sunday, we woke up, had breakfast at the hotel, and checked out around 11am. We had to have the car back by 3pm, but we had about an hour or so we could use to sightsee on our way back to Lisbon. About 2/3 of the way back, we stopped in a town called Tomar. In this town was an incredible monastery/castle with very ornate gothic architecture. We didn’t have time to tour the whole monastery, but we were able to walk around the courtyard and marvel at the intricate beauty of the structures. With our rental car time running out, we jumped back onto the highway and headed back to Lisbon, tired and satisfied from an incredible weekend.

I have to say that I have married the most incredible woman in the world to plan all of this, knowing that the focus for the weekend would be on rock climbing:) I felt terrible that we weren’t able to visit the archeological site she wanted to see, but she knew it would have been too much to add that in, on top of everything else we had already planned, and graciously offered to leave that for our next visit. I was so happy to be able to climb with Katy and get the satisfaction of her success on the rock, and not just mine. Rock climbing was one of the first things to bond us and bring us together, and it's always special when we can share it together.

Since then, Katy has been working everyday, except today when she isn’t feeling well:(...I told her that stuff she was drinking wasn’t milk:) She's already feeling better, but I've been taking care of her and nursing her back to normal, as much as possible. We haven’t got any definite plans for this weekend, but I'm sure we'll take in some more incredible sights and we'll blog about it as soon as we can. We have some great pictures from this past weekend, but I have to wait to use her computer to upload them...expect the pictures in the next few days. I was planning on going to Sintra and a 9th century Moorish castle today, but with Katy not feeling 100%, that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Keep the comments coming, and the e-mails and pictures of the baby (from Anne). I cant tell you how bright Katy's face gets every time she sees a new picture...its always the "most cute" or "most precious" picture of the baby yet!!! We miss all of y'all and love sharing our journey with you!

Last Few Days in Portgual

Katy started back with her research at the museum on Monday, so we haven’t been out and about like the previous days. She is working M-F from 9-5, so most of our activities are going to be on the weekends now. We have a trip planned up into the mountainous, central region of Portugal for this weekend, so we'll have plenty of pictures to post afterwards. The area we are heading to is the tallest point in Portugal, and offers some great climbing, as well as, several quaint towns to explore. Katy is really excited to visit a cave that has drawings dating back 20,000 years ago...a real treat for an anthropologist! Yesterday, I was able to travel to a nearby town and get some climbing in. If you're interested, a few pictures are available on my climbing blog. It was a beautiful location, right on the edge of the sea, that had plenty of routes to keep me busy for the day. We are planning on eating dinner with a few other visiting anthropologist tonight, and I'm gonna play "house husband" until then...I never mind doing the cleaning and shopping though. There are small, family owned, markets on almost every corner or street, so you don’t have to go far for groceries. They have the freshest fruits and vegetables, as well as, incredible fresh baked bread and delicious cheeses. There are also plenty of small cafes, on almost every street, that offer the best and freshest pastries, desserts, espressos and some of the best food you could ever want to eat! The Portuguese eat more fish than almost any country, so there is always a big variety of fish dishes, as well as, a lot of chicken and pork dishes. It's really nice that this is the fast food around here, and the typical fast food restaurant is almost nonexistent. Everyone uses public transportation (bus, metro/subway, train, & boat) and they walk everywhere else...we walk about 3-5 miles a day around the city. This, paired with all the readily available healthy food, makes for a pretty healthy population, with very few obese people. I wish it was more like this back home! Its not even been a week over here yet, but I already feel healthier and trimmer. The Portuguese people are very nice and even in the big city of Lisbon, we never have felt threatened or uncomfortable. Much of this is due to the socialist governing...there are no major separations and classes over here, which tend to fuel crime and violence in other countries, including the US. Universal health care keeps the population healthy, and living wages for what we would consider to be a "bad" job, help everyone to live a fuller life. Another important factor that keeps the crime down is the fact that people cant own guns...and it has been pointed out, over and over, that countries that have legalized guns also have a tremendous jump in violent crimes. There are generally less homicides in Lisbon, the largest city in Portugal, every year, than in the town of Greenville every month! I know...it sounds too good to be true, but its not! About the only thing I miss, besides our family of course, are the NBA playoffs and the Simpsons everyday:)

Climbing and a Sporting Club of Portugal Match

Most of you know how much I like to climb, and I cant think of a single week in the last 3-4 years that I havent been climbing at least once. As expected, the wedding and planning took up so much time, that I havent had a chance to get a good climbing session in, in over a month. Katy understands this addiction :), and has been so nice to try to help me find some climbing in the city, so I dont go stir crazy. A few days ago, we tried to find the only indoor climbing gym in Lisbon, only to find it closed down and out of business...total bummer, but supposedly there are a few artificial climbing walls in a couple of parks within the city. So yesterday, we went looking for one of the artifical walls...but after walking a few miles, we realized that it was farther than we thought. So the drought continues...hopefully just until tomorrow when I travel to Cascais, about 30 minutes by rail, to climb on some boulders on the rocky Atlantic coast.

But there is more to life than climbing:) (I know, I cant believe I just said that either). After we wandered around for a couple of hours yesterday, it was time to catch a real European soccer match...and boy were we not dissapointed. I've been to near 100 Clemson soccer games, when I was in college, but it was nothing like this. The stadium was incredible, the crowd was excited, and the match was thrilling! I felt like I was at a Clemson football game, except everything was green and white, instead of orange and white, and the ball was round instead of oblong. The people greeted each other and shared their lives since last they'd met...just like IPTAY folks catching up before the game. Each person had an investment in the team, the game, and the sport, just like a real Clemson fan feels about the Tigers and college football. The action was so much faster and more precise than any of the college games I had been to. It was nice to be part of the experience and share the atmosphere with the locals. A quick goal, by SC Portugal (the home team), within the first minutes had the crowd in a good mood, and a second followed not too far behind. The Nacional team scored with a great header before the half to make the score 2-1. The second half was tense, with plenty of yellow cards being waved. A goal in the last 5 minutes sealed the deal for SC Portugal and had the crowd erupting in confidence and exhuberance. We both left with a smile on our face and 24,000 new friends. We couldnt have asked for a better time or a better display of European football! Once again, I'm having problems uploading pictures from my computer, so I'll post some pics from Katy's computer later today, but stay tuned...you gotta see the inside of the stadium.