Winter, and Christmas is Coming

With these rainy gray days it's great to spend a day at home, lighting a fire, watching the storms, feeling cozy.  It reminds us of storm watching on winter days at the Olympic coast.  

And when we're not sitting around feeling cozy there are a handful of projects to coordinate: major garden and irrigation upgrades, bugs in the solar power system, getting our driver's licenses transferred, preparing for customs and final trucking of our goods when they arrive in Porto, deep cleaning, preparing for the upcoming flood of boxes, and planning for the bungalow.

Our solar power system has been demonstrating a new feature: at indeterminate intervals of between a day and three weeks, it shuts down the entire backup network (main water pump, internet, house lights, refrigerator, access into the garage) for 20 minutes or so, whether the grid is up or not.  Is that any way to treat the circuits which are the most essential to keep powered?  The solar sales people tell us it is, it's a "perfectly normal regular safety check" but we are not convinced.  So the battle is engaged.

Our shipment from the US has become even more circuitous and we're not sure why.  It was bad enough initially, going clear through the Mediterranean to unload in Italy and then to go overland from there, but now we see the ship and itinerary going back through the Straits of Gibraltar, south hundreds of kilometers to the Canary Islands and then back north all the way to Leixões (next to Porto)!  Wacky!  We've asked our shipping agent about this, but no reply yet.

We have both been sniffly and coughing for several weeks, mostly Pat, almost constantly but especially at night.  We've cleaned the HVAC (heater) filters, vacuumed carefully, and washed mold out of some hidden corners, but the only thing that helps is to shut off the HVACs entirely for a couple days.  Gerrit and his new best friend Gemini have found the procedure to disassemble the HVAC housings for thorough internal cleaning, and that's next on the list.

We want to move the bed out of the middle bedroom and to the garage, so we can stage and store all the stuff which will be showing up here shortly.  There is also a bookshelf needing purging to make room for our coming books and other things, and the garage needs to be cleared out as much as possible so the boxes can be loaded directly from the truck into the garage.  And this is just the start...

We're still undecided on exactly which bungalow we want.  Our friend and architectural connoisseur Bernardo has convinced us that we should go for a modern look to match the house better.  The cabin manufacturer we had settled on has a significant number of credible bad reviews, too, all of which is making us rethink the whole thing.  Again.

On Wednesday Dec 10 we met our friends Jess and Julian in Porto for lunch.  They have been doing farm work for room and board (and their own education) here in Portugal for a while, and are just wrapping that up to head to the warmer south.  The weather for our lunch was comfortable, sunny, and beautiful, and we had a great time catching up over a delicious meal.

Ponte de Lima is gearing up for Natal (Christmas).  We were there on the nice evening of Dec 10 and took pictures of some of the spectacular lights they're setting up.  All this public expense and time, in a small town, simply for the enjoyment of its citizens!

Watch the lights "drip"

Some Portuguese greeting tips: "bom dia" means "good day" and is used as a general greeting.  Until noon.  At that moment everyone shifts to "boa tarde" (good afternoon).  If you wish someone "bom dia" after noon they will reply "boa tarde".  Then there is a looser transition, around 8 PM, to "boa noite" for "good night" or "good evening".  You can say "olá" (hello) along with these greetings, and even ask "Tudo bem?" (Everything is well?).  The reply is generally "tudo bem" as a statement (Everything is well.).  A group getting together can sound like a chorus of "Tudo bem?,  Tudo bem!" as greetings go around.

By popular demand (from Ron, anyway), here is a little run-down on the ways Christmas is celebrated in Portugal:

• Like everywhere, they have Christmas trees, lights, and nativity scenes (presépio), incessant Christmas songs on background music, and they exchange gifts.
• They are a strongly Catholic country, so church and Christmas mass are important.
• Some houses are decorated with lights, but not so much as in public areas, towns, and the streets leading into them.
• The common greeting is Boas Festas! (Happy Holidays)
• The Christmas season starts off with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on Dec 8.  It is a major holiday, a quiet time at home with families, a little like Thanksgiving.
• Christmas markets are becoming more popular, where gifts, treats, and Christmas trappings are sold from little barraquinhas (market stalls) in a sort of farmer's market setting.
• Kids put out shoes for Santa, not stockings.  Also, Santa was only adopted in Portugal about 30 years ago!
• Many places, including churches and towns, celebrate with big Christmas bonfires.  Sometimes they are huge.
• Of course there are special Christmas pastries and sweets.
• The traditional Christmas Eve dinner gathering in northern Portugal is called consoada.  The meal traditionally consists of prepared bacalhau (dried salt cod), often with with potatoes, cabbage, and hard boiled eggs.
• 
  In parts of northern Portugal young men called caretos dress in wild colorful costumes to celebrate the solstice (photo Rosino from flickr).  They throw water and hay on bystanders, strut around the town accompanied by rattles, pipes, and drums, and "squash" the girls.
• The “Bananeiro” comes from a store in the city of Braga called “Casa das Bananas” (House of Bananas), which used to be a banana warehouse. The owner had a small counter where he served Moscatel, a sweet Portuguese wine, as a way of attracting customers. When they requested something to eat, he would offer them a banana.  His son then started a tradition with his friends to have a glass of Moscatel and a banana before Christmas Eve dinner. It quickly became popular and is now celebrated by thousands.
• Christmas Eve is usually the height of celebrations, when gift-giving and family togetherness rule the day.

(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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