Furniture fiascos: both pieces we ordered from different sellers on Etsy turned out to be scams. Both sellers disappeared from Etsy not long after our orders. One of the orders looked like it was actually shipped by FedEx but it was delivered in the Azores, 1500 km (930 miles) away. Shippers can change delivery addresses with FedEx unbeknownst to the recipient, and this may be what happened. A front for smuggling contraband somehow? The other order didn't ship at all. Fortunately Etsy has a return policy which refunded our money right away. I think they realized we'd been scammed too.
So we lost a couple months but gained a great appreciation for our local custom furniture dealer Rachel at Móveis Santa Comba. We went back to her and got the ball rolling for the next couple pieces of the several we'll want. It will take some time, but they will in fact be delivered, with high quality, and just to our specifications. That's worth a lot.
The evening of Friday Jul 10 Pat went to a Renaissance Fair with a friend, in the nearby town of Arcos de Valdevez. It was small, but hosted lots of fun events like jousting, sword fighting, falconry, and dancing. The town looks very authentically Renaissance, with the medieval castle in the background. It is customary at Ren Fairs we're familiar with to speak in Renaissance style, like "Good morrow, my lady, how fare thee? Pray proceed, anon!", but Pat couldn't tell if they were doing that in Portuguese.
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Ponte de Lima bombeiro (firefighter and emergency responder) came to our place on Saturday July 11 after Gerrit had reported a nest of Asiatic Hornets. The morning of their visit we had a different visit from a genuine Asiatic Hornet, right inside the house, which we captured and showed to the bombeiro. They're huge, about 2.5 cm (1") long, dark, and nasty-looking with their yellow "socks" and orange face. They can be quite aggressive and their stings can be very painful, put you in a coma, or even kill you. They decimate the local honeybee population. They are all over the world now and they spread rapidly. Gerrit showed the bombeiro the nest and she injected it with poison (after donning some thick rubber protective gear). As she left her radio crackled with news of a nearby wildfire, which she zoomed off to. The
bombeiros here in Portugal are community-supported, they perform such vital services so well, and we are enthusiastic members of their support team.
When we answer the phone with a Portuguese number showing on the caller ID, we usually say both "Olá?" and "Hello?", since "olá" means "hello" in Portuguese but we also want to encourage the caller to use English if possible. This usually results in a puzzled pause. We learned that the Portuguese normally say "Estou?" or "Sim?" when answering the phone. "Sim" makes sense, that means "yes" in Portuguese, but "estou" means "I am". No other definition. So they're asking "I am?" when answering the phone. Maybe they're just unsure about their philosophy: "I think? Therefore I am?".
Gerrit's first video Portuguese tutoring session was on Thursday Jul 16, and it was a disaster. The tutor didn't remember much about their introductory visit a week or so prior, and began throwing new material at Gerrit way too fast without getting a feel for his level. He seemed a little annoyed too. Gerrit was flustered and performed poorly. It was depressing. The deluge continued even after Gerrit explained that it was too advanced and he'd had no time to absorb the new material. So, not a good fit. Gerrit is now thinking to go back to book learning and hire a simple conversation partner a few times a week instead.
The weather has cooled off for most of July now. After the heat wave of late June and early July it's been temperate and lovely, below about 28 C (82 F) with mild breezes. It's been a very sweet month so far.
(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.)
