We forgot to mention in our last post: when we arrived at the car rental counter we exchanged greetings, people saying "
Gerrit's US cell phone port to Google Voice is complete now, including texting. He's tested voice and texts between the US and Portugal both ways, including two-factor authentication texts from financial institutions, and everything seems to be working. His US cell number continues to work exactly like it did before, but now it's not tied to a cellular carrier. And it's free! (Well, it uses his Portuguese cell carrier for mobile data when he's not connected to WiFi, which is not free, but he can see your eyes glazing over so that's about enough of that.)
Ever heard of the game of handball? Not the one where two players slap a hard rubber ball and bounce it back and forth at each other in a small room, but the one that's a team indoor sport on a court like basketball, with a net goal like soccer, and a ball a third the size of a soccer ball which is thrown around with the hands. Yeah, we'd never heard of it either until we stumbled into it in the Olympics on our new TV. It's a really exciting game, fast-moving, physical, skillful, and strategic. It's kind of the opposite of soccer in that you can only touch the ball above the knees. Players can't be stationary with the ball longer than three seconds, so the play is constantly moving around. Rough play is part of the game, including pushing, grabbing, and pulling on jerseys, but sportsmanship is good and we haven't seen any fights or disputes. Fouls seem to be called at the discretion of the referee, and they do happen. The game is an hour total, in two halves, and scores run up to 30 points or so. Men's and women's handball are quite equally fun and impressive to watch, there's no advantage in the game for one sex or the other.
The game was invented in the late nineteenth century in Scandinavia and Germany, and became an Olympic sport in 1936. Interestingly, the US and Canada have not fielded an Olympic handball team for decades. This probably explains why we've never seen the game in US Olympic coverage. It's all over the TV here in Europe though, and there are teams from all over the world. If you get a chance or can dig a game up on video, check it out. Even Gerrit, the complete non-sports dweeb, finds it fascinating and exciting, and Pat thinks it might even supplant American football for her.
We love salmon, no matter what ocean it comes from, but we do miss that Alaskan sockeye in Seattle. It really is the best in the world. Atlantic salmon is good, we just had some again last night, but it's softer, oranger, and not as rich in flavor. Lots of good omega-3 oil in it, but we definitely miss that sockeye. So when you come visit, throw a sockeye in your suitcase for us, willya?
And the vacation's over. We've been hunched over our computers taking care of residence responsibilities like getting billing accounts transferred to our name, shopping for a car, buying a vacuum cleaner, and taking care of visa requirements. We scheduled a quick trip to England a couple days from now, too (more on that later).
