More Portugal photos uploaded. They’re in my Feb/March 2006 Photo Album.

My father’s family is from Casqueira, which is a small village in the municipal district of Penacova, near Coimbra. Though Portugal is very compact (about the size of Nova Scotia), most of the 10 million residents are urban-dwellers, living in the larger centres of Liboa and Oporto, as well as the other numerous cities.

Casqueira is pretty small, by any standards — maybe 10 or 15 houses. It is surrounded by a forest. If I were to describe it to somebody from Canada, I would have to say that it is a very green village. Everything is alive, and every piece of ground is put to use growing something or other, from Kiwi Fruit to Grapevines. The food and drink is one of the highlights of visiting such a place. Everything’s fresh, all-natural, and full of flavour.

Portuguese people love to eat and drink. It seems to be the one preoccupation everybody shares. When in Rome…

I’m up at 4 am, can’t sleep. So I’ve uploaded more of the Portugal photos to my Feb/March 2006 Photo Album.

 
The flight from Toronto to Europe was quiet and sleepy, thanks to Pam’s magic sleeping potion. All I remember is this really neat blue gradient in the sky above fluffy, dreamy clouds… We woke up in Germany.
 
 
 
Just a few minutes in Frankfurt, then on to Portugal. Pam got her passport stamped, the airport terminal monitors weren’t working (reboot DOS!), and then our boarding passes wouldn’t work in the Lufthansa computer thingies. I don’t speak German, but I’m pretty sure the two Lufthansa women used some unflattering words to describe Air Canada.
 
 

The German word for Toilet Seat Cover is “papierabdeckung für Sitz”
 
 

Your money is safe with the Bank of the Holy Spirit.
 
 
 
 
Arrived in Lisbon, then we took a quick train ride from Oriente Station to Coimbra (took a little over two hours). The train was great, comfortable and fast. It’s called the Alfa Pendular, and it seemed to swing around corners so that we barely felt that it was doing 200km/hour.
 
 
 
I think everybody on the train was as sleepy us. Pam fell asleep and was woken by the ticket checking guy, which made an old woman laugh.
 
 
 
We arrived in Coimbra just in time for Laundry Day.

Here’s the scoop on photos from our recent trip: There are way too many of them!

So I’m going to have to go through them and just pick the better ones. It’s going to be a long process.

You can find them all in my Feb/March 2006 Photo Album. All the photos will be there eventually when I’m done sorting them.

First batch:

Our bags. Backpacks that roll as well.
 
 

Boarded in Prince Rupert, quick stopover in Sandspit to pick up some stranded passengers, then on to Vancouver.
 
 

Overnight in Vancouver, then on to Toronto. “Must Love Dogs” sets the theme for our in-flight entertainment. Chick movies rock.

I’m back in Canada, and have a bunch of photos to go through. I’ll post them when I sort them out.

Meanwhile, I found this in my bag when I opened it:

(Click the image for a larger version)

Also, the TSA guy was great. He was supposed to fingerprint me and take a digital photo, but once he found out we were from Prince Rupert, he just ripped up the entry documents and chatted about Northern BC. Then he even stamped our passports (“We don’t really do this anymore, but if you really want it…”).

The characters on Battlestar Galactica use the word Frack instead of the usual other four-letter word. I guess this is how they can swear and still get by the censors.

Well, it turns out that Frack is actually a Swedish word. According to an online translator, it means “audacious, shameless, impudent.”

And, of course, IKEA has a product named “FRÄCK” — a bathroom mirror on a folding arm:

In what must be some sort of inside joke among the Galactica cast and crew, this Frack mirror can be found in Adama’s bathroom:

Fracking coincidence?