Lisbon, Portugal
Luisa Gouveia told me a few weeks ago that seafood was the specialty of Portugal. So far we’ve tried salmon, squid and a white fish. Today we were at the market, with Google Translate working hard to let us know what the various fish names were in English (we did recognize octopus). We decided on sea bass, which here are displayed whole. However, there was someone behind the counter who weighed then cleaned the fish (but the head was left on the fish). I searched how to cook it, and we’ll bake it later tonight. That was our main food adventure today.
Update: the fish was fresh and very good.
Another specialty of Portugal is the Pasteis de Nata (Portuguese egg/cream tart, as mentioned in an earlier blog. The first ones we tried were the perfect blend of crisp pastry and a dense, not too sweet custard filling (Fabrica de Nata). They were great, but a 20 minute walk away. So we tried some from the pastry shop by the El Corte Ingles. I did not try these since Robin & Susan tried them first…the verdict; tough pasty crust but good filling. At any rate, all were eaten in one sitting. Today we tried one at a local pastelaria, or pastry shop. We all tried it…crust was a bit chewy, but better than the ones from last night, but the filling was too sweet. So I’m sure we’ll be walking back to Fabrica de Nata again this week.
Susan was complaining about the taste of the milk here. What we didn’t realize was that it was goat milk…we didn’t notice the picture on the bottle till it was empty (ok we never realized it…Robin did). Hopefully the bovine milk will be better tasting. #wedontspeakportuguese
Susan and I took Robin up to see the view of the city from a nearby hotel. We could see our apartment from there.
We did play some tennis today, on court 22, which is very short. For me, that would be good and bad…some balls would go over my head but many of my balls were going in and then hitting the fence without being touched. We had some good drills and doubles though. Somehow the discussion of string tension came up…Susan strings her racquet (a Dunlop) at the max, 63 or 63 pounds with natural gut; Diane is at 60 with a Babolat and multifilament; Robin is at 58 with multifilament and also a Babolat…and bringing up the rear, I string a 105 Volkl at 44 pounds with multifilament (or 48 with gut). After tennis we stretched a long time and then headed back to the apartment via the Kapten, a ride-sharing business (like Uber).
Tomorrow we play Spain, which is a stronger team than Brazil.
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And that’s a wrap on Day 2 of the 2019 ITF Seniors World Team Championships.
Fish should help with the strategy on court, but appears you are all on your way to glory without the fish dinners! Great photos, Thanks for sharing!
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