Fair and balanced

Jill and I were talking this morning… Since we’ve been experiencing so many new and generally awesome things during our first four months in Portugal, there’s been no shortage of feel good moments to report in my periodic blog updates. We agreed I probably haven’t given equal time to the various chronic and acute challenges we are experiencing as strangers in a strange land. So I will devote the first chunk of today’s entry to a couple of our ongoing challenges – and also to what we are doing to adapt and overcome.

By far the most common and frustrating challenge is not yet having a working handle on the Portuguese language. Portuguese is a tough language to learn and we are objectively on track to learn it, but each time we have a random encounter with someone who doesn’t speak at least a little English we are humbled by just how little real world skill we have in Portuguese.

Here’s a practical example that happens frequently enough to warrant a mention here:

SMP has some twisty streets and, if you don’t live here or use Waze, it can be challenging to get where you want to go. Periodically when we are out and about walking Woody and Bulleit a lost driver will pull up beside us and ask us, in rapid-fire Portuguese, how to get somewhere. More often than not the desired destination is the “Cais” (the pier).

The first time it happened, the encounter was over before we really had a chance to realize what was going on. A guy pulled up and hit us with the obligatory “Bon dia!” and then launched into his ask. When Jill and I looked sufficiently bewildered he said, “Ah, English. Não Português…” then shrugged and drove off. We talked it over trying to pick apart what he’d said and the only word we understood was “Cais” – so we convinced ourselves he was asking for directions to the pier.

Another driver stopped us with a similar request a couple of weeks later and we picked out the word “Cais” quickly and between us we started piecing together how to give him directions. The way to the pier was the second left turn ahead in the direction the gentleman was traveling. And we actually got as far as “vira a esquerda” (turn left), but we couldn’t figure out how to tell him the second left. We knew that “proxima” would indicate the next left, but we couldn’t figure out how to say the SECOND left. ARGH!!! Ultimately, he gave up and smiled and waved and drove on. I should say that no one has been rude to us when we failed to be able to give them directions. They just smile and wave and drive on.

From that moment, Jill and I vowed we were going to be ready for the next person who asked us for directions. Then one foggy morning a few weeks ago we were walking the boys back up the hill toward our place when a young woman out for a jog stopped and asked for directions to “Parque Campismo”, which is a camper-van camping facility that is fully occupied during the tourist season. Feeling confident, we started to give her directions – only to belatedly realize that she had asked the question in Spanish and didn’t speak a lick of Portuguese. She was a Spanish tourist staying at the Parque Campismo. To add to the difficulty she wanted help figuring out how to get back via the hiking trails instead of on the road – in the fog. My rusty Spanish did not extend to those kind of directions. In the end I got out my phone and pulled up Google maps and showed her where we were and where the campground was and the route that would get her where she wanted to go on surface streets. She was clearly not getting the information she wanted from me and gestured for me to hand her my phone, which I did. She zoomed in and out a couple of times, handed me my phone back and jogged on. So not, technically a failure to communicate in Portuguese, but still a general failure to communicate.

Then this week I was walking the boys up the hill from our rental and an elderly couple with fishing poles in their back seat stopped and asked me how to find the cais. The context of the seeing the fishing poles made me very confident that I understood the question! This was my moment!!!! Except for the fact that they were traveling in exactly the wrong direction… The cais was the next right turn back the way they’d come. Rather than try to figure out how to tell them to make a u-turn, I pantomimed turning the car around and then I said “Vira na proxima direita” (take the next right turn). The man said “Proxima direita?” and I smiled and said “Sim!” (yes). He said “Obrigado!” (thank you) and they turned around and motored happily off.

Minor victory on the last go aside, we can both attest that routine failures on even the most basic social interactions put a dent in your confidence. The practical impact of that is we are currently both conditioned to lead with – “Fala Inglês?” (Do you speak English?) whenever we find ourselves in the deep end of the pool. While everyone is super gracious when we do that, it doesn’t help in our quest to learn Portuguese.

Our Portuguese lessons with Leonor are going well and she continues down the gradual path of only speaking Portuguese to us – we are about halfway there at the moment. Leonor also gave us a children’s book to read and we are slowly grinding our way through that. But Leonor speaking slowly and clearly to us is not the same dynamic as the panicked fight-or-flight reaction when a stranger asks you a question at native conversational pace assuming you speak Portuguese. We are gradually getting better at replying with “Estamos a aprender Português…” (We are learning Portuguese…) and “Pode falar mais devagar por favor?” (Could you please speak more slowly?). And, in truth, when we trot those out in less exigent circumstances than someone needing directions in a hurry, it seems to go okay.

At any rate, on the Portuguese language front we both know there’s no way out but through and we are committed to becoming proficient. We both just wish we were further along by this point. In addition to our lessons with Leonor, we are supposed to start our three-night-per-week Portuguese class at the high school sometime this month but we haven’t yet received email confirmation on the schedule.

Under the heading of minor victories, this week we were having lunch at the café in Pingo Doce, the grocery store in Caldas da Rainha where do the bulk of our shopping, and there was a mother sitting behind us with her three-year-old son and I was able to eavesdrop and understand his half of the conversation. I *think* she asked him how his food was and he answered “Está bem.” (It’s good.) Pouco a pouco (little by little).

An ongoing tactical challenge is a level of inefficiency that’s really a secondary effect of not being confident in speaking Portuguese. For example, each month I get my hair cut by Vera – I pay €7 for a haircut that’s worth at least €9. But, because I don’t have confidence that I can call Vera’s shop and make – and subsequently show up on time for – an appointment without losing something in translation, I present myself at Vera’s shop a few days before it’s time for me to get a haircut to make the appointment. Fortunately, we love the café next door to Vera – Padaria da Serra. Jill and I typically make a strategic afternoon cappuccino stop at Padaria da Serra when it’s time for me to schedule my next haircut and I pop next door to chat with Vera and observe what day/time she writes my name on in her scheduling book.

Last Saturday, while Jill was out having lunch and doing some shopping with a friend, I walked down by myself to schedule my appointment with Vera. I popped my head into Vera’s on the way to Padaria da Serra and saw that Vera was just getting started on a haircut. I ordered a cappuccino and a cherry cheesecake to give Vera a few more minutes to finish with the guy in the chair. My cappuccino and cheesecake came out to €3.70. Knowing that cafés appreciate it when you pay with exact change, I meticulously counted out my moedas (coins) while the owner of the cafe waited patiently at the register and when I got to €3.50 I was out of coins. And the smallest bill I had in my wallet was a €20. Argh! When the owner saw my plight she happily took my €3.50 in coins and held up a €0.20 coin from the till with a smile on her face and said, using words even I could understand, to bring her one of those next time.

When I walked down to Vera’s this past Monday for my haircut, I made sure I had a €0.20 coin to repay my debt. I stopped by Padaria da Serra before my haircut and met the owner at the cash register and said the big line that I’d rehearsed on the walk down – “Boa tarde! Creio que isto é teu!” (Good afternoon! I believe this is yours!) – as I ceremoniously handed her the coin with both hands. She smiled and said “Obrigada!” And I said “Até breve!” (See you soon!) and headed on to Vera’s, pleased at being able to successfully accomplish that small but important exchange.

I’ve mentioned before that we’ve learned all expats are here for different reasons. Being an expat may be something you have in common with other expats, but it doesn’t mean you are compatible with those people. A corollary to that is not all expats have the same commitment level to Portugal and learning Portuguese that Jill and I have… We have kissed a fair number of frogs to find our current friend circle. And now one member of the circle has just pulled the pin and decided to move back to the US after two years in SMP – with one of the primary drivers being that she was tired of not being able to understand the language. That’s something neither of us saw coming and it hit Jill particularly hard. We now know that one aspect of being friends with other expats is those friends may not be having their dream expat experience and may end up being transient. As Foghorn Leghorn says: “Figures don’t lie.” A lot of expats end up moving back home within a few years.

And this past week we tried out a new pet hotel for Woody and Bulleit for one night while we went to Lisboa for my birthday dinner. When we retrieved the boys on Thursday afternoon they were both their happy selves and then about an hour after we got home Bulleit started throwing up and became listless – Bulleit has always had a sensitive stomach so we are well versed in the chicken and rice diet for him. Whatever it is has been working its way through his system for the last four days. He seems to be on the mend and hopefully we are coming out the other side. But at the peak of it, the prospect of needing to find an emergency vet in Portugal over the weekend was pretty intimidating – back to the hurdle of needing to communicate something important to someone in Portuguese with confidence. We didn’t end up taking Bulleit into the vet over the weekend yet because he’s mostly started keeping food down, but we now know exactly where to take the boys if we have an after-hours veterinary emergency. And we have an appointment with our regular, English-speaking vet tomorrow morning at 11:45. I did just manage to go to the pharmacy and, in rehearsed Portuguese – “Boa trade. Preciso disto para o meu cão.” (Good afternoon. I need this for my dog) get a prescription that we’d been holding onto for Bulleit from the last time he was having stomach issues. The pharmacy tech understood me and popped right out with my €5.80 box of medicine for Bulleit so that is a minor victory.

All of the above is just par for the course and doesn’t do anything to take the shine off of this adventure for me and Jill, but its not all skittles and beer and we do get our everyday bumps and bruises along the way.

On to fun stuff…

When I retired from Boundless, the Boundless team gave me a touching sendoff and some fantastic and thoughtful gifts. Two of the gifts were a dinner at the Michelin-starred restaurant Ceia in Lisboa and a hotel voucher at Pestana, our favorite Portuguese-owned hotel group. Since my 60th birthday was coming up we decided there was no better occasion to celebrate at Ceia. Because Ceia only has one seating per night and a maximum of 14 guests, we booked way back on May 7th for August 28th. Jill booked the boys into the pet hotel in Caldas da Rainha for one night and booked us a hotel room at the Pestana Vintage Lisboa using the voucher from Boundless and I secured us round trip bus tickets on the express bus from SMP to Lisboa.

When the big day came last Wednesday we dropped W&B off in the morning and made the 20 minute walk down to the bus stop. The bus rolled up right on time and we were off to Lisboa.

The one hour and fifteen minute ride passed quickly and we caught a cab to our hotel at Lisboa’s Sete Rios terminal.

We had the whole afternoon to kill so we walked to El Corte Inglés. As mentioned in a previous post El Corte Inglés is where we purchased refried beans last time we were in Lisboa for the day. We had a nice lunch there and bought the only three cans of Old El Paso refried beans on the shelf (€4.50 per can, but SO worth it).

We are getting serious about finding a permanent place to live in Portugal so we spent the rest of our time at El Corte Inglés making notes on furniture, textiles, and kitchen wares for when we are ready to start nesting. Seems like the heaviest lift will be finding a king size bed. And once we have done that we will need to find king sheets, blankets, and comforters. I suspect that sometime in the not-too-distant future we will be asking our US guests to sherpa bed linens over to us.

We walked back to our hotel in time to get changed for dinner and then grabbed a cab to Ceia.

The first thing we noticed was there was no name on the door. Just the address. We opened the door and entered the magical world of Ceia.

I’m not exaggerating when I say it was the single best culinary experience of my life, which seems appropriate for a sixtieth birthday celebration. Because it was a gift, I have no idea what the evening cost – but whatever the cost was it was worth it!

Upon entry we were greeted by our host, Kristin. She handed each of us a glass of wine and showed us to the courtyard to relax among the lemon and orange trees until dinner was served. We chatted with Kristin for a few minutes and then she was off to greet the other guests. Ceia is a one table restaurant and it turns out that part of Kristin’s role is to develop the seating chart on the fly based on her quick read on the folks who turn up each night.

There were 10 people total for dinner that night and we were all seated at one big table and the seating chart was perfect. Jill and I sat across from each other and there was a French couple – currently living in Canada – bracketing us on my right side and a Belgian couple bracketing us on my left side. And, of course, they all spoke multiple languages and talked to us in perfect English.

Ceia is a farm-to-table restaurant in the most authentic sense, the food comes from their farm in the Alentejo region of Portugal, which is Portugal’s bread basket. The only exception to that were the seafood courses, which featured some seaweed and catch-of-the-day fish and shellfish from the Açores (the Azores).

The theme for dinner was “The Last Harvest”, which included nine courses each with a wine pairing. However, because we live in Europe now, we did not waddle out of there at the end of the night uncomfortably full nor were we uncomfortably inebriated – the pours were scaled back to be in line with the number of courses (although if one wanted more of a certain wine it was there for the asking).

I give you the best bites from our evening at Ceia…

In summary, if you are ever in Lisboa: Do anything you can to get a seat at Ceia. If you have the same experience we did, it will be one of the great dining nights of your life. We could not have scripted my sixtieth birthday dinner any better. And our new friends at Ceia sent me home with a dark chocolate candy bar that the head chef whipped up for me when he found out I was celebrating a big day.

Special thanks to all my friends at Boundless for the most thoughtful gift ever!

I’m think going to wrap it up there. Having a sick dog has us both dragging a little bit and I need to make some more rice cooked in chicken stock for Bulleit.

As always: Adventure is out there!