The Next Step

Leaving São Miguel today. Leaving the familiar behind. For me, the Azores have been the only Portugal I've ever experienced. São Jorge was really (barring one horrible, no good, very bad month in Terceira) the only Portugal I've ever experienced. Leaving for the continent make seem like it's putting this idea of chasing Atlantis to rest, but it's really the opposite. Portugal, continental Portugal, is the undiscovered country I set out to find this summer.

My heart will always be Azorean, but I'm ready for something new.

#SaudadeSaturday: Ponta dos Rosais

Instead of doing a #FlashbackFriday for my blog, I decided to do #SaudadeSaturday. I started working on this particular post during my first few days on São Jorge, and was in the process of expanding on it this week with pictures and footage from near the end of my time there so I could post it today.

I never finished. As some of your may know by now, yesterday I lost my Padrinho Fernandinho. Not only could I not finish this post, I was considering quitting this blog business altogether. However, so many people have told me how much they enjoy this blog, and so I'm going to try an stick it out.

Here's a look at where I spent the summer I was 12 with my grandparents. It was one of the happiest times of my life, and one I look back on even now with fondness.

---

São Jorge is a long, skinny island in the middle of nowhere. Rosais, my village, is the westernmost settlement on the island. It snakes along a long winding road. At the end of that road is the neighborhood of Ponta dos Rosais, which is exactly what it sounds like: the point, or end, of the village. The furthest end of the furthest village at the end of the island in the middle of nowhere. It's always felt like ends of the earth to me. You can't get any more away from it all than here. 

My mom grew up on the Ponta, and while my Padrinho Fernandino now lives in the center of the village with his second wife, the Ponta is what I think of when I think of my Azorean home away from home. Now, I'm going to share it with you!

Amateur Geologist Time! Lagoas of Sao Miguel

We do so much every day and I fall into bed exhausted more othen than or not, so instead of atempting to do this blog  diary style, I think I'm going to stick with themed entries. Since we visited the Geosciences department of the University of the Azores today, I'm going to indulge in a little amateur geology and share some of the lagoas of São Miguel island with you.

First, a little background info. The island of São Miguel was formed by six volcanic complexes. Some of them left behind lagoas, or crater lakes. Each has it's unique characteristics.

Lagoa do Fogo: The Living Lake

(Ignore the bit about the tea plantation; more on that in another post!)

On Saturday, we visited Lagoa do Fogo, in. Of all the lagoas, it's the closest to remaining in it's pristine condition. This is probably due to the fact that it's the highest in elevation and most remote of all the lagoas. The other lagoas have settlements nearby that have impacted the lake's chemistry and biodiversity.

Lagoa das Furnas: Lunch Time!

On Sunday we visited our second lagoa: Furnas. You'll see that the color isn't nearly as brilliant as Lagoa do Fogo:

The reason Furnas is so green is that fertilizer runoff from the pastures nearby got into the lake. Unfortunately, fertilizer works just as well on algae. It grew at an exponential rate, choking out any other life in the lagoa. Light no longer penetrates the lake, so photosynthesis isn't happening either.

Furnas is pronounced similarly to the English word furnace, but it actually means pits or caves. However, both apply to the lake. Furnas is still full of geologic activity: geysers and hot springs. The people who settled here learned to harness that power. 

Cozido das Furnas is what happens when you decided to use that geologic power as a crockpot. Throw meat and veggies into a pot, bury it for a few hours, and it's lunch time! There are also natural hot and cold mineral springs in the Furnas valley. Several springs are near one another, but they all tasted different.

Lagoa das Sete Cidades: A Lagoa Out of Legend

Sete Cidades is named after the myth of the Seven Cities of Atlantis. Unfortunately, the day was overcast, but you should still be able to see that the twin lagoas are two different colors: blue and green. According to legend, a blue eyed princess of the Seven Cities fell in love with a green eyed shepherd. Naturally, their love was doomed to end in failure. Her father sent her away to be married, and the two lovers wept so much over their parting that they left behind two lakes that matched the color of their eyes.

Fun fact: The Sete Cidades crater is so big that Corvo, the smallest Azorean island, could fit inside it.

Futebol and the Portuguese Psyche

This morning's lecture was on the Estado Novo dictatorship, and part of it dovetails nicely into one of our cultural activities this afternoon: watching the PORvsGHA game at a football club.

I knew as soon as the groups were released that I was not going to enjoy this World Cup. I'm not stupid; I never expected both of my teams to advance over Germany. (I think they're a final four team, tbh) I didn't know who I was going to choose.

Then PORvsGER happened. It's not that Portugal lost; my two favorite teams (the Sharks, the Niners) have managed to disappoint me this year and I'm still a fan. It's the way they played. Entitled, stupid, malcriados. Then, this ridiculous blame game after the game. No, thank you. I went from a 50/50 split to a solid 60/40 in favor of the country that issued me my passport.

But this blog post isn't supposed to be about me; it's supposed to be about the Portuguese psyche. So, a quick history lesson is in order.

Portugal was a dictatorship, the Estado Novo, from the 1930s until April 25, 1974. Salazar, the dictator, knew he had to control the populace and mold the Portuguese psyche to fit his own image of Portugueseness. One of the tools he used to unify and control the Portuguese people were the 3 F's: (grupos) folclóricos, Fatima, and futebol. 40 years and counting since the fall of the dictatorship, and all three of those things still define Portuguese culture to this day.

When Cristiano Ronaldo is (rightfully) named the best player in the world, it is an honor for all the Portuguese. When the Portuguese national team loses, it is a national wound. Futebol is a part of the national identity in a way that baseball or football (our official and actual American pastimes) will never be in the US.

The blame game I'm watching on tv now goes back to Salazar, too. He had his own hybrid of the Gestapo and the Spanish Inquisition: the PIDE. They were everywhere. They were your neighbors, your family. You just never knew who they were. So, it became a part of the national character to avoid blame and pin it on a scapegoat instead. Better them than you when it comes to the risk of being sent to prison, right?

Before the World Cup started, I believed that US Soccer needed to make it out of group play more than the Seleção Portuguesa. When it comes to the promotion of the sport, I still believe that. Americans only care about winners, after all. 

But the Portuguese people? As much as they needed it for the sake of their national self esteem, I supposed they're used to disappointment by now. When you peaked in the 1600s and you can't let that go, I guess it comes with the territory. 

Welcome to São Miguel!

The wifi at the pousada de juventude (youth hostel) loads at a a glacial pace, belying our subtropical climate. I'll have to post more substancial updates when I'm on UAç's wifi, but for now here's a quick update:

• Our group this summer is small, only seven people. 
• Everyone is hella nice though; no drama on the horizon!
• We four girls are roomies, and of course one of them is distantly related to me. #saojorgeproblems
• Followed Professor Adao like little patinhos (duckies) from the pousada to campus this morning.
• Definitely had some first day of kindergarten butterflies.
• The University of the Azores (UAç) reminded me a lot of West Valley: small and surrounded by nature. I'm going to like it here.
• (Finally?) Added horrible cafeteria food to my college experience. I suppose I was overdue.
• Already learned a ton of Azorean history, and it was just the first day of classes!
• Some of that history took place right next to the campus!
• Went to the opera, mingled with some big shots. 
• Introduced to and going to be in the paper with the Azorean Minister of Culture!
• Brushed shoulders with the President of the Azores!
• Had my first introduction to Ponta Delgada night life.
• 3 euro caiprinhas? Yes, please.

São Miguel, you and I are going to get along just fine.

Pineapples, tea, and amateur geology opportunities on the horizon for the weekend. I might even finally get a chance to go swimming!

Catch you all up on Monday!

Leaving São Jorge

I still have a pile of raw footage and some half completed posts about São Jorge, but those are going to have to wait. (Flashback Fridays? I could make that a thing.) I'm about to leave my little rock in the middle of the Atlantic for a slightly bigger one, but even that's just a pitstop on the way to continental Portugal. 

I'm getting serious C.S. Lewis's The Last Battle vibes. "Further up and further in!" I'm starting as small and familiar as I can get, but this country (while it isn't quite Aslan's country) is just going to grow as my journey this summer moves forward.

I'm glad I came early to see my family and ease myself into this experience. I left something out of my first blog post; São Jorge plays a huge part in how I got here. It is how I got here! It's where my roots are, even if I'm a transplant that blossomed in American soil. My personal journey started here (I left São Jorge the first time as a fetus), so of course the chase for my Atlantis this summer had to start here, too. 

One thing did sink in, however. I might be from here, but I'm not of here. I never understood that truth quite so intensely as I did this summer. I never felt my separateness, my Americanness, more keenly than this summer. Almost everyone I knew here as a child is married with kids or nearly so. Their lives are nothing like mine. They're smaller. On this island, there's only so much space to grow.

My life would have been entirely different if I'd grown up here. It nearly happened, too. I understand now why so many people leave. Some come back and stay, but not all of them do. My parents nearly did when I was four. I have so much to than them for, but let's add that to the list. I might have done a lot of stupid (and not so stupid) things to get to where I am today and become the late blooming academic that I am today, but I don't think I'd want any other life.

Enough insomniac ramblings. Early flight tomorrow. Good night, São Jorge.

Festa de Santo Antão - June 9th: The (More Than Seven) Wonders of São Jorge and The Trolling of the Bulls

These are the first Frankenvideos I've made using iMovie, so

a) that's why it's taken so long to get this blog up.
b) be kind.
c) a and b.
d) the quality sucks.

And as we of the standardized test generation all know, the answer is always C.

So, this trip to São Jorge I finally made it to the other end of the island. Twice, even! The first time, it was for the Festa de Santo Antão, the freguesia (village, I guess), just outside of Topo where my cousin Tania is from.

First off, the parade showcasing the (more than seven) Wonders of São Jorge:

Later that evening, we had a tourada. However, Azorean bullfights aren't the fancypants things you're used to seeing from Spain. The Portuguese do have something similar (touradas da praça), but I grew up watching touradas à corda, named for the fact that the bull is kept on a rope. Enjoy:

Making the best of my Friday the 13th - Calçadas in Velas

So today it was finally warm enough to go swimming! After lunch today I was dropped off down in Velas, the main town, so I could have a swim in the poça (the swimming hole, I suppose). Someone beat me to it:

Normally, I love all things purple. I love all things to do with the water. But not these guys: águas-vivas, which translates literally to living water. You might know them as jellyfish, but to me they're the trolls of the ocean, and they trolled me hard.

So I trekked back to Tia Angela's, changed out of my swimming things, and decided to make the best of things by taking a walk and snapping some pictures... only to find that my battery was dead and I didn't have the European adaptor for my charger.

Call it Friday the 13th, Mercury retrograde, or just a jinx, but never let it be said I'm a quitter... or that I go anywhere without my iPhone! Hope the quality isn't horrible. Better videos of my travels around São Jorge to come; I'm working on mastering iMovie now. Or, at the very least, becoming competent.

Behold, the calçadas, or Portuguese sidewalk mosaics, of the Vila das Velas. Calçadas are found throughout the Lusophone world, so consider this an introduction:

Feliz Dia de Camões! Let's get literary.

If there's such a thing as an "America Day", then it's the 4th of July. The Declaration of Independence was signed, and we told England to shove it because we were all grown up and we were going to do what we wanted. It's just the sort of thing a young country would celebrate.

Portugal, on the other hand, is old. 875, by my count. She has the oldest unchanged borders in Europe and she's had several "independence days":

• June 24, 1128: The Battle of São Mamede: Dom Alfonso Henriques beats him mother and her lover in battle, takes over the County of Portugal
• July 26, 1139: Dom Alfonso Henriques acclaimed King of Portugal
• October 5, 1143: Kingdom of Castile and Leon recognizes Portugal
• May 13, 1179: Pope Alexander III recognizes Dom Alfonso Henriques as King of Portugal
• December 1, 1640: Portugal, which had become part of the Spanish Hapsburg empire after the death of King Sebastian I, declares independence from Spain
• April 25, 1974: Carnation Revolution, Estado Novo dictatorship overthrown

So, instead of an independence day, Portugal's national day is celebrated on the anniversary of the death of their greatest poet, Luis de Camões. How is that not awesome? In 1572 he published Os Lusiadas, (The Lusiads, in English) an heroic epic poem in the style of Homer and especially Virgil. Check out the opening stanza and see what I mean:

As armas e os Barões assinalados

Que da Ocidental praia Lusitana

Por mares nunca de antes navegados

Passaram ainda além da Taprobana,

Em perigos e guerras esforçados

Mais do que prometia a força humana,

E entre gente remota edificaram

Novo Reino, que tanto sublimaram.

Translation by me, more literal than lyrical:

The arms and Heroes marked

That the western Lusitanian shore

By seas never before navigated

Yet passed beyond Taprobana,

Through dangers and grueling wars

More that what was promised by human strength,

And amongst remote peoples they built

A New Kingdom, a sublimation of both.

If that doesn't sound familiar, check out the opening lines of Virgil's Aeneid, translated from Latin by A.S. Kline:

I sing of arms and the man, he who, exiled by fate,

first came from the coast of Troy to Italy, and to

Lavinian shores – hurled about endlessly by land and sea,

by the will of the gods, by cruel Juno’s remorseless anger,

long suffering also in war, until he founded a city

and brought his gods to Latium: from that the Latin people

came, the lords of Alba Longa, the walls of noble Rome.

Muse, tell me the cause: how was she offended in her divinity,

how was she grieved, the Queen of Heaven, to drive a man,

noted for virtue, to endure such dangers, to face so many

trials? Can there be such anger in the minds of the gods?

The key difference between Os Lusiadas and the Aeneid is in the opening line. Aeneas writes of "arms and the man" (emphasis mine). Os Lusiadas, on the other hand, speaks of "arms and heroes". While the great Greek epics are about singular men, Os Lusiadas is the story of the Portuguese people as a whole. Their epic journey is the conquest of the seas and the founding of the Portuguese Empire, just as the Aeneid is the chronicle of Aeneas's journey and his founding of the Roman Empire. 

While Juno is Aeneas's enemy and Venus is his patroness in the Aeneid, in Os Lusiadas the divine clash is between Neptune and Venus. She advocates for the Portuguese to Jupiter, while Neptune tries to defend his dominion over the seas. Considering that the Age of Discoveries is the only thing American school children learn about the Portuguese in school, I think we all know which side Jupiter chose. 

The two epics are further paralleled by their structure. They both start in medias res. Aeneas arrives in Carthage and then tells Dido about how he got there. In Os Lusiadas, Vasco da Gama arrives on the east coast of Africa after roundig the Cape of Good Hope. There, the King of Mombas welcomes him and asks how da Gama and his crew arrived. Instead of telling his story, da Gama recounts Portugal's history, and how it led to him and his historic voyage.

The name Os Lusiadas comes from Lusitania. It was the Roman province that more or less matches Portugal's borders today, and so poetically the Portuguese still refer to themselves as Lusitanians. Luso- is the prefix used to denote a thing as being Portuguese, in the same way that Sino- is used for Chinese. For example (incoming shameless plug!) the Luso-American Education Foundation

Camões himself wasn't some poet scribbling down his musings from his ivory tower. He was a certified badass:

No, he's not winking at at you; he lost his eye fighting the Moors in Ceuta! His military service also took him to Goa, and later he was offered a position in Macau. On his way back home to Portugal, he was shipwrecked near Cambodia. According to legend, Camões let his lover drown because he was using both hands to hold the only manuscript of Os Lusiadas out of the water!

Portugal was reaching it's peak as a world power when Camões finished Os Lusiadas, which ends with a warning to King Sebastian to maintain Portugal's glory. Instead, the young, heirless, and allegedly mad king died fighting the Moors in Africa at the Battle of Alcacer Quibir, and Portugal fell into the hands of Sebastian's closest relative, Phillip of Spain. Elizabethan scholars might know him as Bloody Mary's husband. Portugal would remain a Spanish possession for eighty years, but would never return to her former glory.

The full name of today's holiday is O Dia de Portugal, Camões, e as Comunidades Portuguesas, or The Day of Portugal, Camões, and the Portuguese Communities. Ties to Portuguese diaspora are felt strongly in Portugal and vice versa. I am, after all, studying abroad this summer for a reason. This weekend there'll be a Dia de Portugal celebration at History Park in San Jose that you should check out. (http://www.diadeportugalca.org/) The SF Giants also had their first annual Portuguese Heritage Night, which I was bummed out to miss. Oh darn, this is what I get for following my heritage to its source this summer, I guess.

I'll close with some of my favorite lines from Os Lusiadas, translated this time by William Julius Mickle.

Ó grandes e gravíssimos perigos! Ó caminho de vida nunca certo: Que aonde a gente põe sua esperança, Tenha a vida tão pouca segurança! No mar tanta tormenta, e tanto dano, Tantas vezes a morte apercebida! Na terra tanta guerra, tanto engano, Tanta necessidade aborrecida! Onde pode acolher-se um fraco humano, Onde terá segura a curta vida, Que não se arme, e se indigne o Céu sereno Contra um bicho da terra tão pequeno? O piteous lot of man's uncertain state! What woes on Life's unhappy journey wait! When joyful Hope would grasp its fond desire, The long-sought transports in the grasp expire. By sea what treacherous calms, what rushing storms, And death attendant in a thousand forms! By land what strife, what plots of secret guile, How many a wound from many a treacherous smile! O where shall man escape his numerous foes, And rest his weary head in safe repose!

Fajã do Ouvidor

Yesterday I went with Tia Angela and my Soares cousins to the Fajã do Ouvidor. What's a fajã, you ask? Well, it's a geological formation found almost exclusively on São Jorge. I'm an amateur geologist thanks to nerding out in and remembering way too much of Dr. Lopez's Physical Geology class at West Valley, so I'm working on some posts about Azorean (and maybe even Portuguese?) geology in the coming days. This blog is going to be fun and (eventually) educational, too!

I went to Santa Cruz last Thursday and bid the Pacific goodbye as part of my plan to touch two oceans in the space of one week.

However, when I got to the fajã, the Atlantic was a bit... moody.

Walking down to the poça (I guess in English you'd call it a swimming hole), it was a little bit brisk:

So much then for my two oceans, one week plan. I think I got enough salt spray in my face making that video that I still deserve credit on a technicality. Still, there's something to be said for the romance of trekking through gorgeous black claws of basalt on a windswept day. Enjoy!

From Oakland to São Jorge, by the numbers

I'm too tired/jetlagged/time confuzzled to put together something terribly coherent (and I reeeeeeally want to go to sleep but still feel obligated to post something for consistency's sake), so here's a bunch of numbers detailing my trek from Oakland to São Jorge. Listicles are the cool thing these days anyway, right?

Hours waited to check luggage? One.

-Never expect large groups of Portuguese people do to anything in a timely manner.

Line jumping jerks sem vergonha nenhuma? Two.

-Yes, please jump in front of me when my section finally gets to the gate instead of getting into the back of the line like everyone else.

-Because they’re not trying to get us to board the plane back to front in an orderly fashion.

-Because the rules don’t apply to you.

-Yes, you two pretending not to understand English.

-Yes, I do understand Portuguese. 

-It's because of my baby face, isn't it?

-Tal falta de vergonha.

Countries set foot in? Three.

-Okay, we didn't get off the plane in Toronto. But I was on Canadian soil, damn it.

Empty seats in my row? One!

-Did I sprawl out on both seats and sleep like a baby? Mmmhmmm.

Hours slept? No idea, (because of pesky time zone math) but pretty much straight from after dinner service to breakfast. Speaking of which…

In-flight meals? 2.5

-Dinner

-After dinner coffee

-Breakfast

Discount on SATA ticket next year because of the 24 hour delay? 50%!

-Guess who's probably coming back next year as a graduation present to herself?

Flights taken? Two.

Oakland to Terceira (w/ the aforementioned pitstop in Toronto)

Terceira to Sao Jorge

Hours in the air? Twelve-ish.
-OAK->TOR? 7ish
-TOR->TER? 5ish
-TER->SJZ? .5ish

Airports with free wifi? Three!

-OAK

-TER

-SJZ

-Meanwhile, LAX still doesn’t. A rock in the middle of nowhere has free airport wifi, but not LAX. Because LAX sux.

Maracujas drunk today? Three!

-1 Fanta

-2 Kima

-So far, Katherine is right: Kima is better.

-But I need a bigger sample size to be sure, and I still haven’t had Sumol either. For science!

Cousins seen today? Greater than or equal to five.

-Maaaaybe that family on the flight?

-Pedro, Arnalda, and baby Inês

-Carlos and Cidalia

But the feeling of returning home? Unquantifiable. 

Portagee Airport Bingo

Work in progress, based on today's experiences. Anyone have any suggestions?

Wait over  an hour to  check your bags	“Oh, eu nao te conheci!”		Precariously overloaded smartecarte	Out of control children running around
SATA is late	Portuguese national team soccer jersey	Meet 5 different Marias	“Esta linha nunca acaba!”,  or some other  comment about the line
Meet someone  in line that you didn’t know was going “as ilhas” too		FREE SPACE		Avozinho/a forgets to take  off their watch, belt, misc metal at security
		Porto, Benfica or Sporting soccer jersey
		Someone bringing their dog with them	Meet someone related to you