Mary Lou's Portugal Journal #28

Olá amigos!

I hope you all had a very enjoyable Thanksgiving. We (Nick and I and many of our friends) had to attend language classes on both Thanksgiving day and the day after, so we had our second annual potluck Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday evening instead. It was fun and a nice break from the intense language program that some of us are taking. The good news is that those of us in the intense program have only 4.5 days left! We've had five big tests thus far, plus many daily diagnostic tests and even a few oral presentations that we had to prepare and deliver, with our final test scheduled for next Monday. I can already confirm that we will all pass and receive our A2 certificates! And yes, we will definitely be celebrating!

My pulmonologist in the national health services recently scheduled me for a breathing test. Had I known how comical it was going to be, I would have videotaped it. The technician conducting the tests spoke absolutely no English, and I was having a difficult time understanding her. Often, when you tell a Portuguese person that you can only speak a little bit of Portuguese, they continue speaking to you in Portuguese at their typical rapid pace. 😵‍💫 She proceeded to act out her instructions of inhaling, exhaling, blowing, etc. At one point, she was yelling "barriga, barriga" because she wanted me to blow hard all the way from my belly (a word I actually understood). Another test involved blowing into a tube while trying to keep a cloud on the screen from dropping to the ground before reaching a flag on the other side of the screen. It took me five tries to even understand what I was supposed to be doing, all the while we were both laughing out loud. But I will say that we were able to chat a bit in Portuguese, and I was able to tell her how long I've been here and a bit about my language class and my friends. She asked a lot of questions about me, which I was pretty well able to answer. I am not fluent however, so don't even assume that.

On January 9th our two year visas will expire. Though we're eligible for a 3 year extension, we need to make an appointment with the immigration service (AIMA), which is virtually impossible right now. The agency is so backlogged (400,000 applications pending) that they don't answer their phones, and so far, we haven't been able to reach anyone who can schedule an appointment for us. Showing up without an appointment is not allowed. At this point AIMA has given a blanket extension to everyone in our situation until June 30, 2025. Failure to get an extension could cause our bank account to be frozen, so we have to make it a daily process of trying to schedule an appointment. In the meantime, Portugal saw the biggest surge ever in google searches regarding immigrating to Portugal the day after the U.S. election. We're glad we got here when we did.

Portugal now has the best cheese in the world! At the 2024 World Cheese Awards, a small family-run cheese factory called Quijaria Quinta do Pomar, located in central Portugal, beat out 47 other countries with their buttery sheep's milk cheese, to win top honors. Unfortunately, trying to get your hands on any of their award winning cheese is futile at this point, but hopefully we'll get to try it one of these days.

In early November we took a trip to Lisboa for the weekend to see a concert. Since we were also celebrating our 39th anniversary, I booked a nice room at a 5-star hotel near the stadium, which thankfully was also located far from the recent protests that were taking place there. We made friends with the bartender in the hotel on our first evening, and he introduced me to a lovely gin called Monkey 47. Weird name, but a really nice, smooth gin!

Monkey 47 Gin

The hotel had specially designed carpeting made to look like the calçada portuguesa, which is the small stone pedestrian walkways which are often arranged in beautiful patterns.

Mary Lou's Portugal Journal #27

Ola amigos,

I hope you are doing well. We're both happy and in good health here.

Since I last wrote, we attended a harvest party with a bunch of friends and acquaintences up in the Douro Valley. A bus load of 60 of us were taken up to a small family vineyard where they fed us multiple times during the day, poured all the wine we could drink, had music and dancing, and taught us the correct way to cut the grapes and gently place them in baskets. Some brave souls in our group then climbed into a vat and stomped some grapes (we weren't among them). Honestly, we didn't spend more than 45 minutes in total cutting grapes off the vines because they were too busy entertaining and feeding us. Fortunately for us, the weather was beautiful and somewhat cool.

The organizer of the event told me that I earned a PhD in grape harvesting.

The last week of September a good friend from Pacific Grove, CA., Becky, came to Porto for a visit. Lucky for Becky (😂) we had just received an assignment from our 6 year old granddaughter Isa, in Miami, who wanted us to take her Flat Stanley around Porto as part of her school assignment. For those of you who don't know Flat Stanley, he's a paperdoll that most American kids at sometime or another have to take around and photograph him enjoying activities, trips, etc.. So being the dutiful grandmother, I printed a copy of him and carried him around for the next few days while showing Becky around town. I captured many photos of him enjoying the sites. While we were walking around Mercado Bolhão, I had Flat Stanley in my hand and suddenly I heard someone yell "Flat Stanley!" It was a young adult woman traveling with her parents from the states who recognized him from her grammar school days.

Here's Flat Stanley having a casual lunch at Mercado Bolhão with Becky (L), two women from Germany in the middle and a woman from El Salvador (R) who were all so willing to help me on this misson.

Following Becky's visit we both started school again. Nick is in a more casual conversation/cultural class while I've been studying like crazy for my new Portuguese language class. It's a much more intense program that basically crams all of A1 and A2 together into a 150 hour online program, spread over 10 weeks, which means I will finish before the end of the year. 🎉🎉🎉 Classes are 4 hours in length, and my weekly schedule varies from week to week. There are 20 students: six Americans currently living in Portugal, two students in Russia, one in Sri Lanka, one in Belarus, one in Algeria; while the rest of the students are from India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan but also currently live in Portugal ... so quite an ecletic group. Our instructor is very good, but English is definitely not as easy for her, so we help her with her English translation while she helps us learn Portuguese. Participation is mandatory and part of our grade. We also have to be on camera throughout each class. Everyone's goal is to earn an A2 Certificate for future citizenship, so the government tightly controls the parameters of the program. We have daily diagnostic tests (mini tests to determine whether we are learning the current topic) in addition to bigger tests that cover each section of the book. Thus far, I've done very well on the first two big tests and hope to do as well on the remaining four. I have four good friends in my class, and we are all very happy with this program. It won't be long before you won't have to hear about my language classes anymore! 😉

I did manage to renew my Portuguese driver's license recently and managed to speak mostly Portuguese during the appointment. Overall, I'm getting a bit more comfortable trying to speak the language when we're out and about, however, it will be a long time before I'm fluent.

Tomorrow we are heading to Lisboa for a few days and have tickets to see the Dutch violinist/conductor André Rieu. Lisboa has been suffering from some huge riots/protests this past week, and a number of cars and buses have been burned over a police shooting. Hopefully, nothing more will happen while we're there.

I hope everyone has voted early. We did, and so have all of our friends here. Fingers crossed for a good outcome.

Adeus, abraços e beijos, MaryLou

Mary Lou's Portugal Journal #26

Greetings friends and family,

I'm a bit behind with this update because I've been traveling since the last week of August. I met up with our friends John, Sylvia and Lizbeth, in Stockholm. First up, we rented a lovely AirBnb on the island of Nacka, a short bus ride/ferry ride to old town Stockholm. For anyone planning to visit Stockholm, I would highly recommend taking a walking tour of the old town, which specifically includes a visit and tour of the Vasa Museum. What an incredible story and so interesting to see. Old town Stockholm is a great and charming place to wander around. I'm not sure how many cruise ships arrived while we were there, but at least three flooded the town with passengers. We also visited the ABBA museum, which was interesting and, while I love ABBA, the museum is not something you can't miss... just sayin'. Initially, we decided to purchase one Swedish cinnamon roll just to try it, and we split it in fourths ... we actually did this on our first two days there. But then, I think we all realized that we didn't want to share a cinnamon roll with anyone ever again and from then on we each had our own. Honestly, I don't think I've ever enjoyed a pastry as much as a real Swedish cinnamon roll (well except for a Portuguese Pastel de Nata, which is #1). They are not too sweet and loaded with a combo of cinnamon and cardamom ... I definitely want to learn to make them.

The happy travelers arrive in Stockholm

View of Old Town from the ferry

The Swedish Cinnamon roll

From Stockholm we took a train to Copenhagen where we checked into a fabulous AirBnb right next to the train station. We were close to a number of cool areas including the meatpacking district (a trendy area with a lot of restaurants and bars), and Tivoli Gardens (the second oldest theme park in the world). Of course we, okay John, found a great bakery where we headed each morning for a pastry fix and coffee before heading out to explore. With our Copenhagen City Card, we were able to take the hop on/hop off bus around town for a few days, enjoy a canal tour (watch out for your head...sometimes we went under a few bridges with little room above us), and an evening walk through Tivoli Gardens. Copenhagen is beautiful, clean and has so much to do and see. Bicycles are everywhere, and it was interesting to watch the bicycle traffic at rush hour ... it was very orderly, almost orchestrated. It's definitely a city that I want to visit again and for a much longer period of time. They are on track to have a carbon neutral heating supply, based on biomass, waste and geothermal energy by 2025.

The famous waterfront in Copenhagen

One of many photos taken at Tivoli Gardens. Walt Disney was inspired by this place before he built Disneyland.

Upon leaving Copenhagen, John, Sylvia and I departed for Amsterdam, where we met up with Nick; while Lizbeth set off for Berlin and Poland with another friend. Amsterdam is a lovely, scenic city with many more canals than Copenhagen. I will say that bicycle traffic in Amsterdam can be quite harrowing. Even though there are bike lanes, I didn't always get the sense that pedestrians have the right of way. Ron, our Dutch friend, met up with us one day to show us around a bit. We had a great afternoon with him, which included coffee/pastry, chocolate, and Dutch fries, called frites, (like French fries, only the Dutch version). There are actually little shops in Amsterdam that sell only fries. Of course we took a canal cruise because you cannot visit Amsterdam without taking one. Another day, we toured the Anne Frank house, which is a must-see there. Ron suggested that we walk over to a little square called NOORDERMARKT once we finished our tour. Fortunately, or unfortunately, we found it and dropped some bucks there! It's a great outdoor market with organic fruits and veggies, honey, pottery, jewelry, art, clothing, and some of the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen. BTW, one of our best meals on this trip was at an Italian restaurant, Impero Romano, in Amsterdam. Check it out if you visit.

The "Violinist" located inside Amsterdam City Hall/National Opera & Ballet. Believe it or not, the artist is unknown.

Ron, our Dutch friend on the right

The happy travelers in Amsterdam

Too many photos and not enough room to post. I did post some on Instagram while traveling and will be posting more soon.

John and Sylvia returned to Porto with us and spent more time exploring our town since their first visit two years ago. One evening we attended an immersive light show that's currently taking place at the Serralves Museum near us. Serralves is a 44 hectare (108 acre) park that has a contemporary art museum, beautiful gardens and lakes, a walking path and a suspended walkway through very large trees. This was a very impressive light-show, though difficult to describe in words. The creativity of the various installations is amazing. If you are going to be in Porto soon, i.e. before November 3rd, I highly recommend it.

Thankfully, John and Sylvia left for London a day before some serious fires broke out in northern Portugal. We started seeing smoke in the air on Sunday, 9/15, and by Monday it was getting thick. By Tuesday morning, we no longer had any view of the ocean and our air quality over the past few days is in the dangerous zone. The nearest fire to Porto is in the town/area of Gondomar, less than 30 minutes from here, however, there are numerous fires in the north, all contributing to this apocalyptic sky. Ash is falling everywhere and getting in people's homes, including ours. At this point we have no idea when the sky and air will return to normal. It's bloody awful here right now.

Nick's language class starts again next week while mine starts on October 1. Oh fun.

Just a side note, it would be nice if the U.S. would follow the practice of European countries when it comes to elections ... where they only last for about two months.

Wishing you all good health and much happiness.

Adeus, abraços e beijos,

MaryLou

Mary Lou's Portugal Journal #25

Greetings friends and family,

July was rather uneventful for us, as we didn't travel anywhere and our language classes ended mid-month. The good news is that we both passed. I don't think I will ever understand their grading system but we both managed to end the school year with 18/20 points. Nick earned his A2 certificate which will enable him to get citizenship after 5 years of residency. I earned my A1 certificate and still need to complete A2. Nick has decided to continue at the school and will be taking a B1 class. He's devoted to becoming fluent as quickly as possible. Seriously, he still studies for hours each day and he and his classmates still meet weekly to practice. I decided to take a different route, along with some friends, and will be taking an intensive A1/A2 course (150 hours spread out over a 10 week period) for which we will earn our A2 certificate, assuming we pass. This is a zoom class conducted from Lisbon and requires that we be in front of the camera for each 4-hour class. For me, another 10 months of taking classes and agonizing over 4-hour tests was just more than I wanted to do, but committing to 10 weeks...yes, that to me is doable. Once I finish it, I will sign up for a more casual B1 conversation class that doesn't require tests.

Once again we had an experience of losing something here and getting it returned, which always surprises me. We went to Ikea to pick up an order we placed and one of us (not me) was carrying a bag full of items (40 euros worth) we had just purchased at a nearby hardware store. Somewhere between the hardware store, Ikea and two short stops at other stores in the mall our bag was suddenly missing. We retraced our steps and asked in each store if our bag had been found but to no avail. Since we needed the items we lost, I went back to the hardware store and purchased the same items once again (while Nick enjoyed a pastry and coffee). The following day I received an email from something called iLost, which apparently is a service provided by Ikea. Basically it said that they found a brown Bolhão bag (which describes our bag) and asked me to verify the contents. I quickly responded with a list and within minutes they acknowledged that our bag was found and we could pick it up the following day. Now, how did they find me .... well here, whenever you make a purchase anywhere, you can include your NIF number, which is a taxpayer ID. By adding your NIF, the taxes paid for each purchase are automatically uploaded to our tax portal, making it easier to reconcile taxes paid at the end of the year. At some of the bigger stores here I'm now in their system so my name will pop up on the receipt as soon as I enter my NIF. Sure enough, everything was still in the bag when I picked it up, including the receipt.

Later this month I will be traveling to Stockholm to meet up with our friends John and Sylvia. Our plan is to spend four days in Stockholm; then take a train to Copenhagen where we'll spend another four days before flying to Amsterdam where we will meet up with Nick and spend yet another four days before we all fly back to Porto.

For most of July our temperatures were in the low 70's and often we woke up to fog, which reminds me so much of Pacific Grove, CA, my hometown. So far, August isn't looking to be too hot either. Fortunately, Porto escaped the heatwave that hit southern Portugal and the Algarve where temperatures were over 100. And pity the poor athletes in Paris where it was so hot and rainy!

One last bit of interesting news here. Portugal is in the midst of developing/building a circular walking path throughout the whole country called “Palmilhar Portugal” (Walking Portugal). This will be 3,000 kilometers (1864+ miles) of trails when completed that will cross a hundred municipalities. One section just north of Lisbon opened this month and 15 portions will be operational by the end of 2024. According to the projections, all 3,000 kilometers will be completely operational within the next 3 years, including some sections that will be adapted for people with reduced mobility. So for any of you hikers, put that on your list of things to do.

I'll be back next month with tales from Scandinavia!

Adeus, abraços e beijos.

MaryLou

Just a couple of photos this month:

A view from a rooftop bar where we attended an event a few weeks ago.

This is how our mail gets delivered.

Mary Lou's Portugal Journal #24

Greetings friends & family,

As I am writing to you today I am recovering from Covid. I guess that I should be thankful that I didn't lose my sense of taste or smell but I certainly was extremely congested and my cough was ridiculous. I'm not sure where I picked it up. We had been in Italy for two weeks, arriving home early in the morning on Sunday, June 23. In order to catch our flight we had to get up at 3:30 a.m. to catch a ride from the hotel driver, which was delayed a bit because he overslept and then the hotel van's battery was dead. The driver finally got us to the airport for our 6 a.m. flight and we landed in Porto at 8 a.m.

That same evening we had tickets to attend a big event down at the riverfront celebrating São João, which I wrote about last year in June. This is the event where everyone carries a plastic hammer and hits people gently on the head. The event we attended was held at WOW(World of Wine) which is on the Gaia side of the river, overlooking Porto. There was lots of food to choose from including grilled sardines and grilled pork as well as a variety of wines and beer. A band was playing on the outdoor patio where we were seated and as the sun went down many people started lighting the lanterns and letting them float up into the sky. An hour later you could see glowing lanterns across the sky. FYI, air traffic control actually has to divert planes for a few hours because of all these lanterns. All was well until we left at midnight to find our Uber driver and couldn't. It was all very frustrating and with the amount of people in attendance, both at our event and along the waterfront, it was just crazy. After finally giving up on ever finding our driver or him finding us, we headed down to the waterfront thinking we would walk across the bridge to the other side and find a way home. Sadly, that's not what happened because we immediately become stuck in the biggest mass of people I've ever seen. We were shoulder to shoulder, jammed like sardines, literally not moving and with nowhere to go. There were people with kids and little babies stuck in the crowd. As more and more people were preparing to go home (or join the walk to the ocean which starts at midnight on the Porto side) this mass of people grew and grew. We were all thinking that we would move forward toward the entrance to the bridge, however there were very few moments when we would have success taking 5-10 steps before stopping again and waiting. An hour and a half later we were close enough to see that foot traffic had been stopped on the bridge because an ambulance was stopped in the middle of it. At that point we finally were able to make an escape from the crowd and walk up a steep hill to get to the top of the bridge where the Metro line runs. Of course, the first Metro stop in that area had been blocked off completely with chain-link fencing due to all the crowds so we had to walk a few blocks to catch the Metro (as did thousands of others). By now it was about 2:30 a.m. When the next Metro car arrived we were again packed like sardines and still had to change trains at the main station. I will say that while no one enjoyed being packed inside, everyone was very civil. When we finally arrived at our Metro stop, which is about 20 minutes from our home, we tried once more to call an Uber but to no avail. So we walked home, arriving at 3:45 and falling into bed at 4 a.m. While we were stuck in the mass of bodies I kept thinking that this was the perfect place to catch Covid. And no, we hadn't expected for this to happen so we didn't have masks with us. It was an outdoor event and we thought we were going to Uber home. Lesson learned ... next year we will choose a different spot from which to watch the festivities.

The following day, Monday, was my first and only chance to meet with my partner to practice for our final oral test which was scheduled for Tuesday 6/25. I hadn't had any time to practice while in Italy and was totally unprepared. Nevertheless, on Tuesday we sat for our oral exam ... 15 minutes of conversing while playing various roles. Rather than knowing how to describe symptoms to a pharmacist and asking for drugs, we also had to know what the pharmacist would say because we could be assigned either role once in front of the instructors. It was the same for a scene in a restaurant where one of us had to be the waiter, and at the grocery store, where one person had to be the clerk. All I can say is that the points received for the oral portion are but a small portion of the overall grade. I didn't feel well and I didn't perform well. Nick and I both missed the final written exams for our classes while in Italy so our make-up date was set for Thursday 6/27. We both spent all day Wednesday studying/cramming, all the while I was getting sicker. On Thursday afternoon we showed up and spent 4 hours ... yes, 4 freaking hours completing our written tests. Our previous two tests only took 1.5-2 hours to complete however the final tests were both long and crazy difficult. On the way home I decided to stop at the pharmacy and, using my best Portuguese, I described my symptoms and got two different drugs to help. Later that night I recalled that we had Covid tests at home so the following morning I tested myself and the result was positive almost immediately. Thankfully, no one I came in contact with has come down with Covid.

Thankfully today I'm feeling a lot better than I have. My last class for A1 is on Wednesday though Nick's A2 class doesn't end until 7/11. Friday night is a big dinner at the school for all the students who attend classes there.

Our two week trip to Italy was great. We met up with Erinn and my two grandchildren in Rome and spent time with them touring the Colosseum, the Pantheon, The Forum, etc. One day we took a tour of Pompeii which also included a visit to Positano on the Amalfi Coast where we had a great day and beautiful weather. The following day we headed to Florence where we spent another six days in that lovely city. Our Airbnb was located in a very cool, trendy neighborhood about a 20+ minute walk to Ponte Vecchio in the historic district. The owner of the Airbnb is married to a well known contemporary artist from Florence, Sergio Cerchi, and all the artwork inside were originals by him. I've included a few of them. The one with the lemon shaped timer was hanging in the kitchen above a shelf where the actual lemon timer was sitting. Very clever staging. We had a guided tour of the David, which was very educational and interesting and then we visited the DaVinci Museum, another fascinating place. The kids toured Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens on their own, since we've both done that previously. Zoe enjoyed her first virgin Aperol Spritz and Owen was busy trying to learn to speak some words in Italian. He has a remarkable ear for it. He also has a great sense of direction which we sometimes needed.

Finally, on June 29th we celebrated our two year anniversary living in Porto. It's hard to believe that it's already been two years. Sadly, thanks to my Covid, we had to cancel our celebratory dinner with friends scheduled that night but we'll reschedule it soon. Wishing you all a good summer.

Adeus, abraços e beijos.

Mary Lou's Portugal Jornal #23

Greetings y'all,

I hope you are doing well and enjoying nice weather. It's been lovely here, even though we had a couple of hot days (86) at the end of May/beginning of June. Now we're getting back down to the 70's which is more typical for this time of year in Porto. Our new ceiling fans are keeping us cool inside, thankfully.

Update: I started writing this update earlier in the week. Today, June 7, we woke up to above average heat with a projected high of 85 degrees. Upon leaving the house at 9:30 this morning to attend a language workshop it was already 75 degrees, which is hot for us, especially in the morning. Now, at around 5 p.m we're having rain, thunder, lightning, and hail and the temperature has dropped from 85 to 74 degrees. Climate change is real and certainly makes for crazy weather. This reminds me of Dallas weather.

On to my first bit of news ... I passed the language test (2nd of 3) that I took at the end of March. It took quite a while for our results to be shared with us for various reasons. Basically I got 90% on the written test and 15/15 on the oral test so I was quite pleased. My elation was short-lived, however, because now we're getting slammed with so many new things to learn and it's become much more difficult ... and, we're still only learning present tense. Our final exams are scheduled for June 19 however, Nick and I are heading to Italy on Sunday, June 9 (happy birthday Patricia) to meet up with my daughter and grandkids and we won't return until June 23. Our itinerary includes Rome, Pompeii, Positano and Florence, all places we've visited before however, this is their first trip to Italy. Make-up dates have yet to be announced, but it will likely be near the end of June or early July. Our oral exams are scheduled for June 25. This means we get to study while on vacation. 😬

I've mentioned before the very sweet young Portuguese couple who live in our building, Daniel and Diana. They can't do enough for us and we enjoy hanging out with them. Recently we ordered a heavy metal shelving unit for our garage space. The day it was delivered Nick was down in the garage starting to unpack the box and Diana happened to see him and told him that she would help him put it together later that morning. Sure enough, she texted him an hour later and he met her in the garage where she basically took over and didn't let him do anything while she put the piece together. No, that motorcycle in the background isn't ours, nor hers.

I don't think I've ever mentioned the popularity of yogurt in Portugal. I finally decided to take a photo in the big grocery store near our home. The photo you see is only the first aisle ... there is another aisle that looks the same ... both sides filled with yogurt, including the end caps on each aisle, which are also filled with yogurt. Maybe I just don't remember seeing this in the states?

Last night we had dinner with the couple from El Segundo, CA that I've mentioned before. We first met Eric and Andrea in October 2022 here in Porto and discovered that Andrea was best friends with Nick's niece when they were young, and we marveled at what a small world this is. They recently bought a place here in Porto as a second home and are in town getting furniture deliveries, etc. On this trip they brought Adrea's mother Judy with them to show her around Porto. Dinner last night was like old home week for Nick who had such a great time chatting with Judy and Andrea about so many of his old friends and memories. We dined at a great fish restaurant in Matosinhos, kind of a suburb of Porto, where all the fresh fish come into the area. While the four of them shared a huge grilled robalo (seabass), I decided to try grilled sardines and I must say they were amazing! My father was a fisherman on Cannery Row a number of years before I was born, and I couldn't help but think of him as I enjoyed my meal.

Wishing you a nice start of the summer. Tomorrow we start packing!

Adeus, abraços e beijos,

MaryLou

Mary Lou's Portugal Journal #22

Greetings friends and family,

April was a busy month for us, and for the most part, rain-free as well. Those "April showers" seemed to have waited for May to arrive instead. We spent a beautiful Sunday (4/21) at the beach. While there, we headed over to a cafe to have lunch. Looking at a lunch menu we were curious about a cod dish and used google translator to try and figure it out ... decided maybe that didn't sound too appetizing after all (the entry following "mixed board").

Our annual condominium meeting was held a few weeks ago and once again we attended and couldn't make sense of anything the manager was saying. Learning to speak Portuguese doesn't instantly mean you can understand what others are saying. We met a few of the residents in attendance who can also speak English and at times they would lean over and chat with us. One thing we learned when, at times, the meeting seemed to devolve into residents talking endlessly and disrupting the speaker, was that in most cases they are just gossiping. These meetings also start very late - 9:30 p.m and this one didn't end until after 11.

One couple we've gotten to know in our building, Daniel and Diana, invited us over for dinner recently. Daniel cooked a lovely meal, all Portuguese dishes. They have known each other since they were kids in the Douro valley region. Diana's mother was an English teacher so that explains her excellent command of the language. Daniel too speaks English very well and is great about loaning us his tools when needed. He treats Nick like a grandfather, always checking to see how he is and whether he can do anything for us. We feel very lucky to have them in our lives.

We're both still humming along in school. Nick got the results of his big test in March and he did very well. None of us at the A-1 level have received our results yet but I'm sure that I passed. Still, I would like to know my score because it also includes my score on the oral exam. Currently my class is learning to tell time ... WTH ... it's done differently in the north of Portugal, where they start with the hour followed by the minutes vs. the south where they start with the minutes, followed by the hour. And the variety of prepositions required, depending on the circumstances ... my head exploded over this.

We feel lucky that we found this school and for the friendships we've made. Recently one of Nick's classmates, an Indian woman (Bamini) who also lived in the UK and the US before coming to Portugal, took it upon herself to plan a class luncheon for them (I was also invited). She prepared the whole meal and James, another of his classmates, hosted it at his home. We had a fabulous afternoon with them all.

This year there were many activities celebrating the 50th anniversary of the April 25th Carnation Revolution (1974) and the end of the dictatorship. At our school we were treated to a musical show put on by a group of older Portuguese folks who lived under the dictatorship. The music was all very traditional folk music and quite fun. I spoke to a few of these musicians after the show, and they were so appreciative that we're interested in hearing them play and learning about this dark period in their history. The following day my instructor, Joana, had a number of her students who are learning to speak English and who again, are all older Portuguese people who lived here during the dictatorship, speak about their experiences. Unfortunately, I got sick the evening before and couldn't attend, however Nick attended and was quite impressed and moved by the experience. Most of those who spoke were teenagers at the time of the revolution. Some spoke about how they lived and attended school under very strict rules and regulations and how wonderful things felt the day following, when they could trash the required uniforms and wear whatever they wanted to school, listen to music that had been banned and read books that had been forbidden. Women spoke of all the restrictions and the freedom they felt on the day after the revolution. One gentleman told his story in Portuguese with Joana translating for him until she broke down with emotion and someone else had to take over. His father deserted the family during the dictatorship and moved to France, never to be seen again. This had a profound effect on him as a boy, as you might imagine, and the whole audience was choked up and weeping. Some spoke about members of their own families who had joined PIDE, the secret police, who wouldn't hesitate to rat out others including family members. Everyone had to be so guarded in all they did.

Both of our instructors are young women who only know of the experiences of their parents and grandparents under the Salazar dictatorship. Joana shared with us that she was taught to use a Salazar (spatula) to get every last bit of food/dough etc. from plates and pans. Portuguese people referred to a spatula as a Salazar with his encouragement because Salazar emphasized the need for people to be frugal and find virtue in being poor. This helped him justify all the money that was spent fighting wars in the Portuguese colonies.

On the night of the 24th there was a big celebration downtown that once again drew a huge crowd. This year the music was very traditional Portuguese folk music culminating with the most famous song from the revolution Grandola Vila Morena. It chokes me up when I hear a crowd singing it. Red carnations were everywhere. Two students in Nick's language class surprised everyone by crocheting red carnation pins for everyone in his class to wear (they made one for me as well).

Yesterday we went to the cinema to see The Fall Guy, or, as google translates it

I leave you with wishes for a lovely May, filled with sunshine and flowers.

Adeus, abraços e beijos,

MaryLou

Mary Lou's Portugal Journal #21

Greetings everyone, Welcome Spring! I hope this finds you doing well. Having endured an amazingly wet March here, I think we now have fins. I know that many of you in CA also had a lot of rain, but it was insane here. After enduring a prolonged drought, a few days ago Lisbon and much of the south finally got hammered with rain for a few days, causing much flooding. April is looking to be wet here as well. 😬

In a stroke of luck, a few weeks ago while searching for some information on the Porto Expats FB page, I stumbled upon a new posting offering three brand new ceiling fans for sale. A very nice couple, Jennifer and Chris, ordered the fans and only found out after they were delivered that they couldn't be installed in their new home (lacking the right support) and they missed the 30 day return window. After confirming with our handyman that they would work in our place, we made a date to pick them up. Jennifer and Chris just recently moved into their new home which is part of a renovated 300 year old mansion (turned into 3 separate units). The two moved here last year from San Francisco and, upon meeting them, we hit it off immediately and agreed to make plans to meet up for drinks soon. We are thrilled with the fans, which are very modern, extremely quiet, have six speeds and great light. The lighting in our home is not great so these have made a huge difference for us, In fact, we like them so much that we've ordered one more for the living/dining area as well.

This past weekend we met up with Jennifer and Chris for drinks and snacks and celebrated our new fans. In the course of the conversation, Chris asked us where we grew up in California. When Nick said that he grew up in El Segundo, Chris told us that they just met some new neighbors who live in El Segundo. I could immediately hear the "Twilight Zone" music in my head and asked if this couple was very tall, which Chris confirmed. For those who have been reading my spiels for a while, back in late 2022 we met a very tall couple from El Segundo, Eric and Andrea, who were introduced to us through another couple we'd recently met while standing at the #500 bus stop in the Foz (an area of town along the ocean side of Porto). Eric and Andrea were on a house hunting trip when we met them, and that's when we discovered that Andrea had been best friends with Nick's niece since they were little girls. In fact, we actually attended a birthday party many years ago (in the 80's) and met Andrea. Now, they are the new neighbors of Jennifer and Chris. Chris then texted Eric to tell him the news, and now the six of us plan to get together when Eric and Andrea return to Porto in June.

Besides almost drowning in rain in March, we were drowning in studying as well. We both had our second written tests as well as our first oral tests. Talk about stress. We had to work with a partner to engage in a conversation, answering questions that we had been practicing for a month. Granted, the questions I had to answer for my A1 class were not as extensive as Nick's A2 class, but speaking only in Portuguese for 10 minutes (15 minutes for Nick) in front of our instructors was a bit intimidating. Speaking in English counted against us too. We both feel that we did well in our oral tests, though we have no idea how we're graded and not sure when we will find out, as we are currently on Spring Break. Our written tests were last Thursday ... mine was two hours in length while his was three. Overall we both feel sure that we passed but we won't know exactly how we did for a month, due to make-up tests that have to be administered after the break. Our final tests will be in June. And yes, Mimi, I am now dreaming in Portuguese!

I'm proud to tell you that I had a full conversation with a guard at the Portuguese Social Security office recently. I never spoke a word of English, and he only speaks Portuguese. Granted, I'm not anywhere near fluent, but I knew what I needed to say and was able to explain that I'm learning to speak his language and what I needed to accomplish there, and he completely understood me. When he responded, I was able to ask him to please speak more slowly, which he graciously did, and I was able to understand him. I was so proud of myself.

Elections were held in early March and the results were surprising but not as horrible as they could have been. In Portugal they have experienced low voter turnout for quite a number of years however this year well over 50% of registered voters came out on Sunday, March 10, to vote. The Democratic Alliance won 80 seats, the Socialist Party 78 seats and Chega, the far-right party, won 50 seats in Parliament, up from 4 they held previously. Then we have the Liberal Initiative Party winning 8 seats, the Left Block with 5 seats, the Unitary Democratic Coalition with 4 seats, the FREE party with 4 seats and the People-Animals-Nature party with one seat. A lot of people were shocked by the outcome, but then we heard that young people who feel shut out of the housing market and make low wages were making a statement by voting for the far right. The newly elected officials are being sworn in today, April 2nd. No one party won a majority so it's a patchwork of members from the various parties who have agreed to work together (except Chega, who will most likely fight everything) and the country will have not one, but two Presidents; the first one from the Democratic Alliance party will serve the first two years followed by someone from the Socialist Party for the following two years. Apparently many people don't think this new government will last two years let alone four years, so we'll have to see what happens.

There is a huge push to get expats registered to vote in the U.S. Surprisingly, many expats don't realize that they can still vote in the U.S., so there are many events being held across the country to get those folks registered. We got registered to vote immediately upon moving here.

For those readers who are living in Wickenburg Ranch, our favorite former waitress from Jake's Spoon, Christy, was here in Porto last week with her husband Fred and two other couples. They came to visit Portugal for the first time and were spending most of the time in Lisbon and the southern part of the country but took a day trip to Porto to see us, a bit of the city and have lunch. We had a great time with them, rain and all.

Mary Lou's Portugal Journal #20

Greetings everyone!

Finally, we have a new laundry room. The windows/doors to enclose our kitchen balcony were finally installed a few weeks ago, which allowed us to move our washer/dryer out there, giving us much more space. Our previous closet/laundry room measured 4' 3" W x 3' 4" D. We had 2' 3" of space between the w/d and the wall to load and unload the laundry ... so it was a bit of a tight fit. The old space is now our new pantry.

The new enclosure has two big glass doors with two stationary windows above them. (The photo shows you the view from the kitchen.) The doors open, although due to the proximity of the w/d, the one on the right can't be opened out; however, both doors also tilt open at the top to give us airflow when needed. Our new space is 6'11" wide x 4'6" D and 10'6" H. The floor of the balcony is made of stone tiles and quite cold, so I bought some blue foam square interlocking pads and installed them as the new floor. It's much more comfortable and it keeps the room warmer.

Politics In Portugal Today

I mentioned in a previous update about our upcoming elections. Portugal is holding new elections because the Chief of Staff to Prime Minister António Costa, as well as a few other staff members, were recently accused of taking bribes. During the investigation 75,800 Euros were found stashed inside books on the shelves of the Chief of Staff's office. Once the investigation came to light, the PM resigned (though he himself was cleared of any involvement in the bribery) so the President called for a new election. Ikea ran this very clever ad here in Portugal about one of their bookcases ... good for holding books, or 75,800 Euros.

As we get nearer to the election, scheduled for March 10th, there are lots of strikes taking place on-again/off-again basis, i.e. teachers, prison guards, medical techs; to name a few. Police are striking, which may interfere with the election, because police are responsible for transporting ballots for counting. It is also affecting futbol games here in Portugal because there are not enough police to manage the crowds. Yet all in all, I'm not as concerned about the elections here as the ones in the U.S ... 'nough said.

We toured the University of Porto administration building recently with Nick's language class. The building is downtown near the famous bookstore Livaria Lello. I was most impressed with two paintings there depicting the Schools of Math and Science. Both paintings were done in 1917 by a famous Spanish painter, Veloso Salgado. Women dominate both of the paintings. In the science painting in particular, you have three women doing research: the woman at the microscope has a copy of the Origins of the Species on the shelf below the table, as well as a cage of rats. The women working on math problems are doing calculus and trigonometry. The various schools of study are actually located all around the city rather than on one big campus. They utilize space where they can find it, basically. Currently, they have over 35,000 students. Tuition for a Portuguese resident is approximately 700 Euros a year, which is staggeringly inexpensive. The school employs over 3,600 teachers/researchers of which 86% have doctorates and 46% are female.

(These photos are a bit distorted because I couldn't get a straight shot at the paintings but you get the idea).

Yesterday, my language instructor organized a tour of the Military Museum here in Porto, which was home to PIDE (the government/political police) during the Salazar regime. This is the same building where dissidents were interrogated and tortured, many of them journalists. When the regime fell on April 25, 1974 the "prisoners" were then released.The displays cover the whole history of wars including WWII and include a vast collection of miniatures that were once considered toys. It was mind boggling how many miniatures they have (12,000) and some even depict the Civil War in the U.S. Behind the main building is a large, more modern space where they display guns, swords, uniforms, tanks and even a bunker with sound effects that were rather frightening. There were lots of photos on display taken during the war in Angola, which was a Portuguese colony. I chatted with a gentleman in his 80's who actually served in Angola prior to the fall of the dictatorship. He told me that he married his girlfriend before leaving so that she would get his pension in the event of his death. Most of the men serving had never been outside of this country. Many of them were from small towns/villages in the center of Portugal and had never learned to read and write, so letters home had to be written by someone in the regiment who knew how to write. It was an interesting tour.

Climate change is affecting different areas of this tiny country much differently; case in point: it rained more in the north of Portugal, specifically around the Lima River area (north of us) during two weeks at the end of October to mid-November of 2023 than the past two years in the Algarve.

Finally, I'm making a little progress speaking Portuguese. In the past week I've had two conversations with a couple of Portuguese folks, one at the bus stop and another on the bus. Neither of these people spoke any English, and I stumbled my way through each conversation, but in both cases they were so kind and complimentary, not to mention excited that I'm learning their language. At the bus stop, Luisa, who initially engaged me in conversation about the rain, much of which I couldn't understand, started telling others who showed up that I was learning the language so I had a crowd excited for me. She then asked a young teenage girl if she knew how to speak English (yes) so she asked her to explain what she had been telling me ... that even the Portuguese people can't understand the bus schedules. Later, on the bus, it was Jose who was complaining about the slow traffic. After explaining that I speak very little of his language, he continued talking anyway. I was able to understand that his wife is German and that she had to learn Portuguese as well. He also mentioned the neighborhood where he lives, and I was able to tell him that I have a friend who lives in that same neighborhood. Small steps.

Wishing you all good health and a peaceful month ahead.

Adeus, abraços, e beijos.

MaryLou

Mary Lou's Portugal Journal #19

Greetings everyone and happy birthday to my big brother today!

I'm sure you're all wondering about the results of our first language tests ... well, we both passed! My grade was much better than I expected. 🎉 Now we press on learning and studying for the next test in March. 😬

I had hoped to post a picture of our new, completed laundry space this month, however it won't be installed until later next week, so pictures will be included next month instead. We're enclosing our kitchen balcony and transforming it to our laundry room. Then we'll turn our current, little laundry space into a pantry instead.

My Portuguese driver's license finally arrived in the mail last week. Back in October I had an appointment to make the exchange of my US license at which time they told me not to expect receipt of my new one for 6 months. Lo and behold, the Portuguese government delivered faster than expected!

We also applied for and received our Social Security numbers here in Portugal. Though we don't work here and pay into SS, we needed them for our school records. And, a very nice extra benefit is available ... a medical card that will allow us to seek treatment anywhere in the EU based upon our status as a resident with healthcare coverage here.

Since this is now tax season, we are trying to get everything in order for our accountants. We have NIF Portuguese Tax Identification, numbers used for tracking the taxes we pay on almost every purchase. I don't know if I have explained this previously, but every purchase we make, whether for groceries, toiletries, furniture, etc., is tracked through the Portuguese IRS. We give our NIF number at time of purchase and it shows up on our finance portal at their website. On a regular basis I/we log in to our separate accounts and make sure that purchases are correctly categorized. Then we grant permission for our accountant to access our portals to obtain whatever information they need to prepare our taxes. It's obviously so different from what's done in the states, especially giving out your NIF number out loud in the grocery store checkout line, but apparently no one can steal your identity with your NIF. It's also considered a public service because by giving your NIF, it ensures that the vendor must declare the sale.

I learned an interesting piece of history in my language class this month. Kings Cake, aka Christmas cake and New Year's cake (bolo-rei) has been popular in Porto since 1890. It's also traditionally served on January 6th, Dia de Reis (Epiphany) and can be found in every bakery and grocery store during the holidays. Traditionally it contained a fava bean (raw) and a little metal ornament wrapped in plastic/paper ... if you got a piece of cake with the fava bean, it meant that you had to provide the bolo-rei the following year while if you got the little metal ornament then you were off the hook the following year. Once Portugal became a member of the EU in 1986, they were required to immediately change the recipe and leave out the bean and the ornament due to the choking hazard. I find it fascinating to think about the extent some things had to change to be a part of the EU.

The EU is also requiring all new cars to be equipped with a black box beginning in June 2024. Called an EDR (event data recorder), it records data 5 seconds before a crash and .03 seconds after to help determine causes and responsibilities. And while it doesn't record video or audio, it does monitor speed, turning angle and brake action to name a few things. Since cars in Portugal are quite expensive, especially when purchasing new, I will be curious to hear whether this little item adds much to the price of a new car. All in all, these devices are meant to make the roads safer to drive.

We're currently experiencing spring-like weather here, which is lovely but also concerning. While we here in the north have plenty of water, the south, particularly the Algarve, is facing its worst drought ever. Dams are at 25% capacity or less and residents will have to cut their home water usage by 15%. Meanwhile Spain has also been experiencing a drought for the past two years which has caused them to lose half their production of olive oil (they are the world's biggest olive oil producer). They have instead been purchasing olive oil from Portugal which has driven up the cost to purchase it here, which, to be honest, I haven't yet noticed. I just paid 7 euros for a litre of reserve EVOO, which didn't seem severe to me but I'm now paying more attention.

This past Sunday we went on a photo walk with a group of folks from Internations. It was a nice mix of a few Americans, Irish, Brits, Dutch, Germans and Chinese. We started at Casa da Musica (our symphony hall) then walked over to a nearby park. Our final stop was at a lovely cemetery we didn't even know existed. It's beautiful and huge, with many interesting mausoleums, some of which even have curtains. I'm attaching a few photos from that excursion.

Also, if you are on Instagram/FB I posted a cute video of some traditional folk singers who came to Mercado Bolhao to serenade shoppers this past Saturday. I don't dare try to attach it, or who knows how many emails will bounce back at me.

Wishing you all the best.

Adeus, abraços e beijos, MaryLou

Photos: Casa da Musica is a very modern structure which opened in 2005. The area around it is quite popular with skateboarders. Cemitério de Agramonte is very peaceful and majestic.