De Boemerang

Every so often Gwaz makes her way to De Boemerang. “The Boomerang” as we call it closely resembles its American cousin, The Goodwill Industries. A second-hand store, De Boemerang accepts donations of conceivably almost anything, mostly household items, and then sells them for pennies, so to speak.

Condiment Platter

Want an 8-track player? (I swear I saw one there.) Need a baby crib? Maybe a couch? How about a complete set of bone china? Bikes, toys, record albums, can openers, no kidding, this place is incredible, and the best part is the prices. Two euros for the German version of an Irish coffee serving. A mixing bowl for fifty cents or a glass tea-bag caddy for a dime. Some things are more, but its all relative. A heavy rough-cut wooden dining room table for twenty-seven euros, IKEA lounge chairs for seventeen. Who knows what this stuff cost new? Who cares?

A tile perfect for the table I plan to make

Last weekend I joined Gwaz on a rummaging expedition. I have been collecting souvenir porcelain tiles for a project I have in mind, and I figured De Boemerang might be just the place. Just before I found the tackiest commemorative tile (exactly what I had hoped for…) I heard the expression that for most men signals the end of discussion. “I want this,” I heard Gwaz say while eagerly showing me what she had found—a vintage Dutch wood & lace window screen.

This is not the first “this” that Gwaz has found at De Boemerang. There’s the German coffee set I mentioned, flower vases, and assorted glassware, but nothing like the screen. Designed to diffuse sunlight or to partially block the curious view of anyone looking in, the lace window screens can be seen all over Holland. No longer serving the useful purposes for which they were once so popular, they are more decorative than utilitarian these days, but nonetheless Gwaz “wanted one,” and she found one…in, of all places, De Boemerang.

German "Irish Coffee" Set

The Dutch Love Their Children

In parts of three years I’ve noticed a few things about Dutch people. They’re tall—that one takes a New York minute to discover. They have a weirdly different sense of proximity, which I often perceive as rude. They all seem to speak at least two languages, but hey, one of them is English; and last but not least, they love their children.

Wanna stand in the cart? Fine.

I’m no expert on the subject, but I have two eyes. Dutch children seem to have liberties that parents the world over might not recognize. For example take play, you know, recreation. Getting wet or muddy or even injured is viewed as part and parcel—it goes with the territory. As the Dutch say, “je bent niet van suiker” (you’re not made of sugar). Children on school playgrounds are not often denied their recesses because of the weather unless an ark floats by first.

I mention all that as contrast to a rare sight we witnessed at the train station recently. From our seats on the elevated platform we could hear the stereo wails of two children riding the escalator from the lower deck. Sure enough a woman and her two crying daughters joined the crowd.

Their crying was so intense, so conspicuous that everyone’s attention was drawn to them. They seemed to feel each other’s pain as they matched one another in volume and intensity. There’re all kinds of crying, right? There’s sad crying, and there’s hurt crying. There’s mad crying, and there’s denied crying, and then there’s the kind of crying we heard. Theirs was the parallel reality crying of children so far over the line that only sleep will erase.

Over the side of a ferry? Really?

I don’t care how much someone professes to love his or her children; there are times when devotion is suspended just long enough to deliver a cease-and-desist order. My father used the palm of his hand on the soft parts of my posterior. My mother wasn’t averse to using the business end of a fly swatter. The lady with the two screaming children selected the time-tested method of hands on both shoulders and the unmistakable tone-of-voice that only fed up parents can muster.

I have to admit—it was conspicuous, but as a guy living among people that rarely—I mean really rarely—discipline children in public, it was, to say the very least, unusual. I’m not prone to staring, but as you already read, the scene developing directly behind us—the screaming, Mama’s raised voice, snatching up the little girl—it got my attention (as well as everyone else).

The older girl seemed to regain composure while mother scooped up the little one, who began the hyperventilation of a kid who knows she should stop crying, but can’t—breath…syllable…breath…syllable…breath… Like I said, the whole thing was unusual, but what happened next was down right noteworthy. I told you that the Dutch love their children. Apparently they just love children. The woman sitting next to us opened her bag, retrieved some bottled water and handed it to her husband. He opened it, walked a few steps to the bench behind us and offered the bottle to the older girl. She drank and handed it back. He offered the bottle to the little one, but without taking the bottle she lowered her head onto her mother’s chest and seemed to catch her breath.

With a decidedly different tone, the girls’ mother thanked the man, moved the sweaty hair from the little girl’s forehead and pulled her exhausted daughter close.

Lisbon (Pt. 2)

Praça do Comércio

The first time we saw the Praça do Comércio I asked a simple question: What is this? (A ‘praça’ is a square, a plein—as it’s known in Dutch, much like the English word ‘plaza’.) Known colloquially as Terreiro do Paço (the palace square), the Praça do Comércio is huge. With so much “unused” space I had to wonder out loud, but after a minute’s worth of research I got my answer.

 

View of Castelo de Sāo Jorge from Praça do Comércio

A quick 360 from the praça reveals a number of jaw-dropping features: the river on one side, a three-sided behemoth of a building completing the perimeter, a glorious statue dead center, a massive archway supporting a remarkable set of statues, and a tiny, little castle way, way, way up on a hill. Here's the thing: that castle—the Castelo de Sāo Jorge, which is anything but little—was part of the answer to my question.

Cruise ships at Praça do Comércio

When Dom Alfonso Henriques conquered Lisbon in 1147 he turned the castle into a royal residence, for which it was used during the next four centuries. In 1511, Manuel I transferred the royal residence from the castle to the current site of the Praça do Comércio. In 1755, the now infamous earthquake and subsequent fire that demolished Lisbon heavily damaged both the palace by the river and the castle.

Enter Marquês de Pombal. With an ostensibly blank slate, the Marquês envisioned a three-sided palace facing the river, which is what we see today…sort of. After the revolution of 1910, the palace was converted to government offices and the once-stately courtyard became a public square (nowadays lined on two sides by shops and restaurants and along the river by cruise ships once per week).

Current residents of Castelo de Sāo Jorge

Getting to that “tiny, little” castle was almost as memorable as the castle itself. The city is old. The streets are narrow. There’s more traffic than Daytona Beach at Spring Break, and the incline makes Everest seem doable. So we took a bus. I am quite certain that the term “peddle to the metal” originated here. It is so steep that the driver had to maintain his forward momentum lest we tumble backward into the sea. I needed a blood pressure cuff when you couple all that with the driver’s inclination to turn his head to face the women with which he maintained a continuous and boisterous conversation. (Actually, I though the same thing I say about my cardiologist: If he aine worried; I aine worried.)

The Castelo de Sāo Jorge has a long history. Built by the Moors in the 11^th century on what was once the site of a 7^th century village, the castle was designed to withstand siege. After the Christian re-conquest of the city in the 12^th century, the castle and nearby palace became the royal residence. It has since been used as military garrison, prison, and armory. More currently the site was both a theater and a park. In 1938, the castle underwent extensive renovation and the “medieval” walls were reconstructed. Everything we see today at the site of the castle is not original or exactly authentic, but one thing is for sure: from the site of the castle we can see everything.

The view is quite simply unforgettable.

Lisbon (Pt. 1)

A roupa suja lava-se em casa.

                                                                                            —Portuguese expression (It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest.)

Marquês de Pombal

Just ten miles from the Atlantic Ocean, situated on the Tagus estuary, Lisbon was once at the forefront of world-trade. Thanks in large part to its rich maritime heritage, all of Portugal and Lisbon in particular pay homage to its predominant role in the Age of Discovery. One needs only to turn in any direction on nearly every street to find a monument to their legacy of wealth, exploration, politics, religion, recovery—you name it including wine. Lisbon is a tourist’s playground.

It took about three minutes to say something like: there sure are a lot of statues, huh? And there are. There are spectacular monuments to famous politicians like Marquês de Pombal, who engineered the almost total reconstruction of Lisbon after the earthquake and demolishing fire of 1755. While leading European thinkers debated whether the near total destruction was an act of divine disapproval rather than a natural phenomenon, Pombal famously said, “Bury the dead and feed the living,” and began his plans to start again. There are monuments to Greek gods. There are monuments to exploration rock stars like Henry the Navigator and Vasco de Gama, and there are statues, more statues than can be counted.

 

The Age of Discovery with Henry the Navigator leading the way

In fact, there are so many reminders of Portugal’s heritage—of what was; what used to be—the contrast with what remains is conspicuous. The economy is failing, the infrastructure is aging, and the centuries-old buildings are in many cases either abandoned or in drastic disrepair.

You talkin' about my mother?!

There’s an American expression that goes something like: I can talk about my mother; but don’t you. Perhaps it is disrespectful to note the failure of Portugal’s largest city. Perhaps. Perhaps it is rude to point out the less than savory bits. Perhaps. But you can’t be in Lisbon for more than a hot second to see evidence that they, themselves, talk about their mother. The graffiti is conspicuous. The disrepair  is regretful. There is evidence that Lisbon is unhealthy.

Instead of embracing the magnificence of their architecture; instead of celebrating the beauty of singular tile work and wrought iron; instead of cleaning up and repairing the handsome continuity of the red-roofed terra cotta mosaic; they spray paint it.

It seems like the train stations in every major city in Europe attract the aerosol artists, and Lisbon is no different. What is different, or what seems different is that the “art” is not limited to the railways. Magnificent old buildings are disrespected with the dreadful enamel squiggles of people desperate to be remembered. 

Lisbon is disrespected by the very people who own it. If that is true, why should anyone else?

Where is the Marquês when they need him again?