Stranger Things

God said,

"You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in Egypt,"

In that famous book

In the Exodus chapter.

He also said,

"Provide the poor wanderer with shelter,"

In that famous book

In the Isaiah chapter.

He reiterated,

"You shall treat strangers as the natives among you,"

In that famous book

In the Leviticus chapter.

Jesus said,

"I was a stranger, and you welcomed me,"

In that famous book

In the Matthew chapter.

Emma Lazarus said,

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

It's written on the Statue of Liberty.

A Texas man

Who claims to love that famous book,

Unhumbled by his own meeting with Death,

Said from his wheelchair,

"Drown, Norlan Bayardo Herrera."

And he drowned.

Twenty years old.

Murdered by Greg Abbott.

Say his name.

Belief Manifesto

I believe that a hotdog is a sandwich.

I believe that pineapple belongs on pizza, but chicken and arugula do not.

I believe that yellow mustard is an abomination and that the best mustard in the world comes from Luxembourg.

I believe that Lebanese food is the best, then Greek, then Italian, then Spanish, then Indian. Sorry, India, the Mediterranean is where it's at. Except you, Morocco. I never want to eat tajine again after three weeks of almost nothing but the stuff. Although the fish in Tangiers was great.

I believe that rotini is the best pasta and thin spaghetti is second, but there is no bad pasta shape.

I believe that it doesn't matter who technically invented pasta, because the Italians are the ones who perfected it.

I believe that we should buy local foods because the planet is on fire, and also because they taste better. 

I believe that many people think they don't like vegetables because they've only had the tasteless ones from mega grocery chains or frozen or canned ones.

I believe that four corporations shouldn't control 25% of the world's food supply and that food prices shouldn't be controlled by billionaires.

I believe that small farmers should have control over what they want to do with their seeds and how they want to use their equipment.

I believe that the future of agriculture is vertical hydroponic greenhouses because our current methods are unsustainable. The Dutch only have 0.22% of the world's population but are the second largest exporter of food in the world because of their sustainable agriculture practices like hydroponic greenhouses.

I believe that we should eat less meat, but we don't have to do away with it.

I believe that Dayton-style pizza is the best pizza and that Marion's trumps Cassano's.

I believe that "Detroit-style pizza" is whataboutmeism.

I believe that people can be tonguewashed like they can be brainwashed.

I believe that people who put ketchup on hotdogs are tonguewashed.

I believe that mega corporate restaurant chains are tonguewashing people first, then brainwashing them.

I believe that marketing is brainwashing.

I believe that marketing is propaganda.

I believe that marketing should be restricted, and marketing towards children should be banned.

I believe that religion is marketing, because marketing is propaganda and religion is propaganda.

I believe that propaganda is worse than a lie.

I believe that identity politics is propaganda.

I believe that identity politics is violence.

I believe that forcing your language preferences on others is also violence. 

I believe that pro-life propaganda wrecked this country, as it created a sizable demographic of single-issue voters who ignored every other problem and voted for the people creating or sustaining those problems.

I believe that the pro-life movement is immoral.

I believe that a fetus very well may be a soul, but it is not a life, and unless you're a deity, it's none of your  business.

I believe that human beings have souls, but only as part of a communion.

I believe that Hell is being left out of that communion.

I believe people choose Hell by denying that communion, and that the more religious one claims to be, the further away he is from that communion.

I believe that religious people are hypocrites.

I believe that the only worse people than hypocrites are cowards.

I believe that most people are cowards.

I believe that Pontius Pilate was the worst coward in history, fiction or not.

I believe that there was a Jesus Christ figure, a round table in England, a gay Sumerian king named Gilgamesh, and an elder council on Olympus as much as I don't believe in them.

I believe that The Grand Inquisitor chapter of The Brothers Karamazov is the greatest thing ever written about religion.

I believe in the zeitgeist, as it is part of the communion of souls.

I believe that sports are a necessary part of the zeitgeist, but that sports obsession is damaging to the world.

I believe that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens should be in the Hall of Fame, but that Pete Rose should be in prison for pedophilia.

I believe that Johnny Bench would have hit 500 homers if it weren't for that lung surgery.

I believe that Josh Gibson died of a broken heart.

I believe that all football is good, but the best football is rugby.

I believe that there are too many golf courses in the world and that golf courses are destructive. I also like the PGA, and Rory and Rickie are my favorite golfers.

I believe that sports teams are public institutions that belong to the cities they play in.

I believe that Bob Castellini and John Fisher should #SellTheTeam.

I believe that billionaire owners are destroying sports. 

I believe that billionaires are destroying the world.

I believe that fascism is the worst politico-economic system, but after that, the only thing worse than communism is capitalism.

I believe that socialism is a natural end goal, not something you force on people.

I believe in peace and just war.

I believe that Ukraine is fighting a just war.

I believe that World War II was a just war.

I believe that Americans learned nothing from World War II.

I believe that military or alternative service should be compulsory (some jobs could fulfill the requirement) so that Americans have skin in the game and stop voting for politicians who fight wars for oil and minerals for the benefit of the wealthy.

I believe in beating swords into plowshares.

I believe that plowshares should belong to the people, not corporations.

I believe that proverbial swords shouldn't belong to anyone and that 2A gunnuts are psychopaths responsible for hundreds of thousands of murders. 

I believe that gun and energy obsessions are the source of nearly all the problems of the world.

I believe that utilities should be nationalized.

I believe that internet and mobile service are utilities.

I believe that public transportation is a human right and that cars and fossil fuels should be phased out because the planet is literally on fire. Electric cars are not the answer.

I believe that oversized pickup trucks and SUVs should be banned for non-commercial use, but in the absence of that, hitting a pedestrian or cyclist should carry the same penalties as a DUI. Same goes for people who use their phones while driving. I believe that they can be taxed out of existence.

I believe that a passport should be the primary form of ID, not a driver's license.

I believe that cars are selfish.

I believe that our country is experiencing a pandemic of selfishness.

I believe in politeness. Rudeness is not culture.

I believe that other cultures should be taught in schools.

I believe that Republicans don't want other cultures taught in our public schools because they view them as mere labor factories.

I believe that homeschooling is anti-social and indoctrinating and not the answer.

I believe that other languages should be taught from kindergarten on, starting with Spanish.

I believe that study abroad should be a requirement for getting a college degree because the America-centric worldview is why our housing and medical costs are the most expensive in the world and why Americans have to create Go Fund Me pages to get live-saving surgery and medicines.

I believe that language is the most dangerous weapon on the planet.

I believe that media literacy should be required in schools because media is used as propaganda. 

I believe that humanities should be emphasized over STEM. We stopped teaching the humanities and Americans lost their humanity.

I believe that people who have few books in their houses should be seen and not heard.

I believe that you should read genre fiction if you like, but also read literary works and non-pundit non-fiction.

I believe there is more truth in fiction than in non-fiction. 

I believe that music and art should be taught as classes equal to math or reading, not elective extras.

I believe that music is the language of the divine, because music is math and math is the universe.

I believe that no music belongs to one culture. Once a type of music is deemed off limits to someone, it ceases to be music and it becomes politics.

I believe that The Beatles are actually underrated and Paul is an underrated bassist.

I believe that Neil Peart tarnished his legacy by being in a shitty band.

I believe that Jason Isbell is awesome and Jason Aldean is an asshole. 

I believe that people hate Bono because deep down he reminds them of how much they could be doing for the world but aren't.

I believe that Robert Pollard deserved to play in stadiums.

I believe that corporations have ruined pop music.

I believe that SoundScan did more to divide this country than any politician has, as it told people what music to listen to based on their demographic. If you were white, they sold you country. If you were black, they sold you rap. Before then, you could hear Ray Charles and Willie Nelson on the same radio station.

I believe that today's popular music is marketing.

I believe that marketing is a spectacle.

I believe that spectacle is not art.

I believe that spectacle is attention-whoring and that attention-whoring is a cry for help.

I believe that social media influencers are anti-social attention-whores.

I believe that Americans are the loneliest people in the world.

I believe that ADHD, anxiety, depression, conspiracy theorism, and similar mental illnesses are symptoms of a diseased society and that taking medications for them are like putting a bandaid on an amputation. 

I believe that the suburbs are the virus that started this disease.

I believe that the suburbs destroyed the town square, eliminating the "third place" (home, work, and another place to regularly hang out and socialize,) pushing people to distance and solitude.

I believe that suburban sprawl is immoral. It was founded by racism, after all, and it created the car culture that is destroying the planet.

I believe that individuals are as responsible for climate change as corporations, because individuals are the ones buying the products from the corporations, keeping them in power.

I believe that doing nothing about climate change is both murder and suicide.

I believe that those who commit murder should be locked up forever, and that suicide is deliberately choosing to leave the communion of souls, thus making you non-existent for all of eternity.

I believe that suicides can be prevented if enough people have the will to prevent them.

I believe that murder can be prevented by the same condition.

I believe that the GOP is a fascist party with no desire to prevent murder and suicide.

I believe that GOP voters are murderers.

I believe that January 6th should be a national day of mourning.

I believe that traitors to the United States should rot in Gitmo.

I believe that the participants in the coup attempt are traitors. If I believed in capital punishment, I'd want them publicly executed. But I don't, so Gitmo it is.

I believe the MAGA King should spend the final days of his disgusting life in Gitmo.

I believe in forgiveness and will forgive MAGA voters and even the insurrectionists if they apologize for their gleeful cruelty, their wanton racism, and their moral turpitude.

I believe that apologies are redemption.

I believe that forgiveness is true freedom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What was Stolen from Us

Reposted from Church of Baseball

One perfect day forty-five years ago  - at least I assume it was perfect because it was San Diego - a young mother from Dayton, Ohio took her one year old daughter to a baseball game. She dressed the child in the visiting team's gear, passing on team fandom to a fifth generation.

The team was nearing the end of its most successful decade in its long history - indeed, in the history of baseball in its entirety - with one of the greatest lineups ever assembled largely intact. The girl was too young to appreciate them, of course, and she'd be too young to feel the sting when the team was decimated by the institution of free agency a couple of years later. She was even too young to remember the Hall of Fame catcher roaming the outfield on bum knees when she attended her first game in a space age stadium on the banks of a muddy river on the other side of the continent.

Over the years, that fandom became part of her identity. Christmases and birthdays saw team gear unwrapped with glee. Attending games was a special treat for the girl, her two sisters, and her single mother trying to make ends meet. The team gave tickets to straight A students in the region, which became an annual tradition. A family friend would occassionally give his coveted blue seats to them. If they were lucky, they'd get to three games in a season. One particularly special year, she managed to go to one game a month.

That stadium by the river was a playground. The thrill of seeing it rise from the concrete and asphalt as their car rounded the highway bend remains in memories four decades later. So, too, does the feel of the black squishy stuff one walked on to get to the gates. And that first view of the verdant field as you walked from the concourse to the rainbow colored seats? Was it Heaven? No, it was Ohio. But it damn well could have been the Pearly Gates.

Then came the best possible outcome, the wish of every human being who has ever felt a passion for baseball. Her team won the World Series. They had been in first place the entire season, but they hadn't been expected to claim the trophy. She was in 8th grade.

Who could have expected that thirty-two years would pass with barely a sniff of a pennant? Who could have expected that baseball would change so much that rich guys who owned teams would lose on purpose, that indeed, it became ingrained in the culture, and that her own beloved team, the oldest in the game, would be one of those losers? Who would have thought that the racist old lady with the Nazi gear would be the last owner who cared to win?

Who could have expected that a fruit heir's son, a spoiled rich kid with no concept of what it means to work for a living, would berate the fans on the holiest day of the year - Opening Day in Cincinnati - and do it again in a luncheon for the biggest diehards of all? 

In the time since their last League Championship Series appearance, fans have been told time and time again to have patience, that rebuilding would finally return a trophy to the Queen City. Only once did they assemble a roster that could have gone somewhere, but the Fruit Heir refused to pay to fill the glaring holes, and that window shut after two failed division series and a wild card loss. A DECADE later, the wealthhoarding owner once again refused to fill the holes on a decent roster with a very good pitching staff, crying poverty and opting for another rebuild.

The team is exciting now. Call me skeptical. Maybe they'll contend this year, and they may next, but what always happens is the fruit guy cries poverty when it doesn't work out and it comes time to pay the young guys, so they're traded for prospects and the cycle starts all over again. The talking heads seem to think the Reds are legit contenders this year, because the central divisions of both leagues are full of greedy owners who pretend that because they live in the Midwest, they have a right to claim poverty. Only three teams are over .500 out of ten, and the Reds aren't one of them.

None of those owners is worse than the silver spoon born wealthhoarder in Oakland. The youngest son of the founders of GAP, this recluse isn't content with the $2.2 billion he's worth. No, he insists on a massive redistribution of wealth from the common folk to him in the form of a $380 million dollar taxpayer funded stadium. Oakland wouldn't give it to him, so he threw a richy fit and is moving the team to Sin City. That's $380 million that doesn't go to roads, police departments, libraries, social services, or any of the other things that are necessary in a modern society.

What Oakland fans did last night was nothing short of astounding, staging a "reverse boycott" and showing up in droves to cheer on their team. They've been blamed for not showing up. But why should they? Trust fund babies who never had to work for their wealth can't grasp that most people have to make choices in what they buy, and anyone with a modecum of sense doesn't waste money on things that make them feel bad. The owners think they are entitled to own a Major League Baseball team because that is what wealthhoarders do - they hoard wealth - and they think those baseball teams are theirs to destroy.

But sports teams are public institutions. Baseball is so hallowed in this country that it has a special trust exemption granted by Congress. Was so hallowed. Now that greed has become the way of life in this country, nothing but money seems to be hallowed.

I'm excited about the Reds again, but it will never be the same. Those fruit family assholes have stolen that from me. The wealthhoarders have stolen it from all of us. They are thieves.

But that is what America (and the world) has become. You see it in the record profits made by food and gas companies as corporate execs took advantage of a pandemic. You see it in the cost of housing which has exploded the homeless population and put another significant percentage of the population on the brink of it. You see it in the go fund me campaigns begging for donations to have life-saving medical procedures. You see it in the commercial train accidents, trucks blowing up highways, the neo-slavery in our factories. You see it in the wildfires, the devastating storms, and the flooding caused by corporate greed. The economy isn't bad. The wealthhoarders and the politicians who protect them are.

The top 1% of Americans took $50 TRILLION from the bottom 90% during the pandemic. That is the single greatest redistribution of wealth in history. It is THEFT. So is stealing a public institution from a city.

Until Americans stand up against the wealthy and take back what is rightfully ours, they will continue to steal from us. That's gonna take more than showing up to a baseball game in protest. 

But it was one heckuva start.

Tip-toeing through bullets

Home is one's castle, they say

But castles are known for their walls

To keep the invaders out

American castles - homes they are called

Keep their occupants in.

Bullets pass through walls

And flesh

And bones

And hearts and minds.

They maim

And murder

And destroy thoughts and reason and morality and society...

I heard the shots at the station that day

While sitting in my castle.

The killmonger killed

The politicians politicked

The cops copped

And nothing changed, as it never does.

I left my castle

And went for a walk.

Down on the Farm

I had made reservations for a cork farm two hour hiking tour the night before, but I got a phone call in the morning saying that it was a mistake, that I shouldn't have been able to reserve the tour because they weren't having one. But they did have a jeep tour available, which turned out to be better for Chris. All the walking we were doing was wearing him out.

 

Technology

Can I just take a minute to marvel at the fact that we can use our phones normally from nearly anywhere in the world? I know I say this every trip I go on, but it is really incredible. I went from not being able to figure out how to use a payphone in Ireland during my very first trip to Europe and having limited email access in Luxembourg due to the ratio of computers to students to using an entirely different sim card in Lebanon to having very expensive and limited data plans abroad to $10 a day (max $100), ironically on another trip to Ireland 20 years from the first. We live in amazing, amazing times. Appreciate them!

I honestly don't know what I'd do without a phone now. We make our plane, hotel, car, and train reservations on it. We use Google Maps and GPS to get around instead of the old paper maps that you could never again fold quite right. We buy tickets to museums and tourist sites as we stand in front of the museums and tourist sites, avoiding lines. We communicate with others who don't speak our language using Google Translate. We convert currencies, temperatures, and measurements. We even catch a game of our favorite sports teams if we're at a table somewhere or download new music we've learned about while traveling. And we uber, never again getting stranded for missing the last train because we were just having too much fun. 

Of all these changes, one of my favorites is the ability to instantly share our adventures with friends and family on the other side of the ocean, posting photos we took with and edited on our phones. Those of us who love to capture everything remember a time when you had to be discerning in what photos you took, given the limited number of pics you could take with an expensive role of film. 12, 24, or 36. That was it. (I take at least 1000 photos a trip these days, most on my Nikon. But I still took a couple hundred on my phone, too.) You had to get it right in one go, but you didn't know if you got it right until you had them developed, also expensive, and let's be honest, on a role of 24, you probably got ten good ones, and maybe two worth framing. If you were a decent shot.

My god, how many roles of film did I take during that year in Luxembourg or the next year's Transatlantic Seminar in Europe or the following year's internship in Ireland or the two years in California or the six months in Texas or my trips to Egypt and Jordan or all the baseball games or all my time in DC before I got a digital camera? I have volumes of photo albums as part of my personal library and I cherish them all.

But I never want to go back to that. Sure, it takes me months to make photo albums now, because I have to sort through thousands of photos, edit them, print them, and paste them in cute little scrapbooks, but I enjoy doing it, and it brings me back to the trips themselves.

The Farm

But this post is supposed to be about cork. It was my second favorite thing we did on the trip.

We had to drive about a half hour to the Corktrekking (if you go to Portugal, I highly, HIGHLY recommend them.) The tours are a small part of the farm's operations, but in my opinion, a pretty vital part of it, given the existential threat cork trees face. People NEED to know what is happening to this planet. We can see it with our own eyes, but if you never leave your house, you're probably missing it!

A pair of Dutch brothers own the farm, although technically it's two farms because of inheritance taxes and blah blah. Smart on their part. From the warehouse meetup point, we hopped into a 4x4 jeep-type vehicle with another couple, Kate and Kyle (I remember this because I made a joke about all of our names starting with K sounds, LOL) and went to Peter's farm, which includes a winery that produces high quality - and expensive - wines. In a country where wine is oh so cheap, I was surprised to learn their wines go for $300 a bottle and are served at the highest end restaurants. Needless to say, we had none.

Our "trekking" vehicle

 

To get to the farm, you have to take a dirt road that divides the farms of two other brothers, both terrible people, apparently. They hate each other, and one has cows that he lets eat the grape vines of the other. You could see almost total destruction of his vineyard. I wonder if the cows get drunk. LOL. Our guide, Julia, hinted at some choice words for them, though she refrained from saying them aloud. 

We got through their property and hit the farm, where we found beautiful wine fields fading into autumn colors. The grapes had been harvested in August to save them from the drought that saw zero inches of rain the entire summer. In this region - the hottest part of Portugal - grapes are usually harvested in September. They would have lost the entire crop had they waited until then. Julia told us this year's wine would be "strong" but good. (It's a shame I won't get to try it; I tend to like that type of wine.)

She found some grapes on the vine - syrah - and let the four of us taste them. Tiny but tasty. They grow four types of grapes, including one of my favorites - tempranillo.

 

Holms

But...cork!

Wait, first, holms and pigs! Holms, or live oaks, are cousins to cork trees, which are also oaks. Neither of their leaves look like our trees in America, and they are dwarves compared to our towering and majestic oaks. This is, of course, because they exist in hot environments in Mediterranean and Med-adjacent countries, where all trees are shorter. They are oak trees because they produce acorns.

 

The holms produce acorns that pigs LOVE, so in the spring, pigs arrive to roam freely among the holm trees to get fat before they are shipped to Spain and turned into prosciutto (presunto in Portuguese) before getting shipped back. You can't go to the Iberian peninsula without eating tons of prosciutto, and it's damn good. Of course the pigs for this year were already prosciutto by the time we got to the farm. Poor piggies, but so delicious! 

Old Rocks

We returned to the car and drove a bit before stopping at a pile of rocks. Turns out, it was a prehistoric burial site - called a dolmen - that they recently discovered. A team of archaeologists was working to restore the site, but they had to stop their work when covid hit and they are making plans to return again within the next year or so.

This type of site is all over Portugal and the world. Korea has 40% of the world's known dolmens. They're found all over India, the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe, especially where Celtic peoples roamed, as they did in Portugal. Dolmens are single chamber tombs consisting of two or more upright megaliths (big rocks) supporting another big rock called a "table." The Portuguese ruins are 2000 years older than Stonehenge. (We'd later go to a site they refer to as "Portuguese Stonehenge.) 

Finding historic ruins on a farm is not uncommon. But that's true of Europe, the Middle East, and so many other parts of the world. I once went to a farm in Lebanon that was putting in a solar/wind hybrid system, and they found a Roman winery when trying to install the turbine. Very cool.

Who knows what other ancient human creations lie beneath this land?

 

Cork! 

But...CORK!

Then we drove to the cork part of the farm. Unlike many cork farms, this was a natural cork forest that regenerates from wherever the acorns fall. Many cork farms are planted in rows, but this farm is dedicated to sustainable agriculture. Farmers on other farms are exacerbating the effects of climate change with practices that are detrimental to the environment. But many sustainable farms like this exist, and farmers are starting to realize they need to change. The alternative is economic ruin first, then a dystopian nightmare that few people seem to want to prevent. You think the price of eggs is bad now? Wait until there are no eggs. Forget wine - it's already hard enough to grow it now.

Portugal produces 80% of the world's cork and 52% of the world's wine corks, but just a short time ago, they produced 90% of the world's cork and 80% of wine corks. Now, thanks to climate change, the layers of cork bark the trees are producing is often too thin to harvest for wine corks. Not only did they have no rain all summer, but temperatures reached 120° in the region. It was 85° on the day we went. On October 15. NOT NORMAL. 

I will never look at a wine cork the same way again. It takes FORTY YEARS to make a wine cork. 40. Four-oh. The cork is harvested by hand every 9-12 years, but it can't be harvested until a tree is 25 years old. The first couple of harvests produce inferior bark. This can be turned into all the souvenir crap they sell - cork bags, cork hats, cork postcards, cork wallets, cork bikinis...at least, our guide Julia claims she saw those. LOL

A cork tree harvested in 2020 (the 0 represents the year of the last harvest)

 

It isn't until the third harvest that the bark is supposed to be thick enough to make into wine corks. Now, however, even the third harvest often produces a layer that is too thin. It's supposed to be 9-12 years, but it's pushing 12 now, and she said that soon it might be 14 or 15 years between harvests.

There is another threat facing the cork industry as well, one that is well known to farmers in any industry across the world. Younger generations don't want to work on farms, and it's causing a labor shortage. In Portugal, it used to be that cork harvesters - called "strippers" (yes, jokes were made) - passed on their trade from generation to generation. The children would come to the cork harvests to watch and help do menial tasks and grow up around the art. Yes, it's an art. It's a very delicate job. If you cut too deep, you expose the trees to disease. If you don't cut deep enough, you ruin the whole layer. She showed us a tree that was dying because it had been cut too deep. You could see where the bugs had gotten in. 

Anyway, the kids don't want to be strippers anymore, and even though they have schools to train strippers, they are starting the learning process in their twenties, too late in life to really get it. I suppose it's like learning a language. It's so much harder when you are older. Enroll your kids in a language course while they're young!

All of this has led to a massive cork shortage. This is why you see screw tops and synthetic stoppers on wine these days. This is fine for grocery store wine. It's not good for better wines. Even though it's "air tight," there is something about it that good wines need, some kind of...breathability? I'm not a scientist or a wine expert, but I trust those who are. The wine cork is an art that has been perfected over millennia.

A third threat is wild boars, which like to sharpen their tusks against the trees, ruining the layer of cork. Because of this, the farm allows hunters.

One last thing about corks. One cork costs $4-$5 to produce, so when you're buying a $15 bottle of grocery store wine, one-third of that cost is the cork. Think about that. 

I'm never throwing another cork away again. 

(Full disclosure: I've been saving them for years anyway. LOL)

Cork acorns

Because of the scarcity of water, trees grow far apart in a cork forest

A tree that was cut too shallow one year and they had to wait another year to harvest

The tree they called Big Mama. It grows near an underground water source. You can see a well to the right.

Big Mama's branches

wine corks punched from a layer of cork bark

A tree that was cut too deep. Disease has set in and it is dying - you can see the empty branches.

Growing wine and its cork next to each other

 

Technology Part 2

Back to technology - Google Maps is essential for driving through a place you've never been, but it is still relatively new, all things considered, and is less accurate in some places. I did everything the gringo lady said and still managed to go in circles before getting back on track to head back to Évora. We did get there, however, and found all the free parking on our last night in the city. 

I let Chris take a nap and wandered around the city for a bit until it was time to go to dinner. Afterwards, we went to watch some live music at our local pub for our last night in the city.

San Francisco church

Selfie with gourds

religious figurines

The Evora aqueduct, built in 1531

the old city wall

this dinner was fantastic

It was a very good day.