Loved it. Loved it, not only because I love food and grew up watching Julia Childs PBS shows, while my mom folded laundry in the basement. No, I loved it because I had a chance to watch passion acted upon. Topo many of us have a passion we never do anything about. We all may obsess about it. But only a few act upon it. Gary Vaynerchuck’s “Crush It!
” is a book about how to “act upon your passion”. The problem though is that many people will read his book and just say “yeah that’s what I need to do” and go on thinking about it.

I think I have a solution. Do something stupid. Yep. Go out and do something quickly before you have time to think about it and figure out if it was the right thing later. I wouldn’t be in Spain right now if I had thought about it. Gabriella and I bought a ticket because we could, and look, now we live here. Our passion: exploring the world. At this point we’ve traveled throughout Spain and Portugal. Visited London and Norway numerous times, and have been to India. A series of lucky breaks and a lot of hard work has kept this project/dream/experiment alive. But we’re doing it, and we wouldn’t be here still if we had thought about it.

Juila and Julia both did something, whether or not they were sure what they were doing. They figured it out along the way. They had fun. They made their dreams come true. My dreams are still figuring themselves out…but I’ll keep doing what I need to do, and from time to time, I’ll jump feet first into something I know nothing about, just to see what happens.

Enjoy the chickens:

I love visiting Portugal for the fish. Somehow they can take the most simple fish, and transform it into a religious experience. Slightly charred, yet full of the ocean air, it when done right borders on perfection. This dish was no different. Shared back in March, I’m still dreaming of it!

If you visit Lisbon and your like me, I have to say you probably miss out on one of the more interesting places. I tend to like to visit the lost old corners of the city with crumbling bricks and twisted streets. Turns out though the old World Expo Site happens to be worth a visit. Starting under the enormous Vasco de Gama bridge, it runs a few km’s down the river with an assortment of buildings both in disrepair and others full of vibrance and excitement. This one building happens to always draw my attention due to it’s use sagging concrete roof. Some heavey post processing I think yeilded a nice set of images of the space.

Cooking Linguica with Andre of Adegga.com from ryan opaz on Vimeo.

Fun way of fixing Portuguese sausages!

I love the old buildings in Lisbon, with peeling paint, and crumbling, dusty tiles. Sometimes a wall can be so engaging. Or maybe I’m just odd.

I love Lisbon’s street cars. Haven’t ridden on one yet, but they make the city seem so much more special. Their bell, and the click clack on the streets, just another reason I love this town!

Lisbon is great. Having a great time hanging out, drinking wine and researching the #EWBC locales. So many photos, that I need to edit, but I thought I would throw up one of my favorites…Pure luck that I had a telephoto on when this bird in front of me decided to have dinner. I have a series, though this was the sharpest! Enjoy, Ryan