Glasses, Wine, and Birds

 On Monday we went to an ophthalmologist appointment for Gerrit, whose vision has been deteriorating for a while.  He's always had excellent vision and has never seen an ophthalmologist.  We found one in Porto with the help of Serenity, a medical brokerage especially for English speaking expats.  They vet and recommend English speaking doctors, set up appointments for you, and track your medical cases.  It's pretty convenient, because trying to explain medical conditions and history in our lame Portuguese would be difficult and prone to misinterpretation.

We took the metro for the 4:00 appointment so we wouldn't have to deal with parking and rush hour traffic.  The clinic is literally 100 meters (~yards) from the metro station, so that was easy.  We got there a little early but were shown in to the doctor immediately.  Care was excellent, including two exams with high-tech equipment by technicians, and to Gerrit's delight the doctor found corrections for near and far which restore his former eagle eyes (there in the clinic, anyway).  The doctor also found no sign of cataracts or macular degeneration, which his dad suffers from, so that was a relief.  We received a complete printout of the test results including eyeball images, retina profiles, etc., and it all came to € 110 retail, no insurance.

Next we need to take the lens prescription to an optician for Gerrit's first full-time glasses.  They'll be progressive, so they should correct for both near and far focus.  He was shocked at the cost of frames, being used to paying about $3 for Chinese reading glasses from Amazon, but Pat assures him that these prices are normal.  He can't see any difference between the cheap and expensive frames, so he recommends that all young people out there enter glasses frame manufacturing for a career.  There's a lot of money in it.

And here's an interesting factoid: wine consumption in Portugal is the highest in Europe, beating France by a large margin.  It's easy to understand with it being so good and so inexpensive here.  We have bought nothing but native Portuguese wine since being here, it has almost all been excellent, all of it is unbelievably inexpensive, and we've barely scratched the surface.  Trying them all will be a delightful long term project.  Pat has started a spreadsheet to track our impressions.

Here's something Gerrit has realized about language learning: "embrace the mistakes".  You can try to hammer something into your head, and that can get things started, but actual recall is what strengthens the memory.  So with that in mind, whenever you make a mistake on a flash card and have to put it back in the deck, celebrate!  You're getting a chance to recall it again which will only strengthen that memory.  This has increased his language exercise time a little now since he's merrily failing cards that he would call a "pass" before, but it's made flash card time a little more relaxing (Mistakes?  We love them!) and of course it is improving memorization too.

We're picking up bits of Portuguese culture and history, and learned that in the Carnation Revolution of 1974 there was a secret code for the revolutionaries: two specific songs would be played on the radio when the revolution was to begin.  The second of them is really stirring.  It's called Grândola, Vila Morena and you can hear it here .  Be patient: there is silence for the first half a minute or so and then it slowly builds.

On Wednesday we thought we would visit a park we have driven by a few times, Parque Biológico right here in Vila Nova de Gaia.  It turns out to be a large piece of land: part park, part zoo, and part animal refuge.  It was a sunny cool day and we had the place almost to ourselves.  We saw some spectacular bird species, including a flock of a dozen storks sunning themselves in a wetland area just inside the park.  As we walked past a tall pole with a stork's nest on top, the stork couple up there began the most incredible chattering clacks of their bills accompanied by what looked like courtship behavior.  It sounded like a swarm of woodpeckers attacking a tree.  We frantically tried to catch some audio, but it was all over in about 8 seconds.  What a rare treat!  [Edit: Pat later found audio of some storks doing this clattering, which you can hear here.]

Storks sunning

The happy stork couple

Peacock showoff

Further on were many other birds, in enclosures with benches and viewing apertures for the curious humans.  Peacocks and peahens wandered freely about.  Bird song in dozens of varieties filled the air.  Further along we came to a large enclosure with many sub-enclosures containing exotics like cockatoos, macaws, and brightly colored parrots.  The din of whistles and shrieks we heard was because it was feeding time.  An attendant was passing out dinner and talking to her bird friends.

What a great find, right here in our backyard!  It's a huge park, we only scratched the surface, and we will return to explore some more (with the big camera, not just our phones).

To make our next appointment we drove back, parked near the metro, and rode it into Porto.  There was a gathering of the Porto Together (aka Porto People) expat group at a winehouse called Agarrafeira, a few blocks from the metro stop.  Walking to the wineshop we got some great views of some iconic Porto buildings.  The city hall was built directly in front of the church and is much larger, which we're told is intentional symbolism of the ascendancy of the state over the church.

Porto church

. . . dwarfed by City Hall

We had a great time and met many of the people we'd only known online.  The winehouse was jammed floor to ceiling with bottles, many hundreds of them.  It was totally dazzling.  Rather than peering at hundreds of labels, we asked for a recommendation to our taste.  The fellow there stroked his chin for a moment, zipped to a particular bottle, and we bought two of them and left for home.

Today, Thursday, we had our appointment at the optician for Gerrit's glasses.  That is a much more elaborate and expensive operation than he thought, but Pat is still sanguine.  The people there were just wonderful and accepted us like family.  In fact, when we told them we had no family in Portugal they offered to be our new family, to help in any way they could with our relocation and any questions we might have.  Most of them are immigrants in one form or another and they very kindly offered their full support.  We are constantly amazed at the warmth of the people we meet here.

Their service was thorough and attentive.  They administered another eye exam to confirm Gerrit's ophthalmologist's numbers, and gave one to Pat too in case she wants to update her prescription.  Then we went through a careful process of frame selection for Gerrit, shook hands warmly, and were on our way.  The glasses should be ready by the end of next week, just in time to see Christmas lights clearly.

We have an official home inspection of our intended Ponte de Lima place, featured in this post, coming up next Tuesday.  We made a deposit to hold the place, and by mid next week we should know which way we will go.

(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done.)

Home