The Brown Knowser

Every day up to Thursday, we checked the weather. And every day, up to Thursday, the weather was the same: sunny and a temperature in the mid 20s. Perfect. Before we left the apartment, each morning, we checked that we had the essentials: money, keys, transportation cards, and water. Almost every day, I packed my hat, though there were some days that were so windy, especially when we went up in the mountains, when I left my hat behind, afraid that it could blow away. At least one camera would usually come with me, as well as a video camera. "It's a bit overcast," I said, as I looked out the window. It was before sunrise but there was enough light in the sky to see that it wasn't clear. "Hopefully, it'll burn off when the sun comes up," said DW. I grabbed my backpack—this time with two D-SLRs and my Insta360 One R, on a three-metre monopod. The backpack was heavy but it wasn't the first time I had travelled with so much gear. A few blocks from our apa...

We found it so nice, we went to it twice. Along transit route 15E, heading west, is the neighbourhood of Belém. It is the area of Portugal's capital that is long regarded as the landmark for the last part of Lisbon that a sailor would see, as he sailed to lands unknown, or as the first sign that he had finally returned home. It is a testament to the riches that were amassed from the famous Spice Route, where the massive monastery of Jerónimos was built thanks to the taxes that were levied on merchant ships. It is home to the world-famous treat, Pastéis de Belém. And, as mentioned, the Torre de Belém bid sailors a bon voyage and welcomed them home. DW and I started our Tuesday at the Praça do Comércio, in the heart of Lisbon. Our first mission was to pick up the Lisboa Card that we had ordered, online, from the tourist information centre in the plaza. From there, we hopped on the modern tram 15E, heading west, and got off between the Pastéis de Belém café and Mosteiro...

DW and I were just looking for a drink on one of the many lookouts that overlook Lisbon. We had just finished a wonderful meal at a great restaurant in the Bairro Alto neighbourhood, and we wanted to unwind. DW had also seen Pina Coladas, served in fresh pineapples, and she craved one. We walked to the Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara, which is only a six-minute walk from our apartment, and where DW and I had seen a lot of discarded pineapple carcasses when we went to that lookout, the previous morning, to photograph sunrise. We learned that a Pina Colada from a pineapple was 15 euros, to which DW said "no thanks," and we continued walking along the various kiosks in search of other drinks. A young gentleman approached me and asked if I smoked, as he was hoping to get a cigarette from me. When I said I didn't smoke, he said that I was wise for not developing that nasty habit, and we started talking about life in general. He said his name was Roman Villa (his artist nam...

"There's nothing in Tunes," she said. I groaned. We had a two-and-a-half-hour layover in the Algarvian town of Tunes (pronounced Too-nesh ) and I was already hot and tired. And hungry. I envisioned us at the cheap and nasty café at the station, fighting to keep one another awake while we awaited our transfer to Lisbon. Our train from Portimão had taken us to this hub town, where we were scheduled to take a first-class berth on an express train to Portugal's capital city, the second-oldest European city, after Athens, Greece. "There's no way I'm staying in the station," said DW. She consulted Google for restaurant recommendations and found a place, just 400 metres down the road from the train station. It seemed to have favourable reviews, so she suggested that we check it out. If there was nothing to see in Tunes, the best we could hope for was a decent meal. As the road came to a bend, we could see a small patio that was already occupied by what appe...

So many photos. The only downside that I find to coming home from a vacation, apart from the sadness that my leisure time is at an end, is that I have so much work ahead to go through my photos, cull the bad shots or ones that are duplicates, and edit the ones that are real keepers. On a vacation that lasts weeks, the culling and editing process can sometimes take longer than the vacation itself. I know: first-world problem. By the end of the sixth day of our trip to Portugal, I have captured more than a thousand images and have recorded more than two hours of video. And we still have 10 days to go. I'll be lucky if I've finished editing before our next vacation, in January. We're currently in the city of Lagos, on the southern coast of Portugal, in the Algarve region. We started our visit with a three-hour kayak tour of the jagged rock formations that form the cliffside coast. It was a great way to see these structures and gives you a wonderful perspective. The next day, w...

A little more than four years ago, I came close to ending my life. I chose the place, ahead of time: took a photo from where it was going to happen. I even wrote a short, somewhat dark blog post and shared the photo but did not state my intentions. I wasn't looking for someone to figure it out and try to intervene. I didn't want intervention: I wanted to simply check out. This time, next year , I told myself. If I still feel this way, I'm going to jump off the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge on an ice cold winter's day. The solid ice will guarantee that I don't survive. I used to live with incredible pain in my left foot. I've written about it enough times in The Brown Knowser that regular readers will know about my ordeal. I had the same issues with my right foot and had corrective surgery for the disease that had afflicted both feet, but I also dealt with acute arthritis. My left foot was getting worse, and I was seeing a specialist about the corrective surgery, but...

On the other side of the Douro River from Porto is the smaller city of Gaia. This is the place from which the wines that are world renown are made. It's also the best place to be to view the city of Porto. I don't have much to say today because DW and I are flying from Porto to Faro, in the Algarve region, and then taking a train to the town of Lagos, where we'll be for three nights. I'll have more to say from there, on Thursday. In the meantime, enjoy this photo of Porto, taken from the city of Gaia.

We're going to have to come back. When DW and I originally planned our trip to Portugal, we initially thought that we could visit the northern city of Porto as a day trip from Lisbon. We'd take an early morning train, arrive in Porto by lunch, see the highlights, visit a port wine cellar, have dinner, and then catch the last train back to Lisbon. But when we did the math and figured out the time, we just didn't have enough time to make a day trip worthwhile. So we thought we would arrange to stay overnight and ensure that we got a good day and a half to see everything without feeling rushed. Problem solved. But as we began to make more concrete plans and as we watched more travel videos on YouTube, we realized that Porto needed more attention and that we would start our Portugal vacation in this historic city. We would stay in the city for two days, take a day trip up the Douro Valley and visit a quinta or two (wineries). It's still not enough time. We arrived in Porto ...

Today's the day that DW and head to Portugal, and we couldn't be more excited. We've had this trip booked since late March and I've been talking about it a lot since our bookings have been made. We're all packed and fly out this evening. I have all of my D-SLR equipment and video cameras with me so I plan to make some upcoming YouTube videos when we return. Our first destination, after landing in Lisbon, is Porto, in the northern part of the country. There, we'll explore the beautiful city and take a trip up the Duoro Valley for some port winery tours. I've brought my computer with me and hope to share some blog posts over the next two weeks. If I miss a day, I hope you'll understand: this trip will be action-packed and I might not always have time or Internet connectivity. This is our first time to Europe since 2014 and this trip is long overdue. We still want to recreate the vacation that we had planned in 2020 but got cancelled because of COVID, but...

It's my final beer review for the summer. Autumn (my favourite season) begins next Thursday. I'm also looking forward to my vacation , which begins tomorrow, and I'm anticipating trying various Portuguese beer (in addition to wine and port). I won't be reviewing any beer while I'm away but you can be sure that I'll include it in some of the video footage that I shoot while I'm there. So, as the final Summer of '22 beer review comes upon me, I thought I would go with a hazy IPA, whose colourful label caught my eye as I wandered the aisles of my local grocery store. This IPA takes its inspiration from both the east-coast and west-coast styles. Does it work? Coastal Wave IPA (6% ABV; 40 IBUs) Lost Craft Beer Toronto ON Appearance: pours a hazy, apricot-gold with a foamy, slightly off-white head that reminded me of the inside of an orange peel. It settled to a dense lace or very thin cap. Nose: intense tangerine with a touch of lime and a slight hint of m...

In the end, I just couldn't justify it. I mean, if someone in our family was to spend big bucks on corrective eye surgery, it should be DW. Without her glasses or contact lenses, she is basically blind. If she drops her glasses on the floor, she is literally like Thelma, in Scooby Doo , on her hands and knees, feeling around for her specs. After visiting a clinic for corrective eye surgery, I was leaning toward lens replacement surgery (Refractive Lens Exchange) over laser eye surgery because it was permanent and prevented ever having issues with cataracts—not that there's any history of that in my family. But the $10,000 price tag is what ultimately got to me. That's a lot of great camera gear, or it would go a long way to paying off our Niro. It would be a nice vacation for our entire family. It was even hard for me to reconcile the price of the laser eye surgery, which was half the price. I can be tight with a buck, and as I said, if anyone was going to pay this muc...

In a way, I'm kind of like this at my job, too. Kind of. Our fence fell down in December. We arrived home from our vacation in Cuba to find that two panels from our backyard fence had toppled into our neighbours to the south's (literally), behind our house. At the time, there wasn't much snow on the ground and the fence landed in a bare spot of lawn that was largely protected by an evergreen in our neighbour's backyard, but being December, snow was immanent. "I'm not going to worry about it until the spring," I told DW, "and besides, it looks like our neighbours are away, anyway." As it had turned out, those neighbours had actually moved and the new owner hadn't yet moved in. And as we later found out, at the end of December and into January, the owner spent the first few weeks renovating the interior and hadn't even noticed the gap in the backyard fence. DW and I also discovered, in late March, after the snow had melted, that the occupan...