Portugal Journal #47

July brought us the worst heatwave we have ever experienced here in Porto. Typically, our summers consist of temperatures in the 70's with a few days in the low 80's. Yes, some of you might think we're spoiled, depending on where you live, but we've gotten used to these pleasant summers, so July was another level of hot for us. The first week of the month saw days hitting the high 90's to 100, with night time temperatures staying in the high 70's to low 80's.

I attended a July 4th celebration downtown for American residents, and the day started at 97 degrees. Even sitting in the shade on the restaurant balcony was pretty unbearable. That might not sound bad to you, but consider that we don't have air conditioning in our 50+ year old condo. Due to the typical construction here in Portugal, our walls are built with concrete blocks and bricks with zero insulation. When those walls get hot after repeated days of high heat, they retain that heat, thereby keeping our place warmer than is comfortable. And, while we have great overhead fans in the bedrooms and two living areas, those weren't able to do the job in keeping us cool.

Everything we read here indicates that this is going to be the new normal due to global warming. We've decided to bite the bullet and have a/c installed and so far, of the two quotes we've received, we've learned how difficult (but not impossible) it will be to have this installed. Our neighbors downstairs are also getting bids and we're now working together with them to get three bids and make a decision. We're not expecting this will happen before the end of summer however, given that most Europeans take part or all of August off, but we will hopefully get it installed before year-end, which would give us the added benefit of finally having heat in our apartment as well. Our quick fix in the meantime is to stay in an air conditioned hotel, which is what we did a few days ago, when the temperature was going to hit 93. That will be our go-to remedy until then.

July 4th event in Porto

July also brought us a very pleasant surprise. Many European cities impose a tax that hotels must add to the the visitors´ bill. The tourist tax rate in the city of Porto for 2025 was 3 Euros/pp per night (approx. $3.42USD) for people age 13+, capped at 7 consecutive nights. The surprise was the surge of tourists visiting Porto in 2025, which resulted in a 54.5% increase in revenue over funds raised in 2024, bringing in 32.3 million euros to Porto in 2025. City officials, astonished by the increase in revenue, recently decided to share the wealth with residents of Porto and announced that for the next year, through June 2027, all residents of Porto get to travel free on all public transportation (buses, Metro, and even short train trips). The only requirement is that you must have a Porto Card, which is a free card you obtain by providing proof of address in Porto. My friend Cagla and I went to the municipal building downtown and waited in line for 2.5 hours just to get inside the building. Once inside we were through the process and holding our new cards within 30 minutes. Nick went the day prior to obtain his card and experienced the same wait time. Since we moved to Porto in 2022, Nick and I have had senior discount transport cards for which we each pay 30 euros/mo for unlimited travel on all public transportation. Thanks to this windfall in tourist tax, Nick and I will save 720 euros over the next year. Residents under age 65, pay 40 euros/mo for the same card, but will now travel for free. In addition, all residents age 65+ get 18 taxi trips to medical appointments and/or the hospital for 2 euros, 4 euros round trip. We were given a special phone number to call and schedule these. We love this city!

This is the line we stood in outside for 2.5 hours...the entrance to the building is all the way to the end of the street and, they only let in 10 people at a time. Nevertheless, it was totally worth the wait!

A few weeks ago we were on the Metro on our way to a free outdoor symphony concert when I noticed this sign. Surely this was a joke I thought. Then I started seeing them everywhere, at every bus stop and Metro station. Sadly, more unhealthy American food has made its way to Portugal. Are these things sold in the U.S.? I mean, I know that the Portuguese love pastries but ....

Portugal Journal #46

Greetings friends and family,

Hopefully you are all in good health and ready to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the country, in spite of the Manchurian cantaloupe in charge. There is a big 4th of July celebration being held here in Porto for Americans beginning late tomorrow. According to the organizers, they can't believe how many Americans are living here in Porto, so, I guess I'll see for myself.

June found us in both Copenhagen and Amsterdam, traveling with daughter Erinn and two grandkids, Zoe and Owen. They arrived in Copenhagen on June 4 and we spent the next seven days exploring the city and having a great time. Surprisingly, the weather was a bit chilly on most days, with a few days of drizzle. The Airbnb we rented was located in what I would call an upscale, yuppie area not too far from downtown. There were canals beside and behind the building, and as we walked the neighborhood, we discovered that many apartments had ladders down from the apartments to boats and kayaks moored below. Grocery stores and restaurants were very close by, as was the Metro station that took us into town each day. And big surprise, there was a small coffee & wine shop in the building next door which carries Portuguese wines! In addition to doing the usual touristy things there, i.e. a canal cruise, visiting the Amalienborg Castle, where the King and Queen reside (we watched the changing of the guard), the Christiansborg Palace (home to the Danish Parliament, the Supreme Court and the ministry of State), Tivoli Gardens (Walt Disney's inspiration for Disneyland), the Rosenborg Castle (400 years of royal Danish history that includes the Danish Crown Jewels, which are still actively worn today, and the beautiful grounds surrounding the castle), and The National Gallery of Denmark (art/sculpture); we took the fascinating tour of the Danish Resistance Museum. I highly recommend this museum to anyone planning to visit Copenhagen. I had no knowledge of the Nazi occupation of Denmark prior to visiting, and they've done a remarkable job telling the stories of a number of the men and women who chose to resist, as well as showing you photos, videos and underground newspapers, etc. For anyone who is interested in history, this is a must-see. The cleanliness of Copenhagen made an impression on Erinn and the kids. And they loved Tivoli Gardens, in particular the size, because it's smaller and much easier to get around than Disneyland and the lines aren't so long. I think they rode every ride, some more than once, and stayed for the midnight fireworks display. Owen was also fascinated by the number of bicycles everywhere. During our canal cruise we saw one bridge that gets 18,000 bikes a day going over it to/from town and two other bridges that get 12,000 bikes a day. The Danes are in good shape!

Enjoying a walk along the famous waterfront of Copenhagen

Love the little patios and access to boats

Outside of Christiansborg Palace

Next up, we flew to Amsterdam and stayed in a fabulous home (Airbnb) in the town of Heemstede, a really cute town outside of Amsterdam. I would love to post photos of this home, but I feel that I would be violating their privacy. Suffice to say, it was fabulous! The train and bus stop were only a six-minute walk from the house, and the town of Haarlem was only an eight-minute bus ride away, while we could take a 20 minute train ride into Amsterdam. We also enjoyed dinner twice at a great little Italian restaurant two doors down from the house. On our first full day, we visited Haarlem and toured the Corrie Ten Boom House, where Corrie's family helped hide Jews who were trying to escape to safety. In 1944, that family of five was betrayed and hauled off to various concentration camps, where all but Corrie herself, died. There have been two movies made about this, both called "The Hiding Place." Haarlem is an adorable town, and I highly recommend a visit there. We spent the next several days traveling into Amsterdam to see the sites, go to the outdoor markets, tour the Anne Frank House, take yet another canal cruise, visit the Van Gogh Museum as well as the Rijksmuseum, and visit our friend Ron to see his new apartment. Our last full day was beautiful and sunny so we took a picnic lunch and went to Zandvoort Beach on the North Sea to catch some rays and enjoy some down time.

I took a photo from the instruction manual for this Airbnb. I love this!

Zowen (as we like to call them)

Such interesting architecture in Amsterdam

If you are on Instagram or FB, I posted many more photos there. It was a fabulous trip! I should mention that we all had trouble adjusting to how light it stays at night when you're that far north. Sometimes it was still barely dark at 11 p.m. and then the sun would rise at 4-4:30 a.m.

Once we were back in Porto, it was time for the big São João festival once again. That's the one with plastic hammers and billions of people on the riverfront (I might be a little off on the numbers) held every year exclusively in Porto on June 23. Our friends Ed and Rhonda were in town and had the primo view from the balcony of their short term rental. We watched the amazing fireworks show from there.

On June 29th we celebrated our 4th anniversary living in Porto. It's hard to believe, but it still feels great to live here, and we're both very happy with our decision.

Wishing you all a great July 4th!

Go Portugal!🇵🇹

Adeus, abraços e beijos,

MaryLou

Portugal Journey #45

Greetings family and friends,

I hope this finds you in good health and ready to enjoy the summer.

I'm also hoping that the title sparked your curiosity. After hearing some friends rave about visiting the town of Tomar, we decided to take a 3- day trip to check it out. Tomar is located about 3+ hours southeast of Porto and was once a bustling manufacturing town for textiles, flour, paper, and glassworks; among other things. Energy was supplied by water wheels which produced hydraulic resources of the river Nabão, running through the center of town. There is only one replica water wheel operating there today. However, it's the ancient history of Tomar that is most interesting. The town was built on top of the Roman city of Sellium. After the Portuguese conquered the Moors (Portuguese Reconquista), the land was granted in 1159 to the Order of the Knights Templar and, in 1160, Gualdim Pais, the Knights Templar Grand Master in Portugal, laid the first stone of the Castle and Convent of the Knights Templar, making Portugal the first Templar nation in the world. By the early 1300's Pope Clement V was pressuring Europe to suppress the Knights Templar, but Portugal's King Dinis negotiated the transfer of the Order to a newly created Order of Christ, meaning they were no longer loyal to the Pope but to the King of Portugal. By the 15th century Portugal's famous Henry the Navigator moved to Tomar and was made Governor of the Order of Christ (formerly Knights Templar), thus Tomar became the center of Portuguese expansion overseas under Henry, who was instrumental in improving the town in order to attract new settlers. In the late 1400's, Jews moved to Tomar after their expulsion from Spain, expanding the Jewish population there to almost 40% of the total population of Tomar. Their skills and knowledge of trade helped Portugal successfully develop new trade routes with Africa. But of course, at some point, Portugal's King Manuel forced Jews to either become Christians or to leave, which eventually lead to a flurry of persecutions because .... why not? Force everyone to be what you want or, force people to leave. That sounds familiar. 🤔 While in Tomar, we took a fantastic private tour of the area, which included a visit to the Synagogue of Tomar, a designated historical monument and considered the best preserved medieval synagogue in Portugal, the Aqueduct dos Pegões, and the Castelo and Convento de Cristo, which is a UNESCO World Heritage complex.

The view from our room of the Castle and the Convent of Christ at night

Inside the Convent of Christ

The first cistern in the castle built in the late 12th to early 13th century

Tomar also celebrates a few major festivals including a Festa Templária held yearly in July celebrating the town's rich Knights Templar history, complete with torch-lit processions and mock battles, and the Festa dos Tabuleiros (Festival of the Trays) held every four years in July, which supersedes the Festa Templária in those years. The Festa dos Tabuleiros includes a huge parade of young girls from all local parishes wearing long white dresses with colored sashes. On their heads they carry trays/headdresses made in the same height of each girl participating, made up of 30 loaves of bread in a specific shape and weight of 400 grams (0.88 lbs.), arranged in equal spacing and tied to canes on a wicker basket which is decorated with paper flowers, greenery and wheat sheaves. At the top of all this is a Crown of the Cross of Christ. Young boys accompany each girl to offer support, however, the girls are the ones carrying these massive creations on their heads.

I posted more photos from Tomar on Instagram due to limitations of size on gmail. You can also follow this link to see more about the Festival of Trays event. https://www.visitportugal.com/en/content/festa-dos-tabuleiros-festival-of-the-trays

On another note, I'm curious, who in the marketing department at Renova (a Portuguese paper goods company that sells in 70+ countries) thought that anyone would want to blow their nose into a cannabis scented tissue? They market themselves as "innovative", but somehow this one misses the mark for me. These are available in our local grocery store, if you want such a thing.

Nick and I are currently in Copenhagen with my daughter Erinn and two grandkids, Zoe and Owen and next Wednesday we will all travel to Amsterdam for another week of site seeing. My next update will cover this trip.

Adeus, abraços e beijos,

MaryLou

Portugal Journal #44

Ola amigos, I hope this finds you well. We're in good health but maybe a little chubbier after our trip to the south of France 🫪

After waiting to get through tax season, in both the U.S. and in Portugal, we were finally able to start traveling once again and chose to visit Nice, France where we could enjoy some warmer weather. It was a fantastic trip and Nick's first time in the Côte d' Azur, which he's fallen in love with. The most beautiful Airbnb studio apartment (huge for a studio) was our base for the trip and was in walking distance to most of the popular areas of Nice, including Old Town, the Port of Nice and Place Massena, as well as the train station.

The original painted ceiling in our Airbnb

I could literally just post photos just of this place! But I digress. We spent the next few days walking everywhere and enjoying the sights. Just down the street from us was the Port of Nice. As we wandered along the waterfront, I saw from a distance what looked like a mass of dead bodies but, as I got closer, I realized it was just a bunch of young people taking a nap, literally on top of one another.

I swear, I think this is one of my favorite shots from the trip.

A boat tour took us to Villefranche-sur-Mer, where the water is a deep clear blue, because, we were told, it's without pollution. It was a beautiful day to be on the water and get a glimpse of the surrounding area, including Elton John's hilltop summer home.

Another view of Nice harbor from a hilltop park.

Our daily explorations took us more than once to Old Town, a very popular area with winding little streets filled with restaurants and shops which eventually lead to the big open-air produce and flower market. Tuesdays through Sundays it is bustling with people, tourists and locals alike. On Mondays, the produce and flower vendors disappear to be replaced with the Antique and Flea market vendors, which I had high hopes for, but sadly, found disappointing ... far too much used designer wear and none of the cool French enamel ware that I had hoped to find. The beach in Nice is very rocky, which I recall from my first visit there in 1994, yet there were plenty of people out sunbathing, regardless. A French woman we chatted with on the bus one day told us that the nicer beach is in Villefranche-sur-Mer so we headed there one day only to find that the beach there is also rocky, they are just smaller rocks, so maybe more comfortable to lay on? We didn't try. Another day, we took a nine minute train ride to Eze sur Mer, which has the biggest rocks on the beach, so big in fact, that they are hard to even walk on, however the water felt amazing and would have been lovely to swim in. From the beach in Eze, you can either hike up the steep stairway (an hour+) to Eze Village or, take an 8 minute bus ride, instead. Guess which option we chose?

The beach in Eze

The only beach with sand that we encountered was in Cannes, but on the day we visited it was a very cold and windy, definitely not a beach day. I had a different recollection of Cannes from my visit there in 1994, a town without a lot of glitz and expensive stores. Now the beachfront and some surrounding streets are wall to wall high-end luxury stores, some with guards out front and some requiring a clerk to buzz you in. I found it hard to get excited about and definitely hard to relate to.

Back in Nice, we took an afternoon bus ride up in the hills through beautiful neighborhoods to visit the Matisse Museum. Checking out the beautiful homes along the bus route was almost as fun as touring the museum. Nice is a very pretty and colorful town and definitely worth a visit. It's one of those places that we'll definitely revisit one day. Italian restaurants are abundant, and we heard lots of Italian spoken everywhere we went, which really caught Nick's attention. Now, rather than trying to learn some French, he's focusing on improving his Italian language skills because you can definitely get by with that in France, while no one understands Portuguese there. I tried to learn some French before our trip but found that I spontaneously spoke Portuguese. I managed to remember to say "Bonjour" but beyond that, my brain couldn't switch out of Portuguese. 😬

On our final day, we took a bus up the hill to Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat to visit the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild estate. Built by Béatrice de Rothschild during the Belle Epoque, between 1907 - 1912, it's a pink seaside villa with nine themed gardens. The grounds are gorgeous, but even more gorgeous are the views. Béatrice picked a prime piece of land to build her winter home, and the furnishings and art are amazing. Even the ceilings in the downstairs are masterpieces. I posted more photos from there on Instagram, if you are interested.

View from a staircase of the Rothschild estate. Can you imagine?

One thing we definitely noticed on this trip was that everything was more expensive there than in Portugal. For instance, we had to take a couple of Uber rides and honestly, they were 3x+ more expensive than what we pay here. Groceries were definitely more expensive as was dining out. I'm afraid we've been spoiled here, especially when it comes to ordering a glass of wine. Here in Porto we might pay 3-4 euros for a glass of wine in a restaurant, while a glass of wine there was typically 9+ euros, and ... we definitely prefer to drink Portuguese wine. 🍷🥴 We did enjoy some Socca while there, which is a traditional bread from Nice that is gluten-free and made with chickpea flour, olive oil, water and salt. I had actually forgotten about Socca until we started noticing restaurants prominently advertising it on their storefronts. It's actually something I used to make at home, so I'll be purchasing the right kind of pan to start making it again.

On the news front here in Portugal, a few days ago we learned that the new President has signed into law the new nationality bill (heavily pushed by none other than Chega, the far-right extremist party) changing the citizenship timeline from 5 years to 10 years, with no grandfathering for folks like us, who came here on D7 visas with the understanding that we could apply for citizenship after fulfilling 5 years of residency. We'll soon be in our fourth year of residency, which is hard to believe, but for us, we're going to have to mull it over for a while before reacting to the change. Our NHR status (non- habitual resident) which guarantees us a low tax rate for the first 10 years, will end in 6 years, at which time we'll be under the same higher tax laws as the Portuguese. Something to chew on but not causing us to make any kind of decision for now.

We're home for now but will take off on June 1st for Copenhagen where we'll be meeting up with daughter Erinn and our two grandkids, Zoe and Owen. Our plans include a week in Copenhagen followed by a week in Amsterdam. Hopefully, none of our flights will get cancelled due to a fuel shortage (thanks to the insane war that no one wanted). Fingers crossed.

Stay well and safe.

Adeus, abraços e beijos.

MaryLou

Mary Lou's Portugal Journal #43

Dear friends and family,

I hope you enjoyed a lovely Easter weekend. We had stunning weather over the weekend and Spring has definitely shown itself. Tourists were everywhere here, enjoying Spring break and sunny weather.

I pass this tree twice a week on my way to water aerobics.

I've mentioned a group we belong to called Internations previously. As the name implies, members are from all over the world. While some members, like us, live here in Porto, you will often find people in attendance who are members from other countries and happen to be in town as tourists. When we arrived at the March event we ran into a Russian friend, Madina, whom we met back when we were first visiting Porto on our scouting trip in March, 2022. As we were chatting with her, we realized that it was exactly four years ago that we met her in a restaurant here in Porto, making hers our first and longest friendship here. Madina immigrated to the U.S. over 30 years ago and still works in there full-time, however, she has a Portuguese visa and maintains an apartment in Porto. Since we've known her she's been trying to get her own textile business up and running so that she can move to Porto full-time, which now looks to be later this year. At this event in March, she introduced us to a few of her Russian friends who were also in attendance that evening. The conversation turned to restaurants here in Porto that specialize in Georgian food, which is apparently different from Russian cuisine. It certainly had them all excited, so we're looking forward to dining with Madina soon at one of these restaurants to see what we think.

Since I wrote my last email, the little excursion in Iran is now a full on war. Well done, MAGA voters. Of course, we attended our third "No Kings" rally here on March 28th and I'm sure many of you did the same in the states, given the reported size of the event worldwide. While the rally here was certainly small by comparison, the energy was passionate. There were even some tourists with signs in attendance. It was amazing to see how many cities across the EU and the world staged these events. He's universally hated. More and more people, not just Americans, are seeking to move here. Sadly, I'm hearing that some areas of the Algarve are starting to show some anti-American sentiment, which can hardly be surprising. Neither of us has encountered anything like that here thus far. Our Portuguese neighbors are very supportive, not only of our being here, but also of our political views and protests.

The "War Pig" sign on the left actually made the national news in the U.S. according to a friend of mine in Atlanta.

Another of my favorite signs

According to a survey by Portugalist.com, about half the Americans either currently living in Portugal, actively planning to move here, or considering moving here are also now considering renouncing their American citizenship after securing their Portuguese citizenship. Of those surveyed, 81% cited political reasons while 38% cited the complexity of the US global tax filling system (to which I will attest). Additionally, of those who are already living in Portugal, just over 44% do not intend to return to the U.S. It's been four years since we made the decision to move here and, of all the Americans we've met along the way, renouncing citizenship never even came up in conversation. Everyone wanted and looked forward to obtaining dual citizenship. But here we are, just one year into this disastrous presidency and people are thinking differently. And yes, this is a small sampling but think about the fact that approximately 1.5 million Americans currently live throughout Europe, not even counting those who moved to Mexico and parts of South America. Is a sampling from Portugal just an anomaly? I doubt it. And, the recent reduction in the cost of renouncing American citizenship was reduced dramatically thanks to a number of lawsuits. Time will tell but the America we grew up in has gone so far right and been taken over by evangelicals and billionaires, that it's not recognizable anymore.

March also was busy collecting tax data for our U.S. accountant so we could get those taxes filed before working on our Portuguese taxes. Just the preparation for the Portuguese return is rather time-consuming but I hope to finish up my spreadsheets for our accountant later today. Once those are done, we will be starting our travel. First up is Nice, France and the Côte d' Azur. Stay tuned for my next update!

Adeus, abraços e beijos, MaryLou

Mary Lou's Portugal Journey #42

Greetings friends and family,

I hope this finds you in good health. We are doing well here.

Sometimes I struggle to write because I let the news consume me, and these days, it's particularly bad isn't it? I'm trying to find ways to keep my spirits up and not let the shitshow in the U.S. take me down.

Here in Portugal, as you have probably already heard, the people have spoken and, with the largest win in history, António José Seguro of the Socialist Party (PS) won the Presidency with over 3.5 million votes, a record for a presidential election. Picture me sighing with relief. And today, March 9th, he has been sworn into office.

Though we're back to some rain today, we have experienced some lovely sunny days here in February. Spring is in the air with the tulip trees in bloom everywhere. On Valentine's Day weekend we treated ourselves to a stay downtown at a new boutique hotel, Hotel Kodawari Flores, located on Rua das Flores, which was named the coolest street in the EU this year according to Travel and Leisure magazine. Located close to São Bento train station, the street is filled with cool shops, bars and restaurants and has a great vibe. The hotel itself is a small but really lovely and specializes in a great night's sleep, with custom horsehair mattresses made by Hasten and fabulous weighted blankets made by blanky here in Portugal. We actually own two of the weighted blankets ourselves. They delivered two silk sleep masks, three sets of eye hydrating masks, and two pairs of their signature socks to our room. And we were greeted upon arrival with not one, but two glasses each of Graham's Port Wine 🥴. If you ever plan to visit Porto, I would highly recommend this hotel. Also located on Rua das Flores, is what I've always thought of as Dildo Square. I'm not sure what these statues are supposed to represent but that's what comes to mind whenever I see them. 🤭

Dildo Square (there are actually 3 of these statues)

Now that the severe rain has passed and the Douro River isn't spilling over and dirty, as it was shortly after all the storms, we've been down to the waterfront a few times to enjoy some sun and some wine. I captured what I think is a cool photo there recently.

The reflection of Porto from the Gaia side of the Douro River.

I will end with a few thoughts of my own. Yes, I am sad to see that the U.S. military has been and will continue to use the Lajes airbase in the Azores to refuel on their way to Iran to, conceivably, kill everyone in sight. The U.S. and Portugal have had the agreement in place since 1951 and they don't intend to upend that agreement now, even though the Portuguese government isn't thrilled with this new war. And it is a war, make no mistake about it. Hopefully, this war isn't going to spread but hey, look at the two dummies running this and ask yourself, what are the chances of that? Honestly, the potential for additional wars all over the map is stunning and all brought to you by the guy who believes he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. I think that ship has sailed. Finally, I will share one of my favorite posts seen recently on Instagram; "Call me crazy, but I think the president of the United States and the dumbest motherfucker on earth should be two different people."

Stay safe and stay healthy.

Adeus, abraços e beijos,

MaryLou

P.S. Thanks to my sister for sending me this post from Facebook...the photo was taken on Highway 24 heading to Walnut Creek, CA.

Mary Lou's Portugal Journal #41

Greetings family and friends,

January brought us rain, rain, and more rain. In fact, as I'm writing this, on February 6, we've had almost non-stop rain since the start of the year, along with high winds that woke us on a number of nights. In our 3.5 years living here in Porto we have never seen so much rain. Three storms in a row ... Ingrid, Kristin and Leonardo battered the country, causing massive damage. The city of Coimbra, about 1.5 hours south of Porto, experienced record breaking winds clocked at 129.7 mph on January 28th. Porto has been lucky (so far anyway) because we haven't had the severe flooding and hurricane winds/damage like other parts of the country (though I would argue that the winds that kept us awake sure sounded like hurricane winds 🫩). That said, this morning the Douro River overflowed its banks on both sides of the Ribeira, (the historic section of downtown) on the Porto side and the Gaia side. For those of you who have visited Porto, you should be able to picture it. The Tejo River in the south as well as the Douro River here in the north are both at warning level red today, as both rivers are overflowing from all the rain, and the disaster situation in the country has been extended until February 15. Warnings have been issued for everyone to stay away from both riverfronts. There are currently 2000 soldiers deployed to assist. As of now there are 13 reported deaths in Portugal, but that number could rise as yet another storm, Marta, is due to arrive Saturday. Areas along the Silver Coast, including Nazaré, were walloped, with trees snapped in half or literally ripped out of the ground. People in Nazaré had to dig out their cars from the deep sand that blew in along the waterfront and into the lower levels of town. Businesses along the waterfront there were demolished. Lots of buildings and a stadium were heavily damaged along the coast. In the south, particularly in Oeiras, where our friend Gloria resides, there has been massive flooding resulting in damage to homes. Thankfully, she is safe. The Algarve was particularly battered by Storm Leonardo. Storm Marta will be entering the country from the south tomorrow, so people in that area are on high alert.

Round one of the election for President of Portugal was held on Sunday, January 18th, with 11 candidates on the ballot. The mini wannabe trump candidate, André Ventura, head of the Chega party, came in second with 24% of the vote while candidate António José Seguro of the PS Socialist party came in first with 30.6% of the vote. On Sunday, February 8, the second round of voting will take place. Unfortunately, with all the weather related catastrophes right now, it's still not clear if voting might be pushed back a week. Perhaps we'll know more tomorrow. Given what's happening in the U.S. right now, some people are starting to wake up to the cruelty of far-right groups leading the country. Hopefully enough people come out to vote and prevent the slide into another dictatorship here.

January was a difficult month for me, as I spent almost the entire month sick, first with an ungodly allergy attack followed by the worst sinus infection I've ever experienced. I'm finally feeling normal again, thankfully.

On January 9th, exactly one year since our resident cards expired, our doorbell rang and our postman greeted us with a huge smile and shouted "AIMA!"; however, we quickly realized he was only delivering one card, Nick's. I was visibly upset that he had nothing for me, but he tried to reassure me that maybe next week it will come. Four days later he rang the doorbell again and shouted "AIMA!". I insisted that he let me take his picture delivering mine.

Our postman delivering Nick's card on January 9.

Four days later my card is delivered by our very happy postman!

Our new cards are good for another three years. Finally, we can travel and yet .... these storms are affecting all of Europe right now. There has been widespread flooding in parts of France and Italy, along with snow in the Netherlands, Paris and elsewhere. We've had friends stranded in Paris who were actually just on a layover flying back from the states and got stuck in Paris without proper clothes for a snowstorm. Another friend had to spend two extra days in the Netherlands because flights were grounded due to the snow there. We don't feel like trading the bad weather here only to experience bad weather elsewhere so we're hanging on for a bit before traveling elsewhere. But, the good new is that we finally have our new cards.

Though I would like to make my feelings clear about the appalling events of January in the U.S., I'm too angry and disgusted with his supporters to comment further right now.

Stay safe, stay healthy. Adeus, abraços e beijos, MaryLou

Mary Lou's Portugal Journal #40

Greetings and Happy New Year. Let's hope it's better than 2025, which could go down as the worst on record thanks to you know who and his merry band of brown shirts.

This was actually the first Christmas we spent in Porto, of the four we've experienced since moving here. I can confirm that we ate too much, drank too much (probably me more than Nick), and generally partied with friends for most of the month, right up through New Year's Eve. Earlier in December we took a vintage Christmas train day trip to see the World's largest Santa, per the Guinness Book of World Records. It was quite a fun day, stopping first in Macinhata do Vouga to visit a train museum. Along the route, from Aveiro to Macinhata, we were greeted by the locals living along the route and waving to the train. This vintage train travels on a particular narrow gauge track from years ago, so it's not regularly used anymore. The museum was a fascinating look at how the former dictator, Salazar, made changes to trains over his almost 50 year reign, forcing the middle class to travel in third class, after eliminating all second class seats and comforts. As we arrived there, the locals were at the train station to play traditional Portuguese music, dance, and had little Christmas faire booths set up to shop. We were treated to small pastries from the local area we well. After touring the museum, we again boarded the train and headed to Águeda, a charming town inland that is known for its amazing Christmas lights and displays. The giant Santa was really quite spectacular, standing at 69 feet tall and covered in 250,000 LED lights.

Águeda's giant Santa

A festive street in Águeda

Another festive street in Águeda

The town also holds the Guinness Book of World Records for the smallest Santa, however with the crowds and long lines, we had to skip it. However, I'm including a picture of it from online in the link below... this was crafted on the inside of the head of a needle. Who thinks of doing something like this??? You can read about it and see it here: https://www.itv.com/news/2017-12-06/meet-the-worlds-smallest-santa-claus-the-latest-micro-sculpture-by-willard-wigan

On Christmas Eve we hosted our friends Cagla, Bob and their kids plus Bob's brother, John for dinner.

A partial view of our tree and our view of the ocean.

On New Year's Eve we were invited by our neighbor across the hall, Luis, to a small gathering with his friends. This is the second time we've been included in an all Portuguese party, so we were quite honored to be invited. Fortunately, I had just learned the day prior of some "rules" and/or superstitions that the Portuguese follow for New Year's so we both wore blue underwear and carried money in our pockets. Once at the party, everyone confirmed that they too were wearing blue underwear and, anyone who didn't have money in their pocket was given a euro for that purpose. We all chose to skip the one about eating 12 raisins, one at each strike of the clock at midnight. Having grown up in the "raisin capital of the world" I know better than to eat them. Fireworks were going off all around our area at midnight and at the same time we watched the huge fireworks display held in downtown Porto on the local tv station. After that, the dancing started! Nick managed to speak mostly Portuguese the entire evening! He's really becoming fluent, whereas me, not so much I'm afraid.

Since I started writing this piece I came down with a horrible cough and cold which rendered me fairly useless for the past 6 days. I might now hold the record for the most sneezes by a human being. 🤧 Hence, I'm just getting back to finishing this. Amazingly, there was just enough time in between the start of my illness and the pathetic POS in the WH to invade Venezuela for the oil (it has nothing to do with drugs) and to threaten how many other countries?...I've lost count. Way to go MAGA voters! Anyone not horrified at the current state of affairs there...those people horrify me the most.

Will the Epstein files ever be fully released???

Today is January 7, 2026 and we still have not received our new resident cards. In two more days it will be a year since they expired. 😡🤯😩

Stay healthy and safe.

Adeus, abraços e beijos,

MaryLou

Mary Lou's Portugal Journal #39

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Greetings all and I hope this finds you in good health and ready for the holidays.

Today, December 11th, there's a nationwide general strike that is affecting almost every major service, including transportation (the metro, buses, trains, and airlines), hospitals and medical professionals, schools, courts and more. Many businesses/services will also be closed in solidarity with workers. This is all due to proposed legislation that appears to be very anti-workers rights. Fingers crossed that this hurts our mini trump, Andre Ventura, who is running for President in January and who heads the extreme far right party Chega, because he supports this proposed law. Portugal hasn't had a strike of this size since 2013. Anyway, I thought I had better get busy and finish writing this email that I started over a week ago.

I had hoped to start this with the great news that we had finally received approval for our three-year renewal of our residency. Alas, that is not the case. Although we each saw an "approved" message on the immigration portal on November 16th, yesterday that message was replaced with "your application is awaiting a decision." Bloody hell, this truly is insane and shows what an inept immigration department we have in Portugal. In the meantime, thousands more people are applying for visas/residency (up 60% from a year ago) and, newer residents who arrived in the past two years, almost 33,000 of them, have been able to successfully apply for their three-year renewals digitally and have already received their new cards. Meanwhile we're in the group that arrived three+ years ago and aren't allowed to renew digitally. I'm sure I sound like a broken record, month after month complaining about this, but it really is the most f'd up system ever.

On a lighter note, we enjoyed two back-to-back Thanksgiving Feasts in November. The evening before Thanksgiving we attended.a lovely turkey dinner with all the trimmings with 70+ people through an organization to which we belong. The caterer did a fantastic job with the turkey in particular. We met a delightful couple from Sarasota, FL who recently moved to Porto, Richard and Liz. Richard is actually from London originally and was a drummer back in the day. Then on Thanksgiving day we joined friends Cagla and Bob for the third year in a row, along with some other friends, to again enjoy yet another Thanksgiving meal. Nick was in charge of cooking the turkey this year, and it was delicious. He had to order a whole, fresh turkey from the butcher because a) frozen whole turkeys aren't available here and b) grocery stores don't carry whole turkeys, only parts and c) the butcher has to place an order for a freshly killed bird. I will say that a fresh turkey is much more flavorful than a frozen one. Days before, Nick and I noticed big ads on almost all the bus stops indicating that a large grocery chain, Continente, was offering whole roasted turkeys (peru assado) by advance order only, with a beautiful photo of a roasted turkey on the sign. At first I thought that they must be trying to appeal to the Americans in Portugal, or, that they were alerting Portuguese people to place an order for Christmas dinner, because turkey is considered a Christmas tradition here ... but then something else struck me ... ovens here are smaller than what you have in the states. I think you can order a whole roasted turkey because a whole turkey likely won't fit in many ovens here. Nick had to spatchcock ours in order to cook it. Nevertheless, we enjoyed two wonderful meals with good friends.

Thanksgiving dinner at Cagla and Bob's

A few days later we hosted some new friends, Stephanie and Alex, for my homemade Pozole. They were so kind to bring me some cans of Ortega mild chiles on their recent trip back to Virginia because those chiles are definitely not available here. In exchange for their kindness, I fixed a nice dinner of my favorite Pozole dish. Hint, hint to any future travelers coming to Porto 😄.

This will be the first Christmas we actually spend together in Porto: During our first year we traveled back to the states, the following year we spent in London, last year I went to the states but Nick stayed behind, which I will never do again. Even though he didn't care, it made me feel awful. We have many activities with friends lined up for the rest of the month. In my next update I will post photos of the world's largest Santa, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. On Saturday we're taking a trip on a vintage Christmas train to the town of Águeda, where this giant resides. According to my hairdresser, Águeda is also home to the world's smallest Santa, which can only be seen through a microscope. Not sure I will be able to include photos of that one! And, of course, I'm looking forward to attending the Christmas Market there as well.

Finally, while I could write a huge piece on how much I hate Cheetolini, but I think I've made that clear previously. Every day is more appalling than the previous. I will end with this quote: "If your country opens a Department of War and closes the Department of Education, then you live in a shithole country."

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to all!

Adeus, abraços e beijos,

MaryLou

Mary Lou's Portugal Journal #38 The Birthday Celebration

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Greetings all,

I hope this finds you in good health. More importantly, I hope you are managing to maintain your mental health, given the state of the country in which I was born and used to proudly call my own. To say that I'm ashamed is most definitely an understatement.

I turned 75 in October, a number that I'm still trying to wrap my head around. Never, in all my 75 years did I ever expect to see concentration camps in the U.S. Never, in my 75 years, did I imagine that a president would turn our White House into a gold encrusted, tasteless display, that makes me think of a whore house with a pool patio outside. Never in my 75 years, did I envision that the East Wing ballroom of the White House, where Princess Diana once danced with John Travolta, would be torn down to build an even bigger, gaudy, gold ballroom for a fool. Never, in all my 75 years, did I envision seeing masked agents of the government abducting people, including children, off the streets of America, zip tying their hands, and detaining them indefinitely, often in undisclosed locations. They aren't rounding up illegals; they are indiscriminately rounding up people based upon their appearance. The goal is a white America. Sadly, no one in this government seems to have learned the history of the country and of the American Indians (among others) who were here first. The stupidity, arrogance, callousness, lack of empathy, and lack of shame of this administration is beyond comprehension. Has anyone reading this had to tell their child/children to carry their passport with them at all times, in case they are abducted? I have. Let that sink in. This is Nazi America. Wake up.

On a different note, we attended the No Kings protest here in Porto on October 18th. Most in attendance, approximately 300, were Americans, however, there were other foreign immigrants there as well. It was a beautiful day for a protest, and we met many new people at the event.

Some scenes from our protest in Porto

October brought us more visits from old friends. A childhood friend, Judy Fidalgo Nelson (yes, she's Portuguese) and her husband Don visited Porto and we enjoyed a lovely lunch with them. This was their first visit to Portugal, but certainly not their last. Their trip began in the Azores, where Judy wanted to get a sense of where her ancestors came from.

Next up was Saman and Lee, who we first met when we all lived at Trilogy in Brentwood, California. We enjoyed drinks and dinner with them one evening, along with Saman's friend of 40 years, Joanie, and her husband John. Joanie and John also happen to live in Porto. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that Joanie was in the same language study group with Nick last year. They already knew one another. This really is a small world.

The following day, my birthday, Nick planned and organized a great party at the Quevedo Wine Bar down near the river, where we celebrated with 20+ friends, including two from California, Ed and Rhonda. My friend Karen, from language class (in the red leather dress pictured below) also has an October birthday, so we celebrated together (though she's still a child at 59 🥳). Following the party, our neighbors from downstairs, Daniel and Diana, took us to dinner. It was a truly memorable birthday.

Just some of the birthday attendees

The following day, four friends from Dallas were in town to visit and sightsee. Three of them are in my bookclub, two since it began almost 26 years ago. I had a great time showing them around town, and we were lucky that the weather was nice. Of course, we took another Douro Valley wine tour as well (our 6th, but who's counting)! One evening, Nick made homemade pasta for them, and as the girls and I were heading back to our place for dinner, they wanted to stop and buy some wine to bring along. We got some amazingly good red wine for the outrageous price of 1.99 euros a bottle. Welcome to Portugal!

Our tour guide Cristobal, Jan, Sheila, Me, Dianne, Nick, and Cheryl

I can't forget to mention our unbelievably inept immigration department here in Portugal. Currently it has 133,000 lawsuits pending against it for failure to process applications and renewals in a timely fashion, with approximately 500 new cases being brought against them everyday now. And those 133,000 lawsuits were all filed in June and July of this year. This is truly the most inefficient, unorganized department ever. When we first moved here, the department was known as SEF, and there were many complaints about it, but at least they allowed people to renew their residency cards online. When SEF was replaced with the "new and improved" immigration department called AIMA, it went from bad to worst. Instead of letting people renew online, they decided they needed to have face-to-face interviews with everyone renewing but ... they didn't have enough staff so .... they hired more people but, they didn't provide any uniform training for them. It's basically just the luck of the draw as to who processes your paperwork and whether they know their right hand from their left hand ... seriously. What makes this even more frustrating is that people who have residency cards that have expired in the last few months now get to renew online and some of them are already receiving their new cards. We happen to be caught in the hellscape of those whose cards expired at the beginning of this year and were required to have the face-to-face meetings ... they can't figure out how to get us processed. We've now been told that we have yet another "extension" this time until

April 15, 2026, which effectively keeps us from traveling anywhere else in the EU because Portugal doesn't advise any other EU countries of the absolute mess they have created. In our case, that could potentially mean that we will have been living here with expired residency for 14 months before we ever get our new residence cards. This is what we call a "shit show."

I've mentioned our far-right party here called CHEGA before. Municipal elections were held across Portugal in October and, if our resident cards hadn't already expired, we would have been able to vote. We are not eligible to vote in the Presidential election to be held in January, as that is reserved for citizens only. But, CHEGA'S goal was to win 30 municipalities in the October election. Thankfully, they only won three, and those are all in southern Portugal, near Lisbon and in Albufeira in the Algarve. So they've been knocked off their pedestal a bit for now. Still, CHEGA had already become the second largest party in Portugal in the past two years and Andre Ventura, the leader, hates immigrants and was able to push through the new immigration law that finally passed at the end of October, which means that our opportunity to apply for citizenship has changed from 5 years to 10 years. Some of our friends were about to become eligible to apply and now they must wait an additional five years. And, Andre Ventura is running for President in January. Hopefully, Portugal will not succumb to this madman who recently said that this country needs three Salazars (the former dictator) to clean up the corruption in government. Seriously, that's what he said.

As I have said in the past, I make no apologies for my political commentary. You certainly can request that I remove you from my distribution list or, just toss this in your trash. But I will not stay silent.

Stay well.

Adeus, abraços e beijos,

MaryLou

Mary Lou's Portugal Journal #37 -- Porcelana Portuguesa

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I hope this finds you in good health at least. I'm guessing many are struggling with their mental health these days, especially those in the U.S. WTH!🤯

September was a busy month for us. First, we took a group tour to Ílhavo, a small town outside of Aveiro, which I've written about previously. Ílhavo is the home of the Vista Alegre porcelain company/factory, an internationally recognized producer of beautiful tableware, home decor, hotel ware and other porcelain pieces and glassware. The company was founded in 1824 by José Ferreira Pinto Basta (they like long names here) initially on a farm, however, as his success grew, he bought more land and built an entire town for his workers including housing (each home was rented for one day's worth of wages per month), schools, medical facilities, recreational facilities and even a volunteer fire department. They offered art classes, particularly drawing and painting, so that workers could develop their talents and take on positions of designing and painting pieces. We were allowed to quietly observe workers in one area, painting a variety of pieces by hand, which is how all pieces produced there are done (no photos were allowed in that room). Some workers still reside in homes there, while others now live off the compound and commute to work. There's a theatre with an amateur theater group made up of factory workers, who put on performances to this day. There is also a magnificent chapel (The Chapel of Our Lady of Penha de França) on the grounds that was built in the 17th century in the baroque style, as well as the original 17th century palace that was home to the founder's family for seven generations and which now serves as a luxury hotel for Vista Alegre visitors. The company celebrated their 200th anniversary last year and, they produce over 27,000 pieces of porcelain daily.

The original factory workers posing for a photo.

The original fire department and their "vehicle."

Inside the the 17th century chapel

The chapel ceiling (simply stunning)

September also found us spending an inordinate amount of time/days trying to satisfy AIMA, the immigration department here. As you know from my last email, we had our immigration appointments to renew our residency on August 18th, and at those appointments we had to prove, among other things, that we have income, that we have a place to live, our last 3 Portuguese bank statements, and numerous other documents. Over a month after those appointments, Nick received a rejection email on September 20th, essentially giving him 10 days to prove that he had income (they said he hadn't proved that, even though he had); had a place to live (he had provided at least 3 documents proving we own a home; and, proof that he wasn't taking advantage of drawing from the Portuguese social security system (he isn't). Back to AIMA he went, two times, to take more documents, trying to satisfy their requests. Three days later, I too, received a rejection letter saying that I hadn't proved that I had a place to live. Now, let me tell you, I had already given them a document from the Finanças department here (like the IRS) showing our address and showing that we are the owners; a document called an Atestado which is a certified document from the local parish where we live, verifying our address; and a copy of the deed to our apartment. But apparently, that didn't prove anything to them. AIMA wanted a different document that basically says the same thing but it comes from a Registry department, and it's a document that literally expires every 6 months. We received one when we purchased our apartment 2.5 years ago, but now we had to go the Registry department and pay to get a new document that, again, will expire in 6 months...what? ... why??? Sometimes I think that the government here works very hard to create more paperwork that essentially verifies the same thing as paperwork from other departments just to provide jobs or something. So now we continue to wait for our new residency cards (our current ones expired back in January ... but what's the rush).

Our darling neighbor Diana, invited us to her family's estate in the Douro Valley for their annual harvest party on September 27th. Every year they invite their family and friends for a day of harvesting the grapes and feasting on great food, and this year we were lucky enough to be invited; however, this year the grapes had to be harvested much earlier due to the extremely hot summer we had in Portugal. Lucky for us, they still had the party, so Nick and I took the train up to the little town of Ermida where Diana picked us up and drove us to her family farm/estate, which is absolutely lovely. There, we met her father, her aunts, and uncles, her brother and his wife, cousins, and too many others that I can't recall. The spread was incredible, and we spent the afternoon stuffing ourselves and drinking lots of wine. They set up a huge table on the patio under a trellis covered with vines; however, just as we sat down to eat, it started to rain, just enough that we had to pull the tables back under the porch covering. That, however, didn't stop the feast. Their home is quite large and even has a basement room where they make wine.

Wine making room including the stone structure on the left where they stomp the grapes.

I hope you are enjoying lovely weather right now. So far here, the weather as October begins has been amazing. Take care of yourselves and, for my friends who take to the streets in peaceful protest, please keep it up. I'm with you in spirit always.

Adeus, abraços e beijos,

MaryLou

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Mary Lou's Portugal Journal #36 -- Vistos de Residência

I hope this finds you in good health, and that you got to enjoy your Labor Day weekend (and possibly participated in a protest march, as it appears there were many!).

Good news here: we're finally one step closer (in baby steps) to renewing our resident visas. In early August, we woke up one Sunday morning to an email from the immigration service (AIMA) asking us to make our payment for renewal in order to begin the process ... done! A few days later, our second emails arrived with a link to upload a number of documents in preparation for our appointments, which, we were told, were scheduled on August 18th (lucky we had no other plans). As it happens, I'm a member of a WhatsApp group of immigrants from around the world who are living in Porto and the surrounding cities/towns in the north. Suddenly, my cellphone was pinging with messages because we weren't the only people who finally received emails from AIMA. I've mentioned before how the immigration service in Portugal was woefully behind in processing renewals, to the tune of 400,000 behind as of late last year. On that Sunday when we first received our emails from AIMA, so did thousands of others who also have expired visas. And in the days following, thousands more emails were sent out, so it was obvious that the government was finally pushing AIMA to get this done. It became a mad dash to pull together the documents that were being requested and getting them uploaded in time. On the day of our appointments, which were scheduled within 1/2 hour of each other and in the same location, we sat with clerks who reviewed our documents, made sure everything was in order and then sent us for our fingerprints and photos. I later learned that many couples were scheduled in separate cities from one another, and typically on the same day, so we were fortunate to have ours in the same place. Suddenly AIMA had satellite offices everywhere, trying to process all these renewals, and most shocking of all, it was happening in August, when most Europeans take vacation, when many restaurants close for the month and when bus schedules change/get cut, but AIMA was suddenly supercharged.

Now, that is not to say that we now have renewed visas. In actuality, we now have to wait for someone, somewhere in AIMA land, to review our documents, verify that we have no criminal records here, and approve our 3-year extensions. Then, they have to make new cards and mail them to us and, so far, no one that we know has received their new cards, even friends who had appointments back in June. The government has given us a blanket extension until October 15th, however that is only recognized in Portugal. It remains to be seen whether we all will receive our new cards by then, but we're hopeful. Last month I wrote about the new changes to immigration rules that would require we wait for 10 years before being eligible for citizenship, rather than 5 years, which was the rule when we arrived. In August, the President of Portugal vetoed the bill after parts of it were deemed unconstitutional, so now Parliament is going back to the drawing board to revise it. There is a new provision being suggested that would make the wait to apply for citizenship 6 years from the date of arrival instead of the 10 years first proposed. They are due to discuss these changes and more later in September so again we wait to see what happens. CHEGA, our far right party in government, hates immigrants (who does that remind you of) but unfortunately for them, it appears that foreigners living in Portugal (which exceeded one million people in 2024) have actually saved Social Security in Portugal by adding to significantly their coffers.

In the meantime, we've been enjoying taking the new ferry service from the Porto side of the Douro to the Gaia side, to Afurada specifically, which is a parish of Gaia. Afurada is a cute little area that is absolutely loaded with fish restaurants. You can smell the fish cooking on the outdoor grills before the boat lands. Right now this is a four month experiment by the transportation department to see if this is a viable service. Because it's part of the bus/metro service, we can use our monthly passes to make the crossing each way. Hopefully, the restaurants in Gaia and Porto are enjoying the increase in business. Fingers crossed that they keep this service.

Nick and I spent this past weekend in Nazaré. Nazaré is the home of the 100 ft. waves, though that normally happens in winter, not now. Nevertheless, it's a darling town about 3 hours away, with a rich fishing history as well as a more recent surfing history. The town was bursting with tourists and the weather was perfect, sunny in the low 70's. There is a lower part of town where the beach area attracts sunbathers and the upper part of town, where the big wave surfing takes place. Since we don't have a car, we took the funicular up the hill to get the dazzling views of the area. Interestingly, on every corner and sometimes in between, we saw old women usually dressed in the traditional garb of gathered skirts in black or traditional patterns, sitting in chairs and holding signs offering their homes/apartments and/or rooms for rent. It's like live "pop-up advertising."

Nazaré beach sunbathing huts

The funicular to upper Nazaré

View from the top - this is where the big waves happen (typically in Oct - March)

Another view of Nazaré beach from the top

A sudden cloud cover made for an interesting sunset photo

One of the many women advertising a home/apartment/room for rent