Business, Details, and a Break

Last Wednesday was a busy errand day, getting a new battery for Pat's phone, recycling an old waterpic, and doing some grocery shopping.  In the process we got a parking ticket (€6) and picked up some more of the delicious mushroom cream sauce Pat had discovered a couple shopping trips ago.  We also got our new Portuguese cell phone SIM cards in the mail.

The mushroom cream sauce is a delight.  It is made with one of Europe's favorite wild mushrooms, Porcini (boletus edulis), which gives it a wild and rich mushroom flavor.  Campbell's Cream of Mushroom it is not.  It doesn't hurt that most of the rest of the sauce is real cream, either.  We've had it now with chicken noodles, sautéed mushrooms, and steak, and it is such an easy way to whip up an elegant dinner.

We had a nice, quick lunch out at a nearby café, of empadão com vitela (pot pie with veal) and quiche com queijo (cheese quiche).

Gerrit tried his new SIM card and it worked, but we don't want to switch over for good until our US cell numbers have been ported to Google Voice.  This should provide no-charge VOIP service for our old numbers, so they can be used for phone and text just the same as in the US.

Thursday was a big walking day (Pat's Fitbit said over 10,000 steps).  We walked to the El Corte Inglés one-stop mall store where Gerrit got a haircut, then to the clinic for Pat's blood test, and to our local grocery in the afternoon.  Gerrit started the process of porting his cell phone to Google Voice, hoping that the number was not going to get lost in cyberspace somewhere and thereby not be recoverable if it didn't work out.  It takes 24 hours or so for the port to complete.

Our Portuguese retirement visas (the ones we drove to San Francisco to apply for) were to be delivered by UPS overnight from the San Francisco embassy.  We had seen Pat's appear on Monday but not Gerrit's, figuring that there was just a processing delay.  Checking tracking, however, we found that somehow UPS had misinterpreted Gerrit's package address and the delivery was on hold.  We have copies of the UPS shipping labels and verified that the addresses for our two packages are identical.  Why was one delivered but not the other?  This is annoying.  Gerrit then spent a couple hours in the hell of the UPS "customer service" system.  Did you know that it is literally impossible to speak with a human being at UPS?  There is an automated phone system, email, and chat.  If the phone system voice recognition doesn't perfectly recognize the 18-digit cryptic tracking number as you speak it (over and over, with increasing volume, anger, and frustration), it basically says "sorry" and hangs up.  None of the tricks like 0, #0, saying "representative", etc. works.  (We later learned that shouting obscenities might get you to a person.  Is this what customer relations have come to?)

What do people with accents, speech impediments, or poor phone connections do?  It is unfathomable, but UPS simply dumps people at the curb if it can't recognize the tracking number they speak into the phone.  Then if they try chat they find that "chat agents are busy, try the automated phone system".  No queue or callback, just a brick wall wherever you look.

Gerrit finally managed to get email to someone who barely spoke English, also to "change" the delivery address to the same address (his idea, not theirs).  It looked like that will cause a delivery retry.  We should find out Saturday whether that succeeds.

Automated phone systems are not something we will miss about the US.

On Saturday Gerrit's phone port to Google Voice was complete and he tested it out.  It all seems to be working, but text messaging may take another couple days according to Google.

Gerrit did some remote computer financial work for his dad.  It's amazing that this can be done from thousands of miles away just as if you're next door.  It's actually more convenient, since Gerrit can log in to his dad's computer and use it while he's asleep thanks to the 8-hour time difference.

We went back to the car rental company to renew our rental.  It's hard to believe we've been here a month and our car rental period is up!  The agent spoke English very well and was quite helpful.  There was only one chair on the customer side of the counter, which Gerrit sat in since he would be signing documents (plus he admits he's a thoughtless bum).  The agent brought around a chair for Pat.  Gerrit said "muito gentil, obrigado!" (very kind, thank you!) and she replied "We need to take care of one another" so naturally and sweetly that he almost began to cry.  We have seen kindness all over the US all our lives, but it seems to be deeper and more pervasive here.

And good news about Gerrit's visa: the delivery retry worked and now both visas are waiting for us.  This is excellent news, because it allows us to start long-range planning instead of being in tourist visa limbo.  It means we can integrate further into society too, obtaining health user numbers, social security, and driver's licenses.  And now we feel comfortable doing things like buying a car and hunting for property.

Today, Sunday, we finally got out for a little country drive.  We went to the town of Campo following the less-traveled roads and had an elegant lunch there at Casa Pichel restaurant.  We were celebrating our visas being approved.  It was a really noisy fun time, the restaurant was packed.  It seems to be a tradition for families to go out for lunch after church.

Doorway in Valongo

Tiled church in Campo

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

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Shopping, More Porto, and Connectivity

We wanted to do a little more intensive exploration of the city of Porto, but Saturday was a drizzly day and not suitable for sightseeing.  So we returned to El Corté Ingles, our local department store shangri-la, and did a little clothes shopping for Gerrit instead.  Pat had managed to bring sufficient clothes with her when we came to Portugal, at least a couple month's worth, but Gerrit had little more than a couple pairs of jeans, eight or so shirts (mostly tee), and some orthopedic looking shoes.

We had lunch at the food court there: pork sandwiches.  They were called "piglet sandwiches" on the English menu, which is a technically correct way to describe a young pig but makes readers of Winnie the Pooh squeamish.  Our qualms quickly vanished, though, when we found how tasty they were.  The buns were crunchy and soft artisan bread too.

Neither of us likes shopping much, and it's worse when you don't know your size and can't understand the labels very well.  The online size translation tables we found before we left were wrong about the pants, but trial and error got us there.  Pants are sold with a fixed inseam length here; you just hem (or roll) them up if you need to.  Fortunately Gerrit is on the tall side in Portugal so it looks like the standard length will do.  He got a couple pairs of summer pants, some dressier shoes, and the thin grey shorty summer socks he's been looking for all his life.  Why did we have to come to Portugal to find them?  The rest of his wardrobe enhancement will have to wait for another day.

Sunday was a beautiful hot summer day.  We wanted to take a more extensive driving tour of Porto to at least see the sights we wanted to concentrate on later.  Pat set up a nice itinerary of a half dozen stops recommended by Rick Steves, and off we went.  Gerrit was sporting his new Portuguese pants and shoes, feeling very stylish.

After way too many wrong turns and wild excursions due to a silent Google Maps (our bad), the first stop was at one of the many "Chinese stores" (yes, that's what they call them) to pick up a fan since Monday is supposed to be a scorcher.  Casa China turned out to be about an acre of the gaudiest and poorest quality of anything you can imagine.  (At least in Gerrit's opinion.  Pat kind of liked some of it.)  Whatever exists, you can find a trashy and poorly made version of it here.  Notice we're not saying "cheapest" because they aren't.  The low-quality fan we got was €29.99, and should have been about €10.  Well, at least we'll have moving air in the apartment on Monday.

To continue the theme, next we had a rather disappointing lunch.  Gerrit tried a traditional Portuguese dish called a Francesinha, which is a sandwich of fried egg, beef steak, ham, and sausage between thick slices of bread, wrapped in cheese, and smothered with gravy.  It's about as dense and filling as it sounds, kind of like a croque monsieur or Canadian poutine on steroids.  The steak in Gerrit's was the toughest he'd ever tried to saw through, but other than that it was okay.  Pat had bacalhau (cod) with three amêijoas (clams), one camarão (shrimp), and batatas fritas (french fries), but she found it disappointing and hard to eat.  The waitress was very kind though, speaking slowly and simply for us which we really appreciated, and the restaurant décor was cool mid-20th-century modern.

But then our afternoon began to improve.  The intrepid Google Maps lady (talking to us now) guided us through the labyrinthine streets of Porto along Pat's route to some of the best spots in the city.  Porto was intense this time: swarming with tourists, chaotic, disorganized, and thrilling.  We were awed by the narrow cobblestone streets, the crowded squares, the grand medieval churches and spires, the mixture of the ancient and the new.  Gerrit is really starting to drive like a European, fully confident amidst all the chaos.  He didn't hit a single pedestrian.

Here are a couple quick shots from through the car window:

Porto City Hall

Clérigos Church

On Monday night we tried the next installment in our ongoing series of "Portuguese frozen fish".  This time it was grouper filets. They were good, but we again had the impression that one of them was a little old.  We need to look into the best way to buy fish here.  The Portuguese actually consume far more fish per capita than any other European country, so they should know.  There are many new (to us) varieties of fish to be found here including the grouper we just tried, which is a nice firm white fish a bit similar to halibut.  We have some perch to try next.

As of Monday, the temperature is getting up above 30 C (86 F), a little too hot especially for Gerrit.  Our Chinese Store fan is helping, but Gerrit wanted to get the apartment air conditioning going.  After a fair amount of cursing and poking, he found how to operate it with the remote control here.  Very nice!  To avoid feeling too much like spoiled Americans we're keeping it at 26 C (79 F), but that makes a nice difference especially with the fan in conjunction.  That and a glass of chilled vinho verde keeps the hot afternoons pleasant.

And all of a sudden we have our internet and TV connected!  Our Portuguese fixer read the carrier (Vodafone) the riot act for taking so long, and we literally got a call when the installer was on the way the next morning.  In Portugal every company is required to keep a Complaint Book which customers have access to.  There are serious repercussions for complaints, so we bet our fixer threatened them with an official complaint.  Whatever she did, it worked.

As the installer started rummaging around in the front closet Gerrit peeked over his shoulder and discovered we have fiber to the apartment!  Sweet.  We will have bandwidth galore.  This is the most state-of-the-art communication network either of us has ever had, and now we can retire the lame, slow cell phone hotspots we've been using for internet.  And we can watch all the futebol we want!

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

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Day Trips and Eggs

We have made a couple exploratory trips the last few days, to Braga (northward) and Coimbra (southward).  We really should have done more research and spent more time in each of these historic cities, but we did get a quick look, enough to come back for more.  Here are some pictures anyway, and we're already doing some research for next time.

In Braga we did stop at an archaeological museum, Museu de Arqueologia Dom Diogo de Sousa, and marveled at the antiquities from ancient Greece and from Roman times in the Braga region.  Here is an example of the ancient Greek mosaic tile work on display.

Church of St. Mark in Braga

On the way to Coimbra we stopped at an elegant restaurant "Pompeu dos Frangos" in the town of Anadia for lunch.  It was delicious, and the restaurant itself was a slice of history.  The building had been a "changing station" stop along the Lisbon to Porto postal route since the second half of the 19th century, back when it took 34 hours, four meals, and rests and changes for the staff and horses to make the 300 km (186 mi) trip.

We also saw saw some large bird nests atop poles, kind of like the ones ospreys build.  Then we saw the occupants: storks!  Unfortunately we couldn't get pictures, but it was a fun sight to see, very European.  And on the way home the poor saps going the other direction on the highway were backed up for many kilometers because a truck full of bananas had overturned.  That sounds like the punchline to some joke, but I'm sure those drivers didn't think it was so funny.

We just found that there is regulated traceability on each individual egg here!  Each egg is labeled with a code which identifies if it is organic, free range, or ground laid, the origin and region it came from, and a date code.  (Look closely and you can see it printed on the egg in red here.)  Much of the regulation we see here seems to be intended to provide information and to protect the consumer.

We've had our sporty and fun rental car (a Toyota Yaris hybrid) for three weeks now.  We've been joking that the gas gauge seems to be stuck, it goes down so slowly.  We've been doing a mixture of city and highway driving as the gauge crept downward.  Finally on the trip to Coimbra we got down to 1/4 tank and filled up: 24 liters (just over 6 gal), cost €41 ($44), distance 633 km (393 mi), resulting in a gas mileage of 26 km/l or 62 mpg.  Wow!  Looks like we're restoring our karma for all those miles pulling the trailer back in the US at 10 mpg.

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

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The Power and the Glory

On Friday our TV came and Gerrit got it mounted to the wall bracket.  We should have checked this before we put down our debit card, but the energy consumption of this model is the worst it gets on the TV rating chart: 70 kWh per 1000 hours of use.  "Dang," we thought, "and with electricity so expensive in Portugal!"  Then we wondered, how bad is it really?

There seems to be a lot of conflicting information out there, but an authoritative source says "the final price of electricity in Portugal for household consumers is in line with the EU-27 average".  It's not "the most expensive in Europe" as you sometimes see.  Portugal's energy from renewable resources is also impressive, quoted anywhere from 65% to 95%.

Electricity prices are fluctuating a lot in Europe right now, but something like €0.25 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for a year-around average is probably reasonable (we just got our June bill, at €0.17 / kWh).  At this rate, even if we watch 2 hrs of TV a day on our energy hog set the cost will be about €13 a year.  We're definitely saving that on wine alone, so it would be appropriate to watch TV with a glass of wine.

On Saturday we were tethered to the apartment waiting for an Amazon delivery (they won't deliver unless someone is here), but it arrived before noon so we decided to take a little outing after that.  We headed southeast into the rural area around Porto again, this time a little further north.  The weather cleared up nicely and it was a beautiful drive.  

Portugal is known for its tolerance.  Outside our home town of Gaia we saw a gay couple walking hand in hand, completely unselfconsciously.  It was so refreshing in its complete normalcy.

We stopped for a delightful rustic lunch at a local restaurant just outside the little town of Rio Mau (Bad River), on the Rio Mau itself.  The young waitress spoke English quite well, but we were also able to try out some Portuguese with her.  Gerrit asked her about the name of the river and town.  Before flood control the river would occasionally flood the countryside causing heavy devastation, thus the name.  Inside the restaurant they had painted a red horizontal line about 4 feet up from the floor and labeled it "1962" as a grim reminder of how high the water rose that year.  Cripes, our roast pork would have been underwater!

The restaurant was such a nice, unassuming place, family-run, and had been there for many years.  The people were friendly, relaxed, and curious about us.  They had a wall dedicated to the visit of "El Presidente" some ten years ago, of which they were very proud.  The waitress told us that El Presidente had enjoyed one of the lunches that we ordered.  We wish we had asked, "El Presidente of what?".  It sounds Spanish.  In Portuguese it would be "O Presidente".

The customers who were seated when we arrived were conversing in German, and as they left the man had a nice fluent conversation with the waitress in Portuguese.  Pretty impressive!  That's the way we want to be, comfortable in both languages.

The countryside we drove through was just beautiful: forests, farms, grassy open space with stone walls, and dramatic outcroppings.  (As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click in the black area outside a photo when you're done.)

The destination of our trip was Parque Eólico da Serra da Freita, a stunning and beautiful wind farm named after the Serra da Freita mountain peak nearby.  The wind farm is on a high, flat, exposed ridge.  The turbines were huge and majestic.  The area was beautiful and spare, many rocks shiny with mica, and a nice narrow paved road which led through the park.  On the other end was Refugio da Freita, which looked like a summer camp.  There were groups of youths there, a little market, and a campground.  A little further on we found a nice little picnic area with stone picnic tables and grills nestled in the trees.

Just beyond this we saw a traditional goatherd with his flock.  We tried to wave sweetly as we took his picture from the car, but he looked like he was thinking "malditos turistas!" (damn tourists!).

And we went grocery shopping on Sunday.  We thought we'd look for a bread with low carb and high fiber in the bakery there, and we selected a dense and chewy looking loaf.  Pat spied a DIY slicing machine, and after puzzling through the instructions a little we watched the spinning blade zip our bread into our chosen 12 mm slices in 30 seconds, like a sawmill chopping horizontally through a log.  Brilliant!  The bread was still warm, and as chewy and flavorful as it smelled.

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Porto Countryside, etc.

We are trying some of the new types of fish in the local grocery stores, and Wednesday was swordfish night.  They have bins full of bagged frozen swordfish fillets in our local market, so Gerrit baked some up with some tomato pesto sauce and white wine, and they were quite good, a nice light white fish.  At least he thought so; Pat was less impressed.  There was a bad piece in the bag which may have tainted the rest and lent a stronger fishy odor than they should have had, so we'll give them another chance sometime.

We're in a kind of limbo now, not having Portuguese phone numbers yet.  Many stores, online suppliers, utilities, and accounts require a Portuguese number so we're having to come up with work-arounds where we can.  It may be another few weeks before we have official internet, TV, and cell phone numbers.  We did get our TV on Friday and the work order for network installation should appear on Saturday, so we're hopeful it will all come together soon.

On Thursday, we took the afternoon off to drive through the countryside around the Porto rural area a bit, ending up at a scenic viewpoint called Monte de São Gens.  It's about an hour from Gaia (where we live), taking the back roads.  It's the highest point in the area, with beautiful panoramic views of the surrounding country and the nearby Douro river.  The weather was nice, and the sky was dramatic.  We got a close look at the more rural parts surrounding Porto, generally the area where we might settle, and liked it.  The villages were quiet and appealing, and the country was lovely.

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

The Douro river from Monte de São Gens	View from Monte de São Gens
View from Monte de São Gens	View from Monte de São Gens

Through most of the drive we were surrounded by what looked like a eucalyptus forest.  The mature trees look and smell much like eucalyptus, and the young sprouts have beautiful silvery green leaves.  It's a gorgeous combination.

(Thank you to our friend Ernie Hood who confirmed that these are indeed eucalyptus.  Portugal apparently did like southern California and imported them as a firebreak.  Now they are either an invasive nuisance if you're an environmentalist or a boon to business if you make pulp and paper.)

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Settling and Exploring

 We had a down day on Sunday, did some laundry and other chores.  Our washing machine is nice, a modern compact European apartment style.  There are fewer dryers in Portugal, though, since electricity is expensive (correction: see this post).  We used our drying rack on the terrace.

Monday we took the metro light rail for the first time.  It's a nice modern system, trains run every 10 minutes or so and are very punctual and comfortable, but it's a little noisy.  We went into downtown Porto, walked around a few blocks, and had some lunch.  Downtown Porto is pretty cosmopolitan, but also shows its centuries of history.  You see English all over, and it's hard to find a place where it isn't spoken.  Lunch was at a restaurant called Beher, which raises and sells its own Iberian ham.  This is a rich delicacy, shaved thin, which the Portuguese and the Spanish are quite proud of.  (Each of theirs is better than the other one, of course.)  Gerrit had ovos rotos ("broken eggs"), sunnyside up with Iberian ham shavings over thin french fries, and Pat had an Iberian ham chorizo omelet with salad greens.  The soup was creamy squash with perhaps corn, and German beer to drink.

The famous Portuguese tiles were visible all over, including on the walls of the corner church on the right.  The paving was interesting and beautiful too: mostly small white and black flat-topped stones in mosaic patterns on the plazas and sidewalks (see above and left).  The stones have become smooth after millions of footsteps over time, so we're told it can be slippery when wet (and we believe it).

We're still trying to get our TV delivered, but Gerrit is having a wonderful old-fashioned telephone experience in the meantime.  He called the store twice last Friday with no answer (which is better than being dumped into a phone menu), so we went there in person.  We needed a few things anyway, you see.  There was still no contact after a few days, so Gerrit tried calling the store again on Tuesday.  A pleasant human being answered the phone!  An English-speaking human being, no less.  She transferred him to the TV department where a sales guy again simply answered the phone.  He had to check something so he put Gerrit on hold.  Silence!  No crappy hold music!  No one telling him how important his call was to them!  No advertising!  The sales guy came back shortly and they began working the problem.  Gerrit confirms that this was much more pleasant while experiencing normal blood pressure, and the TV should be here on Friday.  

With the TV installed we can get WiFi, internet, TV, and our new Portuguese phone numbers, since they're all bundled together.  This in turn will let us update billing with the electric and water utilities, and upgrade our account status with the bank.  It's all a complicated game of dominoes.

And, dear reader, they sell sex toys in grocery stores here.  The ads are right there next to the produce, meat, and household goods.  It's enough to make a puritanical American blush!

We found a new grocery/variety store nearby on Wednesday (today) called Continente, a little like Fred Meyer, so we're definitely good in the food and consumer items departments.  (For the record, we did not shop for sex toys.)  They have a great meat and fish department and a nice section dedicated to Portuguese wines, so there is plenty of exploring to do there.  Pat found that they carry actual name brand Tupperware, so she will be stocking up once our situation is a little more stable.

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

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Food and Fun

Gerrit likes to cook, and makes most of our dinner main courses.  He doesn't like following recipes though; he has more of an "intuitive" approach and he likes the preparation to be quick.  Most of his dishes could be called "Gerrit's (something) Surprise".  He had bought some fresh pork chunks, a jar of Portuguese sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil and wine vinegar, a sweet potato, and an onion.  He sautéed the onion and pork, added the other stuff plus a cup of wine, some salt and pepper, paprika, and garlic, and simmered for a couple hours.  "Gerrit's Portuguese Pork Stew Surprise" was delicious, and certainly passed his quick-and-easy test.

He is also having trouble with the El Corte Inglés parking garage.  You're supposed to take a ticket when you enter the garage, like we're used to in the US, but you don't pay by credit card when you exit.  You need to get your ticket validated or pay at a booth inside the store as you return to the garage.  There is some magic ink or something in the ticket itself; all you need to do is drive up to the exit gate with a valid ticket in your car and it opens.  You don't even need to roll down your window.

Gerrit had to ask a clerk about how to do this the first time, and it worked fine.  The next time, he accidentally grabbed yesterday's used ticket, and of course couldn't get out.  He had to back out of the exit lane muttering apologies to the drivers behind him, park again, go back inside the store, translate the error message appearing on the ticket machine with his phone, and then try again with the proper ticket (duh).  There is an easier way to do this parking garage thing with some kind of phone app, we're pretty sure, but it is going to take some investigation.  It's all part of the general muddling and stumbling you have to do for a while in a different culture with a different language.  Especially when you're being an idiot.

More muddling: when we bought our TV a week ago they were supposed to call to arrange delivery.  Gerrit's US phone number didn't work, even using international dialing, so yesterday we gave the store the number of our Portuguese fixer.  Hopefully that will get the ball rolling.  Cell phones, TV, and Wifi internet are all bundled together here and they can't install the modem without the TV, so we're muddling along with cell phone hotspots on our US carrier account for internet till then.  I guess this comes under the category of "first world problems".

Today we took a little driving tour around Gaia (the city where we actually live) and Porto (across the Douro river to the north).  We drove on lots of little European cobblestone streets, some where the mirrors of the car were literally two inches from the walls on either side, saw some nice views, and got a little more oriented.  (see photos below)

We stopped at a little neighborhood restaurant for lunch.  We promise we'll stop gushing and taking pictures of our Portuguese meals soon, but they are just so sweet!  Nobody in the restaurant spoke any English, and we're getting more confident of our Portuguese by the day.  (Gerrit is actually getting a little obnoxious, not letting Pat get a word in edgewise.)  We told the waitress we only speak a little Portuguese, asked whether a certain wine was vinho verde, ordered our frango no forno (baked chicken) and bacalhau (cod), and asked afterward if coffee was included with the meal.  Then we ordered coffee for Gerrit and carioca de limão (hot water with lemon peel) for Pat, and paid the bill.  All totally in Portuguese!  This is getting really fun.

And sometimes a little embarrassing.  To pay the bill, Gerrit approached the cashier.  The waitress didn't hand out bills, it looked like you just told the cashier what you had ordered.  Gerrit pointed to the frango no forno on the menu at the register, but the cashier said no.  No something.  Gerrit stammered out what he thought was "we eat that" but he later realized he'd said "we food that".  It was a David Sedaris moment.  ("Me Talk Pretty Someday" -- great book.)

There was an older couple at a table nearby.  The man had a withered hand and walked with braces.  When they stood up to leave, a younger man from their neighboring table got up, touched the old guy's arm, and bent to pick up something of theirs they hadn't noticed they'd dropped.  They waved "thanks"  and " no problem" to each other.  You see kindness like this everywhere, but it seems like it's so prevalent and natural here.

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

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Shopping, Health Care, etc.

Well, life must go on and drudgery must be endured.  We had a day of mostly sitting at our computers taking care of mundane matters and shopping online for things we haven't found locally.  

Gerrit got a Numbeo update on the cost of living around the world in his email in-box, which can be found here.  Seattle is apparently the 8th most expensive city in the world, with Porto coming in at 112th.  So we'll be able to enjoy some luxuries here.

We were at a grocery store, and the heads of lettuce were gigantic.  Pat was wrestling one into a bag along with another woman (who didn't speak English), and they were having a laugh about it.  The woman offered in sign language to bag Pat's lettuce for her, gesturing at her holding her cane.  Everyone we run into here is so kind and gracious.

We ventured again to the Oz of department stores, El Corte Inglés, for some more household goods.  We had a lovely experience again with the helpful and friendly staff.  We both used more Portuguese than we have been doing.  Some of the clerks had only weak English, and also we are getting a little more bold about speaking.

Pat has a blood clotting disorder which requires regular lab testing to monitor her medication.  She has been investigating how to do that here.  In the US she had a home monitor which she used weekly, reporting the measurements to her care team.  This home testing cost her $247 a month for co-pay (before she got on Medicare), after insurance which had been billed for $477.  A pharmacy across the street from El Corte Inglés pointed us to an actual testing lab about two doors down, so we stepped over there to investigate our options in Portugal.

A doctor in the modern, sparkling clinic spoke excellent English.  Home test kits are not available in Portugal, she told us, but we realized that this clinic would be very convenient to visit in person.  Pat went straight in to have her blood drawn and then was looking for our Portuguese insurance card to pay.  "Oh, you don't need insurance for this", the médica said.  "It will be four Euros."  FOUR EUROS??  $4.33 for a walk-in, in-person lab test at a clinic??  Our jaws dropped, and the médica seemed to be familiar with this reaction from Americanos.  "Yes, health care is taken care of in Portugal", she said with a smile.  And we're not even residents!   She also said it would be free once we were.

But wait, there's more.  After our very pleasant experience at the clinic we stopped for lunch at Saborear Brasil, a little Brazilian street-front café a couple doors down.  They had simple and tasty meals for a flat €7.  We ordered a single meal and split it, which was plenty for us.  €7 for a nice little restaurant meal for two!

And did we mention the very clever open-parking indicators we've found in some parking garages?  I don't know if you can see it in the picture here (click to enlarge), but there are red lights above parking spots which are occupied and green lights above the open ones.  So you can just head straight for an open parking spot without creeping and peering around looking for one.  Brilliant!

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

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A Little Drive Around

 Yesterday was a beautiful day, and after morning chores we decided to take our first little road trip, along the Duoro River and then down the Atlantic coast a little.  

We put our International Driving Permits in the glove box and got underway.  We got our first taste of European village driving getting to the Douro River, and saw a couple of puzzling European road signs along the way which reminded us we need to brush up on them.  Google Maps guided us along picturesque, narrow, cobblestone streets.  We saw a tantalizing bit of Porto [edit: actually Vila Nova de Gaia, on our side of the Douro), including a museum and a riverside market we'll explore someday.

Once at the river, there is a nice road running alongside it to the coast.  We saw some classic Portuguese fishing boats and many people fishing in the river too.  You can find better Douro photos all over the internet, but we were actually here!  It's just as gorgeous as the internet says.  

We followed a local road along the coast and had a picnic lunch overlooking the wide Atlantic, then took the highways home. We haven't encountered any of the infamous aggressive Portuguese drivers yet (but we have heard some angry horns), in fact we saw many examples of courteous driving. We hope this is more the norm.

On the way home we stopped at another large grocery store, Mercadona, which is about the same distance from our apartment as El Corte Inglés but in the opposite direction.  Both are just a few blocks away, and both are excellent.  We stopped with the intent of "just looking around a little" and ended up with two bags full of groceries: fresh produce, spices, pork for stew, and so on.  We also got a 5 liter box of wine for a little over €5, which works out to less than a dollar per standard 750 ml bottle.  And it's good!

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

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Settling In

Our second day in Portugal went more smoothly.  We had arrived with hardly anything, no kitchen utensils or cookware, no bathroom supplies, and perhaps most importantly, no espresso machine.  (Pat says "ick!")  It was clearly time for some serious shopping.

We also needed to rent a car.  There was a place within walking distance called Europcar, so off we went.  It was located somewhere in a shopping mall called El Corte Inglés, which sounds suspiciously Spanish, but on the map it was clear we wouldn't be crossing the border.

We thought Europcar was on the second floor of El Corte Inglés, so we went straight in.  Holy cow, it looked like we were in a souped-up designer section in Macy's!  Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Rolex, Armani, Dior, Chanel, as far as the eye could see, acres of high-end designer products.  We wandered around like star-struck teenagers, and began ascending the six-floor building on the escalators to check it out.  Floor after floor of beautiful high-quality consumer products from all over the world: fashion, electronics, TVs, housewares, beachwear, outdoor gear, on and on.  It was like a huge mall all stacked up on six floors.

It turned out that El Corte Inglés is indeed a Spanish department store and there are two branches in Portugal, one in Lisbon and the other about three blocks away from our apartment.  What a find!

After locating the car rental place which was actually on the minus-2 floor (two floors underground), and renting a very nice little hybrid Toyota Yaris from a helpful and efficient agent, we went back upstairs to start spending some serious money.  We brought two shopping carts with us and filled up on dishware, pots and pans, organizers, towels, a TV, glassware, yada yada, and the obligatory espresso machine (Pat still says "ick", but she got a nice tea kettle too).

The clerks were uniformly excellent.  They were well dressed in suits for the gentlemen and dresses for the ladies, there was always a reasonably competent English speaker nearby (although we did try to inject some Portuguese), and they were conspicuously not pushy, just available.  They were friendly, calm, energetic, and polite.  They wrapped our dishes and glassware in paper where appropriate, and watched our carts for us when we left for lunch.  Shopping as it should be, in other words.

Lunch was lovely in the elegant restaurant on the top floor.  We both had lightly battered white fish, moist and delicious, with a side dish of rice, red beans, and herbs, and a half-bottle of vinho verde, all for €39 total.  Not dirt cheap, but better than what we're used to.

Back downstairs we spent a few more hours wrapping up our shopping frenzy, checked out, and took the haul to the basement and into the trunk of our new car.  There was a cafeteria and supermarket one floor up, where we had a quick dinner and did some final grocery shopping.  Gerrit took a wrong turn onto the freeway on the way home so we did a little inadvertent exploration of Porto, but Google Maps guided us gently back.

The next day we took a little breather.  There was a lot to do around the apartment with all our new booty, and we were worn out from our efforts yesterday.  We did take a walk to the Lidl variety store for a few more groceries and supplies.  We also got caught up on the big backlog of our Portuguese lessons, which had been backing up for three days.

We also tried out our new cookware and dishes that evening, making pork chops and salad, and enjoying some startlingly good €4 Portuguese wine.  We had been buying special "Duroc" pork back in the US, a derivative of an Iberian pork, but here it's just what you get in the supermarket.  Delicious!  Tastes like pork used to.

And that brings us up to today.  We got back to our morning Portuguese lesson routine, and then headed back to consumer nirvana at El Corte Inglés.  We bought another shopping cart overflowing with mostly household goods, and learned a bit more about this wonderful store.  There is a fully stocked hardware store in the basement for example.  We had another excellent lunch in the store restaurant, this time camarões (shrimp) for Pat and bacalhau (dried salt cod) for Gerrit.  Both were excellent.  

Bacalhau has kind of an eye-rolling reputation as a puzzling Portuguese favorite.  It comes from a centuries-old relationship with Norwegian traders, who had plenty of salt cod which they traded for Portuguese goods.  The Portuguese developed a taste for it, and despite the ocean full of fresh fish in the Atlantic Ocean next door, dried salt cod from Norway became a favorite.  You have to soak it for days to reconstitute and desalinate it, and there are apparently over 1000 recipes for it.  Gerrit's lunch was a fairly simple recipe, and he was amazed at how good it was.  It is definitely cod, but it has a slightly chewy, stringy texture like braised beef.  He thinks he must be part Portuguese.

Again we staggered through the afternoon finishing up our shopping, hauled the loot to the car, and did a final run through the supermercado (supermarket.  What, you knew that?) before heading home and beginning to unload.

So far, after all of three days here, we have seen nothing but kindness and friendliness in the people, deliciousness in the food and wine (well, maybe with the exception of that KFC desperation dinner), and beauty, style, and functionality in our apartment.  We are beginning to pick up the language better.  It is helpful to see all the signage, have to figure out the labels, and to dredge up our beginner's Portuguese when talking with a non-English Portuguese.  That's the best, actually -- we are forced to use Portuguese and sign language, and they are patient because their English is pretty weak too.  The Portuguese seem to like it when we try to speak their language, and who can blame them?  They often light up when we use a phrase understandably.  We think we'll be conversational before very long.

The Portuguese are very considerate and thoughtful to families, old folks, and the infirm.  They are constantly helping us, holding elevators, gesturing us ahead, and giving us places in line when they see our canes.  It's quite heartwarming.

And the shopping carts!  All four wheels swivel, which makes them so easy to control and steer.  Why do they fix the back two wheels in the US?  It's way more awkward.  Also, there is a moving ramp from the El Corte Inglés supermercado to the parking garage which has standard escalator-like grooves in it.  But the shopping cart wheels have matching grooves, so when you push the cart onto the ramp it settles into the grooves and doesn't move.  You can even let go as you descend the ramp and it doesn't roll away.  Brilliant!

There is no curbside garbage/recycle in our neighborhood though.  It means no noisy garbage trucks thundering through once a week, but we do need to tote our garbage and recycling to some discreet-looking mushroom shaped dumpsters about a half block away.  It will just be part of going grocery shopping.

The milk is labeled "magro" and "gordo" (thin and fat) instead of the rather delicate "skim" and "whole" in the US.  Hah!  It's fun to see how different cultures handle things you just take for granted.

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

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We Made It!

Apologies that this update has taken several days!  We have been unbelievably busy (and jet lagged), but this post is probably the most important of all to get out quickly.  TLDR: yes, we are safely in Portugal in our new apartment!  

Click on the photos below to enlarge and scroll through them, then click in the black outside a photo when you're done.

Our last days at the Extended Stay in Mukilteo were busy with final packing and purging, trips to our storage unit and bringing boxes of stuff to Cindy and Jeff, our friends/family and gracious stuff absorbers.  Finally Departure Day arrived on June 25.  We checked out from our room, said fond goodbyes to the staff who had taken such good care of us for over a year, loaded up the rental SUV with our last belongings, and headed to the airport. 

Our trip to Portugal was to entail a 6:05 PM flight to Amsterdam, 10 hours long, a one-hour layover, and a two hour flight from there to Porto.  We were to arrive there at 3:40 PM on June 26, the following day, just about right to stagger around for a while and collapse into bed.

We had four good sized suitcases and four carry-on items, which we bore like pack animals into the Delta terminal.  The agent there was kind to us and overlooked three slightly overweight bags.  We still paid a premium for the extra bags, but we made it through security and to the gate with plenty of time.

The flight out of Seattle was beautiful, on a huge Airbus A300-900 with clear early summer weather and lovely views of the mountains and sound. 

But mamas, teach your babies not to wear excessive cologne on airplanes.  Whew – somebody within a few rows was emitting fumes enough to make your eyes water and your sinuses burn.

The flight to Amsterdam was, well, miserable.  The plane and attendants did everything right, the food was good, but Gerrit couldn’t distract himself with movies because the ear buds didn’t work for him, and neither he nor Pat could get anywhere near comfortable.  No sleep for these two.  The sunset/sunrise was spectacular though.

Our connection at Amsterdam was short, so we hustled off the plane.  There was only one reader board in the arrivals area, though, and the one panel which had our Porto flight on it was out of service so we had no idea what gate it was on.  Off we trudged with our cumbersome carry-ons to an information kiosk.

...where we learned that our flight had been CANCELLED!!  Looked like there would be a slight change of plans.  We rescheduled to the next available flight, tomorrow morning.  Delta made good by providing us with a nice hotel room and meal vouchers, so we caught the shuttle to the Corendon hotel and checked into a nice room.  Dinner was a buffet with loads of delicious options (and wine on tap).  Finally, quite exhausted and unable to keep our eyes open any longer, we tumbled into bed at about 8:30 local time.  We’d been up for close to 30 hours.

We had to get going at 4:45 the following morning though.  Back to the airport we shuttled, trudged I’m sure at least 15 miles to our gate (which was literally the farthest point in the airport from check-in), and rested our throbbing ankles till the flight.

Everyone we had met in Amsterdam was kind, patient, and helpful.  This included airline attendants, security personnel, hotel employees, and restaurant workers.  They spoke immaculate English and really did their best to understand and help us with a smile.  (Full disclosure: Gerrit is a quarter Dutch.)

The flight to Porto was uneventful, although our departure was an hour late.  We had two delightful children with different families in adjacent seats: a baby and a young girl.  Both were well behaved and well attended by their parents, excellent little fellow travelers (and cute).

And then we landed on Portuguese soil!  We wished each other bem vindo (welcome), and off we went to our new lives.

We met our prearranged ride after some confusion.  He was crabby that the flight was delayed and then scolded us for too much baggage (although it fit just fine in his compact SUV and was just what we had signed up for).  Off he raced through the parking garage, giving us a taste of the infamous Portuguese driving.  He cooled off shortly though, and we had a nice chat on the way to the apartment.  Gerrit tried a little bit of Portuguese, and the driver asked, “so, you know a little Spanish then?”  Well, his English wasn't so great either.

Our landlord’s father met us at the apartment and showed us around.  Gerrit’s Portuguese was a little more successful this time, but still elicited many blank looks and confusion.  The apartment was beautiful, just like the pictures, and after bidding our host obrigado, bom dia (thank you, good day) we began to unpack.

Later we walked to the local Lidl variety store, which had some decent groceries and some of the supplies we needed.  We finished some more unpacking and storing, and made the bed with linens Pat had ordered a couple weeks ago to be delivered here.

Sore and tired, we wanted to try the only local restaurant within walking distance.  We headed up the hill to O Parolo (The Fool), and found a dusty little place, empty except for the proprietor.  Gerrit tried out the phrase he’d been rehearsing for days: “Boa tarde!  Só falo um pocou de português.”  (Good afternoon!  I only know a little Portuguese.)

Blank look.

Then, “Este é nossos primeira dia em portugal.” (This is our first day in Portugal.)

Blank look, some mumbling.

Gerrit was getting desperate.  He pulled out his cell phone translator and spoke English into it, “Today is our first day in Portugal.”  Up popped the exact Portuguese sentence he’d just spoken, and he showed it to the proprietor.  The proprietor squinted, tipped the phone up and down, and pretty clearly didn’t get it at all.

Then came some confused hand waving and about a 10% understanding level on both sides, and finally it dawned on us that his kitchen wasn’t working.  Or the chef was out.  Or he no longer served food.  Something like that.

Relieved to be getting out of there yet still hungry, we said goodbye (which we’re not sure got through) and left back down the hill.  There were no other restaurants or cafés open within trudging distance, so we shamefacedly stopped at a KFC on the way back.  That’s right, the American fast-food joint which has spread all over the world including a block away from our apartment.

At least here the young man sort of seemed to understand what we wanted, and we left with some chicken.  Back home we put together a pathetic first dinner in Portugal with KFC, local Douro valley wine, and vegetables.  Well, the wine and vegetables were excellent anyway!

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Preparing to Fly

The last post saw us about a month away from our departure date.  We have been busy since then!  

We sold the truck to a local Toyota dealer in a pleasant transaction and got a good price.  We rented an SUV so we could do the hauling we need, also to make our final trip with luggage to SeaTac airport on departure day.  Then we'll leave the rental car there.

We packed up things to go into long term storage and made a trip to the storage unit.  We will make one more trip to storage before we leave.  Also we have been giving things to friends and donating to charity, stripping our little hotel room bare.

We bought new luggage, two each of the largest allowable standard size for the airline, so four good-sized cases altogether.  We did a trial run packing up the luggage and found that we can get what we need in there, enough to get us through a couple weeks at least.  Right now we are entering the narrowest part of our belongings bottleneck: we are down to the minimum, just what we can cram into our luggage and carry-ons.  We will begin to build up a household again when we have arrived in Portugal, and will of course ship our storage items to our new home eventually.

We got our COVID and RSV vaccinations.  There isn't a published requirement for these to enter Portugal, but it was about time for us to get them anyway and we may in fact have to show proof.

Two days ago our departure date was a week away.  Gerrit had been sending notes to the Portuguese embassy every few days (the only way to contact them) for weeks, reminding them of our departure date, and receiving noncommittal and form letter replies.  Now, with a week to go, they told us our new estimated date for issuing the visa was JULY 22, five weeks away!  They were pushing out the 3-1/2 months they had already taken by yet another month!

We were stunned.  We had almost nothing left, everything was packed, stored, or gotten rid of.  How could we sit in this empty place, living out of suitcases for another month?

We tried to think of a way we could get to Portugal with our current airline tickets, so we could start living in the apartment we'd been renting since March.  We wanted to get to know the neighborhood, start to buy supplies, practice our Portuguese a bit, do some touring, and avoid this double rent we'd been paying.  The embassy had our passports though, so we couldn't travel.  But our immigration consultant mentioned that sometimes people get a second passport in cases like this.  Pat started checking into it, and it looked like that might work.

We gathered documents, had photos taken, and filled out forms yesterday, then this morning we had our appointment with the State Department downtown.  All went well, and after an hour or so our expedited passports were in the queue, to be ready by Monday.  ONE DAY before the plane flight!

We will probably need to return to the US to pick up our original passports and new visas when they are ready.  That will have to be within the 90 days allowable on our second-passport tourist visas.  There may also be a way to deliver them by courier to us in Portugal.  We have probably a month to figure that out before the visas are issued.

It's now only four days before Departure Day.  Four busy days of packing and last-minute prep!

(photo credit VisaNation)

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