A glorious three-hour Portuguese meal on a warm Portuguese night with Dave (@wellhong) and Mirian at A Charcutaria, a highly recommended local restaurant. We started with some delicious beans and chorizo and a chorizo and quail egg open faced sandwich; the chorizo was excellent. For a main course I had bacalhao (a salted cod local specialty) con natas -- shredded and cooked with cream into a big block of heavy deliciousness. (We were drinking some delicious house wine the entire time.) We also had migas (a pork dish) and clams in a savory sauce as appetizers. Pudding and an espresso finished off the meal.
It was an epic meal. We sat and talked for hours; we were the first there and the last out. The restaurant looked out on a lower street and we listened to all the noise of Lisbon at night as we ate. The restaurant staff were very friendly, even the lady Dave accidentally menaced with tae kwon do in the darkened basement thinking she was Mirian coming down to the bathroom. (Hilarity ensued.) Afterward, we wandered around the Bairro Alto area, which was like a carnival of narrow streets filled with bars under apartments (imagine living there), artisan shops, and people enjoying themselves. After a drink and some shopping, we walked back down to the hotel and retired for the night to some German TV (German Borat turns out to be just as funny).
After a beautiful, hot, meandering walk through the castle and the narrow streets of the old Jewish quarter, we stopped for beers and food at a small restaurant. Portuguese fried shrimp and cod appetizers, olives, cheese, and hot sauce -- per Mirian not the best ever but the best I've had and very tasty. And welcome after quite a busy day. Lisbon is beautiful.
When you hike up the hill from downtown Lisbon to the Castelo São Jorge on a 28°C day, ice cream is amazing.
Breakfast at the hotel with Dave and Mirian. She told us all about Portugal and her adventures while we waited for our rooms and enjoyed Portuguese sausage and cheese and coffee with steamed milk.
TAP's in-flight meal served over western Europe. Not too bad for airplane fare. They also, quite cleverly, played an old silent movie for entertainment. Old films are cool, and this one was funny. Vice presidents! *chuckles*
To celebrate our one week anniversary and the profusion of potatoes in our apartment, I made our traditional hash brown breakfast, complete with Sriracha sauce from the Asian store. The German potatoes were slightly sweet and very delicious.
We celebrated our first week in Germany by visiting the biergarten at Viktualienmarkt for weißwurst and beer. It wasn't very good, but hey -- now we know. We'd spent the morning investigating moving-related stuff, and gave the rest of the day to ourselves. It's been an amazing week.
Walking through the English Gardens after celebrating our one-year wedding anniversary, we stumbled on a big Bavarian celebration at the Chinese tower, giant pretzels and beer and all. We picked up two of one and one of the other and took a seat. It was pretty cool and quite crowded with both tourists and locals, including a group of high school kids celebrating their Abitur (high school diploma), whose yearbooks were made to look like Facebook pages. Then we walked back to our place and hung out until dinner.
Our first Biergarten! Löwenbräu, on Dachauerstr, between our neighborhood and downtown. Liters of beer, a plate of meat, a warm summer's day, waiters in lederhosebn: wirklich (stereotypisch) Bayern.
Eggs and landbrot! A solid, basic first Saturday, first woke-up-in-our-own-place breakfast. It was nice to pop over to the store next door for some bread, and to sleep in a real bed. Now off to find DSL and other necessities.
Here in Germany we can't so much judge Asian restaurants by the San Francisco yardstick: if Asians are eating there, it's good. Still, we were excited to find just a few blocks away from our new apartment a very good Thai restaurant - tasty, plentiful, and not too expensive, either. We both had Pad Thai, which was differently adapted than the main American version, more citrusy, slightly different noodles, but still very rewarding. They don't seem to have pad seuw, which I plan to ask about someday.
Mein rests besoffenes Döner, bei Taklamakan in München. Echt lecker! Dafür haben wir uns nach Deutschland bewegt.
We found our new apartment (we could see the old tenant cleaning it). Awesome area; we can't wait to move in. Found a decent döner shop nearby, too. Then back to the hotel and onward to our first meetup!
Late breakfast at Caffee Fellows after a morning pitching ourselves to the German bureaucracy. This place is very American -- almost moreso than a Starbucks -- all in English, with bagels and US-style coffees and its brown color scheme.
Jetlag => late start => pizza for lunch. For 20€ (including the bottle of water I inadvertently ordered -- a cultural learning moment brought to you by Acqua Panna), it was a very tasty and inexpensive meal. This bodes well. Now we're off to shop! There are necessities to buy.
Dinner between Havre and Regina above our northern neighbor. Thus far, no cat problems.
Tomato juice on the plane makes a nice visual match with the Sookie Stackhouse book I'm reading on the Kindle. (Approximately over Boise now.)
