É Canja!

For the next week it’s just me and Woody and Bulleit holding down the fort here in SMP.

Jill is on a girls’ trip in Londres (you may know it as London) with our Austin friends Amy and Katharine. Amy and Katharine both had reason to be in Londres this week so the three of them hatched up a rendezvous plan. I dropped Jill at LIS Saturday morning for her 08:35 TAP non-stop to Londres (and, yes, “Londres/Heathrow” is how it appears on the Departures board at LIS) and she texted me that she was wheels-down at LHR 11:25. And I’ll collect her at our normal spot by the Starbucks in LIS Arrivals hall after she wings her way home this Saturday afternoon.

It’s not often that Jill and I are apart for this long and this is the very first time that we haven’t been in together in Portugal. If we still lived in Austin and Jill was in Londres for a week I would have reason to feel like she was on the other side of the world, but she’s currently only 933 miles away (according to Find My iPhone – not that I’m stalking her…) and we are still in the same time zone. I mention that because after Jill and I parted at the airport yesterday morning I had an unexpected twinge of anxiety. Not serious anxiety about our health or well-being, but just a spike of anxiety that I’m flying solo in Portugal until the love of my life gets back from Londres and also – even though she’s traveling with close and capable friends – anxiety that I’m not in Londres to be her wingman.

By the way, all is well in Londres. Jill is having a blast with Amy and Katharine. And, because she loves me, she has already made a re-supply stop at Fortnum & Mason to bring me back our favorite teas and biscuits.

And all is well in Portugal, too. Woody, Bulleit, and I are eating peanut butter right out of the jar, just because no one is here to stop us.

Regarding the anxiety:

• I find it noteworthy that it actually registered that I was feeling “anxious” (Jill is gonna be SO proud that I’m talking about feelings!), which I think means that – since moving to Portugal – my baseline level of floating anxieties has dropped to a level low enough where I am able to notice an uptick.
• This experience got me thinking about all of the stress and anxiety of moving to another country and how very little of what we feared was going to happen actually ended up happening – which is my segue to the meat of this post.

In a few short weeks, on April 23rd, we will mark one full trip around the sun since we packed all our worldly possessions into a handful of suitcases, handed Woody and Bulleit over to Kevin and the capable team from petrelocation.com, and voluntarily turned our lives upside down.

Here is my best effort at being objective about how all of our pre-move concerns have played out:

• Are we crazy? What if we have an overly rosy read on Portugal and it turns out that there are showstoppers that should have been obvious once we get there?
  • Regular readers will not be surprised to hear that there are no showstoppers to report. Portugal has exceeded our rosiest expectations on every axis. The people are lovely and the country is beautiful. And, while the final analysis may indeed show that we are crazy, the act of moving to Portugal will not factor in to that assessment.
• How will we stay connected with family and friends?
  • Staying in touch been harder than expected in some ways. The main way in which it’s been harder is that we are 6 hours ahead of Texas and 8 hours ahead of California. We didn’t expect that to be a big deal because there’s still a decent chunk of hours every day where we are awake at the same time as our Texas and California people. What we didn’t factor in is that communication tends to happen either at the beginning or the end of the day locally – both times that one or the other party in our situation is asleep. California is sometimes an exception to that phenomenon as there are times that we are up early and they are up late we get a surprise response.
    
    The silver lining to that is that our texts are likely the first thing people see when they wake up so we usually get responses while people are drinking coffee. The same is true coming the other direction. Jill and I routinely wake up to messages that people sent us after we went to bed and we address those while drinking coffee.
    
    And we sometimes do have mid-day text chains, but we’ve found that things tend to be clustered around one end of the day or another.
    
    As far as voice calls go – there’s really no spontaneity – we just have to coordinate via message in advance. That’s just how that is.
    
    On the plus side, we live in an amazing place that our people seem to want to come visit and we’ve been on the receiving end of a bunch of visits from family and friends. A thing that I think is actually true is that we’ve spent more and higher quality time with some of the people we care about because they’ve come to visit us here. All the expats tell us that will taper off over time, but it’s always nice to see people we love walking out of baggage claim at LIS.
• How will Jill tolerate the “winters” in SMP? We’d been forewarned that SMP winters were “like Winter in southern France – dreary, cold, and wet.”
  • Jill gets the Blahs if she goes more than a few days without seeing the sun – so the preview sounded a little ominous. But, our first winter in SMP was a piece of cake. The days got pretty short around Christmas with only about 9.5 hours between sunrise and sunset, but by the end of January we’d already gained an hour of daylight back. There was one morning where there was frost on the grass and on some car windshields, but the lowest temperature my weather station recorded was 1.6C (35F). And the average winter temperature was 12.7C (55F). We only had a couple of stretches where it was cloudy and rainy for three consecutive days. We had one pretty good storm with very high winds at the tail end of winter. The high winds from that storm did damage all over Portugal, but our only impact was that it wrecked the jalapeño pepper seedlings that I’d put out in pots a couple of weeks too early (lesson learned). Generally speaking, even on the days where rain was forecast, the rain came in bands and we would have some watery sunshine between the bands. I’m coming to the conclusion that maybe that’s just the way coastal weather works. It can be clear and then rain can come out of nowhere and then it will be clear again – meaning we just need to be prepared in terms of dressing in layers and having rain jackets at hand. The locals tell us that this was a mild winter and that last winter it rained for two weeks straight. I would say that the one big take-away from our first winter in SMP is that you have to be prepared for the weather to change on short notice.
• How will Woody and Bulleit fare in the actual move?
  • This was more of a tactical concern than a strategic one. Woody and Bulleit are full voting members of our family pod and Jill and I were both more than a little worried about them while they were traveling as unaccompanied minors between Austin and Lisboa. We’d heard horror stories of pets arriving dehydrated and in bad shape from the journey, but that’s why we’d sprung for VIP service to get them to Portugal. This is where the team at petrelocation.com really shined. We got updates and pictures of W&B’s progress all the way through their journey and, other than the minor inconvenience of not having anything on hand to cut the zip-ties on their crates when we were reunited at the air freight terminal, it could not have been any smoother. We picked W&B up at the Lisboa airport in the wee hours of April 24, 2024 and by the time we all woke later up that same morning they were raring to go for their first walk. They haven’t looked back since then. They get 5 to 10 miles of walks every day and we have plenty of different routes to choose from (Jill often lets Bulleit pick the route – Woody is just happy to be on the team), all with views of the ocean. It never gets so hot in SMP that we can’t walk them, as was the case in Austin most days after 9AM from June through September when the pavement was too hot for their paws. Woody and Bulleit are both living their best lives in Portugal. As I type, they are sunbathing on our patio listening to the birds sing.
• Portuguese is HARD. What if we can’t learn it?
  • I wish I could say that we overestimated how hard Portuguese is to learn, but we did not. After taking pre-move Zoom lessons for a year in Austin, having Leonor tutoring us twice per week at our home since the move, and now seven months of thrice-weekly government-sponsored night classes at the high school under our belt my honest self-assessment is… I MIGHT be able to hold my own in a conversation with a Portuguese 5-year-old (but I can also confidently say that the 5-year-old would have a better grasp on the imperative verb tense than I currently do).
    
    That’s not to say that we are not making good progress, because we are. Our reading comprehension is ahead of our auditory comprehension. The way I would characterize our current ability to listen is that if you give us context before someone starts speaking we can mostly follow along. But without context we flounder. The good news is that mostly we are provided with some context. If we are in a Farmácia (pharmacy) picking up a prescription, we can safely bet that the pharmacist will be talking to us about our prescription. Similarly, in any café or restaurant we’ve got the context that we are going to be going through the mechanics of ordering, receiving, and paying for food and beverage. When we are walking W&B and a person coming our way says “Que lindos!” (How beautiful!), we know they are smitten with our dogs and the next question out of their mouths will be something along the lines of “Posso fazer festas aos vossos cães?” (Can I pet your dogs?).
    
    But, any random encounter where we don’t know what the person is speaking about can get out of hand in a hurry. Fortunately there are magic words one can utter in Portuguese that will reset any conversation. Those words are: “Pode falar mais devagar, por favor? Estou a aprender português.” which translates to “Can you speak more slowly, please? I am learning Portuguese.” Beyond their literal meaning there is a subtext to last four words. Because of the verb tense and sentence structure “Estou a aprender português.” conveys that you are ACTIVELY learning Portuguese at this very moment and invites the person that you are speaking with to be a part of your education. In those situations one thing ALWAYS happens followed by a couple of optional outcomes. The thing that ALWAYS happens is: The person you are talking to will smile and acknowledge that “Português não é façil.” (Portuguese is not easy.) and will be genuinely appreciative that you are at least trying to learn Portuguese. After that, either the two of you will find a way to muddle through in your rudimentary Portuguese with a lot of smiles and laughter and maybe some help from a translator app OR the person will say something like “Inglês?” (English?) and when you confirm their suspicion that you speak English they will try out their English on you because at least some of the time they are also ACTIVELY trying to learn English.
    
    As far as our ability to speak Portuguese, I think our pronunciation is getting better by leaps and bounds as we practice speaking and are gently (it’s always very gentle – never judgy) corrected. It’s generally slow going though because we are still learning a bunch of vocabulary and it takes a few extra seconds to make sure we know the right noun or verb and then get the gender and quantity right on the articles and adjectives. Jill and I have differing approaches to that particular problem. I just plow ahead knowing I’m going to make mistakes, but hoping my message will land in spite of that. And Jill takes a few extra seconds to doublecheck everything in her head and then delivers a fully accurate and coherent sentence.
    
    We are at the point where we are learning and using idioms, which gives us a certain amount of street cred with the natives. For example, in Portugal the way you say something is “Easy-peasy!” or “A piece of cake!” is “É canja!” (literal translation: “It’s chicken soup!”), which we now toss around with relative impunity.
    
    In summary, I think we are neither ahead of nor behind schedule on learning Portuguese, but we are making progress!
• Will we be able to find Our People?
  • This was never a concern of mine, but it was a big one for Jill. I am happy to report that our dance card is so full that I’ve asked Jill, at least partially tongue in cheek, to please stop making friends. Jill has also joined a group of “ambassadors” who act as resources to expats coming to our little corner of Portugal.
• Retiring AND moving to Portugal at the same time is a LOT of change. Will we have an identity crisis? What will we do with our days?
  • I can see how this could go badly for some people, but Jill and I have continued to try and view all of this as a grand adventure. We both absolutely LOVE our little town and are trying to get involved where we can. Jill is a part of a book club and has a steady trickle of ambassador contacts to attend to. I’m learning to make sourdough bread which takes a surprising amount of time, but all of our friends appear to appreciate my new hobby. We enjoy making the rounds at five different grocery stores (6 if you count the tiny Asian grocery store in Caldas da Rainha where I have to go to get dark soy sauce to make chicken adobo) to fill our larder. We spend two hours per day walking W&B, which is both a nice way to hide exercise and an easy way to meet people. And between Leonor and our class at the local school we spend 10 hours per week learning Portuguese.
    
    We’ve gotten to know most of the proprietors and staff of our favorite restaurants and cafés, which makes those experiences feel more familial.
    
    One project on the horizon for me is to try and find some land where I can have a garden and a beehive or two. I’m having fun researching that process and figuring out if I want to be a tenant farmer or own a hectare (10,000 square meters or about 2.5 acres) of land. In the mean time Leonor is showing me the ropes on her farm and letting me learn how things are done here.
    
    We have a morning ritual where we drink coffee and play our word games (Wordle, Connections, Quordle, and Octordle). Sharing those results among fellow players is a fun way to stay in touch with friends and family.
    
    And, so far, we’ve always been able to see the humor in any roadblocks that have popped up and have managed to smile our way to the other side.
    
    In summary, I see no signs of identity crisis and we certainly have no trouble filling our days.
• We’ve heard that the Portugal bureaucracy is nightmarish. How will we navigate that without knowing Portuguese?
  • The bureaucracy is real and it’s definitely been our experience that more-often-than-not when we present ourselves at any sort of official outlet that we are expected to be able to communicate in Portuguese. Fortunately at the MOST important appointment, which was our residency appointment with AIMA we both got someone who spoke English. But at the Segurança Social (Social Security), Instituto da Mobilidade e dos Transportes (DMV), Junta da Freguesia (Mayor’s office), and Centro de Saúde (our local health center where we registered for the national healthcare system) it was Portuguese from start to finish. Here’s the good news: In Portugal there’s always a FORM. So if you fill out the requisite form in advance of your visit you can familiarize yourself with the words you are likely to hear in person.
    
    AND if you start with the magic words: “Estou a aprender português.” even the most hardened bureaucratic heart will start to thaw and it will all be ok.
    
    Our most recent accomplishment was to exchange our US driver’s licenses for Portuguese ones. While we await our shiny new Portuguese driving licenses we currently only have the paper receipt from that IMT that they gave us when we forked over our US DLs. But last week we just received an email that our processing was complete and physical licenses would be forthcoming via CTT. Official mail tends to require a presentation of ID and a signature here in Portugal so I’m betting there’s probably a visit to João at CTT at City Hall in our near future.
• Will we have to adapt to eating fish every time we go out to dinner?
  • This one was just fake news. The Portuguese have a fish-forward diet and there are lots of fish-only restaurants – the standard preparation for fish is to grill fish with just olive oil and salt and they are masters at brothy rice (think risotto) with fish and shellfish. My favorite seafood discovery since arriving in Portugal is the brothy rice with razor clams at Taverna do 8 Ó 80 in Nazaré. But we’ve also found plenty of non-fish oriented and ethnic restaurants as all of our guests can attest.
• Will we be able to find dog care that gives us peace of mind when we are traveling?
  • This one is still an open question. We’ve got two viable options that absolutely LOVE W&B. They both send us photo and video updates multiple times per day. But, they’re both high stimulation environments with lots of friendly dogs. Woody thinks that’s the best thing ever, but Bulleit gets stressed out by all the stimulation and after 24-48 hours he starts to show physical symptoms from the stress. The staff knows this and does their best to compensate, but I think we are going to have to keep trying new things. Our current thought is to use our current providers for short stays and find someone to stay in our home for longer stints.
• What basic necessities are we not going to be able to find?
  • As of this writing, we have whittled this list down to three critical items that do not appear to exist on the Continent:
    
    1. Trader Joe’s Everything but the Bagel seasoning
    2. Heavy duty alumínio (did you see how I adopted the alternate spelling because I’m going native?) foil. As I’ve mentioned previously, the 2 micron thick standard foil here is just sad.
    3. A quality garlic press. I had an OXO garlic press that I absolutely loved in Austin, but I did not bring it. The garlic presses here are flimsy and hard to clean.
    
    Fortunately all of our visitors from the U.S. so far have been very willing to bring us humanitarian aid in the form of the items above so we are well stocked for the foreseeable future.

It’s not all skittles and beer, though. I do have two protests to lodge in the Book of Complaints:

1. Portuguese cheese – I think this is my biggest disappointment about my newly adopted country. When we moved here we were agog at the vast range of Portuguese cheeses on offer and eagerly started beavering our way through them. What we’ve both found is that there’s something about the Portuguese cheese making process (maybe the way they use the rennet?) that gives Portuguese cheeses, both hard and soft, a slightly sour aftertaste and in some cases makes your mouth tingle a little bit. Because it’s very consistent, it has to be on purpose. I think it’s a thing that Portuguese imprint on and they all like it, but we did not imprint on it and are struggling with it — struggling the way some people in my family struggle with the concept of mayonnaise (Rich Mosher) to the degree that we are now gun-shy about Portuguese cheeses. The only Portuguese cheese I’ve found without the sour aftertaste is Flamengo, which is the soft/melty Portuguese cheese that is used on toasties (what a nice twist of fate, since toasties are essential to my ongoing well-being). Because we’d like our Cheese Euros to benefit the local economy, we are forcing ourselves to keep trying Portuguese cheese varietals to try and find one that deserves a spot in the happy hour/nibbles rotation. Never fear, though… Until then we have easy access to fantastic Spanish (Manchego), English (Coastal Cheddar), and Dutch (Gouda) cheeses, plus all of the French and Italian cheeses.
2. Aggressive roadside curbs – In the U.S., roadside curbs are typically poured concrete with rounded edges and if you get too close to one you’ll feel it but you’ll be able to self-correct without damaging your vehicle. Here in Portugal, the curbs are generally quarried stone with a sharp right angle corner and a vertical face. Because the roads here tend to be “cozy” there’s not a lot of margin of error on the passenger side of the vehicle when passing oncoming traffic and when parking on the street. The first indication that you are too close to the curb is a horrible scraping sound on your wheel. I’ve now scraped the front passenger wheel on our trusty Renault Austral TWO times by getting too close to these curbs. The fault is mine, but – compared to the priority of giving oncoming traffic plenty of leeway – maintaining curb clearance wasn’t on my radar as a thing that I needed to be extra careful about. Now that I’m in the scraped wheel club I’ve made it a habit of checking cars as I walk past them and I would say at least 80% of the cars have some sort of curb-related scuff on their front passenger wheel. That does not make me feel any better about being in the club.

To put a bow on this assessment: Jill and I willingly opted into a certain amount of stress and anxiety when we decided to move to Portugal. Some fears were rational and some were irrational, but thus far I can confidently say that relative to our pre-adventure anxiety list… É canja!

Last night, after Portuguese class, a group of us went out for a delicious dinner at Quilha Mar – a local restaurant that Jill and I hadn’t been to yet. We are lucky to have a good group in our class. Everyone missed Jill and demanded that I send her a selfie.

As I was pulling into the parking lot at Quilha Mar, I looked up and saw a full rainbow which seemed to be symbolically apropos of how our grand adventure is going so far.

Now I just need to keep W&B amused until Jill gets back…

Adventure is out there!