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| Thank ya, The Seattle Times. |
One of the features that makes his books so great is his rating system. Usually, travel books/guides will just give you a frustratingly long and anxiety-producing list of sites to visit in towns. (So much to see; so little time!) Rick, rather, gives you a list of the sites worth visiting and gives ratings to those sites.
For example, Lisbon. Click on this site and then click on "At a Glance": Rick Steves' Lisbon
For the most part, Eric and I agree with his suggestions of what's worth it and with his ratings for those.
Last weekend, we did all of the three triangle things in his list for Lisbon beginning a date to the Gulbenkian Art Museum that I took Eric on.
On Friday, Eric was able to finish work a little early. I met him outside the embassy, and we walked twenty minutes to the museum.
The Gulbenkian Museum--or more officially the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian--is one man's collection. Which is incredible! There are over 6,000 artwork items in the museum spanning from Ancient Egypt to Impressionistic Europe. Calouste Gulbenkian was a Lisbon resident during the World Wars. He spent most of his life collecting precious pieces of art. When he died in 1955, his wish was that all of his collection remain under one roof. That's where the museum comes in. The Calouste Gulbenkian foundation fulfilled his dying wish with the opening of O Museu Calouste Gulbenkian in 1969.
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| Portuguese Tile |
Visitors of the museum can get a good feel of Gulbenkian's artisitic interests when walking through the museum's exhibits of Arabian rugs, Medieval tapestries, and Rococo furniture.
While we passed by Renaissance portraits, Eric leaned over to me and attempted to quote Frank O'Hara. I can't remember how exactly Eric said it, but the line he was trying to quote was from one of my favorite poems "Having a Coke with You": "I look / at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in / the world." (I loved this poem before the stupid book/film Beastly quoted it, shootdangit!)
And of course I melted a little on the inside. Nevermind that I say that to him anytime we're in an art museum. Somehow it's more magical hearing him say it to me than me to him.
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| "Old Man" by Rembrandt. Yes, that's my thumb in the corner. Stop looking at it. |
After we made our way through all the rooms, we entered the surrounding gardens, found a shaded spot (it's still nice and warm here), and began part II of the date. With our limited supply of art utensils, I made the challenge to Eric and myself to create a portrait of each other (now that we'd been inspired by all of the artwork in the museum).
These were the results:
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| Apparently, there was a mishap with my leg. |
Eric's portrait of me was of that moment from his point of view. I'm drawing my depiction of him (the stick figure on the paper). His explanation of the stamps: The hearts are there because he's in love with me, and I'm wearing a crown because I'm his queen. How sweet. Double brownie points.
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| Giving his explanation...while wearing his tweed tie. |
My portrait of Eric was of him sporting his love for all things Scottish: He's standing in front of a Scottish flag background while holding an Irn-Bru soft drink, wearing a tweed hat and tie (both of which he owns and wears often), and, of course, modeling a kilt (which he owns but never wears).
Remember that beautiful line of poetry Eric had quoted earlier in the museum. Yeah, definitely applies to these portraits.
The rest of our weekend will be highlighted in the next post!
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