Caminho de Santiago, day 2

This morning I took the metro; we met at the northern extent of the metro–Póvoa do Varzim. We waited for the tourist office to open, to avail of their carimbo. Then we walked through some busy streets west to the coast, then north along the beach, north through some small villages and seaside vacation apartments, to Esposende's outskirts where we booked into Grandma's Place, a strangely-renovated old house with individual lodging rooms and kitchens, actually nice and clean, but far far removed from any restaurants or shops.

We walked twenty minutes along a busy highway, past two closed restaurants, to arrive at Bem Estar2 Restaurant, which turned out to be quite good. After attempting in vain to find an Uber, we walked back on country roads, quite pleasant. This day I realized that my iPhone no longer functioned as a "phone”-- the eSIM files no longer worked! So I had no cell-data; only wi-fi. I decided that I would ask for help at the phone shops tomorrow in Viana do Castelo shopping mall.

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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.

Thomas journals

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