Easter Fireworks, Painters Starting

On March 31 we selected the fourth of four painters who quoted on our job, and he will be able to start on April 7.  This is great news!  He shifted his schedule around to get started right away, he's very professional and qualified, and seems punctual and dependable too. 

And speaking of that sort of thing, a fellow expat asked the Gemini AI about Portuguese cultural norms and got a very interesting response.  Here is a summary:

•   Time is fluid in Portugal, and personal relationships often take precedence over rigid schedules.
•   The "yes" that doesn't lead to action is often not a lie, but a cultural desire to avoid conflict or preserve face.  In Portugal, saying "no" directly can feel rude or confrontational.
•   We need to shift from a "command and control" style to a "relationship and reminder" style.
•   In Portugal, people do things for people, not just for the company or the contract.
•   In some cultures a follow-up email is seen as a reminder; in Portugal, if done too harshly, it can be seen as a lack of trust.  A WhatsApp message actually feels more personal and less like a "paper trail" audit.

This comes simply from a distillation of online sources, of course, but AI does that so much better than we puny humans do.  It lines up well with our experience.  The typical American directness and task/schedule focus comes across to the Portuguese as rude and blunt, and Gerrit especially has seen himself make that mistake.  Adapting to the Portuguese style feels smoother, more personal, and more respectful.  Slower and less predictable, to be sure, but it's a warmer and more pleasant experience.

On April 1 we started to pack household things up, stack them away, and prepare for painting.  Not very exciting, but it's what we were mainly occupied with for a week or so.

Our pool heat pump installer Nuno came the afternoon of April 1 to examine the installation site and discuss options.  The new models are black and heat most efficiently in direct sun, so we have a perfect location picked out which gets full sun almost all day.  It's in an inconspicuous location too.  Nuno will be able to start installation shortly.

On Friday Apr 3 Pat reserved a nice Airbnb in Ponte de Lima which we will move to while the painting is going on.  We'll come back home to check progress now and then.  The Airbnb has a little kitchenette and looks very nice in the pictures.  "Secluded and quiet" says the ad.  It is just 10 minutes away from downtown Ponte de Lima and about 20 minutes from our place.

Saturday Apr 4 the Easter fireworks began, through most of the evening and until after midnight.  Then at 6:30 Easter Sunday morning they started up again and went through most of the day and far into the night.  And then on Monday, more fireworks, and shops were still closed.  Easter is one festive holiday in Portugal!  We have some friends who moved into a nice quiet area near a church.  Quiet until one of the dozens of Catholic holidays erupts, that is.  Bells, fireworks, music on loudspeakers, and crowds then rule the day.  They're actually staying with some other friends until Easter dies down.

We watched the spectacular fireworks display in Arcozelo (a neighboring village down the hill from us) from our balcony Easter night.  With the field glasses, and elbows resting on the balcony railing, it was really breathtaking.  The show went on for more than a half hour, with huge commercial-grade fireworks equal to anything we've seen over Lake Union.  A delightful spectacle, right here from our balcony.

On Monday Apr 6 we finished up getting the house ready for painting.  Everything was removed from the walls which we could, some small repairs and cleanups were done, and cobwebs were swept out of corners.  The following day we were booked for our Airbnb.  Late in the afternoon we heard from the painter that he would be here, on schedule, the following day.

On Tuesday Apr 7, right on schedule, our painter and his assistant arrived and got right to work.  We loaded our Airbnb belongings into the car and set off to drive around and explore until check-in time.  But an hour or so after we left we got a message from the painter that the lights had gone out.  Uh oh.  The same old solar backup load failure we thought was fixed?  The painters went to lunch and we returned home, broke into the garage (the only way to get in there when the power is out), and found three subsystem breakers had tripped in the house and in the garage.  It was currently thunderstorming, so was this power failure due to lightning?  The painters returned and we learned that the power had gone out when they were lowering a ceiling light fixture to paint around it.  They also found mouse droppings in the ceiling.  So, mice have apparently been chewing wires which shorted and blew three breakers when the fixture was moved.  Fix one problem and up crops another.  We got the power back up anyway, and showed the painters where the breakers are located in case this happens again.  And now we have to take care of the mouse/wiring mess.

In our wanderings we found this scenic Ponte Romana (Roman Bridge) and old mill over the Rio Estorãos a few minutes from home.  It looks in the Roman style, but we don't think it actually dates that far back.  It's lovely anyway, and there is a nice picnic area, park, and swimming nearby.

The Airbnb is nice, good modern appliances, clean, and just 10 minutes from Ponte de Lima, but "secluded and quiet" it is not.  It is right on a main road and surrounded by houses.  We must be spoiled by our truly secluded and quiet home.  There is a bit of a musty smell here too.  But all in all we're happy with it.

We checked in on the painters today, and they are doing a great job.  They have this professional rotary sanding wand with a built-in vacuum cleaner so there is hardly any dust, even though they are aggressively sanding the walls smooth.  Everything is tarped and masked beautifully, fixtures are removed in order to paint underneath, and we feel like we are in good hands.  The place will be gorgeous when they are done.

(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done.  Also, you can click on the bold underlined phrases to play the audio.)

Read More

Spring and Sardines

The fourth and last painter came to bid on Tuesday Mar 24.  We're glad we waited; this guy seems great.  He is very knowledgeable and professional, speaks English, and also installs Velux skylights.  This is handy, since one of ours is leaking and needs replacement.  He took one look at a skylight and saw they were not tilted to the proper angle, which he says is the most common reason for leakage.  So we're waiting eagerly for his quote.

Gerrit continues as pool slave.  He finished cleaning up after the filter sand replacement, cleaned the pool vinyl cover, and vacuumed the pool itself.  He refined his vacuuming and backwash techniques using the wealth of knowledge he has been accumulating.  Next he will be testing and adjusting the chemicals and salt once again.

And Pat continues to bond with our kitchen, cooking new recipes, fig and banana breads, healthy cookies, and granola.  She has also been working with our gardener and horticulturalist on irrigating and improving the garden.  They have planted melons, squash, and cucumbers in a sunny spot, which will be beautiful and delicious.

On Wednesday Mar 26 we went to our first PLUNO lunch (Ponte de Lima United Nations Organization, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual UN).  Pat had signed us up a week or two prior.  It's another expat group with members from all over the world (some of whom we already know), who get together monthly at a very nice restaurant atop the highest point in Ponte de Lima.  We had a great time, enjoyed great food, and made new friends.

There are some gorgeous huge eucalyptus trees on our property which are unfortunately shading some of the neighbor's property.  Our neighbor has mentioned this a couple times to our handyman as he worked nearby.  We asked the neighbor over for a visit on Saturday Mar 28 to chat and to discuss it.  We offered him some of our land to plant on, but the problem is shade on his existing olive trees, not new crops.  We couldn't see a good solution for now but parted friends.  Gemini AI came up with a few likely ideas for Gerrit, so he'll propose them to our neighbor.

In the afternoon of Saturday Mar 28 we made the one-hour trip to Matosinhos, near Porto, for a tour of the Nuri brand sardine factory.  Sardines, fresh or canned, are beloved in Portugal, and the company ships internationally too.  Sardine-crazy Austria makes up 65% of its exports!  The tour was a benefit for the care of street animals in the Porto area and raised over 400 € ($462) for the cause.  The tour was fun and cute and the tasting afterward was great, but we're not sure we'll do it again.  It was interesting to see how they do almost everything by hand, using the same methods as the founders did in 1920, but it being Saturday there weren't any line workers there and the floor was empty.  We got to do pretend can filling and wrapping though, also digging in a sandbox like children for buried symbols of the trade (a boat, a fish, two empty sardine cans), and watching movie shorts.  A glass of excellent vinho verde with bread and sardines after all that silliness was welcome.

The final product	Old style at the entryway
Factory floor, with marble work tables	Pat in her bunny suit on the pretend assembly line
Manic Gerrit in his sardine-proof bunny suit	The final station, for can labeling
Cool belt-driven machines from the 1920s	Making it all worthwhile

We've been having spectacular weather the last couple of weeks: clear, temperate, and sunny.  Our hot water and electricity have been almost entirely solar-generated, and fresh breezes blow through our sliders ajar.  The air has been smoke-free most of the time, giving us beautiful views of the Ponte de Lima valley.  Glorious!

(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done.  Also, you can click on the bold underlined phrases to play the audio.)

Read More

Trips, Sand Traps, and Happy New Year

On Saturday Mar 14 the first of the painters came by to take a look at our job.  The three of them went through the house with Gerrit, who did a passable job of communicating in Portuguese.  They had to resort to Google Translate a couple times for complex questions, but overall Gerrit was pretty pleased with himself and with the painters too.  Two more to go, and then we'll sort out the quotes.

Sunday Mar 15 was clear and sunny, so we took a little road trip around the country roads here in the afternoon.  Most of the country roads turned out to be rutted and rocky quagmires we had to creep along, and Google Maps got us very lost a few times, so it was the world's lamest road trip.  At least we got a few nice photos.

So the following day we tried again, with much more success.  We followed a different figure-eight route on some familiar favorite roads and discovered some new ones too.  It was a beautiful day and a long, beautiful drive.  The first photo here is above the town of Ponte de Lima, looking back at it.  You can see the Lima river and the Ponte de Lima medieval bridge on the right there.  One stop was at a viewpoint called Miradouro do Castelo de Santa Cruz, with a commanding view of the entire area.  There was a steep stairway leading up to the top and Pat didn't trust her knees coming down, so Gerrit climbed up there and took a photo to show her (and you).

Ponte de Lima on the right	Pat at the Miradouro
Steep stairs for Gerrit ...	but he made it (notice the white knuckles)
View from the top	Family photo on the way back

In the morning of Monday Mar 16 we had another visit to bid on painting the place.  This was from the most established company we have lined up.  One of the two painters spoke English very well, so Gerrit could relax a little.  The quote should be here shortly.

Gerrit finally finished up our Portuguese tax documents and sent them off to the CPA.  Now he has to turn to our US tax documents and get them in shape.  In addition to this soul-sucking time sink we will owe the CPAs about $2000 altogether, not to mention possible actual tax owing.  What a racket.  Many expats relinquish their US citizenship as soon as they are able to do it, partly to avoid all this extra expense and time.  The US is one of about three countries in the world who tax their citizens regardless of where they live (that is, whether they actually receive any benefits from their tax dollars or not). 

Gerrit bought seven bags of pool-grade sand for the big filter in the pool equipment room (shown at left), and he and our hired hand Andrew began draining the filter and sand on the afternoon of Friday Mar 20.  Getting the old sand out was a matter of sucking up a couple dozen wet/dry vacuum containers full of sand and water and dumping it in an unused part of the garden, very tedious and heavy work.  Gerrit was grateful for Andrew's sturdy help.  We had a nice lunch after the draining, which was a delicious new recipe of Pat's, and then fortunately filling the new sand after that (all 175 kg (386 lb) of it) went quickly and fairly easily.  

But it looked like trouble in sand land.  After Andrew left, once everything was put back together and Gerrit was testing, he noticed that a little tube seemed to be hanging further out than he remembered.  He panicked that it had come loose from its connection at the bottom of the filter tank and sand was leaking into the place it had connected to.  He shut the pool equipment down and hyperventilated a while. Two days later he drained almost all the water from the filter, plus some sand, to get down to the bottom... and it was fine.  Good grief.  Well, he tie-wrapped it, refilled the tank sand and water, and slept well that night knowing his tube was well secured.

On the afternoon of Sunday Mar 22 we went to a Persian New Year (Norouz) celebration at an Iranian friend's house, a celebration of the start of spring.  That seems like a good time to start a new year!  It was planned before the US and Israel started bombing Iran and both Americans and Israelis were there, so it could have been awkward but it wasn't.  No one there supported the war and it didn't come up.  The food was delicious, very exotic flavors, and we all had a great time talking and laughing.  A custom of Norouz is the Haft Seen or "seven S's", a display of seven symbolic items starting with the Persian equivalent of the letter S, representing growth and rebirth.  Here is a photo of Pat and our hostess Atena standing next to the Haft Seen on a table, above which is a picture by an Iranian artist, and then a few of the early guests.

(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done.  Also, you can click on the bold underlined phrases to play the audio.)

Read More

Mostly Medical Musings

On Tuesday Mar 10 we both went in to the hospital in Viana do Castelo (a half hour away) for some regular heart tests requested by our new doctor.  Pat had a 24 hour cardio monitor strapped on, and Gerrit had an ultrasound Doppler exam.  We're getting quite familiar with that particular hospital, which is even called Hospital Particular ("particular" means "private" in Portuguese).  Again the facilities and equipment were new and clean, enough English was spoken to get by easily, everyone was competent and friendly, and we were taken to our appointments even slightly early.  The total co-pay for us altogether was 40 € ($46), with the actual cost of Gerrit's ultrasound exam being 78 € ($89).  (We didn't catch the total cost of Pat's exam.)  This is another example of the excellent and affordable medical care here.

Gerrit saw that the ultrasound machine being used on him was a new Siemens Acuson SC2000, made by the company he worked for briefly long ago!  He excitedly pointed that out to the nurses, but they didn't seem impressed.  Or his Portuguese was that bad.  He was faced away from the big color display for most of the exam, but he heard the familiar whoosh, whoosh of the Doppler audio.  He did the Doppler audio electronic design, among other things, for the Siemens Quantum ultrasound machine he worked on a-way back when.  This was before his three-week employment with Acuson and their subsequent acquisition by Siemens, which is another story altogether.

The following day we returned to the hospital so Pat could have her cardio monitor removed and to get an ultrasound scan of her shoulder, which has been bothering her for years and won't seem to heal.  We were an hour early for her scan, but they got her in immediately.  Arriving quite early and being seen right away for an exam has happened twice to us here and we don't remember it ever happening in the US.  Again the whole experience was great, and we went out to lunch afterwards.

Have we mentioned that medical care payments here are as easy as buying something in a department store?  You pay as you leave from your appointment or exam, there in the hospital or clinic.  This seems weird at first, but it's so much more sensible than getting a surprise bill a month later and then wrestling with possibly multiple insurance companies to find out what the procedure actually cost and who pays what.  Here they start with a reasonably priced procedure, which is posted publicly.  This is impossible in the US since different insurance companies negotiate different prices, which they consider trade secrets.  The US is moving toward better price transparency, but hospitals and insurers are kicking and screaming about it.  From the posted price the health center here subtracts what insurance covers, and you give them a credit card for the remainder.  Neat, clean, and economical for everyone.

(We checked with our AI oracle Gemini to verify the health care comparisons above, and "he" claimed that comparing health care pricing in the US to Portugal's standard health care system is about as stark a contrast as you can find in the developed world.  He concluded, "The US is currently spending billions of dollars on software, audits, and legal attestations just to try and achieve the level of price clarity that a Portuguese citizen gets from a simple poster on the wall of their local Centro de Saúde [health center]".  Some things, like health care, just shouldn't be market-driven.)

We had one bid on interior house painting from an excellent painter, but it was pretty steep.  Quality paint is indeed expensive here, but this seemed over the top.  So Gerrit has redoubled his efforts to find another painter and has rounded up some candidates.  As of Friday Mar 13 we have three painters coming to appraise the job next week.

We heard back from Nuno, the solar system installer and best part of our solar experience, and he will come install a heat pump for our pool for us around the first of April.  Gerrit doesn't mind a bracing dip now and then, but adding a few degrees to the water will make it much more pleasant for Pat.  It will extend the usable season for the pool too, for both of us.

We learned a useful new word too.  There is a gastronomical fair in a small town north of us each year, featuring specialty lamb dishes of the region, called Feira da Foda, or "F**k Fair".  WHAT??  Why in the world is it called that?  The announcement of the fair which we saw in an English newsletter about Portugal said that the name would "raise some tourists' eyebrows", without actually translating it.  We thought, "What, 'foda' sounds like 'food' or something, why the eyebrows?" until we looked it up.  The Portuguese seem to be pretty relaxed about their salty language.

(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done.  Also, you can click on the bold underlined phrases to play the audio.)

Read More

Home and Pictures

The unavoidables: death and taxes.  At least death only happens once.  Gerrit's pastime these days is dealing with both US and Portuguese taxes.  He finished putting together all the necessary documents for his dad's taxes and sent them off to our US CPA.  On Friday Feb 27 we had a video conference with a Portuguese CPA who should be able to handle our Portuguese return.  Portugal and the US have a reciprocal tax agreement so residents here are not double taxed, which is nice.  We think we will need to file the Portuguese taxes first and then deduct them from our US taxes, but we'll find out.

On Tuesday Feb 24 Gerrit transferred his US driver's license to Portuguese.  There was a little longer wait at the motor vehicle office than we'd had for Pat, but after that everything went smoothly and after a few days his official license appeared in the mail.

All of a sudden, our solar power system has been operating flawlessly for over a month now.  What caused that?  Nobody knows.  It took months to schedule an electrician to install an automatic transfer switch, intended to fix some of the long-standing problems, and now it may not even be necessary.  The electrician's truck broke down on Thursday Feb 26 so his appointment slid from 10:00 to 3:30.  Then he didn't show, and at 5:00 we learned it would be Saturday at 11:00 when he could make it.  We're finding that most appointments with Portuguese tradespeople go like this.  Gotta stay flexible.  And patient.

Gerrit came down with a nasty cold on Friday Feb 27, and we're still laying low while he recovers from that.

We had our horticulturist Alex and his helper out again on Wednesday Mar 4 mainly to do some pruning.  The garden is looking very nice now and the irrigation system is almost in place for the summer.  Our biggest problem now is a local cat who considers our lovely little ipê tree base as his everyday litter box.  Fertilizer direct from the cat has got to be a little too concentrated for the poor tree.

You know that surreal feeling you get when you're not feeling well but it's beautiful outside?  Gerrit had that, so he took a batch of close-up photos inside and around the home as something to do which was partly outside.  It's a little different than our usual landscape panoramas.  Then he scurried inside, blew his nose, and collapsed on the couch.

(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done.  Also, you can click on the bold underlined phrases to play the audio.)

Read More

After the Storms

Back in this post we mentioned an essay which identified these common traits of Portuguese work culture: 

• Honor-based shame avoidance 
• High-context indirectness 
• Hierarchical authority preservation 
• Liability-averse bureaucratic instinct 

There is a weekly English newsletter here called Portugal Decoded, written by a native Portuguese who speaks flawless English, and it basically said the same thing in the context of the response to the recent string of storms and floods here.  According to the article, government response has been fragmented and ineffective because of the same cultural characteristics described above.  Rather than having one central authority to make decisions and take action, for example, there are dozens of administrative silos each reluctant to do anything because they may be violating a hierarchy or sticking their neck out which could lead to liability and shame.  There was too much pointing fingers and asking for opinions, and emergency response often didn't get done.  The interior minister has resigned as a result.  We thought this corroboration was very interesting.

We can see the effect in our daily transactions sometimes too.  When we lived back in the apartment in Gaia we bought an office chair and some other stuff.  When we got home we realized that they had forgotten to give us the advertised discount on the chair.  We went back to the store and showed them the error.  We were cheerful and pleasant; this stuff happens, no problem.  Three clerks gathered around the receipt, silently, and someone got the manager.  There was a quiet discussion and the manager stiffly presented us with the discount amount in cash.  They were all very uncomfortable and there was no apology or smiling.  We thought it was a little odd at the time, but now it makes more sense.

By the way, don't be concerned if you see "frango inteiro com miúdos" (whole chicken with little kids) on your package of chicken from the Portuguese supermarket.  Miúdos also means "giblets".  It is a mystery why they use the same word for "little kids" and "giblets".

Our house water pump valve started clacking too frequently, again, like it was doing shortly after we moved in a year or so ago.  This time Gerrit and his sidekick Gemini re-pressurized the expansion vessel without having to call in a plumber.  He reports that it was pretty easy.  If we have to do this once a year it's fine, but if it gets worse it will be time for a new expansion tank.

Gerrit just got his approval for his Portuguese driver's license transfer on Monday Feb. 16.  It was a piece of cake for Pat to set up her transfer appointment and receive her actual license in the mail, so we're hoping it will be as smooth for Gerrit.

Pat found a great recipe which is now a workhorse in our dinner stable.  It's a spicy curry with chick peas, pumpkin puree, spices, and rice.  Contact her if you want the full recipe, we think it's great.

On Friday Feb 20 the weather started shaping up and drying out, expected to be nice for a few days.  The following day was beautiful and spring-like, and we went to Ponte de Lima for an agricultural fair at the Expolima exhibition hall near downtown.  We watched a local traditional band in the main town square first:

Then as we wandered a bit a friend of ours called out from a shop.  He is a native Portuguese named António who comes to our expat meetings now and then, and owns a jewelry store near the town square.  It was established in 1903, and António is the fourth generation to operate it.  They carry hundreds of articles, mostly in gold, hand crafted filigree in the old Portuguese style.  The detail and craftsmanship are really exquisite.  Since our anniversary is coming up in a couple months, we found a beautiful set of earrings for Pat.  They are "hearts of Viana", a characteristic offset heart shape which is found throughout the Minho region (far northern Portugal, where we live).  Gerrit will hide them so Pat can pretend to be surprised on May 8.

Then we made our way to the Expolima exhibition hall, where there were some animals, some agricultural booths, specialty agricultural lectures being given, and some street food.  It had been a great morning, getting out in the fresh air and sunshine after weeks of storms.  We had some lunch, picked up some local foods, and headed home.

Pat and the tiny pony

Fresh local organic vegetables

(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done.  Also, you can click on the bold underlined phrases to play the audio)

Read More

Being Thankful

It is becoming clear that the recent "storm train" (one storm immediately following another) that has been pummeling Portugal has caused some serious damage.  Since January 20 Portugal has seen storms Ingrid, Joseph, Kristin, Leo, and as of Feb 8 Marta, all directly following one another.  About two dozen deaths have been reported, hundreds are injured or displaced, flooding and power failures are widespread, and up to €4 billion in damages are expected.  People are banding together with donations and support, but emergency services are stretched thin.  We and our friends are lucky, we have not seen significant damage.

And now here is a story which can be told.  A few months ago Gerrit's doctor saw his blood PSA rising, which can be an indicator of prostate cancer.  Gerrit went in for an MRI, and the radiologist identified a small nodule which he said was "highly likely to be cancerous".  This is not what the patient wants to hear.  Gerrit then had a guided biopsy by his urologist on January 22, which is the most accurate available, and the samples were sent to the pathology lab.  Then on Monday Feb 9 he got an abrupt automatic text message notifying him that he had an appointment with his urologist for the following day.  He began to dread the worst.  It sounded like his doctor had gotten bad news from the pathology report and wanted him in there immediately to break the news to him and start planning for treatment.  Or worse.

But no!  There was no cancer found at all!  19 samples had been taken, including on and around the suspect nodule, and everything came back clear.  Gerrit went from mortal dread to euphoria in about ten seconds.

Later he realized that everyone can have a little bit of that feeling of euphoria all the time, if we would only be grateful for all the good things we do have and the bad that we don't.  Here are some examples: We don't have cancer!  We don't have any number of other dread diseases!  We have normal good health!  We have loved ones we can be with!  Our brains are functional and alert!  The list goes on and on.  There is so much to be grateful for.  Just regularly pretend that you thought you had awful disease X but you suddenly realize that you don't.  Gerrit assures you that it feels pretty great.

Back to the biopsy though.  It required general anesthesia, so no food or drink was allowed following a light breakfast.  Unfortunately the procedure was delayed by about four hours, to six PM (someone else apparently had the nerve to have an emergency), so Gerrit sat in the hospital room for hours with nothing but his pathetic gown and panties on getting hungrier and hungrier.  Good thing the Pope didn't drop by.  Pat had brought some embroidery at least, but Gerrit got awfully tired of his phone after a while.  Finally he was whisked down to the operating room, and he lay there for a while listening to all the very Portuguese activity going on.  People were joking, laughing, and talking.  It was a pretty relaxed atmosphere, which helped to lower his anxiety level.  His urologist came by, soothed him, and told him what to expect.  After the anesthesiologist administered his drug, he was gesturing and joking with the nurses on the other side of Gerrit's bed.  There was none of that ominous "count backward from 100" stuff (like you'd get any further than 97 anyway).  Gerrit began to go under and said "estou com sono" (I'm sleepy).  The anesthesiologist said "com fome?" (you're hungry?) and the last thing Gerrit remembers was trying to say "não fome, sono" (not hungry, sleepy), even though he was in fact hungry too.

Pat got texts when Gerrit went to surgery, when he emerged from surgery, and when he was to return from recovery.  The whole time she got to wait in his room, not some waiting room.  It was all very reassuring.

When Gerrit came to in the recovery room, he felt no pain whatsoever.  There was no pain at all, even for weeks afterward, and with no pain medication either.  He doesn't know how his urologist managed to puncture him painlessly, 19 times in a very sensitive area, but he was thankful for it.  He also got the most wonderful sandwich in the world there in recovery after 14 hours of foodlessness, and about midnight we drove home.  Pat drove home, that is.

Overall the biopsy experience was great.  We used the private healthcare system, since that's what our insurance provides.  People were helpful and sympathetic, most spoke at least a little English, and the facilities were top-notch.  The urologist was very competent, spoke English well, and had a great bedside manner both in his office and at the hospital.  Our experience of Portuguese private and public medical care has been excellent, from routine office calls to this fairly major procedure.

So, enough drama, back to the mundane.  On Saturday Feb 7 our hot water tank began showing an error code and failing to heat the water.  This is not what you want in a hot water tank.  We started taking morning sponge baths, Gerrit called the technicians early Monday, and late Tuesday afternoon our favorite tech Filip (he's been here a couple times before) worked for a couple hours here to repair the tank.  It looked like multiple failures had occurred, possibly due to power surges, but he got it working again and hot showers were back on the menu.

(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done.  Also, you can click on the bold underlined phrases to play the audio.)

Read More

Daily Life, Daily Downpours

Now that we have all our Seattle goods in boxes in the garage, waiting to be unpacked, we have decided to paint the house interior first.  Good grief, you'd think we would have planned that a little better.  We guess that the recent wine explosion all over the walls and ceiling gave us a little extra impetus to paint, but also we realized that it would be quite a bit more difficult to move everything out of the way for the painters once we'd loaded the place with our stuff.  Right now the china hutch is still wrapped up beautifully for shipping protection, for example, so all we need to do is slide it out from the wall to paint.  No tarps or fragile china rattling on the glass shelves involved.  And the new cupboards and shelves we'll need in the rest of the house are still figments of our imagination, which are easy to paint around.

Pat keeps up with a large network of support chats, and she found us some local references for painters right away.  Gerrit will follow up with them in the next few days.

On Tuesday Feb 3 Gerrit had an appointment for his free tetanus vaccination in the public health clinic in Ponte de Lima, so we both headed down there.  When we got there the entire lower floor of the clinic, where vaccinations were given, was torn up for construction and the whole building was being refaced.  We didn't know where to go at that point, so we went upstairs and began getting a ticket to ask someone.  A kindly security guard approached Gerrit, and from Gerrit's halting Portuguese the guard learned what we were there for.  He verified our name on a list, directed us to another room next door, told the nurses we were there, came out to tell Gerrit "one minute" in English, smiled, and touched him on the shoulder as he left to help others.  It's another example of the kindness of the Portuguese.

After the appointment, on the way home, a phone call came in for Gerrit.  It was the plumber he had requested just the previous day.  Gerrit told him he spoke only a little Portuguese, and for the first time he kept his head and asked the caller to repeat, more slowly.  The plumber did, Gerrit did a passable job of understanding, confirming, and responding, and he completed his first actual phone conversation totally in Portuguese.  (The phone is the worst.  It's in real time, the audio is often bad, you can't see gestures, expressions, or body language, and you can't watch their lips as they speak.  It's a communication nightmare.)  In twenty minutes we were home, with the plumber waiting there as Gerrit had asked.

He was there to fix a clog in our garage bathroom drain.  He did a great job, and he even mopped the floor afterward with disinfecting cleaner.  Gerrit was able to communicate and make small talk with him pretty well in Portuguese most of the time, too.

On Wednesday Feb 4 we went to Viana do Castelo, about 30 minutes from home, to the equivalent of the Department of Motor Vehicles so Pat could complete the transfer of her driver's license.  (For some reason Gerrit's is held up.)  It was in a slightly dingy governmental-looking building with a dozen people waiting.  Typical DMV, in other words.  Pat was called within a few minutes though, but the clerk spoke no English and had some complicated questions.  She recruited the next-door clerk, and as soon as the English-speaking clerk was free Pat moved there.  There was something wrong about the appointment Pat had made, we couldn't quite make out what it was, but the clerk cheerfully said she could process Pat anyway.  After a few minutes with the friendly and helpful clerk Pat handed over her Washington license and received her interim Portuguese license.  (Transfers like this require that you hand in your existing license.  We could have gone through the long expensive process of a complete driver's ed course, written test, and driving test, but opted to just do the transfer instead.  The Portuguese license will still be usable in the US.)  All in all, it was about the best experience either of us has had at a DMV in any country.

As of Thursday Feb 5 the rains have been heavy and continuous for most of about two weeks.  The Lima river is seriously flooded.  The parking lot adjacent to the river is under about 3 meters (10 feet) of water, and water is even over the new walking path (the yellowish stripe in the foreground here) by about a half meter (1.5 feet).  Everything is fine up at our home's altitude, but water gushes from every culvert and drain pipe between there and Ponte de Lima and floods everything downhill.  It's like little rivers in the road in places.  This flood is nothing compared to some historical ones though.  There are arrows and dates on the sides of buildings in the center of town showing flood levels a meter or two above the street!

(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done.  Also, you can click on the bold underlined phrases to play the audio.)

Read More

Indoor Cozy and Boxes from Overseas

It's hard to come up with an interesting blog post with the weather as it's been lately and with our activities being so boring.  It's been quite stormy for most of the week prior to Jan 23, with another week of rain and wind ahead.  We've been venturing out a little but mostly holing up at home, enjoying the fire and the dramatic storm views and doing indoor things.  Pat's been doing some beautiful embroidery work (see below), and Gerrit has been upping his game of Portuguese language study.

Gerrit continues to struggle with the solar power people too.  They admitted the couple big problems he's been harping on a couple weeks ago, but nothing is being done about it and further problems are cropping up.  We continue to have long backup load failures, and we now have an extension cord blue-taped to the floor so the internet stays up when they do a firmware upgrade.  It's ugly and a trip hazard, but it's necessary until we get an automatic transfer switch installed.  The vendor's answers to questions are vague or incomprehensible, but that is at least partly due to English being their second language.  Gerrit is nevertheless suspicious that they are trying to wear him down until he gives up.

On Tuesday Jan 27 the city of Soure in central Portugal saw the highest-ever recorded wind gusts in Portugal: 209 km/hr (130 MPH).  Holy cow!  This is part of Storm Kristin which is sweeping over the country, including here.  A typical day for us during the past week has varied from pleasant, calm, and partly sunny to lightning, thunder, wind storms, and torrential rain.  We are due for a lull on Saturday Jan 31, but then another storm will sweep in the following day.  It won't be as bad as Kristin, though, they say.

The big unloading day approaches!  On Thursday Jan 29 we cleaned the garage, laid down some blue tape boundaries, and parked the car outside so the truck can unload our Seattle goods.

The following day the movers arrived with our Seattle stuff.  They shuttled three loads into a smaller truck from the container truck a few kilometers away, wound up our narrow streets, and unloaded them into our garage.  They were cheerful and friendly, despite the occasional downpour as they worked, and they carefully and quickly unloaded and stacked our boxes.  They spoke English well too.  Pat had some boxes she wanted to leave exposed in order to unpack them first, and the movers checked where she wanted each box as they unloaded.  They even enthusiastically carried her huge, heavy, and fragile china cabinet up the stairs to the living room.  One of them then asked, "We take it upstairs?", ready to go up another flight.  We laughed and said, "This IS upstairs!".  They were perfectly willing to take anything and everything up from the garage too.

Getting started	Pat watching for special boxes
It took three truckloads this size	The full garage, and starting to unpack

We had had two special crates built in the US for the couple pieces of furniture we kept.  You can see part of one of them above.  To pass customs the wood must be specially treated and dried to be perfectly pest free, so we had contracted the work to some specialists.  Gerrit had a jolly time specifying the crates and dimensions in CAD (Computer Aided Design), and they looked just wonderful and strong.  In CAD at least.  Unfortunately they were way over-designed, way heavier than they needed to be, and they were complete monsters to move.  We don't know how the movers did it, and now Gerrit is having to haul them around to uncrate them.  Boy, everything inside is perfectly preserved though!

Our goods all seem to have survived almost four years in storage, trucking and unloading to the container, a trip across the Atlantic, customs, and trucking to our door, completely intact and in good shape.  Amazing!  It is such a relief.  International Van Lines took care of the whole door-to-door shipment (except that we packed our double-strength boxes ourselves), and we can recommend them highly.  Now that everything is here, we feel like we have officially moved to Portugal.

(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done.  Also, you can click on the bold underlined phrases to play the audio.)

Read More