Yesterday evening I walked to Jardim da Estrela, a lovely park with the tallest cacti I have ever seen, and lots of great big trees. After sitting on a bench beneath a tree, collecting my thoughts and enjoying the view, I walked East and South to Time Out Market, where I saw this poster. My next destination was the nearby Dahlia, where I had dinner. By the time I arrived in my flat I had walked just under seven miles.
Together we joy, ja?!
Let’s joy together!
Ceci n’est pas une fenêtre.
When is a window not a window?
I came across these “windows” yesterday. They appear to be printed on sheet metal and are quite realistic.
Nod of the head to René Magritte.
My guitar was delivered to the apartment just moments ago and I was thrilled to see that it was in perfect condition. Not a scratch on guitar or case. Very happy.
The music is something new I am working on. It’s a 6/8 feel over 4/4 and the second guitar will be a plucked reggae part. I just played the second guitar part along with the video and it works very nicely.
Recorded with a phone propped up against a pillow. :-)
“Empurre ou puxe” — which one of those words means push and which one pull? I have noticed a lot of confusion around these two words, especially since “puxe” is pronounced “push-eh”. As you might have guessed “empurre” means push and “puxe” means pull. So, if you stand in front of a door that you are trying to push open and a Portuguese person behind you helpfully says “puxe”, don’t push even harder because they are actually telling you to pull.
The Portuguese have a couple of extra snack meals, which will suit some people I know. :-) There’s one in the late morning, called “lanche da manhã” and one in mid afternoon, “lanche da tarde”. Each meal is usually accompanied by coffee. People drink a lot of coffee here and it is almost always espresso. In Lisbon a café, or espresso, is also called “bica”. Some people think that bica could be an acronym for “Beba Isto Com Açucar” – drink this with sugar – but I don’t believe it. I also learned that in Porto the same coffee is called “cimbalino”. Interestingly bica is feminine while cimbalino is masculine.
“Bico” (masculine) means spout. An espresso machine has little spouts out of which the coffee flows. That could be the origin of “Bica”? That which comes out of the coffee spout…
