Getting our sea legs

Saturday January 27, 2024

Before we left Austin for this trip Sevilla connected us with our new friends Jason and Lesa, expats from Seattle and the tenants who just vacated our SMP rental. After renting Sevilla’s place in SMP for most of 2023, in December Jason and Lesa bought something just down the hill that they’d had their eye on.

There are multiple things that I find comforting about this setup:

1. If we have any questions about the house, we have Jason and Lesa to ask
2. Jason and Lesa liked the area enough that they bought within a quarter of a mile of our rental, which seems like a good omen.
3. We have yet another set of new friends who are a year ahead of us on the learning curve.
4. Before we move if we have anything that needs to be delivered we can send it to Jason and Lesa (we’ve already taken advantage of that once).

While planning our trip, Jill lined up a date for 11AM this morning to have Jason and Lesa show us SMP through their eyes. A few minutes before 11 Jill, Stephanie, and I trooped the quarter mile down Estrada do Facho (that’s our street) to Lesa and Jason’s. We had a bit of a comedy of errors trying to figure out Jason and Lesa’s address. Addresses in Portugal are like a MENSA test. They include lots of abbreviations and symbols. For example, in the US where we would have an apartment number that indicated the floor, such as apartment 210 being on the second floor, in Portugal they have a “2°” to indicate the second floor and then instead of an apartment number they have an indicator as to whether the door is on the right or the left of the entryway/landing. So, in summary, if your street address is 80 Estrada do Facho and you are on the first floor (what we would call the second floor NOT the ground floor) and your door is on the right (“direito” in Portuguese -which is abbreviated “Dto”) of the landing the street portion of your address would be written something like:

“80 Est. do Facho 1° Dto”

That all seems pretty straight forward in concept, but reality isn’t so tidy when you start to take into account that there are abbreviations for Portuguese words we haven’t learned yet that are included in addresses, such as basement, alley, and even roundabout. If you’re interested here’s a primer for Portuguese addresses – How Portugal Addresses Work.

Fortunately, Jason knew we were coming and was looking over his balcony periodically. He caught sight of us wandering around cluelessly and yelled at us to stay put and he would come to us.

After initial introductions – and affirming our unbroken streak of all the expats we’ve been introduced to by mutual acquaintances being helpful and friendly – we set off on foot to SMP.

Our rental is about a 15 minute walk from city center. When going into town the first 10 minutes is downhill and when coming back the last 10-15 minutes is uphill. I say 10-15 minutes because Lesa and Jason showed us multiple possible routes that are either more direct, with steeper grade or more leisurely. When we have visitors we can offer up the best route home depending on our guest’s thirst for exertion (and we will have a car as a fallback – as we certainly don’t want anyone to skip a visit because we live on the top of a hill). But, in all cases, I think we can safely pencil in 15 minutes as the appropriate lead time for walking to city center from our place.

We meandered through town with Jason and Lesa and got a little more of their backstory as we chatted and strolled. Jason is in tech and works remotely for his employer in Seattle from Portugal. On weekdays he keeps office hours that generally align with the Seattle workday. And Lesa is a chef, which is super handy for us since she already knows all of the Portuguese names for spices and has lots of handy local tips… Like: Vinegar and baking soda for cooking are on the cleaning products aisle at the Intermarché, not in the places you would find them in an American supermarket.

Jason steered us into the local tourism office, where we met the Gastão. Gastão technically mans the tourism office, but Jason described Gastão as a source of local knowledge for expats and a “fixer”. One of the things Jill and I love about Portugal is that every Portuguese person that we spend more than a couple of minutes with is truly proud of their country and heritage. Gastão was no exception. Gastão gave us an engaging local and national history lesson for about 20 minutes before we begged off because we knew Lesa and Stephanie were standing outside waiting for us to come out. We also learned where City Hall is in SMP and what kind of things you do there – foremost being we need to register as residents of SMP when we make the official move. And when we wandered by the front of the tourism office a couple of days later Gastão greeted us by name like we were old friends.

By then was lunch time so we went to one of Jason and Lesa’s favorite restaurants, Samar, a block or so inland of the marginal where we lingered over a nice seafood lunch and an after-lunch cappuccino. I’ve mentioned this before, but we love that the restaurants and cafés in Portugal don’t rush you out the door. I’ll report back on whether that changes during tourist season, but at least during the low season they are perfectly happy to let you linger until you ask for the check.

Lesa showed us where the “local” market was. I think I’ve broken the code on expat market terminology. The chain stores like Intermarché are “supermarkets”. The farmers’ market and fish markets are “fresh markets”. And the local family-run grocery store is called a “local market”. Supermarkets are open set hours every day. The fresh markets tend to be open every morning until about lunch time. And the local markets are open unless they’re not. For example, the local market was open on the day that Lesa walked Jill through it, but when we walked by a couple of days later there was a sign on the door that said they’re closed until 5 Febrero (Febuary 5th). In a town like SMP, which caters mostly to Portuguese tourists, I think everyone works non-stop during the tourist season and then takes their breaks when they can during the offseason. And apparently Tuesdays are the days lots of restaurants are closed during the offseason. So much to learn about SMP!

I’d noted that we had a couple of burned out lightbulbs in the rental so I asked Jason where I could find those. He walked us to what looked like an everyday waterfront touristy beach essentials/trinket shop. It was indeed a beach shop in the front of the store, but after we waded through the beach essentials it turned into a combination home goods/light hardware store. In local parlance these are called “loja Chinesa”(literally “China shop”). So called because they are owned and run by Chinese expats who import a broad range of essentials from China and purvey an amazing variety of products under one not-so-big roof. I felt uneasy with this naming convention – I probed on that with Jason who said “I know! I was worried about that, too. But it’s just a case of using an accurate descriptor that doesn’t seem to carry any offensive goo.” And in this case the storefront sign said “Loja Pequim” (Beijing Shop”) which tells me the owner is leaning in to the theme. Case closed. And sure enough my lightbulbs, one of which had an obscurely small base, were right there on the shelf in the back of the Loja Pequim.

All of the expats that we have met have been willing to talk about both the good and the bad about living in Portugal. In Jason’s case, his personal example of the “bad” is the bureaucracy around getting Internet installed in their new place. Fiber has arrived in SMP, but the bulk of the last mile infrastructure is still coax and ADSL, which is what’s in Jason and Lesa’s building. However, the Internet provider has decided they’re not going to do any new Internet activations in that building until the fiber buildout reaches the building because they don’t want to make a new legacy-technology connection only to re-wire it in a few months. So while that is getting sorted out, Jason has had to use a hotspot for his Internet connection. There’s no higher power to appeal to, it just is what it is until something changes. Fortunately, Sevilla’s place has great Internet and it’s included in our lease.

After we’d completed the initial tour, we walked with Jason and Lesa back to their place, picked up a package from the Moshers that they’d been holding for our arrival, and powered up the last quarter mile of hill for a little siesta. But before the siesta, Jill opened the package to find her new prize possession, an EU compatible Dyson hairdryer along with some Parisian socks with chats on them. We’d heard that 220V will cook an American hair dryer right quick and I think Mia knew Jill would be in the market. It was a thoughtful and fun housewarming gift that made Jill light up! And I claimed most of the Cipsters (the box says Crackster, but they’ll always be Cipsters to me).

To further our audit of the food and libations on offer in SMP, our evening included a walk to city center to have a cocktail at Storyteller’s Palace followed by Indian food at New Royal.

Storyteller’s Palace is a great spot for a romantic date night and for us to take visitors for an aperitif. And, with all of the boutique rooms named for notable authors, it’s also a good overflow accommodation if we ever have more guests at one time than we can house. It’s funny how quickly we’ve gotten accustomed to Portuguese prices. Storyteller’s Palace is definitely aiming for an “American” experience (case in point: they have a speakeasy bar called Gatsby’s). Their drink prices are in line with what have become mid-range American prices on cocktails (think $12 gin and tonic). That will by no means keep us away, but Jill and I both acknowledged the reaction that a price we wouldn’t think twice about in Austin felt a little jarring in SMP.

After our drink at Gatsby’s, we strolled around the bay to New Royal.

Over the course of planning to eat at New Royal, we discovered that Stephanie had never had a proper introduction to Indian food. We set out to fix that by ordering a broad selection from New Royal, which left us with plenty of leftovers for dinner the next night. Style-wise we had a biryani, a korma, a tikka masala, and a butter chicken along with the requisite garlic naan and samosas. Stephanie appears to be a convert.

Summary of the day’s boxes ticked:

✅ Made two new friends

✅ Learned the various walking routes to and from town

✅ Got a walking tour of SMP through the eyes of locals

✅ Discovered the China shop phenomenon

✅ Found barber shop

✅ Tried two new restaurants (both keepers)

✅ Confirmed Storyteller’s Palace is a triple threat – happy hour, date night, overflow guest lodging

Adventure is out there!