Simple easy to remember Spanish words

 

Spanish - English

ahora - now (nOw is the HOuR)

alto - high (like altitude)

animales - animals

ayer - yesterday (AYe - scottish for yes, YEsteRday)

carne - meat (like carnivore)

Dormitorio - bedroom

los dientes - teeth (like dentist and dental work and dentistry)

me - me

naranja - orange, add the n in front, an orange used to be a norange in English

viento - wind (like ventilation)

invierno - winter , like the French for winter,  hiver, change v to b and you hibernate, to get through the winter by sleeping in a duvet (spelled with a v)

English  Spanish

animals - animales

bedroom - dormitorio

high - alto

me -me

meat - carne

now - ahora

orange - naranja

teeth - los dientes

wind - viento

winter - invierno

yesterday - ayer

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Barracuda Restaurant, Stanmore, Middx, England - Ground Floor Toilet and Fab Food

Barracuda restaurant, Stanmore. Photo by Angela Lansbury. COPYRIGHT. 

Barracuda is a fish

The menu includes a fish section but also a selection of other meats and pizzas.

 We were looking for a restaurat in north west London which I could visit without using stairs.  We opted for Baracuda in Stanmore. My family had visited it previously and liked it.

We booked a table for five on Saturday night for 7 pm and when we arrived they were busy. 

Parking

Varous options in Stanmore. In the metred area outside.  The Sainsbury's supermarket car park which has different rules upstairs and downstairs in the car park.

A large car park around the corner with signs warning you to read the signs.

Starter

For starters we ordered mushrooms breaded. They came up crispy. You might say gritty. In an attractive bed of green and red salad.

Main Courses

I chose the chicken with mshrooms in white sauce. My old favourite from Italian restaurants. The dish was listed as being with new potatoes. I used to find new potatoes inspiid compared with roast potaties or even chips. But these were perfect.

I loved the soft sweet carrots and ate those first. 

Lastly came the copious amount of flattened chicken wing.

One of my fellow diners had opted for the meat which came with mashed potatoes. UM1 Perfect potatoes.

Finally, desserts. 

I loved my baked New York style cheese cakes. Licky, sticky.

Toilets

The toilets and handicapped tpoilet are on the ground floor. Convenient. Pleasantly decorated with plants.

Service

Service was fast, smiling obliging.

We were given limoncello each, on the house.

Italian Restaurant Menu Translations

 I am learning Italian, on Duolingo, ready for a holiday next year. Therefore every Italian restaurant menu is a welcome challenge. So are all the multi-language lists of ingredients on chocolate bars, cakes, tins of olives and sardines, and packging from supermarkets.

Here's my most recent look at an Italian restaurant menu.

Antipasto - Starter 

Primo - first course

affumicato - smoked (like our English word fumes)

aglio - garlic

di - of

e - and

fiori - flowers

gamberi - prawns

Insalata - salad

insalata verde - green salad

forno - (in the) oven / baked

fritti - fried

melone - melon

prosciutto - Parma ham (ham from Parma)

salmone - salmon

spinaci - spinach

trota - trout

zucca - zuccini

Pasta

Spaghetti - notice ending in the letter i for plurals

Fettuccine - flat noodles

funghi - mushroooms (like the English word fungus)

porcini - wild mushrooms

vegetariana - vegetarian

Main Courses \

con - with

di - of

fegato - calves' liver

filetto - filet

fritti fried (like our word fritters)

grilia - from the grill/in the grill  - grilled

manzo - beef (think of meat

mare - sea

pepe - pepper (like texting, shorten the English word to get the Italian)

pesce - fish

risotto - rice dish

Wine

rosso - red

vino - wine

vino bianco - white wine

vino rosso - red wine

Payment

carta di credito - credit card

Useful Websites

Duolingo

duolingo.com

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Translate an Albanian Restaurant Menu - what is krem?

You might guess that Krem is cream. And mixe is mixed. Have a look at these words and see which you can guess or remember easily. 

 Albanian - English

bizele - peas

brokoli - broccoli

byrek - pie

dhe - and

koke - head

krem - cream

me - with

mish -meat

mixe - mixed

pule - chicken

sallate - salad

spec - pepper

speca - peppers

spinag - spinach

supe - soup

tave - casserole

te - the

English - Albania

and - dhe

casserole - tave

head - koke

meat - mish

mixed - mixe

peas - bizele

pepper - spec

peppers speca

pie - byrek

the - te

Useful Websites

What's kosher, where? Breakfast, brunch, Bagels and kosher food at SoYo restaurant, Golders Green. Compared and contrast with halal

 We were looking for a restaurant near Brent Cross Shopping centre for a meeting with friends in the near future. One of the group wanted a kosher restaurant. 

What do kosher and halal food have in common? No pork. Why? Because they both follow a rule from the book of Leviticus (Latin for laws) in the bible. Jews refer to the bible. Christians added the New Testament about the life of Jesus, and called the original bible, which Jesus followed, the Old Testament. 

Why no Pork?

The rules about eating kosher, not eating pork, were dropped by the ardent follower of Jesus, Paul, when preaching to non-Jews about the messages of Jesus and the Resurrection. 

Moslems came along. They followed Mohamad.  (His name is spelled in English various ways, depending on how you translate the Arabic letters into the Roman alphabet. Nowadays you might conform or to be different the different countries with different pronunciations.) The Moslems kept the old, traditional, rule about not eating pork. Some people say the Christianity is Judaism made easy, whilst Islam is Judaism made difficult. (One month of fasting for Ramadan, whereas the Jews have just one day at the Day of Atonement. Christians give up one food for lent. Jews give up all kinds of food for the period including and surrounding the seder.

On the other hand, in some ways Judaism has stricter or more extensive food restrictions. No shellfish. No milk eating at the same meal as when meat is served. This is either the word of God, or a humanitarian rule that you must not kill a milk feeding calf in front of its mother, using the milk to cook the calf. (Calf cooked in milk is a classic and popular dish in Jordan, still, nowadays, in many places in the Middle East, as I discovered to my amazement, on a press trip to Jordan on a Rolls Royce car rally. 

This rule accounts for the fact that SoYo restaurant has two branches side by side in Golders Green. One serves meat. The other serves only fish, eggs, and milk based dishes. 

How do kosher and halal differ in supermarkets? Both have no pork. The Jewish section has no shellfish. As I am allergic to shellfish, crustaceans and molluscs, this suits me very well. 

Where Are Kosher Restaurants?

You will find both kosher and halal food sections in supermarkets all over London but particularly in the East End of London and North west London. For kosher sections in supermarkets, bagels in supermarkets, and Jewish style or kosher food in delicatessens and restaurants you could look at (alphabetically) Edgware, the Finchley Road, Golders Green, Hendon, Stanmore, Temple Fortune. 

A relative suggested several places in the area. We vetoed a family favourite, the cafe in the Hendon park by Hendon Central station. Great for a sunny day in the park. 

We wanted something more formal, more exciting and filling, with a chance to sit and talk to friends at leisure. But not as luxurious and expensive as a Michelin restaurant, and the upmarket Chinese Kosher restaurants.

B & K

Our favourite for a big meal in an informal setting is B&K, Hatch End, and Edgware, is a salt beef, deli, take away and restaurant.

Bagels in Brick Lane

How about a bagel? London has two famous bagel shops in the East End, in Brick Lane. At least one of them is open very late, possibly all night. Before going anywhere, check the times. 

Sabbath and Sunset

Strictly kosher restaurants have to close dusk to dawn on the Jewish sabbath, which in the UK means dark falls early evening on Friday in winter. So the restaurants won't be open Friday evening, in winter.  However, they will be open Saturday. 

In summer, the sunset time is different. You can find out by a diary, the newspaper, or your watch, or mobile phone, or computer or kitchen or oven clock (or rather, when you can see three stars).

Bagels - Why The Hole?

I started researching bagels when I turned my family history into a novel (still yet to be printed and published - next job!) I was looking at the lifetime of an ancestor on my father's side who came to the UK from Ukraine, from Lemberg, as it was then called in the 1880s. At that time or earlier Bagels come from Poland, Ukraine which was at different times under different rulers and languages, and Western Europe. 

One story goes that bagel sellers would put bread on a stick and make a hole in the middle of the bread to thread bread onto the stick. 

Another story is that the hole was for the benefit of the buyer. Why? Going back a few centuries, houses did not have a cooking range or oven, which would have been a fire risk and required fuel. Every house head food buyer or cook went to the baker with their dough.  Or, if travelling, bought ready made food. 

Another theory goes that when the householders were shopping, housewives, men if women were not allowed out of the house, workers, or travellers, would buy bread to take home or eat later. The buyer would thread the bread on a string around their neck in order to leave their hands free and keep the bulky bread handy (or hidden?!).

So there you have the story to entertain yourself or tell your friend next time you eat a bagel or kosher food or halal food.

Two options in northwest London.

So Yo restaurant

They have more than one branch. You can book a table by phone.

Useful Websites

For both the Golders Green and Edgware branches:

https://soyo.co.uk/

Update on my visit in the next post.

American English - British English

take out - take away

Malay and Indonesian Food & Menu Words

 

Malay flag

Malay - English

apel - apple

ayam - chicken

bagasi - luggage (like bag and bassage)

besar - big

buku - book

daging - meat

goreng - fried

ikan - fish

ikan bilis - teeny fish, smaller than whitebait, used as a garnish

kash - cash

kue - cake

mangga - mango

makanan - foodnasi - rice

nasi goreng - fried rice

pisang - banana

pisang goreng - fried banana

restauran - restaurant

English (and American) - Malay (and Indonesian)

apple - appel

banana - pisang

big - besar

book - buku

cake - kue

cash - kash

chicken - ayam

food - makanan

fish - ikan

fried - goreng (sound like grilled, but it is fried, but it is a cooking style)

fried rice - nasi goreng

luggage - bagasi

Malay language - bahasa Malay (literally language Malay, the adjective coming first, unlike the English translation)

meat - daging

restaurant - restauran

rice - nasi

Useful Websites

duolingo.com

memrise.com

facebook Polyglots community page

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2021/06/malay-words-which-look-and-sound.html

About the Author

Angela Lansbury is a member of Toastmasters International.

About the Author Angela Lansbury

The Author - Quick Quotations

Angela Lansbury B A Hons  is the author of ten books by regular publishers plus another ten self-published books. 

About Angela The Speaker & Trainer

Angela Lansbury is a teacher of English and other languages to Toastmasters clubs and businesses.

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Speakers Vice President  Public Relations, Immediate Past President. VPPR

Former Area Director S3. Club Coach for Nee Soon South Toastmasters Club.

Also Member of: TCA Toastmasters Club; Singapore Online Dynamic; Harrovians UK

Past meetings have included Garen Tee on using story telling in business, on bha.learncool.sg . 

Recent meetings of BHA included an educational session on using Powerpoint for posters.

Next BHA meetings, always first Wednesday evening, 7 pm Singapore time. Next meeting is  the third Saturday afternoon, June 19th 2pm Singapore time.  Inauguration of the new committee by the incoming Director of S, plus a lively speech on teamwork.

 

Angela The Blogger 

Angela has several blogs speeches, comedy and song writing and organizing, writing intermittently, but writes almost daily on these three:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

See next post on sculptor Tom Harvey.

Please share links to your favourite posts. 

Zufa Lebanese Restaurant, Northwood Hills - make it a date!

Picture of date drink from Wikipedia.

Problem
What does a Lebanese restaurant serve? I need time to learn my way around the menu.

Answer
Go on to Zufa's website and you can read all about it. If you are not nearby, or can't wait, you can download their app and order online.

Starters include
Hot and Cold mezze
(A huge choice; a mixture of dishes)
Soups

Main course
FISH
Sea bass
King Prawns

MEAT OR CHEESEInclude chicken, kebabs, lamb, salad, cheese, rice, wraps.

Drinks
Dates drink - Jallab
Yogurt Drink - Aryan
Juices
Colas

Desserts
We'll start with the familiar:
Baklava. It says nuts, without specifying which nuts. Before ordering, I shall ask.

Blinis
Well, I know these. Russian and East European restaurants from the Middle East and more.

Miracle Cake
Belgian chocolate cake.

Useful Websites
orderdirectly.biz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallab

Date drink
I already know what I want, the date drink. But I once went to a restaurant specially for a speciality and it was not in stock. So I shall check first and ask them to save one for me.
If they have a date drink, I'll definitely make it a date.

I think I'll make one at home first, then see how theirs compares, and what extra ingredients they have to enhance the flavour.

Zufa Lebanese Restaurant
1-3 Joel Street, Northwood Hills
HA6 INU
tel: 01923 840192
www.zufarestaurant.co.uk

Open Monday to Sunday from around noon until around 11 but check because I was confused between the restaurant opening times and the food ordering times and when I checked a second time they appear to have different opening times on different days of the week.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See previous post on Zufa restaurants in Northwood Hills and Hatch End. Please share links to your favourite posts.

NEED SPECIAL FOOD FOR AN ALLERGY OR SPECIAL DIET? Allergy ha ha! No, it's not funny - what to watch for

Problem
Diets of all kinds are catered for online - but rather more essential to plan in advance or take your own special food on an airline. You can buy food for all kinds of special diets: eggless, free of MSG, gluten-free, halal, kosher, low-calorie, nutfree, and free of all kinds of foods you need to avoid when taking pills.

People often joke that the Chinese eat anything with four legs except the table, but many of them are lactose intolerant.

Airlines offer lots of meals. However, on Singapore Airlines, if you have a shellfish allergy the only way to get a meal supposedly without shellfish is to order a kosher meal. 

In-flight you really don't want to come out with a rash like chickenpox, swelling around your eyes and mouth and throat so you can hardly breathe, and non-stop retching for 24 hours even after you have vomited up your meal. 

Surprise - Mistake
I've had bad reactions to shellfish twice. The first time I ate crab by mistake for salmon. I had pointed at a pink fish sandwich filling when staff in a sandwich shop did not know the English word (for crab). 

The other time was after eating king prawns in a restaurant.  

Spots
It's disgusting and alarming for others to see you covered in spots. The sufferer, bystanders, even medically trained people might wonder whether it's chicken pox and contagious. Rashes are one of the danger signs which mean call a doctor. Could be meningitis, or bubonic plague (still prevalent in Africa). 

Without a doctor, you don't know if it's a food allergy, food poisoning, chicken pox, or shingles (a late in life recurrence caused by chicken pox earlier in life) or something else contagious. It could be dangerous to the person suffering, and passed on to you if you touch them.

Swelling

Then there's the swelling. You look pretty ugly with swollen eyes. Swollen face, Swollen mouth. Not what you want on a honeymoon, anniversary trip, nor any happy holiday. 

Nor, if it comes to that, a business trip. Just imagine, you are the sales person hoping to seal a deal. 'Yes, sir,' you or the sales person shakes hands with the potential buyer, 'all our food and drink is organic and healthy. Excuse me, sorry to retch over this contract I would like you to sign ... you will sign, won't you?'

Retching
I brought up the food and thought that's it, thank goodness it's over. It wasn't. I went on retching, just saliva, for hours. It's exhausting for the sufferer when you keep retching even when there's no more food in you because your body has gone into spasms. 

No sleep all night. The reaction is not amusing. Even if no long-term consequences, no start to a holiday for the passenger and companions. Not something passengers and staff would like to see on an airline.

So forgive me, I am not amused by the idea of accidentally eating something to which you have an allergy.

You can also develop allergies. Usually, possibly, after increasing amounts, or increasing events of eating something to which you are slightly intolerant. I love strawberries. After a long hot summer when I ate strawberries every day, sometimes twice a day, at the end of the summer I started swelling up around my mouth and went to the doctor. 

She said, "It's an allergic reaction. What have you been eating? How often?"

About ten years later I was tempted to eat a strawberry. I tried a tiny amount. Fine. Half. A whole one. Half an hour later, a couple more. Next day, a whole plateful. OK!

Luckily, even when I am surprised (by teeny shrimps in soups in Korea and rice in Thailand and Malaysia and Singapore) - most customers and servers - even at the Sheraton Towers hotel buffet - cheerily tell you they don't think the food contains any shellfish. I turn over the food and check. I can usually smell shellfish. A sharp smell. Pungent.

If I eat it I know immediately that it's shellfish. Sharp taste, like pickles in vinegar, like kimchee. Worse still, tingling in my mouth, inside lips seem to be pressing on my tongue - swelling.

I spit out, race for the toilet, retch, spit, clean my teeth and tongue, swill water, suck water between my teeth.

Always take care of yourself, your family, your friends, your colleagues.

Safety First
On one press trip, to Italy, the PR lady would not even let me eat fish in case a prawn had sat on top of a piece of fish, or a shellfish sauce had been added. She told me, and the group, that on a previous trip one of the journalists had had a reaction to shellfish. The person had to go to hospital. She, as the PR person in charge of the trip, had to accompany the stricken person to hospital, do all the paperwork, report to her employers and the insurance company, try to organize the following day when she was kept busy at the hospital, consider having to repatriate the traveller early.

The moral of the story?
The morals or lessons of the story:
1 Never give somebody something to which they are allergic or intolerant as a joke - because each experience increases their physical reaction - like vaccination in reverse as the body builds up hystamine as a reaction to try to expel the toxin.

2 Note what you are eating.
If possible give the pilot or driver different food so in the case of food poisoning another pilot or driver unaffected can take over.

3 Label packaged food carefully - fish is not a sufficient description, nor is seafood. I am fine with salmon and trout and smoked salmon and cod and plaice. It is only shellfish and molluscs which cause me problems.

If you are not allergic to nuts, strawberries or shellfish, lucky you. If you find yourself with somebody who can't eat certain products, you can get a double portion!

If you are ever in charge of packaging, supply food, serving food, acting as a guide, watch out for allergies. You could save yourself and others a lot of time, money and worry.

On one trip to a seafood restaurant in Spain I gave my shellfish starter to the person next to me in exchange for his chocolate dessert. We were both very happy!

What are the common dietary needs?
No shellfish (allergy)
No shellish (kosher)
No beef (hindu)
No meat (and sometimes no fish) vegetarian
No eggs and milk (in addition to no meat and fish) vegan
No nuts (allergy)
No eggs (allergy - that's why Bird's custard powder was invented by a man whose wife was allergic to eggs)
No lamb (Asians find it smells offensive)
No milk (lactose intolerance in a proportion of Asians - might be one sister can't drink milk but the other can)
No milk and meat at the same meal (kosher - so no butter on meat sandwiches and no milk in coffee or milky desserts after meat)
No meat (vegans find it smells offensive - I was asked not to eat a meat sandwich on a bus by a vegan tour guide.)
No pork (Halal and kosher - ancient law, possibly practical, reinforced by prohibition, originating from the book of Leviticus which is Greek word for laws in the bible, as it is called by Jews, known to Christians as the Old Testament after they added the new Testament featuring the life of Jesus and disciples.)

My friend Shan started a gluten free import business in Singapore when a member of her family became known to have a gluten problem.

Useful Websites

GlutenfreeSG.com 

email: sales@glutenfreesg.com>

https://www.singaporeair.com/en_UK/sg/flying-withus/dining/specialmeals/
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allergy

Author
Angela Lansbury
Travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

How to remember some simple Portuguese words for food, plurals

Portugal

Portuguese flag

Brazil

Problem
The Portuguese is similar to English - but different. How do I remember?

Answer
Note the differecet or similarity. Practise noticing the difference or similarity. You only need to say it or see it about three times for it to stick. The exercises in Duolingo will usually show you each word three times.

English - Portuguese
meat - carne (as in the English words carnivore and carnivorous)
pepper - pimenta (almost pimento, but ends in the sound a which is similar to the end of pepper)
pork - porco
potato - batata
rice - arroz (think of a round of rice, double r, o for a circle, when the rice is served in a mound) ice and oz sound similar, s-z
salad - salada (letter a three times, like three tomatoes)
sandwich - sanduiche
soup - sopa
strawberry - o morango
tomato - tomate

the strawberry - o morango (o is masculine the) the word looks like orange. A strawberry is orange shape. The M at the start is like the W in strawberry turned upside down. Repeat the o from the beginning of the word at the end. o morango.

Portuguese - English
arroz - rice
batata - potato
carne - meat
o morango - the strawberry (for the plural add an s like in English: os morangos)
pimenta - pepper
porco - pork
salada - salad
sanduiche - sandwich
sopa - soup
tomate - tomato

So now you can look at a menu and find a snack of a sandwich and salad including tomato, check if it is meat or pork, ask for soup, meat and potatoes, or rice, and finish with strawberries.


Useful Websites
Free internet learning for Portuguese and other languages
https://www.duolingo.com

A disc I bought from Earworms to play in the car. You can also download it onto a laptop. I bought volume 1 and then volume 2.

http://www.earwormslearning.com

Travel websites
https://www.visitportugal.com/en

http://www.visitmadeira.pt/en-gb/homepage

visitbrasil.com (NB They spell it with an s!)

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have several other posts on learning Portuguese and other languages, and sites to visit. Please save and share links to your favourite posts.

The Rear of The Rhea Was Here - where can you see it now?

Photo of Rhea by Michael Palmer in Wikipedia.


The Rear Of The Rhea Is Here
by Angela Lansbury

What is a rhea?
First I must say
It's oddly spelled
R H E A

The rhea, like its name, is absurd
Because it's a large, but flightless bird
Some people won't hear one bad word,
Ok, let's say, delightful bird

At first, when that big bird was found
They called it rhea, that's Greek for ground
South America's rhea is taller
Thank God, our Darwin rhea, here, is smaller

Most people here have no idea
About the truth, about the rhea
Except of course, for me and you
Like emus, we've no work to do

We look up facts, so we are clear
In case we ever must confront
Bravely, without a tear, nor fear
That dear, but very dangerous rhea

Thousands write to support its cause
It doesn't have big teeth, lion's jaws
But don't shake hands, evade its paws!
It catches, clasps, kills - with long claws!

On good days it just eats long grass
So if you're bothered by too much grass
No time at down to mow the lawn
Just let your rhea march, munching, past

One lady thought it would be fun
To own a rhea, just start with one
It's lonely, so then you get two
But what d'you think two rheas do!

A year goes past, while drinking tea,
You look up, gasp, "Hey - I see three!"
They breed and breed, you've soon got four
Let's split them up. please shut that door

'We've not got room, what shall we do?
I'm sure they'd like some at the zoo
So take a picture. Shut that gate!'
'Sorry, one's gone - I was too late!'

Cute in National Geographic
Not fun, running round in traffic!
It's run, done something in the field
I hope that helps the farmer's yield

It's not good news, not a good day
It's dangerous - on a motorway!
They're lost, they're breeding, two, four, five
The good news is that they'll survive

It's like an ostrich, and will eat
All kinds of plants, but sometimes meat
Rodent, reptile. It's friends with deer
Stands calm by cows, if herds are near

An 'emu' was glimpsed far from home
Caught on camera, then mobile phone
Escaped rheas at first sound fun
Delays, expense, police - with guns

Although, from far, a rhea's cute
Shyly running, in its feather suit
Now it's escaped, they'll prosecute
Stop car crashes. Game keepers shoot

We should know more, we all agree
To talk this over, over tea
I'll go off to scan the media
Please read more in Wikipedia

Because there's lots more I could say
But we've not enough time today
Let's go out looking, all of us here
Before laws ban them and they disappear

Learn more about the backward rhea
See which facts we can muster
The prime use of its feathers
Is to make a feather duster

If you fly to Argentina
You'll find the rhea is no stranger
You see it on centavo coins
There they're not rare, nor endangered

Gouchos would trip up rheas with ropes
Eat eggs and meat, make leather cloaks.
Farmers are angry, rheas eat crops
Not bad, they're good! Here shooting's stopped!

If soon, the world's rheas disappear
Don't drown sorrow in tea or beer
Come to England, amigos, Hertfordshire
You'll see two rhea rears running here!
-ends-

copyright Angela Lansbury.
Inspired by controversy caused by escaped rheas by the English motorway, pursued by gunmen, eventually recaptured, or returned for lunch, instead of ending up as dinner.
Please share links to this post.
For the story about the escaped rheas causing trouble to motorway traffic, see
UK Escapes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/27050298
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/what-s-going-on-rhea-yorkshire-police-find-an-emu-on-patrol-1-9014419
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-warning-over-aggressive-escaped-rhea-bird-on-the-loose-in-nottinghamshire-10345553.html

Escapes in Germany
http://www.10000birds.com/greater-rheas-germanys-new-big-bird.htm

For info on rheas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhea_(bird)_

ENGLAND, UK
To see rheas go to Woburn Safari Park, England.
woburnsafari.co.uk
http://www.woburnsafari.co.uk/discover/meet-the-animals/birds/greater-rhea/

SCOTLAND
http://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/animals-and-attractions/animals/darwins-rhea/

https://www.visitscotland.com

NORTHERN IRELAND
http://www.belfastzoo.co.uk/animals/darwins-rhea.aspx

vistibritainshop.com

CHILE, SOUTH AMERICA
Or Parc Nacional Pali Aike, Chile
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g2615237-d2461967-r346309803-Parque_Nacional_Pali_Aike-Magallanes_Region.html
https://www.cloudbirders.com/tripreport
http://www.visitchile.com/en/

ARGENTINA, SOUTH AMERICA
https://www.audleytravel.com/argentina
https://wikitravel.org/en/Argentina

Which food can I pack when travelling by bus or train or car?

Sandwich with egg in brown bread from supermarket. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Problems
Which food should I pack? You might think you don't need food but you need some, just in case. Once year I was driving back from work only less than two miles and my car was caught in a snow drift. A car had slid and created an accident. I had no food or drink. I was cold and I wanted to go to the toilet.

Answers
I looked around a supermarket to see what they stock. I know that railway stations have chocolates and raisins and nuts and sandwiches, often at high prices. You can often buy on trains, again, not necessarily what you want and often at high prices. I considered the following:

1 Nuts and Sultanas
 Best value were almonds. Best variety, mixed nuts. You can also buy sultanas and nuts. Cheaper to make up a bag of mixed nuts and sultanas, and you can increase the proportion of sultanas. If you are allergic to nuts, stick to the sultanas. Nuts provide protein. Very filling.

They get in your teeth. You might want to take toothpicks and a toothbrush and toothpaste. Maybe you have a travel brush set from your plane travels.

Nuts don't need to be kept in the fridge. So you can pop them straight in your bag to be sure you remember them.

Pistachios are fine in the car. What about the shells?  Stick an empty paper bag on a hook to take the waste shells. However, travelling on a train, debris can be a nuisance.

2 Sandwiches
Most supermarkets in the UK make sandwiches from £1.10. Look for signs for two sandwiches for £2, and meal deals of a sandwich and drink for about £4. They often sell out early in the day. If you live near a supermarket or pass it often you can watch for when they make their deliveries and how long it takes for the items to be put on the shelves. Or ask the evening before.

Sandwich Options
Sandwiches at the end of the day are often reduced price. But do you trust them to be appetising and safe a day after the sell by date? If you can buy them on the day that's better. You can now get brown bread sandwiches.

Sometimes you buy a sandwich, just in case, but get given a meal or opportunity for a hotel meal with friend or a group, and find it uneaten later. You might eat it as a late night snack.

Fish and Fresh?
If a meat sandwich or fish sandwich has been sitting around in warm rooms all day, depending on how long you have been out, it is no longer fresh. I tend to go for a cheese sandwich because I think that keeps better.

An alternative is to travel with a tin of sardines or tuna, plus a couple of slices of bread in a Zip-loc bag. At a destination, you can make up a fresh fish sandwich.

If you are making your own sandwich in advance, a hard cheese option is safest. You could make it up in the morning, or the night before, using brown bread and a cut tomato or cucumber.  Or put all the ingredients in a lunch box separately.

That way, you could throw away anything which went off. Some of it could be a small snack between meals.

For a fast getaway, boil two eggs the night before. Eat one for breakfast. Carry the other with you in a small sealed box, with or without the shell. Alternatively, squish one or both eggs into a sandwich, mixed with grated cheese, with tomato or cucumber or both on the side.

I like chicken. A pack of chicken legs is economical. You could keep them in the freezer, remember to take them out in the morning - with a note beside your breakfast plate. You need a disposal bag.

That way, the chicken will keep fresher, fewer hours sitting in the heat. Anything in your pocket is next to heat. Anything in the car footwell is likely to get hot. In summer the back shelf under the window can also get hot. We once arrived to find a bar of chocolate had disappeared into a brown pancake with a river.

American Hershey chocolate was designed for soldiers in WWI to not melt in the heat. British chocolates are more likely to melt.

Dessert
Strawberries and blueberries are fine in a clip-together box, if you can pack a spoon, perhaps a small, old teaspoon which will be no great loss if it goes missing during your travels, or a small disposable spoon you already have. It is also useful to have a bag in which to put the bits you cannot eat.

Bananas travel better if you buy them less ripe, and very filling. They have their own protective case.

Apples can be even harder, so less likely to make a mess. However, the core presents a disposal problem. I sometimes cut an apple in half and scoop out the core and put it in a zip-lock bag. I sometimes put anything which might make a mess inside two bags. The rubbish can stay securely in a double bag. Or the half-eaten piece of fruit stays in one bag, whilst the cor or peel or skin goes in the other bag.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Learn another set of ten easy Portuguese words at the restaurant table

Portuguese - English
carne - meat
começar - commence / start
ementa - menu (both words have the letters MEN in the middle)
entrada - starter
mesa - table
sim - yes (like the Spanish si but with an extra M, like so many Portuguese words)
solteira - single (female not married)
solteiro - single (male not married)
tinto - red (wine - like tinted)
tipo - type
truta - trout

English - Portuguese
meat - carne (like carnivore or carnivorous)
menu - ementa
single (female) - solteira
single (male) - solteiro
start / commence - commeçar (the Portuguese ends not A but AR like the middle letters of stARt
starter - entrada
table - mesa
trout - truta
type - tipo
yes - sim

Useful Websites
https://www.visitportugal.com/en
http://www.visitmadeira.pt/en-gb/homepage
http://visitbrasil.com/en/
https://www.duolingo.com/course/pt/en/Learn-Portuguese-Online

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, learner and teacher of languages.

Food photos to show your waiter or server or restaurant manager.

Problem
How do you order food when you don't speak the language?

Answer
Show photos. (More in previous post.)

Bread.

Coffee. Coffee with decoration.

German marzipan centre stollen cake.

Chocolate cake with nuts and vanilla ice cream.

Bread with nuts and fruit to accompany coffee.

Plate and cutlery.

Champagne bottle, rosé wine, jug of water. 

Meat with mushrooms, sauté potatoes and green beans.

Toilet and washbasin with toilet paper and soap.

Fruit bowl: green apples, red apples, oranges, pear (right).

Cake with fruit - orange slices on top.

Cheesecake with fruit topping and jug of cream. Background chocolate cake.

Pub lunch of baked potato in its jacket with butter, cheese, tomato, mushroom, peas. Napkin and fork.

All photos by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Teacher of English and other languages.