gail at large

Our beloved Ice the Dog crossed the rainbow bridge at the age of 12, with his people giving him all the festinhas he so adored and lived for. To say that he left a big Ice-shaped hole at Casa Aguiar is an understatement. I knew writing a post about my faithful companion, my personal bodyguard, my furry sidekick, was never going to be easy. Partly because Ice was possibly the most photographed…

This is where I stayed with friends in the Alsace region of France last October, a place I jokingly called “The Haunted Château” because of the spooky Halloween decor. Apparently, the owners dress it up seasonally with an impressive collection of bric à brac. I’ve seen pictures of the château at Christmas, and it makes the Halloween dressup seem pedestrian by comparison. Christmas transforms the…

Here I am, posting dinner pics instead of finishing one in the stack of posts sitting in draft. Priorities! I was on a mission for Asian food on a recent Friday night as it’s my comfort food, the food of my childhood. My appetite gravitates toward dishes of the umami variety, no doubt a push from my genetic code. When I first moved to Portugal, Asian restaurants were mostly of the Chinese…

A few weeks ago I found myself wandering around Porto at a late hour to find something to eat after a very long work day. While on my food hunt, I couldn’t help but notice the changes on the streets I used to traverse more frequently in years past. Not just the big construction projects—of which there are many, nowadays—but changes in the façades of buildings, ordinary retail, and street…

Ibiza (Eivissa in Catalan) is the third largest of Spain’s Balearic islands and its reputation as a party scene has preceded it for decades: dance clubs, famous DJs in residence, EDM (electronic dance music) all night long. Spoiler alert: I have no photos of dance clubs, DJs, or parties in this post. Sorry to disappoint! The “Ibiza Deep House Mix” compilations were ubiquitous back in the day,…

Zebras are magnificent creatures. We saw herds of them in Namibia in 2019, especially in Etosha National Park, but we were much closer to them in Rwanda last month while in Akagera National Park. Rwanda was a fabulous trip that I'll need to break up into several posts, but I felt the zebras deserved their own post. The zebra’s stripe patterns are striking, whether they’re rolling in the plains…

Yuka after we picked her up at the shelter As of September 2024, our human-to-dog ratio at Casa Aguiar evened out to 1:1, after nearly 10 years of dedicated staffing for Senhor Ice. It took a few weeks of coordination, but we adopted a female medium-sized Portuguese podengo (mix?) from a shelter called Animarco Associação in Marco de Canaveses, a town about 50 minutes up the Douro River. I can’t…

I returned from my last trip of 2024 on December 30 reflecting on how much travel I was able to squeeze in during a year of major work commitments. I already know that I can’t match this in 2025, but I won’t stop trying while I overcome some major obstacles this year. Getting away is no small feat—I have never been as leashed to calendars as I have been the past few years. I have an enduring…

Most of my travel in 2024 has been outside of Portugal, but summertime brought a couple of road trips — notably the N2 — which brought much joy to Ice the Dog, who’s had more stays at the dog hotel in 2024 than he can probably remember. We’d been to São Pedro do Sul before, but it was at the height of the pandemic as part of a larger escape to Serra da Freita which included Arouca and Oliveira…

Strahov Library, Prague I recently hatched an idea to create a “book nook” in my home and buy a reading lamp. It’s no coincidence that this idea formed after visiting Strahov Library in Prague (above) a month ago, and was reinforced by stumbling upon the beautiful bookstore, Carturesti Carusel 1, in Bucharest’s Old Town a few days ago (below). Carturesti Carusel bookstore, Bucharest I’m not…

It took me a while, but I finally made it to Luxembourg! I needed a quick escape, so I chose a country with big contrasts to Portugal. Why not the last Grand Duchy? Quick escapes are ideally one short flight away. It comes as no surprise, then, that the one-flight destinations outside of Portugal are where the Portuguese emigrants live: France, Switzerland, UK, Luxembourg, to name a few. For…

The landing page of the website for the restaurant named CHAMA, in Porto’s historic centre, features these words in big, very bold letters: CHAMA is not a normal Restaurant! You’ve been warned. Best to adjust expectations, unless CHAMA decides to become a “normal” restaurant at some point and give their patrons a menu (on the near horizon most likely, though I have no inside information).…