25.12.18 - Feliz Natal!

Merry Chreeeestmas one and all!  Lovely to chat earlier.

Last night we went for a Christmas Eve knees-up at Bill and Patricia's building in São Caetano, with their sizeable extended family and all sorts of Christmas eats and song. We made a load of pavê from scratch the night before, which is essentially Brazilian trifle, and it went down a treat.  Today we had Gaby's parents and grandparents round for a makeshift Xmas feast, Fantasia and Wallace & Gromit on the big screen.

Prior to that we'd knocked off after a particularly hectic week at work, I jumped in the pool, and on Saturday we went to meet some potential wedding bar suppliers, and signed on the dotted line having been plied with more drinks than we knew what to do with (don't worry though, we didn't regret it once we'd sobered up, the drinks really were very nice and fairly reasonably-priced).  So that's one of the perks of planning a wedding, I suppose.

This week we're off to Ilhabela for our customary end-of-year spell of flopping about, which should be nice. Will let you know how we get on.  And I've made a compilation including some spare Xmas songs I had lying around from last week (but which is otherwise quite loud and angsty). 

Love,

Good King Fredceslas

18.12.18 - O Homem Macaco

Hallooo,

Hope all well down in Antibes. We're winding down for the holidays over here, as temperatures soar higher and the pool becomes ever more appealing. We've been socializing a fair bit over the weekend, mainly to invite various folks to be our respective groomsmen and bridesmaids, so far with a 100% acceptance rate!

On Saturday we went to Taynah's circus show, this time in an actual circus which was rather impressive - lots of people swinging from the rafters, etc - but also unbearably hot and sweaty under the big top at midday, so we didn't last long.  And we didn't make it to Ridaut's big homecoming gig out of town in Lins, but we're planning a trip there in the new year.

My phrase of the day is less of a phrase and more of a mad song inexplicably screeched over a YouTube compilation of monkey attacks.  It speaks of an evil monkey man, without a soul or a heart, coming to kill you - which I think we can all relate to.  We've had it in our heads pretty relentlessly all week, and now you can too!  

And finally, I've made a new compilation, and another, mercifully short Christmas-themed playlist for all your holidays needs.

Speak soon!

The Freds of Fate

11.12.18 - Que que tem a ver o cu com as calças?

Halloooo,

Lovely to see you all over the weekend - I've now arrived back in SP, have unpacked and am hard at work and trying not to fall asleep.  You basically know what I got up to over the past week, but for the benefit of our blog visitors: work meeting good, trip to France better, lots of nephew action and a day-trip to Nice that involved mountains of socca and windswept pigeons.

I gone done made another mixtape, and my phrase of the week means "what does the arse have to do with the trousers?", or "what does one thing have to do with the other?". A sort of "mosquito/mosque" situation.

That will be all, great to see you however briefly, and speak soon!

Freddy Pendergrass

04.12.18 - Deus ajuda quem cedo madruga

Halloooo,

 

I write to you from my amusingly massive room at Cliveden House, after a relatively straightforward trip across the pond and just prior to the Big WorldPR Get-Together 2018.  Since I've arrived I've had a walk round the grounds, a mince pie and a bath - so far so good.

This past week was mostly spent preparing for my travels, although we found time on Saturday for a quick trip to Liberdade, São Paulo's Little Japan, for a massive bowl of noodles from the market and some kind of umbrella parade (unsure).  And I just missed out on the big event of the week - a show by renowned sertanejo duo Chitãozinho & Xororó, which Ridaut somehow got backstage passes for - as I had to get to the airport, but it looks like fun was had by all.

I've made a compilation, and my phrase of the day is the Brazilian equivalent of "the early bird catches the worm", but with extra God and rhyming. Looking forward to seeing you soon!

Ciao for now,

Fred

27.11.18 - Fazer uma vaquinha

'Alloooo,

All well here - we had some friends round on Friday for a pizza night and went to Susy & Eduardo's the next evening to see Giovanna off to her seasonal job at DisneyWorld (Gaby was very jealous). Then on Sunday we went to the Pinacoteca to check out some cultcha, including some rather nice art and an orchestra rehearsing in the main hall, which was most agreeable.

I've made another mixtape (and mixtape-wise, this is also good), and my phrase of the week means "having a whip-round" or "chipping in" - it translates literally as "making a little cow".  A notable example is at Brazilian weddings, where the couple raises funds for a honeymoon/debt repayment etc, by selling off chopped-up pieces of the groom's tie in exchange for cash from the guests.  We personally consider this a little gauche so there'll be no little cows at our wedding...

Speak soon!

When All Is Fred & Done

20.11.18 - O assunto chegou

'Alloooo,

Hope you're keeping well in your Valbonne lair.  Brazil has basically shut down since Wednesday night, with public holidays on either side of the weekend, but muggins here has been toiling away anyway, as our annual event approaches and our would-be Silicon Valley start-up gathers steam.  

We went to an open mic on Wednesday to check in with the organiser and ringleader of our wedding band, and jam with an acquaintance from Gaby's gym, and we went out on Friday to a trendy local bar for birthday drinks.  Gaby's actual birthday was heralded in with the now-traditional birthday song, which is available on all social media now...

I've made another compilation for your listening delight, and today's phrase is the Brazilian equivalent to "speak of the devil", translating literally as "the subject [of the conversation] has arrived".  No word yet on how to say "my ears are burning"... 

Speak soon!

Nuke the Fredge

13.11.18 - Arapuca

Halloooo,

Hope all well in la belle France. Over here it's beginning to look a lot like summer, after prolonged grey and drizzle, and our ailments are slowly receding, which is nice.  On Saturday we went to a new café in Tatuapé with Gabi's grandma to check out their quiche, and got a complementary assortment of panettones into the bargain, then went to a fellow psychology Masters' birthday do in hip 'n trendy Vila Madalena. 

My word of the week, “arapuca”, refers to a simple cage, made of sticks and twine, which is used by native Brazilian hunters to trap prey in the woods.  It is also the name of an extremely politically incorrect song, written back in more innocent times and popularized by modern-day sertanejo duo Victor & Leo.   The song ended up on our car iPod, and while the first thing to grab my attention were the scorching accordion runs between verses, I eventually paid attention to the lyrics and had to double-check with Gabi what I’d just heard.

In the song, the singer (or singers – I get confused whether sertanejo duos sing as one or as two separate people, which makes love songs especially awkward to listen to; but they use the singular “eu” here so let’s go with that) sets an arapuca trap by the side of the road, with the express purpose of ensnaring “pretty, and also married, women”.  So far so good, although the distinction is a bit of a head-scratcher.  The first chorus goes “who is it, who is it who can live in this world without money and without women?” which, fair enough, but you shouldn’t trap them in a wooden cage, right?

Anyway, the first time the trap goes off, the singer runs to see what it’s caught, and it turns out to be a “pretty woman” who “sets my heart racing”.  Cue accordions.  But then, in a twist worthy of an M. Night Shamalayan movie, the second time it goes off and he comes running, the trap has caught (and I quote) “a large black man” who “freezes my heart”.  It’s genuinely impressive how much casual misogyny and racism it packs into a grand total of six lines of lyrics…

So anyway, “arapuca” is a kind of snare.  Thus concludes the first in what will hopefully be a semi-regular educational series, where I break down the lyrics to local hits, Rap Genius-style.  I also made another, trap-free compilation.

Speak soon!

Frod Gave Rock and Roll To You

06.11.18 - Piada de tiozão

Allooo,

Hope all well.  We've been bedridden for most of the week with various ailments which are just about cleared up now, but we made it out on Saturday for a degustação, an unexpected bonus of the wedding-planning process where suppliers invite us to eat all their food for free.  In this case it was a desserts company, although it wasn't as fun as I thought it would be, and by the 20th consecutive sweet we were stuffed and wired on sugar.

Elsewhere we had a band meeting ("present") to discuss future engagements and potentially change our usual rehearsal time, I couldn't stop scoring at the footy, made a new compilation, and read an interesting article about dad jokes, or "piada de tiozão" ("uncle jokes") as they're known here...

Think that about covers it.  Speak to you soon!

Fred Weight

30.10.18 - Ele não da ponto sem nó

Oi!

Well, this weekend saw Brazil willingly devolve into a fascist hellscape (quite a good recap here if you're into that kind of thing), but at least we got a nice barbeque in Campinas out of it, featuring singalongs and 'appy laughter.  We also went to see "First Man" at the IMAX HeadExplodatron on Saturday, which was pretty damn impressive unless you're Gabi and are convinced the moon landings were all fake...

I done made a compilation, and this week's phrase ("ele não da ponto sem nó") is kind of hybrid of "he doesn't miss a trick" and "he only watches out for number one" - literally, "he doesn't make stitches without knots". Not a keeper, really.

Off to scream into the void, speak soon!

The Good, The Fred and The Ugly

PS: Here's a spare Hallowe'en playlist I found down the back of the sofa too: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2fOlml4S5A0SGtnsq19Vbb

23.10.18 - Conversa-fiada

Halloooooo,

Hope all well witchu, we're just back from the beach where we met up with Kika (in the country for an mega-conference in Rio) for a whirlwind tour of the coastline.  We drove up on Friday, stopping off at a huge roadside replica of the Statue of Liberty for lunch, and got to Angra dos Reis in time for dinner on a seemingly abandoned dock.  It was so windy and drizzly that we cancelled our all-day boat tour the next day, only to wake up to blazing sunshine and rush to the harbour, get a shuttle boat to Ilha Grande and un-cancel it.

After a reviving bowl of açaí we bundled into a speedboat and roared halfway round the island, bouncing wildly, until we reached Lagoa Verde, where we could jump overboard for snorkelling and some rather chilly swimming.  After that we took in the Praia dos Macacos (Monkey Beach - no monkeys, but plenty of hammocks), Lagoa Azul and a bay where the driver took us diving for sea turtles, cuttlefish and sea urchins, among other things. 

By this point we were famished so we set off to a restaurant hidden in a mangrove swamp for platters of grilled banana fish, before heading back to the main port and getting battered by wind on our way back to the mainland. The rest of the trip was spent at the hotel drinking increasingly elaborate caipirinhas and wading through the infinity pool, before heading our separate ways on Sunday morning. 

Gaby and I went on to Paraty which is pretty cool - basically an untouched colonial-style town by the sea, uneven cobblestones and all - for a relaxing night in a tiny guesthouse and a pizza in the town centre during a blackout, which just reinforced the 17th century vibe.  And on our way back home we stopped off at Viela da Praia for a chat with the owners about various wedding issues.

Now it's back to work with a vengeance, but I've whipped up another compilation, and my phrase of the week is the name of a restaurant we went to in Angra - it refers to someone who says one thing and does another, apparently.

Speak soon!

Fred

16.10.18 - O Poderoso Chefão

Alloooo,

We've been out and about this week with trips to Michelle and Vinicius' for esfihas on Friday, down the road for more esfihas with the Zona Norte massive on Saturday, and a road trip to wine country on Sunday for a birthday lunch for Zila and Edson, crammed with sizzling artichokes.  Next weekend we ride to Ilha Grande, which should be fun.

I have made a new compilation, and my phrase of the week comes from a pet peeve nurtured over many an evening browsing Brazilian Netflix - basically, the titles of most foreign films are translated into Portuguese in an astoundingly literal way, removing any kind of intrigue and blurring everything together into even more of a generic mush than Netflix originally intended.

Transliterating film titles is tricky, considering differences in cultural references and norms. But it seems to me that in this age of streaming platforms you should either stick with the original title and let the synopsis do the heavy lifting, or go for broke and at least come up with some amusingly off-the-wall translations.  There are some amazing examples of this from around the world, which I refuse to fact-check on IMDb for fear of spoiling the fun; hats off to the Chinese in particular for translating "Fargo" as "Mysterious Murder in Snowy Cream", and "Free Willy" as "A Very Powerful Whale Runs to Heaven".

When it comes to Brazil, though, I can only assume that there is one overworked and irreversibly jaded guy in charge of translating every film title (I will call him Translator Man), because the end results tend to have a very distinct air of "will-this-do?" about them.  

So "Pulp Fiction" is "Tempo de Violência" ("Time of Violence"), "Mulholland Drive" is "Cidade dos Sonhos" ("City of Dreams" - which achieves the impressive double-whammy of spoilering the film while also misleading innocent couples into thinking it's some kind of romantic comedy), "All About Eve" is "A Malvada" ("The Baddie") and, perhaps worst of all, "The Godfather" is "O Poderoso Chefão" ("The Big Powerful Boss" which, although technically accurate, could apply just as well to this.)

Sometimes it's pretty obvious that Translator Man hasn't watched the film in question - i.e. "Momento", which is translated as "Amnésia" despite the protagonist repeatedly pointing out that he doesn't have amnesia.  Meanwhile, the rare misguided stabs at innovation result in a mess of subtitles and redundancies - i.e. "Airplane" > "Fasten Your Seatbelts, The Pilot Has Gone Missing" or "Rat Race" > "Everyone's Gone Crazy! - The Race for Million$" - suggesting that maybe making every title as bland as possible is actually the best-case scenario here.

 

What really irks is that very occasionally - like a stopped clock telling the right time twice a day - Translator Man actually improves on the original title.  "Inside Out" was released here as "Divertida Mente", which is a play on words between "divertidamente" ("amusingly"!) and "divertida mente" ("a fun mind").  The pun probably gets Lost in Translation (which is called "Meetings and Failures in Meetings" here, by the way) but I thought it worked quite well.  (Pixar-related aside: "Coco" was hastily renamed "Viva" here because "cocô" means "poo", which probably wouldn't work for a nationwide ad campaign).

Similarly, "The Hangover" became "Se Beber, Não Case!" ("Don't Drink and Marry!"), which unfortunately inspired a legion of similar titles but is still better than the rather nondescript English title; not to mention the French version, "Very Bad Trip".  "A Ressaca", Portuguese for "The Hangover", is the translated title for "Hot Tub Time Machine", obviously.

I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make, really.  Maybe that someone should check in on Translator Man, and make sure he's not being held against his will? Or that he should either leave things be, or go utterly insane and aim to emulate, say, Thailand translating "Little Fockers" as "Zany Son-in-Law, Zippy Grandkids, Sour Father-in-Law". 

Speak to you soon!

Fred of State

09.10.18 - #elenão

Wotcha,

Good to speak to the extended clan the other day, hope you're having a whizzy jolly time. Over here we've been entertaining family and friends, including a particularly indulgent raclette evening and a trip to the cinema with Taynah and Rafael who asked us to be among their groomsmen/bridesmaids at their wedding next May, which is pretty rad.

Otherwise there was a general election on Sunday, although I couldn't participate and just hung around Gaby's old school as she pushed buttons in the voting booth.  It's gone to a run-off vote on the 28th, which means another tense few weeks trying to keep my head down as families are rent in twain.  Here's John Oliver's whimsically British take on it all...

Oh, and: new compilation!

Speak soon!

Fred Flanders

02.10.18 - Deus dá asas a quem não sabe voar

Hallooo,

So the highlight of this week was pretty clearly that time on Thursday night when we went to a block-of-flats-to-be in the Zona Sul and were winched 50 metres into the air by a giant crane for an amazing four-course "Dinner in the Sky".  

We entered via a massive hall of mirrors and a fake elevator to outer space, and an open bar and a showrooms for each decade of the 20th century (plus one from 2038 which involved VR headsets and flying cars), but the main event was the afore-mentioned winching, strapped into racing car seats and served MASSIVE PRAWNS as our jolly chef plated everything up and sang impromptu opera in the round. Huge props to Michelle and Vinicius, who invited us and apparently went back for more on Sunday lunchtime.

The rest of the week couldn't help but pale in comparison but we had a cosily domesticated weekend putting up new bookshelves and making new recipes, as well as a dash across town in the pouring rain for ice cream. And now that my boss is back from the UK it's all hands to the pump at work.

I've made another mixtape, and today's phrase means "God gives wings to those who don't know how to fly", i.e. some people have everything going for them but don't make the most of it.  I believe the Italians have a similar phrase - "Dio da il pane a chi non ha i denti" ("God gives bread to those who have no teeth") - but it doesn't fit this week's themes as well.

'Til the next time!

Fred But True

25.09.18 - Dar uma de cachorro magro

Wotcha,

Spring has finally sprung and the brutal 20 degree winds of winter have subsided, so the city has ground to a halt as everyone takes to the streets.  We went to Michelle's Harry Potter themed birthday do on Saturday night, then back to the Zona Leste the next day to pick up Gaby's purse from a kindly Uber driver, followed by a trip to the hospital to see Gaby's grandpa, who has had a bout of pneumonia but is out and about now.

I've made not one but two new compilations, and the phrase of the week ("to act like a thin dog") applies to those who turn up to someone's house, eat and leave immediately afterwards, which is of course something of a social faux pas (unless you're a thin dog, obviously). Do let me know how you're getting on with your e-books and modelling gigs, and otherwise we'll speak sooooon.

Lots of love,

Fred to da Choppaaa!

18.09.18 - Não cutuca a onça com vara curta

Halloooo,

All well witchu? It's rainy and cold here, most unSeptemberlike and not at all conducive to blog-friendly capers, I'm afraid.  Just a trip to the ever-excellent Speranza pizzeria on Saturday to see Ridaut's pilot mate Jean-Luc on a stopover in SP, and a footy-and-bar one-two on Thursday after twelve straight hours of app-making.

On the other hand, we've made good headway on our big jigsaw, wedding plans, Bojack Horseman and this week's compilation, while today's phrase is a particular favourite: "don't poke the leopard with a short broom", or make matters worse through provocation. I believe "don't poke the bear" or "don't kick the hornet's nest" are the nearest equivalents.

Speak soon!

The Demon Fredmaster

11.09.18- Gente como a gente

Halloooo,

Lovely to chat the other day - as I mentioned we drove to Santos at the weekend to see a bit of sea and eat our body weight in prawns, passing such attractions as Ilha Porchat with its amazing views of the town and the Pele Museum, before unwinding over a Harry Potter jigsaw on Sunday. Last week also saw the return of Thursday Night Football, which was all fun and games until everyone ended up winded or injured due to lack of practice.

This week we're mainly scouting for wedding suppliers (my boss is coming now, so we've got to up our game), finalising a trip across state lines to Ilha Grande next month, and still attempting to build our new digital empire from scratch at work, which is getting more hectic by the day. 

I've made a mixtape, and my phrase of the week ("folk like us") is usually applied to celebrities who act like regular salt-of-the-earth Brazilians - I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but it's quite a common hashtag round these parts.

That will be all,

Fred & Breakfast

04.09.18 - Braço curto

Oy oy, how's your father, etc,

This weekend we travelled to São Roque - and a very cool hotel on a hacienda full of abandoned barns, slumbering dogs and hot-tubs in glass pyramids - for the wedding of one of Gaby's friends. 

It was actually a double wedding, which was a bit of a novelty, on another huge tract of land up a mountain, complete with vintage cars and a VW that doubled as a photobooth.  On the way back we stopped in "wine country" for a snoop round the vineyards and some of the region's famous artichokes. And most amusing it was too...

We also went out for a pizza on Friday night for Adny's birthday, and I had a new review published yesterday, for those of you keeping tabs. I have a new compilation up, and my phrase of the week ("short-arm") refers to people who simply can't be bothered to work, such as yesterday's US Labor Day-ers, or Bertrand Russell.

Speak soon,

Fred Fred Wine

28.08.18 - Isso não é a casa da Joana

Hallloooo,

We're back in SP post-European tour '18, it's cold and wet but the ups, downs, tans and tapas will last long in the memory.

Lisbon was great fun, and a step up from last year in that no one got robbed or hospitalised.  Instead we went to the Time Out Market for a prego (a "spike", or steak sarnie) and over the river to Cacilhas, which had a nice view of the city and some Roman ruins but not much else, then got the old-timey streetcar up to the Bairro Alto and across to the Sé cathedral for copious tapas and sangria before heading back to our Airbnb on the main drag for snifters of port and background accordion music.

On Wednesday we packed up and picked up our latest hire car for an excursion to the Torre de Belem, where Gaby hung out with some rabbits who are apparently huge Instagram stars, then down to a tiny village in the Algarve where we were met by our lovely host and wrote off our first night entirely by filling up with the wrong kind of petrol and totalling the car - we had to be rescued by a tow-truck and then taken to Faro airport by a manic taxi driver to get a new one, and went back to bed in disgrace.

The next day was much more successful - we went to the Praia de Camilo which was absolutely crawling with sunbathers but was otherwise lovely, had another prego on the Praia da Rocha, and had a last dinner of monkfish skewers on a rooftop bar in Albufeira before heading into the frankly mental town centre, whose nightlife can only be described as the Portuguese Las Vegas.

On Friday we took in a few more beaches, seafront bars and ossuaries (pictured), hit the road back to Lisbon, across a massive bridge over the Tagus and on to the airport, where after a customs-enforced delay we headed back across the Atlantic.  We went straight to Aldeia da Serra for one of Bruna's family's now-legendary BBQs on very little sleep, stopped off at Gaby's grandma's to wish her happy birthday, and slept all night and most of Sunday before resuming business as usual at 4am yesterday.

I have a new compilation for your ears only, and my phrase of the week ("this isn't Joana's house") was painted right on our Lisbon Airbnb's corridor walls, explanation and all: "the expression is used when a place is untidy or disorderly or when people act with decency or decorum". 'Tis good to be back...

Speak soon,

Fred & Circuses

PS: Ridaut on the top Brazilian talk show last Friday - pretty cool! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwq35NUFVTc

21.08.18 - Quebrou minhas pernas

'Alloooo,

Lovely to see you the other day - you can read all about it on my blog to no one, if you've got the time and you're not too busy.  Since then we've been through Edinburgh, Inverness, Isleham and London, and are entering the home stretch of our trip in sunny Portugal.

Edinburgh was excellent value as always - the day after we arrived the sun came out so we headed to the Royal Mile to take in the madness, watch the sword-swallowers, unicyclists, sea-shanty singers etc. until we were whisked underground to the cramped quarters of Mary King Close, for a tour full of tales of plagues, pestilence and chamber pots given by a flamboyant Dutch man in a cape.  After a quick pasty in Waverley station we headed up to the castle and on to Princes Street Gardens, moving on to the New York Steam Packet for STEAK and the Guilded Balloon for "Spontaneous Potter", an amusing improvised take on the Expanded Potterverse.

The next day we packed up and shipped out to a parking lot on the outskirts of Edinburgh Airport, where after a tortuous exchange with the Ryanair of car rental companies (they tried to rent us a white van, and we almost wrecked the car they eventually let us have before we got the hang of the handbrake and gearstick) we hit the road to Inverness, up through the Highlands via Midhope Castle and Culross (both locations in the popular TV series Outlander, for any Outlander fans out there). 

Once in town we got some dinner, checked out the local tartan shop and adjourned to our cosy Airbnb, then the next day we went to Culloden for a wander round the battlefield and to Loch Ness and the ruins of Urquhart Castle - both cut short by sudden showers for which we were laughably unprepared, but awesome in their own way (we even got a rainbow over Loch Ness! No monster though). Having purchased a tartan shawl to wrap Gaby up in, we went to a tiny seaside village for a slap-up dinner and headed back to bed. The entire next day was spent trying to get back to Isleham as Ryanair did their best to antagonise us - suffice to say next year we'll be doing our trip entirely by train, and hopefully they'll be bankrupt.

On Saturday we headed into London and our Airbnb, coincidentally on Inverness Terrace near Hyde Park. I left Gaby to her shopping spree and went to see Ben and Tom of Archway Castle fame at the former's Islington abode, for televised football and darts, before getting some Thai food and heading back to bed.  Sunday was an extremely intense blur of reviews, walking, the South Bank, more walking and Fortnum & Mason, culminating in a quick trip to the Royal Albert Hall for the Proms, and a kebab nightcap.  And on Monday we made a dash for Borough Market to eat lots of nice things, before another nightmarish Ryanair experience en route to Lisbon.

My phrase of the week translates as "you broke my legs" and means "you've left me in a pickle!" (i.e. "you said you'd bring the beers for our BBQ and didn't - you really broke my legs, man!") - it came to mind a few times during the more arduous of our recent trips around town.  I have also made two new compilations and folks, it's an Aretha Franklin special.  Driving through the Highlands to non-stop Aretha on the day she died was pretty special, if a little sad...

Enjoy, and speak soon,

Deep Fred Haggis

14.08.18 - Gato escaldado tem medo de água fria

Halloooo once again from the frontlines of our Eurotour, this time in Edinburgh.

We spent the past week in Antibes, in the splendid company of mum, dad, Juliet, Mel and Matisse, the newest addition to the Powys/Du Pontet clan.  Having settled in on Rue Fourmillière we sought out beaches ever further afield, starting at La Gravette and La Salis, venturing around the Cap and eventually heading to Theoule in a rental car and the Ile Ste. Marguerite via catamaran for a bob in the astonishingly blue waters. 

Elsewhere we checked in with Matisse and co. in Vallauris, staged an impromptu tour around the (mostly boarded-up) CIV and Valbonne, went to Noah's for a box of wine or three, and wrapped things up with a wine tasting in the vieille ville.  Then on Saturday we packed everything up and hit the road, eventually arriving in Cambridge at 2:30am after an arduous trial by Ryanair. 

On Sunday we went to Isleham to see the grandparents, strategically re-pack and collapse for most of the afternoon, then on Monday we got on another delayed flight to Edinburgh, for a quick dash around the centre in the dark and rain, and an excellent one-man show by a Brighton acquaintance laying bare a shady conspiracy theory around Santa Claus. Who knows what today will bring?

My phrase of the week means "a scalded cat is afraid of cold water", a sort of "fool me once..." maxim which is relevant both because we've seen a lot of cats lately, and because of how paranoid we are of getting our bags stolen on public transport again as we make our way around. 

Speak soon,

Fredinburgh

07.08.18 - Le cose piú bella della vita o sono immorali, o sono illegali o fanno ingrassare

Hallooo,

It’s been a wild week of attempted Italian, fine dining and country-hopping, topped off with a new addition to the Powys family.  We touched down in Italy on Tuesday morning, piled into a rented Cinquecento and drove, on very little sleep, to Siena, stopping outside Rome to get a new phone for Gabi and in Assisi to gorge on ice cream and take lots of photos. There we had a pizza at Il Pomodorino, one year on from the last one overlooking the old town, and swanned about until bedtime, then set off the next day via a local vineyard to stock up on the finest wines.

We went to Venice for a quick float around, via water taxi and a system of ever-shrinking bridges, which was pretty great, then on to Verona where we found, to our horror, that the Airbnb we’d booked didn’t have AC and was basically an oven, so had to scramble for a cheap (and, it turns out, quite nice and central) hotel instead, and scour the streets until we found somewhere selling food so late, namely a kebab shop by the arena. 

The next morning we set off to explore the town, ending up having lunch by the river, staring up at Juliet’s balcony and trying unsuccessfully to rent bikes, before dolling ourselves up and going to see “Aida” in the arena, which was fairly spectacular – hundreds of cast members gallivanting round a giant revolving pyramid in an ancient Roman coliseum while robed Egyptians sung about their fate – with subtitles!  A smattering of rain stopped play a few times but the orchestra powered through and before long the main characters were being buried alive, and there was much rejoicing.

On Friday we mixed things up a bit by heading to Lake Como, for a wander round a castle on a hill and a mean truffle risotto, before getting the ferry to the western shore and checking in to the Hotel Britannia, a faded remnant of the Belle Epoque now full of surly-looking families, where we got upgraded to an amazing top-floor room overlooking the lake.  Having hit the pool we explored the nearby town of Griante – all two of its restaurants – and turned in for the night.

The next day, after a full English breakfast in a vast, Shining-esque ballroom, it was over the Swiss border and off to Lake Lugano, where we went up Mount Brè for some sightseeing and brief trekking, then down to the waterfront for ice cream and barefoot paddling.  Having checked into our Airbnb in an Italian enclave across the lake we went to the lido and jumped off things for a few hours, before heading back into Switzerland for fondue on a mountainside, 30 degree heat be damned.  In the evening we followed the birth of Matisse, the newest Powys/du Pontet clan member, live via Whatsapp, and toasted his arrival over fine wines and artisanal chocolate.

On Sunday we made a cross-country dash, stopping in a tiny Genovese village for pesto fettuccine, some sort of sliced Italian haggis and homemade ice cream, before ditching the car and bundling on to two trains to Ventimiglia and Antibes respectively. And on Monday we went to the hospital in Cannes to meet Matisse and try and stage an elaborate photoshoot without waking him up to much. Exciting times, and I've already got a long list of "piadas de tiozão" (dad jokes, known in Brazil as "uncle jokes") ready.

My phrase of the week is another one from the Pomodorino menu and nods to the Roberto Carlos song, "Ilegal, Imoral ou Engorda" - "the best things in life are either illegal, immoral or fattening". Seems about right.

Ciao bella,

Piatti Freddy