Camino de Santiago, dia 13

October 5th we met at 9am, walked an hour for breakfast at Hotel Ascot, along the road. Then a long varied hike, beautiful sunny weather with birdsong, heavy dew, many pilgrims on foot and on bicycles. Really varied trail, with many forks in the road.

We stopped at Casa dos Amigos for coffee and croissant, but they had no wi-fi! The remainder of the walk seemed even longer, as our destination was now in sight!

We scheduled a stay at a nice hotel in the suburbs purposely, as the downtown lodging is full, and we wanted to arrive at Santiago in the morning, in good time for the daily noon pilgrim mass. B&BHotel Milladoiro is very nice. Barb joined us, having taken the train from Porto! But again, we were in suburbs with few nearby dining options on a Sunday. We caught a burger across the street at La Central, then walked a ways to La Trastienda del 7 for a group dinner in a crowded restaurant.

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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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