The month that was November

I haven't published since October so, feeling guilty, I poked around my Drafts folder and found nothing even barely blog-worthy.

Blame the job stuff: meetings, commercial writing, tweaking, revisions, ,more writing, more tweaking throwing everything out, starting again, presenting again, trying to find the stuff that was thrown out and presenting it again. On and on went the Sisyphean roller coaster that is advertising.

But! Other things happened outside of the advertising bubble (thank goodness!) and so here is a roundup of the month that was November, or, as they say in German, November.


The Underwear Situation

Until now I have visited Canada with enough frequency that my underwear drawer has remained well stocked with good Canadian underpants, like the good ol' Canadian boy I try to be. I am currently in the longest stretch between visits to Canada (18 months) and have stretched my underwear drawer thin. 

Instead of turning yesterday's underpants inside out and donning them for a second day, I went underpants shopping in Germany for the first time. It lasted five minutes, cost little, and I was proud until I tried on a pair. 

For starters, a German medium is like a Canadian small. The tight elastic bands around my waist were so tight they gave me a muffin top. They also wedgied me and generally constricted everything in uncomfortable ways. 

Arguing over the return policy for underpants it didn't seem like a fun way to practice my German, so I went to a fancier store and paid a premium for quality underwear for the German larges. I threw in a pair of loose boxers, just in case.


Voting with hearts, not minds

One thing you learn in advertising is that successful brands don't make a rational argument to get you to buy their product – they make an emotional argument.

Think you're aware of what they're doing and all your purchase decisions are based on rational thought? Wrong! Studies show people are great at rationalizing their emotions in order to validate their purchase decisions.

The same can be applied to voting. My favourite example is Barack Obama, who ran on hope and won. Canada's new PM ran on "Sunny Ways" against a grumpy, cynical rival and also won.

This year we saw the other, darker side of emotional positioning in politics. 

Voters in Britain were told their country no longer belongs to them and were invited to take it back, despite the political and economic consequences. The Donald in America, appealed to a fearful, frustrated white working class with nostalgia, bigotry, sexism, and vague promises of prosperity to win the presidency. 

Of course, great advertising can't save a lousy product, so both of those emotional propositions were buttressed with lies, half-truths, and obfuscations.

Next month, Italy holds a referendum on constitutional reforms that could decide the fate of the current centrist government. Austria has the run-off vote for its presidency this Sunday. French presidential elections are next spring. German federal elections are in the autumn. 

Emotional messages around the nation work, especially when supported with falsehoods. 

If the current Powers That Be wish to remain in power, they will have to find similarly strong emotional messaging for voters – dismissing anyone outside the centre as racist or radical doesn't count. And they shouldn't feel like they have to lie, they're selling a great product: Democracy.


iPhone ergo iMarshall


I have joined the 2010s! I still type like one thumb, I haven't joined the Snapchat, and I still miss the simplicity of a flip phone or my old Blackberry's keypad, but I'm adjusting. 

My last phone for the last two years was a Windows phone, which had a nice interface and was easy to use by Luddite standards. Now, I am easing myself into a new operating system, with new swipes and taps and icons and actions, and a daunting new world of apps.

It also comes with a cool camera, so as I adjust to the 2010s, I will take some pretty pictures along the way.

The era of the iPhone Photos in Strange Places has begun!

Best Beer Bragging Rights

Who has Europe's best cheese? Ask a Frenchman, Italian, or a Dane about their cheese and watch the bloodbath begin. 

The best chocolate? Belgium, the Swiss, and the Dutch are too peaceful for a blood bath, but a Chocolate-Off might ensue.

Few topics bring out exceptionalism quite like the debate over who has the best beer, which I find strange. I come from a country that doesn't brag about having the best beer, just beer that's better than anything the Americans can brew.

After four years of painstaking research and over-sampling in bars and patios all over Europe (it was difficult, but I did it for you dearest reader), I have made a list in an attempt to untangle Europe's finest beer nations... in no particular order.


Germany
Germany has great factories, cars, public transit, and decent sausages, but their breweries are hamstrung by the country's Beer Law, which stipulates making beer with only hops, water, and barley. 

There are great tasting wheat beers and pilsners, and solid locals brews like Kölsch and Altbier. But! Germany has no stouts or frothy ales, no fruity beers, if that's your thing, or limited run seasonal craft beers.

So, the beer here is great, but Germany doesn't quite have the best beer, but it has the best beer laws, which is a wonderfully German thing to be good at.


Belgium 
Some might be angry at Belgium for holding up the Canada-E.U. free trade deal, but remember they have the best beers. 

Trappist beers, the dark beers, the strong beers that make you wobble on the way to the bathroom, fruity beers. They do everything and they do it proper, and not just proper-tasting, but also in proper fancy glasses. 

In a way, I'm sad about the successful free trade talks. Failed talks would have meant less beer for export to Canada and more beer for me here.

Fancy Boy Glasses in Antwerp!

France
There are no French beers. If a Frenchman wants a beer, he'll drink wine. If a tourist at a bar wants a beer, he is served a Stella Artois – from French part of Belgium, at least – and ignored the rest of the night. Or so I've heard.


Netherlands
The Dutch have a great business model: Make Heineken, and sell it all over the world for a ridiculous profit and go laughing to the bar to order a round of delicious Belgian beers.


Ireland
Guinness. It tastes like beer and coffee combined. Yay for Irish Beer Coffee! 


Czech Republic
Those crazy Czechs drink more beer per capita than anyone else. And it shows, because they have some good beers... and good beer bellies because you need somewhere to rest your beer.


Slovakia
The Slovak beer is almost as good as the Czech beer. But they're a mountain people, so they have local-made hard liquors. I tried some on a hike through Tatra. It warms your toes, face, and brain, and made me feel ike a lightweight. Don't mess the Slovaks' mountain juice.


Hungary
Another wine country, although it's underrated. Their beer is good. Not as good as the Czechs, but better than the Slovaks. My advice? If you're in Hungary, get the beer if you want, it's good, but drink the wine, drink the fröccs, hell, drink the palinka in responsible quantities – or irresponsible quantities if you want a good and/or bad story.

Poland
That beer before liquor rule applies to Poland as well.


Portugal
They drink their beer out of little bottles. Why? Because then you drink it quickly before it gets warm. This is important because their beer is nice cold, and mucky when it's warm. The Portuguese have also perfected the Buy-Two-Beers-at-a-Time Move to match the average drinking speed there.


United Kingdom
We make fun of their warm beer because we just don't understand. Then you're there and you're all confused by the beers with the strange names in the pub and in you point all confused at one of the taps and then you drink it and it's room temperature and you pause because you're realize you're an ignoramus and it's actually pretty good. 


Bulgaria, Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia
They have their own national beers and they're all good. But I can't chose which one is best because they're all good and indistinguishable from one another and I don't want to take any sides and– oh my god, it's like a metaphor!

Beer.

Edinburgh and its Historical Ghosts

I could go on about Edinburgh. And the scotch. The architecture. The pubs. Oh, and the meat pies. The warm beer that actually tastes alright. The scotch... did I already say that? 

I heard about these wonderful things for years about the city, which propelled to the top of my Cities-To-Visit-Before-I-Have-Kids-and-Become-Too-Poor-and-Tired-to-Travel List.

Today, I'm telling you about something else: Edinburgh loves its historical ghosts. The city bleeds history – and has a lot of history about bleeding – and embraces it. All of it.

Here, they build monuments to poets and writers, not politicians and war heroes. There too many Robbie Burns statues to count, and there's beautifully Gothic, and monumental, the Walter Scott Monument.

The Walter Scott Monument.
Writers so rarely get this type of recognition.

It's not only the monuments that give you a sense of this city's strange love of its own history, warts and all – it's the stories they tell.

History in Edinburgh, and perhaps the rest of Scotland, is taught and told in yarns over pints in a pub or through ghost stories well after dark – all with that typically wry, ironical Scottish self-deprecation. 

If you are to believe the tour guides' theatrics, this city is filled with ghosts. The medieval city, most of which still eerily stands, was so crowded the dead were simply buried under the sidewalks. You're literally walking on the dead when you window shop along the Royal Mile.

There's the legend of Bloody MacKenzie, whose mausoleum is said to be cursed and – because you must include the young 'uns – is a stone's throw away from a school. 

There's the pub in the Grass Market named after a woman who was hanged and then miraculously came back to life. There's the death and suffering Edinburgh's vault, which housed the city's poorest, most desperate during the Industrial Revolution, not a great time to be poor.

The other pub named for Deacon Brodie, the cabinet-maker who robbed the homes he built cabinets for and was hanged on the gallows he built. If the Scots are known anything it's their gallows humour.

These stories and many more about battles and betrayals and the barbarism, ages ago and in the recent past, show this city embraces the ghosts of its past – and the mysterious rolling fog and the darkly romantic Gothic architecture just fits naturally with it.

Edinburgh's Castle.

Just in case a duel breaks out,
there's lots of weapons on the wall.

The gloomy view from Edinburgh Castle.

Strolling the streets

The best way to discover a city is walking it. Strolling down streets and into distant districts, and in Edinburgh's case, up a hill and cliffs – Arthur's Seat and the Salisbury Crags – overlooking the city. On foot, we visited the Botanical Gardens and the nearby Stockbridge neighbourhood, with its cute storefronts and Georgian houses. With a hot coffee in hand, we also discovered Leith, the city's old port and working class area.

Some might prefer seeing a city from station to station on the underground subway or getting the summary on a Hop-On-Hop-Off tour bus, but all we need is two feet and heartbeat.

Discovery Walks stop for nothing!
Even the rain!

The Salisbury Crags

Deep thoughts after the walk.

Ghost Sighting

We booked a tour in Edinburgh. Usually we avoid the tourist-y things, but we compelled to do it in such a spooky, superstitious city.

We heard ghost stories in the Greyfriars graveyard and visited vaults built into the South Bridge that were built for storing merchants' wares but eventually stored people in horrendous conditions. At one point we heard footsteps running past the door of the vault we were in, even though no one else was in the tunnel.

After the eerie tour, we walked through the Old Town and snapped a few photos of the dark, quiet, deserted street on our way to a pub for a night cap. I turned around and snapped a random photo behind us.

Look closely, crossing the street in front of the church.

Upon closer examination, you can see what could be an odd reflection of light, or a ghost, crossing a street. 

Here's it looks like in the un-enhanced close-up.

Is it a ghost? Kata thinks not, but I think so – this is a city that embraces its history and the ghosts that come along with it.

Autumn's Beautiful Awkwardness

Something happened in the Dorf while we were away in Scotland: Autumn.

It's too easy to hate on autumn. Yes, it's the season before winter, but that isn't autumn's fault.


It is just the most awkward season. Is it the end of the summer or the beginning of winter? Should I enjoy fall colours or rage at the coming winter. When it's cold enough for sweaters in the morning and hot enough for shorts in the afternoon, everyone walks about with shorts and a sweater in the often vain hope it gets warm enough to ditch the sweater.

Some hate autumn. I like it. 

Maybe it's because my hometown is a city filled with trees, so every October you're treated a dizzying display of reds, yellows, and browns. Or maybe I welcome the colder weather to thin out the casual patio goers, so it's easier to get a table. Leaving only kindred spirits defiantly sipping their pints in the chilly weather!

My Carolinan Forest upbringing (look it up) makes me accustomed to a September that's pretty much another month of summer and an autumn prettiness that lasts into November. 

In the Rhineland, the summer lurches into autumn earlier than my Southern Ontario homeland and the pretty part is over quickly. Then a dank, dark, Dagobagh-esque dreariness rolls into the region and refuses to relent until April.

Despite its short-lived stay, autumn is great in Germany. Canada fights its annual culture war over putting pumpkin spice into everything, while Germans add seasonal mushrooms to everything. Pfifferling to be exact, not the magic kind. 

They put Pfifferling in the sauces, the soups, the pizza, on burgers. But unlike pumpkin spice in Canada, Germany has a social contract about not putting it into everything: Pfifferling has its place in German society and that place is not a latte or a cupcake.

This is also the season of Oktoberfest – admittedly, like lederhosen, this is a Bavarian thing, rather than a German thing – but Dorfers are still happy to gather around the standing drinking tables at their nearby bars for a frothy alt beer. 

My social feeds might fill up with Canadian angst about pumpkin spice or the coming winter or the crappy weather, but I like to remember this is the season for hockey, cosy sweaters, afternoon hikes through the woods, and, yes, even seasonal mushrooms.

Sure, autumn is darker and awkward and makes people wear shorts with sweaters to catch that sliver of warm sun before the darkness sets in – but that's exactly the attitude you want from a drinking buddy an outdoor drinking table. Cheers to the ten to twelve days of autumn before winter comes.

Autumn looks alright at the bars on the Rhein Promenade...

But it looks great outdoors.

Throwing Out People's Stuff

Packing light is easy for a weekender trip; it's difficult when you're settling for a year or two or less.

Take my old shared flat. 

A few guys took out the original lease, then transferred the lease – and furniture – to others when they moved on. Then those guys passed on their lease, and on it went until I came along.

At least eleven tenants – including, who I know of, a Canadian (me), a Brit, a Portuguese, an Argentinian, a Venezuelan, a Brazilian, a couple of French – have lived in my old shared apartment. 

When it was time for me to move on, the landlord company decided they had enough of changing people's name on the lease – and keeping the rent at the same price. It was time to move out, not just move on.

I spent the better part of August clearing it out those tenants' accumulated possessions they left behind. There was a kitchen full of stuff, a bedroom that served as a storage room, and actual storage room in the basement. All filled with stuff from people who came to the Dorf and then moved on elsewhere. 

There were beds, tables, and wardrobes to be sold or given away. Deep in the basement storage room, I discovered another desk, a bed, and two coffee tables among boxes and bags of odds and ends that belonged to tenants long moved out. It was like roommate archeology. 

The furniture could have been sold, but I figured it was was better to give it away to the million refugees in Germany. It seemed like the proper, and admittedly easier, thing to do. 

No charity would pick up furniture, despite being on the ground floor. One simply told its facebook friends about it. Another told me I must bring my furniture to them. All that was picked up was some kitchen stuff, a table, and some wardrobes.

I had helped a few refugees, but as many as I had hoped, and I faced the prospect of putting perfectly fine furniture to the curb. 

You cannot just put your stuff out on garbage day. There are specific days and, if you can't wait for those specific days, you have to fill out a form (because it's Germany) for Sperrmüll, or the bulk garbage pick-up.

It's still not that easy. You can only put out maximum five items, otherwise you must pay. I had a flat of items, well over the five limit.

I booked the free pick-up anyway and I put out over a dozen items a few days before. I hoped thrifty Germans would whittle the pile down before the garbage guys would come.

As I painted – remember, it's a ground floor apartment – I could see passers-by poking through the boxes, flipping through the romance novels, eyeing the kitchen bric-a-brac, appraising the coffee tables. The thrifty Germans came through, and stuff disappeared.

Our very own spring cleaning...
in the late summer. 

Purging Stuff in Budapest

On the right day, take a walk in a Budapest district and witness a sight: Furniture, old newspapers, books, lamps, electronics, punching bags, knick knacks and schnick schnack all piled on the sidewalks and curbs. 

You will see people hovering over their prizes, claiming them before their ride comes to pick it up, glaring at passers-by who linger to long over their claimed pile.

This is Lomtalanítás, Budapest's bulk garbage day that makes it rounds district by district through Budapest.

Kata and I had only a few days while we were visiting a few weeks ago to clear out her apartment for a renovation, so there would be no Lomtalanítás for us. There was also no time to put things on the internet and wait for someone to come along and buy them. Kata's stuff had to go fast.

Once again it was archeology. Everything was dug out, sorted, and its fate was decided as quickly as possible. There were eight years of habitation to go through. The stuff that was to be kept – books, art, mementos – went into boxes and was set aside. The stuff that was nice – more clothes, some books, kitchen stuff – but for keeping were bagged or boxed and walked down the street around the corner to a second-hand store, where these items were happily received by the proprietor.

The rest was bagged or boxed or simply set just outside the apartment and was picked up by a junk man, who undoubtedly sold the stuff worth selling later. It was like our own little Lomtalanítás for this one guy.

Me and My Stuff

You might have noticed all this stuff belonged to others. I am also guilty of some mild hoarding.

I came over to Europe four years ago with a backpack, a rolly-wheely duffle, and a hockey bag. I have added another bag, but got rid of the hockey bag due to airline size restrictions, while still trying to limit my possessions to what I can fit into my bags. I failed.

Over time, despite my minimalist tendencies, I have still managed to accumulate stuff over the years, clothes, mementos, books, have all been picked up and kept. And that's just here in Europe. I have furniture and kitchen stuff spread across a couple of basements in London, Ontario that await a verdict on their fate.

Despite the urge to limit my possession, there seems to still be a tendency to put down roots, spread out my stuff, and get comfortable. 

Dorfy Day Trips: The Kaiser of Koblenz

The Kaiser Wilhelm I statue in Koblenz,
and some dude in white pants. 

Every nation wants you to visit their national monuments. Pay admission and walk to the top of some tower, the tour guide states. Marvel at a gigantic statue of some dear leader, says the travel book. Gape in awe at some building erected in the honour of the fatherland, motherland, the workers, the people, the nation, whoever, whatever, declares the poster.

Germany is one modern exception to this rule. It's a country with very few monuments celebrating itself. The Brandenburg Gate? That was built in the name of peace in the 1770s. The Berlin Victory Column? That was erected by the Prussians, not the glorious German Empire, Reich, or Republic. 

There seems to be few monuments to Germany.

Then there's Koblenz, with its Deutsches Eck (literally meaning German Corner) that sits at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle Rivers, where a gigantic statue of a long dead German kaiser stands. 

This type of German monumentality is a rare thing, largely because most of this stuff was knocked down during the war – including this statue – and never rebuilt. After the statue in Koblenz was levelled, its stone stump was left to represent a desire to reunite East and West Germany. When they reunited in 1991, the statue was rebuilt.

And yet, for all is big, kingly brashness, the statue is not only off the tourist radar, but isn't the sole "must-see" in Koblenz. The Eck itself has a beautiful view of the meeting rivers and the high hills on the other bank, which are topped with a fortress.

Koblenz's real prize is its pedestrian-only promenade along the Rhine. It's one of the prettiest I have seen along this river. It runs south, with the river on one side and historic buildings (or rebuilt historic buildings) on the other. There is no car traffic, yet plenty of trees and benches and chirping birds and greenery. The restaurants are set far enough back that they don't intrude on the riverside strolling, but still close enough that you can gaze at the river over a cold drink.

All of this shows that maybe it's the little things that make a city worth visiting, and not the monumental things.

The stone relief of the statue's stump.

An Aside about the Hills:

Hungarians love the hills. Travel enough with a Hungarian who lives in the flatlands of the Rhineland, and you will regular hear exclamations whenever hills come into view. This is what happened as we took the train into the hilly terrain around Koblenz.

The city is considered the gateway into the Romantic Rhine, a hilly, windy stretch of the river dotted with vineyards and castles. This has always been on our list for a visit, but we haven't quite gotten around to it yet. The Koblenz day trip has reawakened that desire. 

August: Europe's Quiet Month

It's August and northern Europe has essentially shut down for the month.

Every July, there's a rush to finish work before the client goes on holidays or before an ad agency boss goes on vacation or to lessen the mountain of work that await upon return from your August adventures.

Then July ends and there are fewer emails with the urgent exclamation point icon. There are fewer rushed meetings with end-of-day deadlines and fewer meltdowns. There are still emails and meetings and stress, but it all takes on a less frantic, less urgent tone.

Getting into August, it's worth mentioning that workers in Germany and Hungary get a set amount of paid holidays by law that increases based on their age. For someone my age, it works out to about four weeks.

This is a far cry from Canada, where the amount is set at two weeks and any increases are the result of individual contract negotiations, seniority at a company (if the company does that), or a collective bargaining agreement (which is becoming rarer since Canadian workers are sadly becoming adept at dismantling their labour unions).

I'm not mentioning this to make my North American friends envious (unless you're unionized, then you're fine), but to point out that more of holidays make it easy to take off chunks of August to visit tropical destinations or lounge on a Greek island or, if you're German, takeover a finca on a Balaeric Island.

This August, we're not doing any of that. Paying rent on the current flat and the old one, along with the previous Lisbon trip and an upcoming Budapest visit, has meant things are a bit tighter this August. It's been a month of weekend day trips, of beers on blankets in the park, and lazy, rainy afternoons on the couch – of which there are many in northern Germany.

There are advantages to sticking around when everyone else has ditched the Dorf for sunnier places. For starters, the city itself feels a little less crowded – save for the bachelor parties that stagger through the Altstadt's breweries. 

The pace of the city itself slows – maybe an affect of the warmer weather on the thick-blooded Germans. Going a bit slower, you're able to notice the sunnier side of the German summer, like the 10pm sunsets or temperatures that drift towards 25 degrees – when it isn't raining, of course.

And so you linger on the side-street patios over one more drink, you bike a bit further along the Rhine bike paths, you embrace the sweatshirt-shorts combo to endure the chilly mornings but prepare for a possibly warmer afternoon and evening.

Yes, swimming in the Adriatic might be great in August, but despite the high possibility of cold, rain, and clouds, I can live with the German summer too.

Deeps thoughts on the Rhine Promenade.

Lisbon, Europe's First International City

Lisbon is a lot of cities. It's Portugal's capital city. It's a food city. A party city. An old city. A medieval city. A modern city.

Most of all, it is Europe's very first truly international city. 

Before New York was New York, before everyone dropped anchor in Amsterdam, before they came to London or Paris or even Rome, Lisbon was where the world came to Europe. 

And because it came aboard Portuguese ships, the flavour this internationality left on the city is unique. The architecture, the food, the city itself all feels like it might be from somewhere else, but has enough of a touch of Portuguese that it does not feel out of place.


A Pile of Tiles

It is forbidden to depict any of Islam's big players. While Europe's artist were painting bearded Jesus pictures, Arab artists were stuck painting lines and shapes. 

Because the Arab's were also the world's medieval mathletes – they invented zero – and because their hot tropical climate was hard on oil paints, they created intricate geometric patterns with tiles. 

The Portuguese picked up this tile making, and being good Christians they ditched the geometric patterns and put Jesus and flowers and God and stuff on the tiles. Then they got more intricate, creating huge pieces of art with dozens or hundreds of bits of tile. 


Today, many of the city's buildings are covered with tiles and they lend the city an Arab look, even though these tiles remain a Portuguese trend, and a specialty.

When the Holy Spirit strikes!

Tile peeping.

Lisbon Feels Like Lisbon

Travel to any big, popular to visit city in Europe and you end up marvelling at how lovely it is. You also find yourself marvelling at how people can live there? Rome was like that. Paris is apparently like this. I always thought the middle of London was a lot like that, unless you were super rich. How do normal people live in a touristic town that, as a result of its touristic-ness, feels blandly touristic?

The core of a city, with its museums, monuments, points of interests, shops, kiosks, restaurants, hotels, hostels, bars, and cafes, is the draw for visiting tourists. As more tourists come, the city's centre becomes less about offering these things for the locals and more about accommodating tourists – or fleecing them, depending on your level of cynicism.

Lisbon's centre is compact, making it great for tourists to like to walk or stroll or amble about from point of interest to restaurant to museum to bar and back to the hotel.

While the 12 squares blocks in the centre of the city's centre has been given over to these hordes of tourists, the actual places you want to visit – Alfama, the city's maze-like Medieval district and the Bairro Alto, the city's nightlife area – are also in the centre, yet still feel like Lisbon, not a watered down touristy Lisbon.

My theory is that Lisbon, as a port city linking Europe with Brazil, India, Africa, and the Far East has been accustomed to having visitors for almost five hundred years. Locals live in these great neighbourhoods, and used to eating and drinking cheek-and-jowl with the herds of visitors. 

They have enough practice with hundreds of years of tourists to not feel like they have to surrender the city centre to them and flee to the suburbs. It adds a welcoming spirit to the city when you're out on the town.

Alfama: A Lisbon hood with its own vibe.

Lacking in Lockers

This cool reception for tourists has its downside. Everywhere we went, it seemed the city was wholly unprepared for the thousands of foreign visitors who flocked to the city.

The major subway stations were choked with tourists lining up to refill their transit cards. A few more machines at these busy stations surely would help the lines move quickly. 

Staying in an Airbnb with a morning checkout time and a late afternoon flight meant our luggage had to go somewhere. We spent over an hour going to various train and subway stations looking for a locker. Each station had a small wall of lockers, all occupied. In some stations, there were tourists zealously guarding an empty locker while a friend made change.

Lisbon is an international city, but in some ways it felt wholly unprepared for its international visitors.


Food

A colleague from Lisbon offered up his tips for the city. I figured it would be advice for beaches and points of interest, with a few bars and restaurants. 

The tip list we got was largely restaurant recommendations, with some pointers on where to find the good places to drink. What made the list so interesting was not its length, but its variety. 

The eateries we visited were not just seafood spots, although the seafood we ate was deliciously fresh. Our choices on list and along the streets included all sorts of cuisines – Indian, Moroccan, Asian, and many more – but many were fused with different cultures and flavours together. And they did it well. After all, cultures and nations have been mixing and fusing in Lisbon for hundreds of years.


Architecture

While the late Gothic architectural craze that was raging across Europe on the 1500s, Portugal conceived its own architectural style. Taking a bit of the Spanish, and combining that with Morrish and Indian influences, Portugal created Manueline architecture.

Sadly, most Manueline buildings were constructed in Lisbon, so many were destroyed in the earthquake and tsunami of 1755 (the Alfama district was spared). There are a few examples still standing like the Jeronimos Monastary, in Belem, just outside of Lisbon.

The church in the Jeronimos Monastary.

No point in talking about architectural influences at the Summer Palace in Sintra – just look.

Unrelated: Going Off the Grid

My data plan was inoperative in Portugal because I have a lousy cellphone provider and a lousy cellphone. Getting shut out from Facebook, Twitter, and most of the news, this year still being 2016, turned out to be a good thing.

Then I returned and learned that some sort of Pokemon Go phenomenon occurred while I was away. I learned about it upon my return, but I still don't understand it.


If you go...

Drink the Green Wine: 
Or Vinho Verde, as the locals call it. It's a bubbly young wine that I ignorantly avoided, thinking it was like champagne, which I am not crazy about it. It's actually dry and only slightly bubbly, like a fröccs – great for afternoon drinking on Portuguese patios.

Buy a transit card: 
Lisbon is a compact city, but you will take a train if you want to hit the beaches or go to Belem, where there are a few nice sites and a cafe where the Pastel di Nata (Portuguese egg tarts – was invented. You'll save a lot of money if you get a transit card and refill it as you go.

Look for random places to eat: 
We stayed in a mixed neighbourhood of locals and tourists. There were many restaurants, but the best were the places with little signage, bright lights, and normal-looking furniture on tile floors. Do not be deterred. Get in there and eat up!

Watching the Euro in Europe

In its simplicity, soccer can be a beautiful, entertaining sport. 

It can also become a tremendously boring sport when you add layers of national leagues and divisions with friendlies and the exhibition games and qualifiers as they do in European professional soccer.

But once every couple of years, the haze of confusion and boredom lifts for a few weeks and I'm able to sit back and enjoy simple, fun soccer again. Sometimes, I even call it football during these lovely tournament times.

It's a bit easier to get emotionally invested in a few national teams, rather than cities with millionaire mercenaries from all over the world. There are no friendlies or exhibition games, every game matters and you can feel the immediacy in the play. They're playing for home, after all.

Yes, the Euro brings the sport of soccerball back its simple beauty, even to this ignorant North American with his hockey and baseball.


More teams, more fun

The tournament widened from 16 teams to 24 teams, so the enthusiasm level across the continent was incredibly high for this year's Euro. 

There are two opposing arguments over this. One side claims this diluted the tournament's talent pool – I heard this from two people, one Portuguese and one German, both accustomed to Euro appearances.

On the other side of the argument, this new format allowed national teams to make their first appearance – either their first ever or their first in a long time – on the international soccer stage. Hungary, Albania, Iceland, Wales, and Northern Ireland all brought a unique energy to the tournament.

Maybe it wasn't pretty for those soccer aficionados, but it definitely made the game more exciting while those teams were playing.



Germany is Europe's America

I was able to get this feel around those teams' enthusiasm largely because I live in Germany. This is one of Europe's new settler countries, where more and more people are from somewhere else.

Italians, Hungarians, Portuguese, French, Turkey – almost every nation represented has a few nationals (except for Iceland, I suppose) living in Germany. They crowd the bars, cheer in the streets, and adorn their German-made cars with their national flags.

When Portugal won on Sunday night, there was shouting and honking and celebrations up and down the busy street near our flat. Being from Toronto, this is standard stuff for an international soccer tournament – especially if you live close to Little Portugal, Little Italy, or Roncesvalles – but it's nice to see in an increasingly multicultural Germany. 


Soccer Mad Portugal 

We were in Lisbon last week and it was difficult not to notice a rise in the usual soccer passion whenever Portugal was scheduled to play that day. 

You would pass a cafe with a TV out front and it's replaying earlier matches from the tournament, usually one that Portugal won. Kids were kicking balls in the street. Adults were kicking balls in the street, while trying not to spill their beer. 

When the semi-final game started, we were just finishing dinner and awaiting the bill. After a longer than usual wait for the dinner's reckoning, we looked around and saw every waiter huddled around the computer screen with rapt attention. I don't think they were studying our bill.

When the final started between Portugal and France, we were in the air returning to Germany. We landed thinking it was over. Almost every male on the plane fumbled for their phone, deactivated flight mode, and rushed to the exit when they realized the game was well into overtime.



Ode to Gabor Kiraly and the Sweatpants

I am also a grey sweat pant aficionado, yet I don't think I have celebrated the Gabor Kiraly enough in this space. 

This is a goalkeeper who wears sweatpants because they are more comfortable than the standard long socks. He kept Hungary in a couple of games, which is clear proof that comfort affects performance. It might be a good reason to start wearing my sweat pantaloons to the office.

Comfortably watching the match.