Our Local Mini Vacation

On Thursday April 9 we took advantage of our mini-vacation here in the Airbnb and drove to Viana do Castelo on the back roads.  We had lunch at our favorite restaurant there, Aquário, and had our favorite dishes of grilled robalo and dorado fish.  The Portuguese do that so well: fresh Atlantic fish seasoned with only olive oil and salt, grilled to perfection.

Afterward, we wandered around the countryside south of Viana and stumbled on a menir, or megalithic monument, in the middle of a neighborhood.  It's called the Menir São Paio de Antes, and it dates from the 3rd or 4th millenium BCE.  Thousands of years ago!  The plaque says it is 1.65 m high (5.4 ft) and with a southern inclination that "accentuates its eminently phallic profile".  Here's Pat looking a little embarrassed next to it.  Researchers believe that menirs functioned similarly to other Neolithic stone monuments, to mark places of collective importance, astral or fertility cults, and to mark territory.  We were in the Esposende region near Viana do Castelo, which reportedly has a "vast set" of them.

On Friday Apr 10 we got haircuts and beauty treatments (well, one of us anyway), and had lunch in a downtown Ponte de Lima restaurant which had been recommended to us.  It was nothing special, but fun and a nice view of the river.  Then we visited our house and spoke with the gardener and painter who were both there.  Pat did some planning with Alex the gardener, then we both went inside and were stunned at how beautifully the painting is coming along.  We are both used to a certain amount of imperfection, visible drywall marks, and texture added to paint and rollering in order to mask flaws, but these guys are creating a near-perfect surface and then painting it flawlessly.  Still they cluck about how it's not perfect because of the underlying surface, but it looks like showroom quality to us.

Our painter had started and worked several days on our job, purely on a handshake, before we were able to get money together for a deposit.  That was remarkable, and we told him how much we appreciated it.  He said he started his business in the southern part of Portugal where he was cheated on several jobs.  People there, he said, seemed to be proud of their ability to cheat and take advantage of others (sound like anyone you know?).  Since moving here to north Portugal (the Minho region) nine years ago though, he said it's much different.  He hasn't been underpaid on a single job.  He said people here tend to be proud of the quality of work they do rather than their cunning, which is what we have found too.

After checking on the homestead we did a little more driving around the area, familiarizing ourselves with the countryside.  It was a beautiful drive, including this shot of the village of Vila Nova de Cerveira from halfway up an adjacent mountain road, and what we dubbed "Husky Hill" for its purple and gold flowers.  We're keeping a lookout for a crimson and gray landscape for you Cougar fans.

On Saturday Apr 11 we visited the house to discuss having our painter (who is also a Velux skylight installer) come replace our skylights.  We hope he can undertake that as soon as a stretch of sunny weather rears up.

Then we visited a garden park right here in Ponte de Lima, just on the west side of the medieval bridge, which we hadn't been to before.  It's a beautiful big garden, with waterfalls, a conservatory, and a playground.  The wisteria hanging over many of the paths was in full bloom and gave off a gorgeous fragrance.  And thanks to PGPA Blog-o-Matic Scratch-n-Sniff, you can scratch your screen and enjoy it yourselves!  Go ahead, give it a try.  Mmm, delightful.  If you have any trouble, call Google tech support.

While in the conservatory we heard a croaking raucous sound, like a crow, but we couldn't see anything.  We went outside and scanned the ponds next to the conservatory for maybe frogs, and found a couple of them making the big noise.  Raucous Frogs.  You can use that for the name of your indie band.

	Scratch-n-Sniff!
	A little hut made from slabs of Portuguese cork bark
Princess Tree blossoms have a little insect landing strip	Inside the conservatory
Lead singer for The Raucous Frogs	You can see the medieval bridge past the trees

(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.)

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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.)

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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.)

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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.)

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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.)

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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.)

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