I'd drive a mile for a camel

Thankfully my children don't know about Walking a Mile for a Camel.
But, to answer the more direct question: do you ride to school on a camel? No.
Do you see any camels? Yes.

From 201011RT

Maybe you can spot the camels sitting by the roadside in this photo?

From 201011RT

We did have a couple camels resident near the Jubail corniche (waterfront park) last month, as part of a small circus-like setup giving donkey rides and camel rides. But they have moved on now to greener pastures. We see very few animals, aside from a few scrawny cats around our housing area, and a few stray dogs outside the walls. The compound truck sprays insecticide every other evening, so we have mercifully few flies or mosquitos. We often see sheep or goats being transported in pickup trucks on the superhighway, but never literally on the hoof.
During the recent Eid-al-Adha holiday week, the Gulf newspaper published a public service ad from AbuDhabi reminding people that animal slaughtering should only be done in municipal slaughterhouses.

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String Quartet Broken String

We attended a marvelous concert last night, at the Porto Museum of Casa do Infante , a beautifully-renovated 1325 building near the river. At one point it served as a customs house. The government sponsors Portuguese musicians to return from other European orchestras to perform in their homeland. We heard and saw this group play a traditional piece – Haydn string quartet Opus 20 #2. Then the modern Benjamin Britten's Three Divertimenti – the stunning last movement of which they performed as an encore. They performed (and I recorded) the Shostakovich Quartet #9, during which the first-violinist broke a string (it features several strongly-plucked chords!) and had to retreat&repeat!

EUA: tanto estrago em tão pouco tempo

As part of my effort to learn about Portugal, both the country and the language, I'm subscribing to the centrist newspaper, O Publico . There are plenty of newspapers: conservative tabloids, and socialist and communist-sponsored daily papers; I find O Publico to be most sober, with consistently interesting columnists and opinion pieces, in addition to some local (Porto) news, with just enough sporting news to keep me chatting with the taxi driver. Today's opinion piece sums up, I think, European pundits' view of the U.S. government. As the title puts it: so much damage in so little time. I shudder at the rank incompetence and corrupt behavior, demonstrating a cynical attitude toward public service, showing indeed that the cruelty is the point. What scandal, what damage will be the tipping point to collapse this government? And what will it take to recover from the damage? Who will be able to trust the US government again, ever? Only ni...

Música Tunas e Boémia

We attended an unusual concert last night: Música Tunas e Boémia (bands and parties) University student folk-music groups — big groups of 40 and more each! put on a great show of singing, playing, flag-twirling, tambourine-swinging, all at the major (private) concert hall. The most unusual thing about it was that nobody used any electronic device (except for microphone amplification)—no electric guitar or keyboard, no big drum set…every instrument and prop was hand-held. The singing was quite good, given the effort to synchronize 40 voices.

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