Just a few things I’ve been thinking about as we pass the one year mark since we bought our property in Belas. I won’t be talking about the weather or the beaches or the natural beauty or gorgeousness of old world Europe, you can see all of that for yourself by Googling it. I’m talking about living in Portugal which is way way different than visiting it.
Having a good attitude makes for a better experience. It’s hard moving to a new place where you don’t know anyone and don’t speak the language, for sure; when bad things happen it can feel personal. Our house was broken into. Then someone stole some stuff off another part of our property. A neighbor turned us into the camera, claiming (falsely) that we were burning brush in July. A business owner put up an illegal sign on our wall and then threatened us when we asked him to take it down. We asked a neighbor to stop blocking our gate and he shouted at us. All of this happened in the first sixty days of being here. It wasn’t great but we kept calm and continued plugging away at our priorities and it all turned out okay. Our stolen stuff was returned. The camera stopped by to thank us for the work we’re doing on this formerly abandoned eyesore of a property. The sign poster is now a friend offering to help rebuild the wall and giving us free beers at his bar. The people taking stuff from our property were identified and stopped. The yelling guy moved his car and grudgingly returns my bom dia. Still don’t know what neighbor turned us in, but all of our other neighbors that we’ve befriended are indignant about it and actively spreading the word that the Americans in the old broken down house are nice hard working people restoring the place.
I rather like saying Hello, Good Day (or Good Afternoon) to everyone I pass. People here say it as a matter of course to friends and strangers alike. Sometimes I’ll pass a group of people talking amongst themselves and appearing not to notice me, and I say softly Ola, bom dia as I go by and without fail the entire group will chorus in unison Ola, bom dia. I can be quite introverted and the feeling of triumph at passing this unspoken test is indescribable.
A glass of fresh squeezed orange juice is a great way to start the day and also the frozen OJ I grew up with is hideous by comparison and should not be allowed. In California an 8 oz glass of fresh squeezed will run you $5+; here, it’s about one euro. Getting your own juicer is a good investment in yourself; the daily squeezing reminds you to take your vitamins and just like that you have a good start to your day.
You can’t start learning the language too soon (don’t wait til you actually make the move). Dedicate an hour a day to it (doesn’t have to all be in one chunk) and use different modi operandi. Once you arrive, try to have one conversation a day with a native speaker, even if it’s short, even if it’s just to go to a cafe to order pastel de nata and a bica and say esta bem hoje? Sometimes I engage an older person (fact: Portugal has one of the oldest populations in Europe) and they will talk at me for fifteen minutes straight, not requiring a response, just happy to be talking. It’s a great opportunity to listen closely and catch what words I can, and the other person, seeing my attention, is feliz para continua a falar. Having a hobby (em Portuguese: passatempo) that you can speak to others about helps a lot with making friends and learning the language not to mention self-development. Gardening, cycling, running, knitting, watching futebol, whatever. It’s easier to talk and understand when you know the context of what is being said
Cabbage is really good, and good for you, and really versatile, and better than kale.
Brasilian Portuguese is not the same as European Portuguese. Be aware that Duolingo teaches the former, which isn’t completely useless, but it may confuse you: the grammatical structure is different (for example Brasilian Portuguese uses the gerund, European Portuguese uses the infinitive, preceded by a preposition: the word for speaking is falando vs. a falar), some words are different (juice is suco vs. sumo, for example) and the accent is so different that my half-Brasilian step-daughter said that she couldn’t understand anything the Portuguese flight attendants were saying on the intercom during her flight over. When she arrived, no one had any trouble understanding her when she spoke - Brasilians make of 29% of foreigners in Portugal, so most natives will understand you - but her confusion at what she was hearing was almost equal to mine.
Free healthcare and education are a boon to a society and all the individuals in it, full stop. A society that doesn’t provide this at a high level for its citizens will eventually have strife, and is weakening itself from within for the purpose of profiting a few individuals in the insurance industry.
It’s nice and relaxing not to have to worry about getting shot by a gun-wielding idiot in traffic, at the movies, at a concert, and to not turn on the news and hear the words “active shooter”.
Using two flat sheets instead of a fitted and flat sheet eliminates a totally unnecessary form of stress.
A dog is a great ambassador - you meet people, you are out and about walking and becoming a familiar sight, you have to interact with the people selling the services you need to care for your dog or reassuring them it’s okay to pet him, he is friendly.
Mini beers are better. A Portuguese friend told me the reason they are proliferate here is because the government asked the main producers (Sagres and Super Bock) to make smaller sizes to encourage less drinking, and maybe that’s true. One morning about 7:30a the h and I were in Amadora, the most densely populated city in the country, at what was clearly a working man’s cafe. We were enjoying our pastel de nata and cafe when I noticed that a) I was the only woman, surrounded by men in workpants and caps and b) almost every man was drinking a mini-beer. Most had two before departing for work. We observed this same phenomenon at another cafe during lunchtime, when the workers next to us had mini beers with lunch and then a shot of liquor (amêndoa amarga or medronho or ginga, depending on where you live) at the end of their meal, a common practice here not unlike the digestivo is in Italy. This is not all workers by any means; the men we are lucky enough to have working on our property work like Swiss watchmakers, possibly because they worked in Switzerland for more than a decade…the financial crisis in Portugal resulted in a migration of workers to Switzerland, where the Portuguese make up 12% of foreigners in that country. No matter the reason they exist I prefer the mini beer. They are just the right size to stay cold while drinking it. They are refreshing without making you feel full or heavy or sleepy.
The rumors about bureaucracy here are sometimes true - it is often slow and unwieldy. If you assume the people in the bureaucracy are doing their best and suffer as much as you do from the lack of transparency and efficiency in the systems they are trying to navigate, things will generally go more smoothly or at least be more pleasant. Here, patience is a virtue, waiting is an art, and nothing is worth getting stressed about. What will be will be.
Chickens are hardy, hilarious and hard to catch unless they want to be caught. When we first viewed our property by video we saw a chicken strut past the real estate agent as he held up his iPhone to show us the front courtyard. A rooster crowed in the distance. Yes, there are some wild chickens living here, he said in answer to our inquiry. We discovered during the lengthy clean up process - the property has been abandoned for decades, all of the buildings full of all matter of detritus left by the previous owners - there was a chicken coop, so completely covered with ivy and brambles and the branches of an enormous fig tree that even the realtor didn’t know it was here. And what a coop it is - a stone building with three rooms, and a large courtyard laid with the famous calcadas. Clearly the flock of feral chickens that free range around the property - about forty in all, the roosters outnumbering the hens almost two to one - is descended from chickens that once lived in domesticated bliss in their private kingdom long ago. I’m relieved that the neighbors do not complain, but then again the chickens have lived here for much longer than we have, and everyone is accustomed to them, and even a little proud or at least cheerfully tolerant (the Galo de Barcelos is the symbol of Portugal). I like them because I don’t need an alarm clock, they wake me up every morning, a high school aged neighbor girl told me. She tactfully did not mention that sometimes the roosters go off at all hours of the night like a roomful of alarm clocks. They are pretty much one big happy family, and accustomed to their freedom so it has taken me awhile to get them to do what I want - which is to stop feeding around my plants in the Secret Garden and front courtyard and take their meals and lay their eggs at the coop. But after a year in residence they now recognize and trust us - me because I feed them, the h because, with his regular weed whacking and tree trimming and rototilling, can be counted on to provide ample new areas to scratch for insects. Some of them even allow us to pick them up and hold them, and a few of them enter the house at will in search of a handout. I never thought I’d love a chicken, but here I am with Princess Leia, Alphonse, Potsy, Sette and Mr. T numbering among the creatures I talk to and interact with on a daily basis, and I do love them and I don’t care who knows it.
Thank you for this baker's dozen of your observations! Thank you also for sharing how keeping your cool and persevering through your initial setbacks and challenges helped give your neighbors time to see that you are serious about this property and about being people worth knowing and having as neighbors and friends. Those first 60 days could have made less doughty people never want to talk to anybody, but you kept your eyes on the prize and stayed open to the people around you (and also to all the surprises on your property!). Thank you for the example, and for sharing your stories! For someone who writes horror, I find your calm, thoughtful tone a tonic.
My wife and I immigrated from the US to Portugal in January, and live in a pleasant apartment in Tavira, a small city that we love for its beauty and its vibrant civic life full of music and poetry. We're both introverts, and we're making friends in Tavira about as slowly as we did in the States (ahem). We really appreciate the lively Academia Sénior (we retired early, rapidly approaching our 60s), which is mostly Portuguese speakers. You're so right about taking advantage of all the language learning tools and strategies, and having actual conversations as much as possible. We've been shy about the expat groups, and busy with various tasks settling in, but I know we need to be deliberate about making friends of all kinds and building a social life.
Thanks again for Under the Jacarandas!
New reader here. I love this post! We moved to Portugal about 15 months ago and I’m in agreement with your point about attitude. I’m so glad your sticky situations have mostly resolved. The people here are kind and relationship ships are important to them. I’ve subscribed so I’m looking forward to more of your writing!