vacation: baixa in lisbon, portugal
No matter how tired we always try and make ourselves, we are never successful at falling asleep on an overnight flight. We arrive in Amsterdam through a cover of thick clouds, unaware if we are hungry for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Weren’t we just having burgers at Ashley’s with Tom’s parents?
KLM feeds us strange sandwiches called “bloomers” as we arrive over Lisbon. The landscape of Portugal is soft rolling green hills that look like giants tucked under thick mossy covers. Spattered throughout are small beige houses with red roofs and graceful spinning blades of towering wind turbines.
Luis meets us at the Lisbon tour office and guides us to the apartment. As we approach, I can hear the faint call of a woman saying “TOM”. It’s Alyssa running with backpack on back to catch up as we pull into the parking lot. The sun is warm as we look over the balcony and plan our excursion for the remaining part of the day.
We navigate the bushy mazes in the Parque Eduardo VII, as we make our way down to the Lisbon city center. The city feels like a cross between California and Paris as we walk the Avenida Liberdade, Lisbon’s Champs Elysses… which is lined with palm trees and gorgeous tiled sidewalks. All of Lisbon is tiled in varying degrees of restoration, some shiny and some chipped away and bumpy. Not the place for high heels.
We veer off our path to have some ginja, a cherry liqueur, at Ginjinha Sem Rival. Tom is the only one adventurous enough to eat both of the liqueur soaked cherries at the bottom of the glass. We sit down to eat at Restaurante Bonjardim, as people continually try and offer us hash. We try and order the specialties of the house… chicken piri-piri and frango no espeto. We get one meal, one glass of wine, and two waters for three people. Looks like we need to work on our translation issues.
Tummies stuffed full of delicious roasted chicken and fries, we venture into Praoa Dom Predo IV and Elevador Santa Justa, where we happen upon our first tourists taking pictures. Still no flower sellers or scam artists like in most big cities. We are tempted by a 2 euro chocolate tasting at Labooka on Rua Santa Justa. The cheap entrance fee gets us more chocolate than even we desire in exotic flavors such as mango and avocado, rice and red currant, goat’s milk, and delicious Madiera. A marathon of indulgence.
The sun was setting and the night life was beginning just as we were getting tired. We crawled our way up into Chiado, past Café A Brasileira, and down into the metro station. We found our way back to the apartment along the beautifully graffiti-ed city walls… beautiful near our apartment, not so beautiful all over the city. We sipped wine and fell asleep talking about the next day while watching bad comedy shows on the television.
Tomorrow: Lisbon Day 2 in Belem, Alfalma and Barrio Alto
vacation: a trip to portugal’s wine country
It wasn’t so long ago that I crafted a baby bucket list, ten things I really wanted to do before I decided it was time for Tom and I to get our Strickland family started. Not four or five months later did I decide to throw out the list (even though I’ve almost gotten through it), because Tom and I just wanted to get started that badly!! The biological clocks have gone off for both of us.
Unfortunately, or fortunately… I have not yet gotten pregnant, which means that I get to enjoy and indulge in the joys of Portuguese wine as we take what may be our last trip to Europe for quite a while. It’s a sad thing, but I had to make myself realize that the days of wine vacations might be ending. Pregnancy (plus breast feeding) means a major decrease in wine consumption for a year or more. And most wineries are not designed for entertaining infants and toddlers.
It’s been an amazing ride while it lasted. Tom and I saw the wonders of California’s Napa and Sonoma Valleys. Next, we took a day trip out to the Long Island wineries while visiting New York City. Then there was the amazing trip in 2007, which we visited the Burgundy region of France, partied at the Fete de Beaujolais, and spent several days exploring Tuscany. And last year, we visited the Willamette Valley to try out Oregon’s famous Pinot Noirs.
So over the next few days, expect updates to this blog and my twitter stream, as regularly as I can deliver them. I will try and post up as much as I can about wine… since that is something I will very sadly miss once we actually succeed at what we’ve been trying to do since January 
my current top five portuguese wines
2004 Dona Maria Vinho Regional Alentejano
12/14/2008 rated 92 points: Smells dusty and woodsy with strong blackberries and spice (cloves?), like a fall mulled wine. Flavors are rich to match with a long finish. Amazingly fruit forward with black cherry and a tanginess that makes it a good match for food.
2005 CARM Douro Vinho Tinto Quinta do Côa
Available at Bella Vino Ann Arbor
1/1/2009 rated 90 points: Smells like dark bramble fruits and dust. Spice, dark ,rich and delicious with a sweet complex finish. Brings out the nutty characteristics in Portuguese cheese
2006 Vinhos Monte das Ânforas Vinho Regional Alentejano Vinho Tinto
2/5/2008 rated 90 points: Amazing for $8, tastes way more expensive. Fresh and bright like cherry candy with a subtle spice and a smooth finish that makes it gulpable. So many good offerings from Portugal in the lower price range, and this is a great example.
Barbeito Madeira Boal 10 Years Old
8/30/2008 rated 89 points: Tasty and not overly sweet, dry finish. Bitter orange peel and slight mocha. Thin and exploding with flavor. Excellent paired with chocolate plum pudding.
2004 Companhia Agricola do Sanguinhal Óbidos Quinta de S. Francisco
Available at Holiday Market Canton
9/19/2007 rated 88 points: Plum, ink, blackberry, black cherry, spices and acid. Great with food and very unique. Made with Castelao, Aragones, and Touriga Nacional.
life: deciding it’s time to join a cause
A lot has happened in the past month. Some of which has changed my perspective on the world I live in… but let’s start where we last left off:
I spoke at my first conference, Web 3.0 in Santa Clara, where I met many semantic web enthusiasts and interesting people. I walked away buzzing with all sorts of ideas and ended up writing a 5 part series for ThreeMinds, Organic’s blog, which might lead to a feature for Advertising Age (stay tuned).
Then, we elected our first ever YouTube president:
My opinion to the now president-elect has gone from curiousity to true hope-filled inspiration. During the campaign, it seemed that all people could talk about was the economy, while I sat patiently wondering if Obama’s technology plan would ever come to fruition.
Now that the campaign is over, it seems that technology is ALL people can talk about. How the internet changed the race? How will Obama use social media to change government? Let’s just say, it’s a good time to be a blogger in the social media niche.
The day after our monumental US election, I attended the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. It would be an understatement to say that the conference inspired me. Smart people from around the world were putting web 2.0 tools to work to not just sell products and services, but to actual make the world a better place… to create transparency in areas that are lacking, to make consumers smarter about the choices they make, and to bring people together to solve problems they couldn’t have solved on their own.
Obama talks in his first YouTube address about:
“…new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and not only look after ourselves but each other.”
Some might view a spirit of looking after each other as akin to socialism. And still others will see it as the American way. We help each other out in times of need, and come through for those who have been our allies. I’m not going to get into a political discussion, so much as to say that I am feeling an itching desire to DO SOMETHING… something actually useful, something helpful, something worthwhile.
I also realized something else at that conference. I love Michigan… I really love it, and in case you haven’t heard, it’s not doing so hot right now. I’m about ready to root myself and my future family in this area for good and the economy is collapsing to all sides of me. And I am not terribly confident that government, including our new YouTube president, is going to be able to do anything about it.
We are on our own, and that might be for the best. The change Michigan needs is going to come from the groundswell, from movements like CEOs for Cities and the dozens of pro-Michigan blogs online. We need tools that connect online enthusiasm to offline activity, like Obama’s social network managed to bring local people together for events and grassroots efforts. It’s a good time for social media tactics to really have a positive impact, and I’m not talking ROI on ad dollars.
For the first time, I feel really proud to be in the industry I am in and proud to be living in this sad, but beautiful state. So sign me up. I’m ready to join the Michigan brigade for change. I’m ready to put my social media strategy skills to the test. Who else will join me?
vacation: Seattle, Washington
We grabbed some crepes to go from Cafe Crepe, before making the “two hour” trip to Seattle. I put two hours in quotes, because the wait at the border crossing added over an hour to the length of the journey, putting us into Seattle at around 1pm and very very hungry for lunch. Luckily, our hotel was only a block away from Pike’s Market, where we were sure to get something interesting and tasty.
Pike’s Place Market can only be described as overwhelming. On a blue sky, dry weather, hot Saturday afternoon, it was crawling with locals and tourists. There were flower sellers and local artisans, none of which we were interested in. We wanted the food, and we wanted it now. Still, it was hard to pass up the local shops offering free samples. We ended up buying chocolate covered cherries and fresh pasta, before making it to lunch.
Lunch was some fresh and peppery clam chowder and a searing hot lamb sausage on a bun covered in wine Dijon mustard. Sounds gourmet, and it was, but it was cheap, a combination we always appreciate. I was reminded of our adventures in the Nouveau Beaujolais fair out in France, where you could get a fresh sausage skewered in a baguette or a platter of fresh goat cheese for only a few Euro. It was fair food the way fair food should be.
The market was getting too crowded and too overwhelming. I wanted to make my way down to Spanish Table, but we kept getting lost, having to fight our way through people taking pictures of guys throwing fish.
We love feeling part of something amazing, like the sunset over Vancouver bay, but there is definitely a point when you feel the ratio of tourists to locals have tipped the scales and that is when we just want to get as far away as possible. This was a feeling that had actually brought me to tears in Rome, something that pushed us into the back alleys, skipping from wine bar to wine bar until we felt back immersed in a world we could love.
Our moment of love for Seattle came again in the back alleys. We happened accidentally upon the best spice shop in the city, one that offered anything you could imagine whole and fresh, one that supplied every restaurant in the city. I skipped around ordering the weirdest stuff that smelled awesome and I had never seen before, and best of all I was ordering it whole, because Tom had bought me a spice grinder for my birthday.
The guy behind the counter looked at our list, pondered my question about the location of the Spanish Table, and assumed we were from Seattle. When we informed him we were from “out of town”, it was hard for him to accept. He just kept repeating, but the way you ordered the spices, and you asked about the Spanish Table, how do you know about the good places? The way the guy was inquiring, Tom admitted, well, we do some normal stuff too. “Have you seen them throwing fish?” the guy asks. Tom and I look at each other and laugh, yeah, we got away from there as quickly as possible.
Tom and I like to go off the beaten path more often than not. And we did go up in the Space Needle in Seattle, but only after the Sci-Fi museum closed early for winter hours (perhaps the saddest miscalculation on my point). Some famous things cannot and should not be avoided, like a boat ride in Venice or the view of Paris from the Eiffel Tower, but some of the most moments of all of our vacations come off the beaten path.
Things may change, someday, when we have children. But I still like to think that I will find those strange things, those unique experiences only now for my kids to enjoy.
We snacked before dinner at a pintxo bar called Txori. The offer mini tapas from Basque country, sardines in goat cheese cones and stuffed squid in its own ink. The stop was motivated slightly by a growing desire to visit Spain and Portugal. I figure if I get him excited enough, it might be our next trip
For dinner we taxied out to Lark, sharing plates of various foods, but most memorable was our first taste of Sweetbreads, which when fried up and covered in sauce tasted like super fatty and chewy sweet and sour pork.
We ended our journey there in Seattle, having drinks at the bar in Pike’s Market, talking about our experiences with the bartender. We had come from the highest mountains and desolate forests to packed cities brimming with nightlife and community. It was an amazing adventure.
The End… tomorrow we return home.
vacation: Granville Island, Vancouver, British Columbia
Yesterday, we ate at a French bistro and a sushi restaurant. Today it was time to eat and drink more locally, a theme of this trip, something I had become even more excited to explore after reading Omnivore’s Dilemma. Sure places like New York and San Francisco have greatly varied food scenes, but isn’t the best way to measure the quality of a city by the way they cook their own foods… from their own backyards, using the traditions and styles of the area.
We started by visiting Granville Island and their public market. The whole island is like an outdoor shopping mall, its own little city under the highway overpass. We were quite full from our breakfast of pancakes covered in authentic Canadian maple syrup and Canadian bacon. So, we just soaked in the view of the delicious fruits and meats and cheeses. We picked up some local spices at the spice shop.
We decided to take a boat ride around the island via the Aquabus, and then stop off at the Granville Island Brewery to try out some decent Canadian beer, which Tom was skeptical even existed. Tom’s favorite was the Maple Lager. Of course, if there is one thing the Canadians certainly know, its how to do maple syrup right. Later in the day we would visit a maple syrup store, and have a tasting of several different varieties. The sugar rush would leave us buzzing until dinner.
Next, we visited Gastown, a brick-lined street section of Vancouver. It’s a cute part of town with quaint shops and a famous steam powered clock. Unfortunately, it is also right next to what Tom and I would refer to as Bum City. It’s probably a wise thing, but the city of Vancouver placed all the shelters, bottle return depots, community centers, and pawn shops all together on Hastings Street. The result is crowds of homeless, the drug-addicted, and the flat out insane.
We went to lunch at a hidden cheese bar in the back alleys of Gastown, actually down Blood Alley. You wouldn’t even know it existed except for a chalk arrow written on the wall of the alley. The menu featured various meats and cheeses from the area. Tom had a Merlot from BC that smelled like a dessert wine, but tasted smoky and bold.
This entry will end up being mostly about food and wine, because that was, after all, the theme of the day. For dinner, we went to the Zagat top-rated restaurant of the entire city, West Restaurant. We don’t usually go to very top places, but I managed to hear that if you went between 5:30 and 6:00 they served a special tasting menu for half the cost. You would think that would cause a mad rush, but turns out we were the only diners lucky enough to score the special menu.
The food ranged from unusual to mind-blowing. Everything, again, was local. From our smoky, delicious Sandhill Syrah to the meats and produce used to make the food. We had a strange duck terrine which was cold and filled with foie gras and pistachios. Tom had a neon green soup made from fennel and spinach with some crunchy wax beans. It’s great when you get the feeling that the chef things out the way all the flavors and textures will play together for the diner.
The main courses and the deserts were where it really shined. We got a free salmon appetizer because the chef wasn’t pleased with my chicken and decided to remake it. I’m sure whatever it was before would have been fine, but when I got the remade chicken I didn’t regret having to wait. It melted in your mouth in a way I had no idea chicken could do. I even liked chicken livers which were incredibly mild. Finally, we finished with a frozen creme brulee soaked in grapefruit and Port, and some chocolate cake that Tom kept rightly calling a gourmet ding-dong.
We ended the night watching the sun set over the appropriately called Sunset beach with all the other people from the city. This is where couples came for romantic evenings. This is where high school kids came to socialize. It was incredibly easy to forget that you were a tourist.
vacation: Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia
While the best thing about B&B’s is their breakfast, today it caused a little bit of panic as a lengthy and delicious meal made us late for our ferry into Vancouver. Luckily with a foot on the gas we just made it.
The drive into Vancouver wasn’t particularly beautiful. The ferry took us through forested islands, but dumped us out in farm country. The midday haze hid the mountains in the distance, so it wasn’t until we crossed the bridge over the Granville Market that we got into blue skies and mountains over the cityscape. If you took the mountains out, you could almost feel like you were in Miami with a few oddly placed palm trees and towering condos.
We checked into our hotel and then walked down the sushi shop lined Denham street to get some lunch. I had planned for us to visit the Cafe de Paris for some cheap soups and sandwiches with a Parisian flair. Cheap was miscalculation on my part, some poor internet research which usually serves me so well. Instead we got a fairly pricey lunch, but it was undeniably delicious and definitely, definitely full of Parisian flair. We’d need to find a cheaper dinner option.
With our bellies full of wine and heavy cheeses, we rented some bicycles for touring Stanley Park. The park is laid out as a giant peninsula off of the Vancouver downtown with a 5 mile seawall that outlines the circumference. Even with stopping for pictures, we managed to fly around the park in no time at all. So, next we ventured into the center. The gravel paths lined with huge pines made it easy to forget you were even in a city at all. This put us right back in Olympic National mode.
We made our way up to Prospect Point for a rest and some ice cream. The view wasn’t as incredible as we had hoped, especially for the amount of gravelly uphill we endured. But, it was fun to watch the raccoons chase down the tourists.
We returned our bikes and set out on foot towards a recommended sushi restaurant. We stopped off at Delilah’s, who claim to have invented the flavored martini. Whether fact or fiction, their infused vodkas made for some tasty drinks. I especially loved my vanilla infused vodka with pear liqueur and fresh lime.
Kadoya was a unique sushi experience. Based on the recommendation, we were expecting something perhaps a little too fancy or maybe a little too authentic. We got neither. This was a hole in the wall, packed with people, and a menu that was even a little too bastardized for me, bacon bits, chicken sausage, pop rocks? We floated in the middle, ordering some more traditional rolls with only a little bit of “creativity” in the form of tempura-fried anything. It was yummy!!
We finished the night watching the sunset at The Boathouse, as a bartender who kept calling me “love”, poured us more unusual cocktails. We wandered back to our hotel, talking about or adventures for the next day, while I tried to convince Tom that we just might have enough room in our suitcase for that bottle of awesome lychee liqueur.
Tomorrow: Granville Island
vacation: Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park, Washington and Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia
The very best thing about B&B’s is, of course, the free gourmet breakfast. What would have cost $20 a person in a normal hotel was being served to us for free: fresh fruit, yogurt, tea, coffee, French toast, juice, and sausage.
We packed up the rest of our cheese and freshly picked blackberries and headed out towards Hurricane Ridge. First, we stopped at Lake Crescent. The waters were completely transparent amongst the mountain peaks. You could see the stony bottom of the entire lake. We would have loved to go for a boat ride, but unfortunately there was not a huge amount of time before our ferry today.
We did decide that there was enough time to stop at a local winery along the way. We were totally ready to taste some of the worst wine we had on our trip. I had even looked at their website in route and decided we could get away with just buying chocolate if the wine sucked, and not seeming like dead beats that just wanted some free wine. But, the wine was actually very tasty and we ended up walking away with a bottle of the house white.
The ride up to Hurricane Ridge was excruciatingly painful. At 3 stops along the 12 mile stretch it was down to one lane. You would wait 20 minutes for the stop sign holder to turn their sign to slow as you followed a pilot vehicle up the mountain. A twenty minute journey quickly turned into an hour and a half, which just kept counting down the amount of time we’d actually get to spend on the top of the mountain before coming down.
It was all worth it though. The view from Hurricane Ridge was spectacular. Snow capped mountains and lush meadows. Tom accidentally spilled our chili dipping oil while preparing our picnic on the side of the mountain, which attracted the local wildlife. There I was, eating a tasting bit of cheese and cracker, and Tom started going “Oh my God! Stay still, stay still, stay still.” Either the largest bug in existence was sitting on my head or a deer had wandered up over my shoulder. Luckily it was the later.
The deer stuck around, even though her two babies waited on the hill in the distance, and sampled our crackers and various bites of fruit. Just as Tom was complaining that he hadn’t seen any wildlife all trip, there was wildlife as real and approachable as anything we had ever experienced. This was completely worth the long ride up and the eventual long ride down.
When we got ready to board the ferry, we took a little detour into downtown Port Angeles to kill the wait. Surprisingly enough, we found a local wine bar serving tasty jasmine flavored IPA and bubbly local Syrah. The waitress, who had gone to University in Victoria, recommended some great spots for us to visit that night.
Victoria is awfully quaint. It’s like a Canadian version of Charlevoix or Mackinaw, except quite a bit bigger. We walked along the water, passing by sailboats and hanging gardens, passed the capital building and the moss covered Empress. We arrived at Pagliacci’s, an Italian restaurant recommended by the wine bar waitress. The lines was out to door and around the corner, so after smelling the delicious smells for a few minutes, we decided to walk a little bit further to Cafe Brio.
Expensive, yes. Amazing, doubly yes. We had amazing agnolotti filled with fresh fish and crispy duck covered in wine sauce. I discovered the incredible candy flavor of Elysian Black Muscat. Everything tasted exquisite.
On the walk back Victoria was lit up like a Christmas tree. This was a magical city.
Tomorrow: Vancouver, British Columbia
vacation: Olympic National Park, Washington
We spent our last meal in Portland back at Ken’s Bakery. Tom had a craving for a fruity tart, and I was just happy to sit and watch the bakers make fresh bread while sipping cappuccino. We left feeling like we hadn’t scratched the surface of this city, but it was time to venture into the great natural expanse that is Olympic National Park.
Immediately upon entering Washington, we were greeted by mountains in the distance, Mt. St. Helen and then Mt. Rainer. There were rolling hills covered in hugely tall pine trees as far as the eye could see. Most of them were covered anyway; some had been shaved bald by the local lumber industry, leaving a stubbly hill of stumps. We saw truck after truck pass by us carrying massive logs which was a little terrifying… although not as terrifying as the backwoods local Star Wars memorabilia shop.
It was a long journey to get to our first destination, Hoh Rain Forest. We kept stopping for pictures along the way, pine covered mountains and crystal clear lakes, which slowed our overall progress down. We looked for spots to picnic but ended up finding none. After a while, we just gave up on the picnic idea and snacked on our goodies in the car on route. We did, however, a large bush of wild blackberries ripe for picking.
It was about 4:00 pm when we finally arrived at the rain forest. The road that leads back to the park was crowned by hundred foot tall pine giants, many of which were hung with gorgeous green moss. These were all signs of the temperate rain forest environment. Lots of moss and lots of ferns.
We took the trail called “Hall of Mosses” which featured, as you might guess, giant regal ancient trees covered in thick moss. We spent about an hour wandering the trail, which can’t be described, only experienced. Words don’t really do it justice, neither do pictures. Tom kept saying how much if felt like a theme park, and by that I imagine he meant that it just all seemed very surreal.
Next stop, after a quick drop off of luggage at our B&B, was Rialto Beach. This was my planned sunset view for the evening, but a co-worker of mine had forewarned me that it might not be as romantic as I had anticipated… in fact, I might have to beware of dangerous flying trees. It was an unusual warning, but after visiting the beach I understood more of what he meant.
The whole beach was covered in dead wood. While the winds were not very strong that day, I can imagine how dangerous the loose branches could be in stronger winds. Tom and I had fun climbing up and down over the fallen trees and taking a million photos.
We ended the evening at a non-memorable restaurant along the river, before heading back to the B&B for some wine and relaxation. We lit the fireplace and reflected on the days adventures.
Tomorrow: Hurricane Ridge and Vancouver Island
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