House Hunting around Braga and Barcelos

 On Friday Gerrit made a traditional Portuguese dish for dinner, Porco Alentejana: pork chunks and clams in a white wine, spice, and garlic sauce over fried cubed potatoes.  He had found a straightforward recipe a couple days earlier, we did some shopping for the couple ingredients we didn't have, and soon dinner was on the table.  It was delicious, and a great everyday addition to our menu.  We sat in our lovely Portuguese apartment, enjoying our Portuguese food and drinking our Portuguese wine, feeling very native.  We're even saying little Portuguese phrases to each other now and then.

We have been doing some house hunting online, as we mentioned earlier.  We found three places which looked pretty interesting, and Pat found their exact location by comparing Google Maps with the aerial views and general locations shown in the ads.  On Saturday the weather was clear and bright after the recent rains so we headed to the Braga / Barcelos area to see them in person (from the outside anyway).  The ad photos were generally good, you can get a good feel for a place from them, but sometimes other things show up when you visit in person.  Like the major power lines near one place, and the construction chaos going on all around another.  The third actually looked better than its pictures though.  The setting was very nice, secluded and natural, on a large lot near a small river with no nearby neighbors.  We'll be looking at that one a little closer.

We had another wonderful lunch on the road at a little café near Lanhas.  Our waiter was cheerful and quick, the crowd was boisterous, and lunch was excellent.  We were surprised to see that the plate of the day was Porco Alentejana, just what we'd made the previous night!  That was fine though, it was fun to compare them.  We split one meal (which was huge), had two glasses of wine, espresso, and carioca de limão for €8.  We know, we promised not to gloat over prices, but this is just ridiculous.

On the way back we passed through a surprisingly beautiful little village called Vila Verde.  We had to pass down the main tree-lined street a couple times to soak it all in.  Here are some pictures of village churches and trees, including a wedding party outside the main cathedral:

(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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Wildfires and House Hunting

Last Friday some rain came and helped to dampen the wildfires in the area.  There was a strong burned eucalyptus aroma in the air from the smoke and the rain, from all the burning eucalyptus forests (see our earlier post here).

It's shocking, but probably a number of the fires were arson, too.  14 people have been arrested on suspicion of setting fires.  The Portuguese prime minister alluded to this, and a criminologist explained that there could be economic incentive to sell burned timber or to devalue land for purchase.  There's always plain old mental illness to explain arson too.  More than 5000 firefighters have been involved, over 50 people have been injured, seven have died including three firefighters, and tens of thousands of hectares have been destroyed.

On Saturday the air had cleared considerably here in Gaia just south of Porto, but fires continued in some of the areas we're interested in so we didn't do any road tripping.  We've started doing some house shopping in earnest now, and we spent part of the day looking at real estate ads and learning about buying a house in Portugal.  We have been attracted to the cities of Braga and Guimarães so we'll see what is available in those areas.

On Sunday the fires in that region were contained and safe, so we set off on a circular trip to see Barcelos, Azurém, Fafe, Celorico de Basto, and back home, about four hours of driving time.  At least that was the plan.  We didn't get going until noon, the Waze mapping system sent us on a different route than Pat had specified and we had to get synched via slow cobblestone roads, and by the time we'd made it to Barcelos and had lunch it was three o'clock.  Sigh.  

We did add to our list of excellent lunches in small restaurants with friendly, helpful, and energetic waiters though.  We split an order of oven roasted pork and sausages, creamy boiled potatoes, grated cooked spinach, rice, and tossed salad.  Our broken Portuguese and the waiter's one English word ("pork") got us through though.  Tipping is not generally done in Portugal, but we try to leave a little bit.  This time all we had was about 12% of the bill in our smallest currency note, and our waiter was so overwhelmed he almost refused it.  He was genuinely grateful; he and Gerrit shook hands and parted friends with effusive well-wishes.  In Seattle we would have gotten a dirty look for 12%.

Barcelos is a nice small city, but we happened to hit it when an enormous market or fair was underway.  Lines of cars were entering the city, even at three o'clock on a Sunday.  The town center was jammed with visitors, cars, and vendor's booths of all types.  We saw some coats of arms and other indications that it was partly a Renaissance fair.  We tooled slowly through the traffic, and then made our way out of town by the back way.  This church was on the way, just another like you find in almost any small town in Portugal.

At this point we headed to nearby Braga for another insufficient drive-by of this beautiful city, and took the fast highways home.

Monday, yesterday, we broke up our house-hunting to take a little early afternoon drive around the downtown neighborhoods of nearby Porto just for fun.  The weather was nice and the city is so beautiful.  We're getting to the point where we only use Google Maps (or now we prefer Waze) for part of the trip, and we know our way within a few kilometers of home.

That brings us to today.  It's been raining pretty steadily all morning, nice to see.  We got email this morning from the lawyers who are handling our immigration confirmation process, saying that the responsible agency is now soliciting email contact.  So Gerrit copied & pasted the prescribed email message from the lawyers and sent it off so we can hurry up and wait again.

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Where There's Smoke

We haven't been doing much outdoors lately because the wildfires here have been making the air very smoky.  Bad to breathe and bad for sightseeing.  There have been dozens of fires in northern Portugal the past week or two, some pretty close to us, but we're not in any danger.  Today the air quality is better and the number of fires shown on fogos.pt has reduced, so we're hopeful that we're over the worst of it.

Most fire departments in Portugal are volunteer and largely supported by community donations.  This is really a sweet way to do it and it makes you feel more connected.  A member of the expat community here set up a GoFundMe site and has been buying and delivering supplies to the wildfire fighters, so we contributed to that.  They exceeded their initial goal of €8000, now up to €11,000, and have delivered water, energy bars, milk and specifically requested supplies and equipment already.  This fund is ongoing, and great to be a part of.

We did make a trip to the local Vodafone store to straighten out some billing and a service problem with our TV, which was quick and easy.  Unfortunately the service phone number Gerrit was given does not in fact have an English option, so there's still some digging to do there.

Pat also got a haircut, from a nice-looking unassuming salon right next to where we parked for Vodafone.  The stylist speaks English too.  It's beautiful, as you can see.  She says she hasn't had her hair this short since grade school.  If you're going to move to a different country, a new hairstyle seems like small potatoes!

Her new hairdresser put mousse in her hair, and Pat asked if she could buy some.  No, she replied, but you can find it anywhere.  No rack of overpriced hair products as another income stream, no pressure, just a simple non-commercial friendly transaction.  It's hard to convey how simple and sincere the people we've met have been, but we see it wherever we go.

We've done some other shopping in the last couple days, and Gerrit has been recovering from an external backup hard disk failure.  Not very exciting for an adventure blog, but we wanted to let you know we're fine and we'll get back on the road as soon as the fires die down and the air clears.

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Day Tripping and Marketing

 Last Friday we went shopping at the big Continente supermarket nearby to take advantage of a coupon we had there (plus we just like it there).  They have a good selection of frozen fish, produce, wine, and most everything.  We are testing various 10 year old tawny port wines (for research purposes only you understand), and picked up some Graham's this time.  We (mostly Pat) planned a trip to the city of Vila Real for the following day, and Gerrit spent some time reading our new car's 653-page owner's manual.

The following day Gerrit had to cancel the planned trip to Vila Real.  He'd had a miserable night of insomnia and wasn't up to a full day trip.  We did take a short afternoon drive to Póvoa de Varzim, a beach town about an hour north of us up the coast.  Here are some photos of a Romanesque aqueduct circa 1700 and a beach scene.

On the way home we did a double-take at two long rows of cars parked ON the freeway on- and off-ramps all the way up to the freeway.  What in the world?  Then we saw the sports stadium right nearby.  I guess those futebol fans will park anywhere for their team.

Here in urban Portugal there is a good integration between banks and services.  The default bill payment method is by direct withdrawal from your bank account, rather than separate billing and payment.  Debit ("multibanco") cards are ubiquitous and used for most shopping payments, and there is a seamless integration between your multibanco account and both the metro transit system and a toll payment system called Via Verde.  Pat set us up with Via Verde, so highway tolls will be paid automatically via a transponder in the car (like the Good to Go system in King County).  It can also be used to pay for parking or for charging electric vehicles.  Parking meters all seem to use coins, but some also have Via Verde connections which use your phone's location to report the exact meter you are standing in front of in order for Via Verde to dispense the dashboard ticket for you.  Pretty slick!

On Sunday Gerrit woke refreshed so we decided to head to Vila Real.  This is for some research on areas we might like to pursue for a home, and also just for fun.  Vila Real is a one- or two-hour drive due east from here, and is a medium sized city in our preferred climatic region.  We liked it, but probably not enough to look for a home in the area. Here are some photos taken there:

Old town square	Storefronts

Ornate wrought iron gate	At Jardim da Carreira

Igreja de São Pedro	View from Miradouro da Vila Velha

We did see a number of beautiful sites there.  But we skipped the main attraction of the Palácio de Mateus.  This is a beautiful Italianate mansion, garden, and grounds, built in the first half of the 17th century, but we just didn't feel up to the hike around the place.  It also seemed like a bit too commercial a venture.

Here is a sweet sign we saw at the drop-off point for a school

We had lunch at Sabores Do Brasil, a Brazilian "rodízio" restaurant.  We didn't know what that was when we entered; we thought it might be a cooking style.  Gerrit tried to order a single lunch to split, our usual method, but the waitress said no, you can't do that.  OK, we decided to order two of the "mini" versions.

Well, the reason you can't split an order is that "rodízio" means that the waiters with spits full of meat fly around the restaurant, serving the patrons direct from the skewers, which came straight from the fire.  It's kind of a big communal grilled meal.  Waitresses come around regularly with huge bowls of rice, beans, and shredded greens (kale? collard?).  You're done when you tell them all to stop, so its an all-you-can-eat affair.  It was quite a delicious (and filling) surprise.

On the return trip we saw and smelled three different wildfires in the area.  Today, Monday, there was a bit of smoke in the air in the morning before we left but now, within two hours, it is so thick the apartments a half block away look like they're swimming in murk.  The air is full of stinging smoke and haze.  It looks like wildfires up the Douro river are sending their smoke down the river valley to Porto and Gaia.

This morning we headed south to Espinho for the famous Monday market, before the smoke started building.  There was a lot of traffic on the way, and Gerrit was grumbling that this market thing seemed to be like Kim Kardashian, famous for being famous.  Well, that was wrong!  This market is indeed a unique and amazing attraction, covering acres and offering thousands of goods for sale.  About a third of it at the north end is fresh vegetables, meats, and fish, and the rest is clothing, shoes, household goods, farm implements, fabrics, houseplants, cages of live birds, and on and on.  

We got a lucky parking spot on the street a little north of the food portion of the market, wandered most of the market, and shopped for some fresh groceries just before leaving.  When we got back home we had a delicious lunch of dark bread and ham sandwiches, a tomato and cucumber salad, and melon, all fresh from the market.

(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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Haircuts, Markets, and Pastry

Tuesday and Wednesday we did chores and routine shopping, and got Gerrit's bank statement translation software going.  It's now installed on Pat's laptop, so she can easily convert statements from our Portuguese bank to Quicken and keep track of all our finances in one place.  He has offered his software services on a couple expats forums, for no-charge custom interfacing from Portuguese banks to Quicken, too.  Now that he's been through it, variations will be relatively easy.

We got our first full month's bill from Vodafone, the one-stop connectivity shop here which provides TV, internet, and phone, including 10 GB per month of data.  The bill included those few days we were in England downloading roaming data for Google Maps as we wandered blindly around.  The bill is quite detailed, showing both national and roaming voice call time and data volume on a daily basis, not just a total, similar to what we saw in the US.  For the whole month the total was €73.  In the US we had Xfinity for cable and internet at about $200/month plus AT&T for phone and cellular data at about $170/month, so our connectivity cost here is about 22% for the same service and quality.

On Thursday (today) Gerrit got a haircut, this time at the local barbershop about a block away.  It was a very nice place with two friendly barbers and no waiting.  His barber didn't speak any English, so Gerrit asked for "sort of long on top and short on the sides and back" in at least comprehensible Portuguese.  The barber did a great job, very careful and meticulous.  You can see his handiwork on the left.  The other barber spoke a little English and his client spoke it very well, so Gerrit and they all had a nice mixed conversation afterward.

Pat has been shopping for a beautician and for a shorter haircut which she'd like.  Stay tuned for pictures.

Then we drove to the Bolhão market in Porto for lunch and to shop around.  It's a big famous market, popular with the tourists, and we had lots of fun.  

Half the fun was driving around the streets of Porto getting there, too.  We had to find a different  parking lot from the nonexistent one which Google Maps sent us to, which took us through several blocks of restaurants, shops, stores, and hotels in old historic buildings.  Wrought iron fences and balconies are found everywhere, and many buildings have colorful tile exteriors.  People thronged the streets and shops.

At one point Gerrit accidentally pulled into the entrance of a private parking garage and of course couldn't figure out how to raise the gate to get in.  After pushing random buttons for a while a voice came on the intercom saying "Olá? Olá?" and then "No parking!  No parking!".  By this time two cars were waiting in line in the narrow alleyway behind us.  Gerrit sheepishly put Pérola (our new car) in reverse and nudged backward a couple centimeters to let them know we needed to back out.  The drivers obligingly backed out and let us out.  As we drove off apologizing and waving to them they waved back, smiling, and said something cheerful in Portuguese.  What a nice place this is!

Our lunch at the market was great: monkfish and shrimp in a spicy tomato rice bed with a bottle of vinho verde.  The market had fresh fish, meats, vegetables, flowers, sweets, and many other goods, sort of like a bit smaller Pike Place Market in Seattle.

Afterwards, we made the pilgrimage.  Yes, the renowned Manteigaria ("butter shop") pastelaria was just a few doors from the Bolhão market and on the way back to our car, and they are the ultimate Pastel de Nata pastry shop as recommended by our expat friend Susan.  That's actually all they do is make the Pastel de Nata pastry, and they have been doing it for ten years.  They ring a little bell on the street when a new batch is ready to be tasted.  We stepped in, got two Pastel de Natas still warm from the oven, and the angels sang as we tasted our little bit of heaven.  These pastries are indeed to die for, and it's a good thing we were sitting down when we tried them.  Ahh!

And apropos of nothing, here is a snap of a giant strawberry we keep passing in a roundabout in Porto.  It's kind of a landmark to us, as we make our way home from the ocean side of the city (which is not where we were at the Bolhão market).  You could make a lot of milkshakes with a strawberry that size.  I would want a riper-looking one though.

(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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Portuguese Life and Warm Hearts

Last Thursday we met some new expat friends, Tom and Susan, for coffee at the El Corte Inglés department store.  They are from the US and have been in Portugal for about a year.  We shared experiences and tips, had a really good time, and plan to see them again.  

We also tried the legendary Portuguese pastry Pastel de Nata for the first time there at our coffee date.  It is a small flaky pastry cup with a custard filling, first sold in the early nineteenth century as Pastel de Belém.  In 2011, Pastel de Belém was elected one of the Seven Wonders of Portuguese Gastronomy, so we have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to try this delicacy.  Frankly, we were underwhelmed.  It was good, but nothing to die for.  Susan said we had to try it in a particular famous pastelaria (pastry shop), and she promised "our eyes would roll back in our heads".  We'll keep you posted (and will be sure to be sitting down for that first bite).

On Friday Pat got started on a One Note document for us to use in order to record all our impressions of the regions we visit.  Our visit to the appealing area of Guimarães a few days ago made us realize that we'll want to record our impressions before they turn into a blur.  She built a beautiful template up with maps and graphs, recording annual climate trends and so forth.  It will be a valuable resource for house-hunting.

We also had to return to the Honda car dealer to sign a document for the extended warranty, and got to chat with our salesman Amadeu again.  He told us what a pleasure it had been to work with us, that the Portuguese have an expression to describe people like us as "peaks of culture".  He is a salesman after all, but it was very touching and we parted good friends.

Then we went to Continente, a large supermarket where we love to shop.  They use a single-line system where everyone queues up and the head of the line goes to the next available cashier.  It was a busy Friday afternoon, the line was about a dozen people long, but we took our place.  A woman then approached us and said we could go ahead, and to follow her.  She happened to have the next place in line, and she came all the way back to offer it to us!  We gratefully went next and thanked her for her kindness.  So heartwarming!

Gerrit has been spending part of the last few days writing a Python computer program to scan spreadsheet statements from our Portuguese bank and convert them to a format compatible with Quicken, the financial software Pat uses to keep track of all our finances.  She has been laboriously copying the statements transaction by transaction, which makes Gerrit's computer-oriented brain go "tilt".  Gerrit's program is almost ready to go, and should make it much easier to transfer Novobanco statements to Quicken.

On Saturday afternoon we took a little trip to Porto, to see a nature reserve just on the north side of the Douro river.  We had to skirt around a major wreck on the freeway (fortunately with the help of Google Maps we weren't stuck in it), but when we reached the reserve it was thickly shrouded in fog!  Well, that was unexpected, and there was consequently no wildlife to be seen.  We took a little driving tour and walked around an oceanside park a little instead.  (Pat has since found a website with beach-cams of the reserve, so next time we can check for fog before we go.)

Yesterday, Sunday, we took a day trip to the city of Viseu, due southeast of us a couple of hours.  Well, the route we took was more than a couple hours, but it was worth it: really beautiful.  We took smaller urban roads to town of Vale de Cambra and then through the mountains on the scenic and winding N227 two-lane road.  We stopped for a break in the small town of Junqueira and snapped this photo of a lovely little church, beautifully maintained.

Along the road near the village of Bordonhos, just before the town of São Pedro do Sul, we spied a little restaurant and café and pulled in for lunch.  The place was called the Ponto de Encontro (Meeting Point), and there was a good crowd of happy locals in the restaurant and the café/snack bar.  They had some tables outside with no one sitting there, so Gerrit asked in broken Portuguese if we could eat outside.  The owner indicated that that was fine, and he set a paper tablecloth for us out there.  He had a gentle and friendly manner, as he touched us lightly on the arm and brought us china, wine glasses, and silverware.  A friendly waitress then came out and took our order.  When we didn't quite understand what she asked about the vinho verde we ordered, she came back out with three different bottles for us to choose from.  Shortly our porco no forno (oven roasted pork) arrived, which was delicious.  As we finished, a group of two older men and a woman came out from the restaurant and greeted us with friendly smiles.  They stopped and chatted for a few minutes with us and our broken Portuguese.  It was such a lovely experience, really our first "conversation" with locals.  The owner's smiling wife came out a little later and asked if everything was okay with Pat and again lightly touched her on the arm.  When Gerrit went in to pay the bill, she was cooing and cuddling with a young child, maybe a granddaughter.  

The whole experience was just wonderful, full of love and sweet in a way you wish the whole world was.  It looked like the entire place was family-run by gentle and helpful people who simply wanted their customers to be comfortable and happy.  They were sincerely kind and friendly.  They seemed to appreciate that we tried to speak Portuguese, and did their best to communicate with us.  The patrons all seemed to be the same way, friendly and enjoying themselves.  What a delight!

This trip was about the journey and not the destination, it turned out.  By the time we got to Viseu it was already late afternoon, so we tootled about for a little while and then took Pérola Azul (Blue Pearl, our new car) home via the highways.  Pérola performed flawlessly the whole trip, taking the winding roads and the 120 kph (74 mph) highways in stride, smoothly and quietly.  Gerrit was delighted looking at all her high tech displays (while trying to keep his eyes on the road).  He found the radar-assisted cruise control, which can either track the vehicle in front of you or slow down if they are traveling less than your set speed.  At one sudden traffic stall on the freeway, Pérola sensed the stopped car ahead and began firmly applying the brakes before Gerrit could get his foot over to the pedal.  Remarkable!  Well, maybe not to a Millenial, but it sure was to us.

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.

(Just a note on the blog itself.  We're using Blogger for the blog and it is rather buggy, especially with pictures and tables.  Simple and free from Google, but buggy.  Some of our previous post was mixed up for a few hours, so if you couldn't make sense of it please try again.  And don't scoff at the sometimes goofy formatting.  We know, and we haven't found a way around it.)

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Joyriding with Pérola Azul

Say hello to the newest member of our family: Pérola Azul (Blue Pearl), named after her opalescent slightly blue color.  She is a new Honda Jazz hybrid.  We rode the metro to the dealer in Porto on Monday evening to finalize the paperwork, hear a detailed run-down on all her controls, and drive her home.  This involved creeping through a rush-hour traffic jam, unfortunately, but we made it.  

Pat had planned the metro trip perfectly, involving transferring trains and a few blocks of walking, and she pre-loaded our metro tickets.  We arrived at the dealer at 16:27 for our 16:30 appointment!  The metro trip was fun, we saw a lot of Porto, but it was nice to be able to drive home afterwards.

The following day, Tuesday, we of course took a big car trip.  We took the smaller roads to Guimarães, an hour or so north of Porto and a little inland, which turned out to be a lovely little town.  It is historic, well kept, the right size, and now on our short list of regions in which to look for a home.	View outside our lunch restaurant in Guimarães
Church in Guimarães	Landscaped street in Guimarães

It was almost lunchtime when we got there, so we slipped effortlessly into a petite little parking spot and walked a short way to a very nice restaurant in the old town section, facing a fountain and square.  We had Bacalhau à Brás (cod in a cake of rice), Bochechas de Porco (braised pork cheeks), glasses of wine and cider, and coffee in a window seat.  A wonderful experience!  (We're going to stop raving about how economical everything is here though.  It makes us look cheap, and only makes you, dear reader, feel bad.  But lunch was only €21!!  Sorry, we couldn't resist.)

We've had at least three of the supposedly thousand recipes for bacalhau (dried salt cod, a Portuguese favorite, which we have been spelling wrong here.  That's fixed in all posts now.).  They were all good, but this Bacalhau à Brás was the best.  Wonderfully flavorful and no bones, since the fish is shredded for the dish.

After lunch we visited Guimarães Castle and walked around it.  The castle was originally built in the mid 10th century.  1100 years ago!  That's just mind-boggling.  There was a waiting line for the timed ticket slots and some tall steps to get into the castle though, so we put off touring the inside for another time.

Next we visited the Santuário da Penha, situated on the top of the tallest point in the area with a commanding view.  It is a much more modern structure, having been started in the 1930's and built in an art deco style, but it is still a dignified stone building like the Castle.  To get there we had to wind up some twisting and narrow streets which put Pérola's small size and maneuverability to the test.  She has pushbutton folding mirrors, which is a real delight and let us slip through the narrow passageways with ease.

The whole Santuário area is lovely and very nicely done with plenty of free parking and many picnic areas.  There were dozens of families enjoying the day there, and we heard several languages too.  Here are some Santuário photos:

Speaking of languages, Portuguese can be kind of wacky.  We are finding that a given English word often translates to several Portuguese words, and vice versa.  For example, "vazia" in Portuguese means "empty" in English, very straightforward.  At lunch a few days ago, though, we saw "carne de vaca vazia" on the menu.  Empty beef steak?  What could that mean?  We could find nothing in our Google or DeepL translators which made any sense.  Our waitress finally tracked something down: "vazia" also means "sirloin".  What??  Well, if "might" can mean either "strength" or the past tense of the verb "may" in English I guess the Portuguese can do it too.

On Wednesday, today, we took another car trip to Espinho, south of us a short way and on the Atlantic coast.  We've driven Pérola enough now to be quite in love with her.  She is comfortable, amazingly quiet, strong, agile, smart, and cute.  (Sounds like a marriageable daughter.  Sorry, you single guys.)  Gerrit was raving to Pat about her suspension, how the cobblestones and potholes were so nicely absorbed, when he suddenly realized that only old people rave about a car's suspension.  Sigh.  Well, it is true that the Jazz appeals to the, ah, aged, us included.

Our first stop was at a very nicely done boardwalk through a wetland area, Passadiços da Barrinha de Esmoriz.  We didn't see any birds, but it was a very nice walk on a sunny warm morning.  Many people were out enjoying the day too.

Next we had another delicious lunch of grilled fish and creamy steamed vegetables, with our favorite half-bottle of vinho verde "green wine".  (By the way, "vinho verde" is actually a Portuguese wine growing region, not a specific type of wine.  We didn't know that!  But you can get rosé and red vinho verde, along with the much more popular and prevalent "green", which is actually a tart citrusy slightly effervescent white.  We discovered this by accident, grabbing a bottle labeled "vinho verde" in the local grocery and finding that it was red.  The red is not nearly as good as the traditional green, it has a kind of sour plum flavor, so we recommend you stick with the green.)

There is a huge vegetable and general open-air market in Espinho on Mondays, the largest in all of Portugal apparently.  We found the place where this happens, and before the autumn weather sets in we must check it out.  That only gives us a couple weeks!

(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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Sobriety and Setting Things Up

 

It has come to our attention that we must be sniffing happy dust over here, our blog is so gushy.  Well, it's true, we are really fond of this place and it has been a big pleasant surprise.  But let's get real, down and gritty.  

We know this place is not for everyone.  It is not Switzerland or Denmark, where things are clean, tidy, well-organized, and efficient.  The look of much of Porto and its environs could be described as, well, a little grungy.  The history of the older parts is visibly on display and some of the new construction is a little shabby.  It hasn't been all tidied up.  The buildings are generally not freshly pressure-washed and painted, and the streets are a crazy quilt of ancient shops and apartments with rusting antique wrought-iron railings and faded paint.  But we think that gives the place a certain genuineness and authenticity.  It's much more interesting to walk over cobbles and to see buildings that look like they've been around for centuries, full of history and character and not turned out last week by an Ikea factory.

There is some graffiti.  It's less than we've been seeing in Seattle and it seems less destructive, like the vandalizing of street signs we've seen there.  Pictures of Lisbon show graffiti too, and it does seem to be a worldwide phenomenon.

There is a very little bit of homelessness, and what looks like a few gypsy professional beggars (who are all over Europe).

There is a lot of bureaucracy here.  It's unavoidable.  But it is tolerable because of two factors: them and us.  Most of the bureaucrats we've worked with here seem to genuinely want to help people and to do their job well.  (This, incidentally, seems to be the way much of business is run here.)  The other half of the equation is us: it's important that we remain polite and patient, qualities which are valuable to cultivate in anyone's life.  The bureaucrats are just doing their job and Portuguese society is in fact trying to become more streamlined, and getting angry at the agents doesn't do any good at all.  We become better people when we practice respect and keep perspective.  Plus, at the end of a hard bureaucratic day there's a glass of Portuguese wine.

The language barrier can be daunting.  It would be wonderful if everyone spoke English and had infinite patience for stumbling Portuguese language beginners.  But people can't take half hour blocks out of their day to listen to foreigners mangle their native language, while gently providing corrections to help them learn.  The locals have their lives too.  There are plenty of ways to learn the language and the barriers slowly do come down.  There is a great deal of English spoken in the cities, which we're grateful for, and it's really up to us foreigners who want to live in a new country to learn the language.  

We did find it a bit hot and uncomfortable during much of July and August because of the humidity here in Porto.  It's noticeably more muggy than Seattle, but inland it is better.

OK, we've racked our brains and this is about all we can come up with to complain about, in the interest of fair and balanced reporting.  We've been raving about all the wonderful stuff, which you can read about and see pictures of in our earlier posts, and here we've tried to soberly consider the other side.  Now back to the gushing.

Monday was our first day without a car, having returned the rental the day before.  We made use of the time confined to the apartment by applying for our Portuguese social security numbers, checking on our car delivery and contacting the bank about transferring funds, shopping for car insurance, trying to get our internet/phone utility records straightened out, combing through expat forum chats for useful nuggets, manually entering financial transactions from our Portuguese bank into Quicken software, and having an introductory video meeting with our latest language course host and other students.  (Did we say something about gushing?  Maybe next post.)

And the last few days have been devoted to more general paperwork and preparation for the car.  Gerrit found auto insurance and got that underway, our immigration conference meeting setup is underway, and we transferred the money for the car to the dealer.  We also found out that social security numbers are no longer provided to retirees as of a couple months ago, and not necessary for our immigration meeting.  Things change fast around here.

Our car experiences have been interesting exposures to the way the Portuguese love their paperwork.  Instead of simply transferring the money from the bank to the dealer online, which US banks, Wise and other financial services allow you to do, we had to meet our personal banker and fill out a number of documents and forms, and have them authorized and stamped.  Then we provided the resulting Proof of Transfer document to the dealer so they could continue.  (At least that could be done online.)  

Signing up for insurance involved getting an official automobile Declaration of Characteristics document from the dealer, which was just as officious as the bank document.  It listed things like the model number and engine size, things you can find on the auto manufacturer's website.  We're sure there's a simper way to do this, but it's actually kind of sweet to meet with our banker for example, shake hands, and watch how diligent he was.  Good old fashioned person-to-person contact.

Unfortunately the car won't be ready for us until Monday, so we have to cool our jets till then.  The next few days may be a little boring as a result.

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Cars and Myths

The big news is we have our own car now, a new Honda Jazz hybrid.  (Well, it's on order from the dealer anyway, should be here the first of September.  Our own pictures are to come -- this one is a stock photo.)  The Jazz is a "super-mini", small enough to get through the narrow streets of old European villages and to park in the crowded cities, but surprisingly roomy inside and comfortable for four adults (or to pack our luggage for extended vacations).  The performance over cobblestone streets and on the open highway is excellent; it's powerful and quiet.  The hybrid technology sips petrol sparingly, so our emissions are low, operation is economical, and our range is essentially unlimited.

New cars throughout most of Europe have pricing fixed by the manufacturer.  It's refreshing to know what the car will cost and not to have to go through that time-wasting chest-thumping exercise of negotiation, never quite knowing who is taking more advantage of whom and whether you really did get a good price.  Who needs that?  Maybe someone who wants to brag to his friends about how bad he screwed the dealer on his new car (this happened to Gerrit).

On the last post we should have mentioned straightening out our utility and banking accounts.  Setting these up from the US so we would have valid references for our visa applications involved using a Portuguese power of attorney (POA), and many things put on the forms were placeholders or temporary (like addresses and phone numbers).  Sometimes if the account needed to contact someone it had to be the POA, too, rather than a couple English-speaking rubes with funny phone numbers eight time zones away.  

This left the accounts needing updating once we had gotten here and obtained our Portuguese address and phones.  This was more difficult than it sounds.  The worst example was having to spend two hours at the bank (with a banker who was truly helpful and efficient) getting all the i's dotted and t's crossed, but the utilities have been hard too.  We're still not quite done, but the bank was the big hurdle and it's nice to have that behind us.

Pat has been busy getting us connected, in many ways.  She's learning about expat resources here, joining interest groups, and getting our credit and debit cards sorted out so they work with Amazon Spain and other online vendors.  She has a coffee meeting (or tea in her case) with the International Women of Porto and Gaia on Tuesday.  This will really help with references for insurance and real estate agents, what to watch for and what to avoid, and so on.  She's already learned that when a parking spot is marked on a sign for emergency vehicles, police, etc., it's the spot AFTER the sign, not the spot which the sign faces.  Some poor Americans found that out the hard way, after paying a nearly €200 towing bill.

Today our car rental period ran out, a little before our new car was in stock and ready, so we're going to see if we can get around without a car for a few days.  Everything we normally need, and then some, is within walking distance, and if we have to drive somewhere we'll use Uber.

With our worldly two months of experience living here, we feel qualified to debunk at least a few of the Portugal myths in circulation.  These canards are frequently seen on blogs and guides, where they should know better:

1. The Portuguese are aggressive and reckless drivers.

Not in our experience.  Sure, you see the aggressive driver now and then, but you do everywhere.  We see mostly courteous and skilled driving here.  (but see our post here for a little revision to this.)

2. Portugal has some of the most expensive electricity in Europe.

Maybe they used to, but not any more.  See our post here.

3. It's hard to find modern consumer items or supermarkets.

At least in the Porto area here, stores and supermarkets similar to those in the US are quite popular.  Most things are readily available including up-to-the-minute modern conveniences, and if not they're only a click away online.  The food even seems healthier and fresher in general, and there are helpful government guides to nutrition on package labels.

4. Restaurant help can be surly and slow.

Not at all.  We've been to many now, urban and rural, and the service has uniformly been cheerful and quick.  They're understanding and helpful with the language barrier too.

We haven't experienced much of the health care system yet, except for Pat's monthly blood work, but what we hear from other expats is that it is excellent: better than the US.  Pat's experience has certainly borne that out.  Don't let US politicians tell you that in "old Europe" health care is slow and inadequate.  "The Healing of America" by T. R. Reid is a good place to start reading up on international health care.  The author has a number of YouTube videos too.

photo credit Reifen-Groessen.de

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Progress and Playing Catchup

Dear reader, it has been too long since a blog post!  We need to keep up better.  Here is a long one to catch up.  

We haven't met anyone socially yet here in Portugal, handicapped as we are by our weak language skills.  Last Wednesday, however, Pat was out on the terrace when our neighbor came out on his adjoining terrace and they said hello around the divider.  After a bit his wife joined him and Gerrit came out too, and we all had a nice visit.  They're lovely people, very friendly and helpful.  They speak English very well, but we got to try out a few phrases in Portuguese too.  It's so nice to make an actual local connection!

Then on Thursday Aug 15 we decided to go car shopping to the Porto Honda dealer.  Gerrit hadn't been successful with their website request form or understanding their Portuguese phone answering system, so we figured we'd head out there in person.

When we got there the place was deserted, contrary to the hours posted in the window.  Hmm, we thought, maybe they're appointment-only during the holiday month of August?  We got back in the car and headed to the next-nearest dealer, in Gaia a few kilometers away.  They too were closed!  Good grief, Portugal seemed to take this August holiday month seriously.

Well, the barbecue grill next door sure smelled good, so we got an order of barriga de porco (pork belly) to take out and headed home for lunch.  Where, d'oh!, we realized after looking at the calendar that today was the Assunção de Maria (Assumption of Mary) public holiday!  We have got to start paying more attention to the Google Portugal Holidays calendar.  The barriga de porco was excellent though.  Good thing the grill wasn't taking the day off.

To salvage the day, that afternoon we headed to the Reserva Natural Local do Estuário do Douro (Nature Reserve Douro Estuary Site), a prime local birdwatching spot recommended by our new neighbor friend, with big camera and lens in hand.  It is on the Douro river estuary, just before the river meets the Atlantic Ocean, and is a stopping point for about three dozen species throughout the year.  

The weather was beautiful and Pat took over a hundred photos, but only a few came out.  The wind was pretty strong and it was hard to keep the long lens still, so most of the photos are blurry when zoomed in.  We were in a bird blind and leaning through the open windows, so next time we'll bring along a tripod and place it inside the blind where it will shield the camera from the wind.

Meanwhile, here are a couple slightly blurry shots including a flamingo stretching its wings and showing off its bright colors.  We had to go to Portugal to see flamingos!  On our whole US Gulf States trip in the winter of 2022, even in Florida, we didn't see a single one.

The following day, Friday, we tried again at the Honda dealer with more success.  We met a very nice English-speaking sales guy named Amadeu and looked thoroughly at the Jazz, a super-mini hybrid.  They didn't have a demo model available, so we made an appointment for a test drive the following Thursday.  The conversation then turned to cultural differences, how much we like Portugal, what we've done, and Amadeu gave us some excellent seafood restaurant and wine recommendations.  He used to sell high-end wine to Angolan clients, so he knows whereof he speaks.  This was an unexpected bonus from our visit to the car dealer.

Gerrit finally found out how to contact the immigration agency AIMA for our obligatory meeting, but it is only by phone and those in the know say it is almost impossible to get through.  It's looking more reasonable now to hire a law firm to take care of the whole thing.  They will set up the appointment and even accompany you there, which will be a great help if the AIMA agent doesn't speak English.  On Wednesday Gerrit pulled the trigger on that, getting a recommended law firm started.

Sunday, after doing some chores and paperwork, we decided to head back to the bird-watching area to see if we could get some clearer photos, but there was a lot of smoke in the air so visibility was poor.  We think it might be coming down the Douro river valley from wildfires.  We drove around sightseeing for a while though, including Gerrit trying his driving skill through a 2 m wide tunnel.  He squeaked through okay with about an inch to spare on each side, but a block further the road completely petered out so he had to back down the street and through the tunnel backward.  Very carefully!

On Monday we went to our first Expats Portugal get-together, at a restaurant/brewery in Porto.  There were probably 40 people there, mostly Americans, gathered in the outdoor seating area enjoying beers, snacks, dinner, and conversation.  We made some good connections, shared stories, and got some good ideas.

We've been watching Portuguese TV in the evening before dinner, mostly cheesy game shows and local news.  The cheesier the better actually, since they use simpler words on those shows.  We've even tuned in on a couple children's shows (including a modern version of "Lassie Comes Home", produced in Germany with people using cell phones, German signage, and dubbed into Portuguese).  We only understand a small bit, but just watching and listening helps to train the ear.  Pat found the local Porto channel, so we're able to keep up on local news and highlights around northern Portugal, or at least look at the pictures.  We've seen features on some beautiful areas and villages we want to check out.

On Wednesday we took another tour southeast of Porto along the south side of the Douro river.  We took the back roads, and it was another beautiful outing.  

We stopped at the sweetest little public bathroom in the village of Sante.  It was sparkling clean, tiled, old-fashioned, and simply a public convenience for everyone to use as they needed.  How nice!  Pat reports the women's side had a few problems though.

A beautiful, well-kept cemetery was right across the road.  We noticed several of the tombstones had a man's name plus "wife and children" on them.  Did this mean he had a wife and children, or were they buried there too, anonymously?  Portugal has been a patriarchal society in times past, so it may be the latter.

We stopped for lunch a little bit up the road, and the employees came out when we arrived.  A welcoming committee?  They didn't look very cheerful though, and seemed to be looking up the road.  One of them took us inside, where we asked about lunch for two and what was available.  She said there was no food, and then something else we didn't understand.  We smiled and said okay, thank you, and goodbye, and as we left a fire engine with emergency techs pulled up with flashing lights.  Somebody inside had had some sort of emergency, and here we were asking "what's for lunch?".  We felt bad as we drove away for being such unwitting idiots.

We stopped a bit further on the way home at a small village restaurant and had another wonderful rustic Portuguese lunch.  We had olives and bread to start, breaded hake, fries-and-rice (a common combination in Portugal, we've found), a full bottle of good vinho verde, and a demitasse of espresso all for a little over €18.  No one spoke English and we had to muddle our way through a bit, but there were smiles and good will all around.  Another lovely Portuguese experience.

Today, Thursday Aug 22, we went back to the car dealer and took a test drive.  Suffice it to say for now that we put a deposit on a new car.  More next post.  We came back home and walked to Pat's blood test appointment, then had a delicious lunch at a local restaurant a couple doors down.  From now on you can just assume that all our meals out are delicious, simple, authentic, and cheap.  We'll tell you otherwise.

(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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