Post-Christmas Post! Happy 2013!

Well, the holidays are over and I think I have learned quite a lot about Portugal and the Portuguese this holiday season.  Here is a list, in no particular order:

1.  Many stores provide free gift wrapping when you buy things there.  The only downside is that you have to do it yourself and it's pretty obvious to the gift recipient where you bought it.  All the supplies are there, though!

2.  It seems impossible to buy Scotch tape in the stores.  I had to use a gluestick to seal my presents when I wrapped them.  Tape just seems less gloppy.

3.  The Portuguese are absolutely in love with those Santa Clauses that you can attach to the windows of your house so that it looks like he's having a hard time getting in and may be about to fall OFF the house.  I have never seen so many of that particular decoration before.  I find this strange.  I haven't seen any inflatable decorations, though!

4.  Lagos has a lot of roundabouts and the city decorated them all for the holidays.  They really looked nice, and now that the decorations are gone they look a bit bereft.  I'll get used to them, though.

5.  There are no pine trees here, so everyone either has a fake tree or does something else.  We decorated a lemon tree in the courtyard of the house where we were staying.  The ornaments didn't show up nearly as well as on a pine tree.

6.  Many of the same Christmas carols are sung here as in the US--and there is not even a HOPE of snow in this part of Portugal.

7.  Apart from the decorating of the roundabouts, I didn't see much of a "public" Christmas tradition here, except of course for the stores.  They got in on the action starting before Thanksgiving, even (although obviously the Portuguese don't celebrate Thanksgiving, so that's my own method of dating).  There weren't really many Christmas markets (although there were a couple of bazaars, but they only lasted about a weekend) and there is no glühwein either!  What is Christmas without mulled wine of some kind?  Of course, when it's warm, it seems less necessary, but I still missed it.

8.  There are no candy canes here.  I didn't eat one candy cane all year!  On a related note, there is no candy corn for Halloween either, which I'm sure is healthier for my teeth than in the US, where I can't resist it, even though it's pretty awful.  We'll see, come Easter, if there are any Cadbury Creme Eggs.  There are so many British people here, though, that perhaps there will be.  Another candy I'm better off without...

9.  There is no marshmallow fluff here.  I really dislike the stuff, but it's very hard to make fudge without it, though.  My fudge was absolutely disgusting and even I didn't like it much.  Fortunately for me,  my mom actually SENT me some (and some cranberry bread too) all the way from North Carolina!  Thanks, Mom!

10.   People eat bachalau (a particular cod fish dish) on Christmas Eve and turkey on Christmas Day, traditionally.  I'm in favor of the turkey but don't really like bachalau.  And no, I can't really describe how it's made.  Sorry!

Over Max's break we house/dog sat for some friends (I posted pictures of Pica in the last post), so we were able to cook Christmas dinner and have a fire.  Here are a few pictures that we took Christmas Eve while it was still light outside.  It was a bit strange because the tree was outside, since we decorated the lemon tree.  Then we took the presents inside to open them.  We did have a very nice Christmas, though!

Frank and Me on Christmas Eve by Max

Max by Me, Christmas Eve

Max

More of Max's Work

Max Under the Decorated Lemon Tree

You can see the decorations better in this one

Max Wishing It Were Time to Open Presents

Max With a Hole in his Smile and Frank Without One

Max and Me by Frank (it appears that I went a bit overboard on the eyeshadow)

Max and Me Kissing Under the Lemon Tree

After Christmas, we rented a car and went up to Lisbon for a couple of days.  On the way, though, we stopped at three beautiful towns--Evora, Marvau, and Castelo de Vide.  You may have seen these pictures on Facebook, but I am adding them here too.

This is Frank's "Cubist House."  

The "Chapel of Bones"

Marvau

Cathedral in Evora

Near Evora

In the Lisbon Botanical Garden

The Lisbon Botanical Garden

Lisbon Fishermen

Castelo de Vide

Near Evora

Monastery in Evora

The Tower of Belem, Lisbon

Max talking to the guys at the bar in Evora

In the estuary near Setubal

Vasco da Gama is in here!

On the road to Lisbon

Frank is the travel planner extraordinaire--he runs a very good tour service and we had a great trip!  The towns we stopped in on the way were beautiful and we had gorgeous weather.  The only bad weather was New Year's Eve in Lisbon, when it started to rain.  It was nice the next day, though, for our trip home and our stop at the estuary.  We didn't see any birds, though.  Lisbon is beautiful and very walkable, although it's large.  It's built on seven hills and has lots of little neighborhoods that we didn't really get to explore this time but hopefully we will be back there again soon.

We all hope that 2013 brings you all that you hope it will!

Houses, Boats, and Cars (oh my!)

18 December

We are dog sitting for some friends in Figuiera, which is a little village about ten miles outside of Lagos; it's also where Max's school is, so if school were in session we could walk there, which would be very useful considering the state of the car (more on that later).  In any case, Pica is a quirky Chihuahua (spelling?) who was a in a major snit when we first arrived.  Even though she knows us, we are not her people and she was definitely NOT impressed.  However, she recovered and let me take a few pictures of her.  Max bribed her with wet food (she was definitely NOT going to eat the treat I offered her) and she thawed out.  Then she decided that she likes sitting on Frank and has even decided that she would try to sleep in the bed with us.  I have a cold and since I was coughing so much last night I went and slept in the kids' room.  She was already in the bed, so I didn't kick her out.   Chihuahuas can take up a lot of room when they want to!

Pica being annoyed that the paparazzi have found her

Mug shot (profile)

Trying to sweet talk the photographer

It's really nice having the space of the house--we can even be in separate rooms if we want to--but the nicest thing is being the only people who ever use the bathroom.  Frank is also very pleased to be able to take a bath again.  Max actually took two baths in twelve hours, but he said he didn't use soap the second time.  In any case, here are a few pictures of the house, although if I had really had my act together I would have picked up all our clutter first.

The kitchen window, stove, and dishwasher

Courtyard with cluttered table, lemon tree, and outdoor fireplace.  There are no Christmas trees in Portugal, so we'll decorate the lemon tree.

Messy kitchen table

The only downside is that the washer is very quirky, which means that it is taking me an average of 2.5 days to do a load of laundry.  To be fair, what takes a lot of time is waiting for stuff to dry, but I do miss our absolutely not-state-of-the-art-but-free washer and dryer on Behan Street.  However, this is a quibble, really.

Living room

Master bedroom and door to bathroom

Loft bed with quilt hanging down (Max sleeps here).  I don't know if you can see the railing, but he can't fall out.

Bea and Vasco's room (they are the kids who actually live in the house)

Looking out the door of the kids' room into the hallway

Courtyard with outdoor table and lemons hanging in the foreground

We've been on two hikes around here since we've been here.  Jade loves to hike and would be so happy in a house with lots of space for her to run around.  Yesterday's hike was especially interesting because we had to break through the bamboo and the briars to get to the trail we needed.  It was frustrating because we could see it but couldn't get to it and it was starting to get dark.  We did finally make it, though.  Max was a terrific hiker and never complained.  Jade, of course, was ecstatic.  Here are a few pictures from our hikes:

Toadstools

Looking down from the cliff

Approaching the cliff

This looked like a fairy mound to me.

Happy happy dog

On the way home--beautiful light!

Cool-looking rock (Frank took this one)

Some sort of ruin that you can see from  just outside the house

Heading back to the village.

Max checking for enemy forces

Max looking like a movie star

The toothless wonder!

This last picture brings me to my next major event:  after being loose since June, Max's top right tooth FINALLY fell out, so now he's got a rectangular hole in his head.  I'm guessing it will be a while before another one comes out, as Max's teeth tend to take their own sweet time doing anything.  They didn't arrive quickly and they aren't falling out quickly either.  That's OK, though, because each lost tooth makes him look just a little bit too much older.

Now the bad news:  Jade, unfortunately, is still looking for a home with more space.  I so hate to see her go, but she really needs to be somewhere where she can run around and chase the birds.

The other piece of very bad news is that our cute little convertible has a cracked head gasket.  We aren't sure yet whether we'll have to junk the car or not, but we are hoping to be able to find a used part.  New ones are apparently very, very rare, as it's a very rare engine.  In any case, we are out in the country without a car, so it's a bit inconvenient, but we will make it work.  There are buses, of course, and Figuiera isn't very big, so it's not as if we are stuck.

The weather has been nice--not nearly as windy out here as it was in Lagos just before we left.  Max is still playing soccer three times a week (or will be again in January),  I videoed his end-of-term performance but it's a big file, so I have to figure out how to get it out.  Maybe I'll break down and try YouTube.

In any case, that's about it from here!  We hope you all have wonderful holidays!

It's November...

8 November 2012

Once again I cannot believe how long it's been since I've updated this blog!  And no, it's not that I'm doing so many things; I actually have no idea what I've been doing.  I just told my sister in an email that it's not that I don't have anything to do, it's that I don't have any specific time at which it needs to be done, so that means that it's hard to structure the day.  However, I will persevere!

The biggest news is that we got our residency cards in the mail, so now we are legal residents for the next year, which is a huge thing off our minds.  I am sure that there must be just as much bureaucracy in the US when something like this needs to be done; it just seems easier to do it because of the familiarity of it all.  In any case, we got it done and our mug shots (that's what they look like, honestly) and fingerprints are now on record with the Portuguese government AGAIN.

It's been incredibly rainy here, much more so than usual.  Apparently last year was very dry, so this year is a deluge.  It is also very inconvenient that our bimini leaks and we are trying to have it replaced but so far are not having much luck.  The arguments with the company we bought the boat from continue...

Frank is trying to resurrect his golf game.  The first time he went out was terrible, apparently, and should have resulted in a course ban (in his own mind), but the next one was better, so now he's decided that perhaps he is not at the end of his golf life yet.

I am trying to learn some Portuguese, and structurally it is sort of similar to French, but then again it isn't.  Pronounciation is something else entirely.  Max's Portuguese is coming along, although he doesn't think so.  He's recently decided that he wants to specialize in defense on the soccer field.  He played goalie once in practice but wasn't entirely convinced.

Jade came through her spaying just fine and is settling in.  I think once she gets over the puppy stage she'll work out very well.

I guess that's about all the news from here at the moment!

19 October 2012

It's been busy here in the past week or so.  A week ago Wednesday Frank did the paperwork to get the car I mentioned the last post, and on Friday we took possession.  It's a cute little red one (you might have seen the pictures on Facebook), and it's a convertible.  Frank says he's too old for a mid-life crisis, but there you are.  It's perfect convertible weather here.  I drove it to the grocery store the other day with no problems (not that I expected to have any with the car, but I had not driven to the store before even though I had walked there).  The only hairy bit was that an unexpected bicycle race came down the road.  At first I thought it was just a club with a few riders, but a few minutes after the first group of about 20, another couple of hundred came.

Last Friday was a get-to-know-you party at Max's school.  Everyone was asked to bring a traditional food or drink from their country, so we brought a three-layer dip of guacamole, bean dip, and salsa. I would have liked the bring Mom's seven-layer dip, but there is no such thing as sour cream here!  It was nice being able to drive there rather than being dependent on the bus.  Max really likes driving with the top down, but I think we need to keep his sunglasses in the car so that the air doesn't hit him in the eyes so hard.

Then last Saturday Jade arrived!  Our plan was to go out to the shelter here in Lagos and see what dogs were available and then get one the next week, but one of their volunteers lives just around the corner from the marina and she was fostering a dog at her apartment that we met.  Jade is a Portuguese Podengo cross, although we're not sure what the "cross" is.  She had a rough time before coming to us, having been rehomed with a family who left her outside by herself all the time and didn't feed her, so she's pretty scrawny.  She weighs about 11 kilos (24.2 lbs.), although I would like to see her gain about five more pounds.  She doesn't eat much, but I'm thinking that might be from the stress of being rehomed again.  In any case, she is the best-behaved puppy I think I've ever met.  Admittedly, she is five months old, so she's old enough to have learned a few things, but it was nice to realize that she's quite well housebroken.  She had one accident the first night we had her, but that was my fault because I hadn't learned her signals yet.  At night, once she is satisfied that we are all in for the night, she'll go to bed and be quiet until the morning.  She can hold it from about 10PM to after 7AM!  I'm impressed.

Her downside, of course, is that she's a puppy and loves to chew.  Frank's slippers hold a special place in her heart.  Why is it that puppies always want what they are NOT supposed to have rather than what they are?  Why are slippers and other shoes so much more appealing than rope toys and Nylabones?

The weather is getting cooler, but still nice.  Yesterday was the worst day so far.  It rained all day long and never got above 62 or 63.  The thing that cracks me up is how offended I am that it rained.  It's been so nice for so long that I had almost forgotten what rain is like and how dependent I am on the weather being nice to do things easily.  It didn't help that it was also the coldest day so far, but we all survived in the end.  t went out to school to help out in the afternoon and the kids went outside in spite of the weather if they wanted to.  Max did, of course!  The teachers weren't kidding when they said at the beginning of the year that all the kids need raincoats and rain boots!  I also need to send him another change of clothes because they all get incredibly dirty sometimes too.  There is this special mud out there that gets into EVERYTHING, so it's just play clothes for school here!

Max is picking up some Portuguese, and it's obvious that he understands more than he can say at this point.  I am doing a course with Babbel online, but that's unfortunately dependent on the quirkiness of the internet.  At this point, I can say hello and ask someone where s/he is from.  That's more than I could do before, but not nearly as much as I would like to do!

Max has also started an art class here at the marina with an artist who has a gallery here.  He's only been once, but he really liked it.  They've added another soccer practice during the week in preparation for games on weekends, but Max missed the first one last night because it was pouring rain.

Now that we've got the car and the dog, it's time for me to get into a little more structured routine.  Wish me luck, people!

Max's Birthday and Other News

9 October 2012

I don't think I've updated since Max started back to school on September 24th.  He seems to be enjoying it and our transportation situation is working out pretty well.  I take him out to meet Lilia (his lift) and her son (who is in Max's class) at about 7:45 each morning.  Then he comes back in the afternoon with them, usually by 4:30.  The school day goes from 8:30-1:30, when the kids eat lunch and then play and do other sorts of unstructured activities until about 4:00.

The day is structured roughly like this:  most of the academic work takes place between 8:30 and 10:45, when they get a break of about half an hour to eat a snack and play.  Max usually brings a little sandwich because he's hungry by then, having eaten breakfast at 7:00.  Then they go back to work until about 12:30, when they take a quick break for a bit of fruit or something, and then they eat lunch at 1:30.  The food is all vegetarian and largely organic and--amazingly--Max loves it!  Lilia says he's eating really well.  He would never eat this stuff for us!  Since he is such a carnivore, though, we do try and cook meat on the weekends for him.

His class only has six students in it, and it's pretty diverse:  two Portuguese kids, two Americans, and two Germans, I think (one from Switzerland and one from Germany).  Unfortunately, with all these different languages being spoken (and so much English), Max isn't learning Portuguese nearly as quickly as we'd like.  We (Frank and I and Bea's mom, Laura) are hoping that maybe we can arrange for him and Bea to have Portuguese while the others are having English, since they really don't need to learn English in school!  He is picking up some, though; I think it's probably a question of just being patient, which is never my strong suit.

Max likes his teacher, Luis (I do too), whose job I would never want to have!  He is really great with the kids, very patient and willing to make allowances for the kids who haven't learned Portuguese yet.  I was at the school yesterday with a cake for Max and before they had the cake they were finishing up something (I don't know what it was because it was in Portuguese), so I was behind the partition listening to them and Luis was very patient, even when the kids got a bit loud.

The only bad thing about this transportation arrangement is that in Portugal, like Spain, a woman on the side of the road is always interpreted to be doing one thing.  No one makes any assumptions in the morning, though, because Max is with me and he's got his backpack on, so it's obvious that we are waiting for a lift for him, but in the afternoon when I am alone it's different, especially because there is no bench or anything to sit on where I have to wait.  The situation was not helped at all one day when I ran smiling up to a little white car that had pulled off, thinking that it was Lilia.  There are too many little white cars in this country!  It wasn't, and the woman in the car gave me an EVIL look.  Then I decided that perhaps I should bring a book with me in the future!  Where I wait is determined by where Lilia can pull over to let him out.  There is a rock, however, so I've determined that the only way to deal with this is to bring a book and sit on my rock and not look up AT ALL until she comes.  She always sends me a text before they leave so I know when to get there.

Max had a fun birthday yesterday, although we were sorry to wake him up early for school.  In his class, they had a ceremony in which they burned a paper heart with a 6 on it and replaced it with a 7.  Max says that when he turns 8 it will be even bigger.  Then they sang a song in Portuguese and Max got to wear a crown of laurel.  I've posted pictures on Facebook, so in the event that you are reading this blog and we are not Facebook friends, let me know!  I was outside the room at this point, so I didn't see it, but I did hear Bea comment:  "I can't believe we are allowed to BURN things!"  I did point out to her later when she said it to me again that it wasn't as if they were burning the place down and Luis was the person in charge of it.  Then I came in with the cake and Max lit the candle.  His class sang to him in Portuguese, German, and English, and then they made me sing in French.  Max thought the alternative version was pretty funny when I sang it to him while we were waiting for Lilia: "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, you look like a monkey and you act like one too!", so he got Luis to sing that to him in Portuguese and then he cackled.  After the cake I left and Max finished off the school day.

After school, Laura picked him up and she brought him and Bea and Vasco over to the marina for cake and presents.  The electricians were working on the boat (more of that in a minute) so it was too chaotic here, so we went over by the pool and celebrated there.  Our temporary neighbors, who also have a sic-year-old boy, also came.  Then later on we went out for dinner and Max ate a huge plate of spaghetti.  After dinner he got to Skype (much too briefly) with his aunt, uncle, and grandparents, and then hit the sack.  All around a good birthday, I think!

In other news, we finally got our fiscal numbers!  Those are the numbers which allow us to pay taxes, but even more importantly, they allow us to do all sorts of things that I am probably unaware of.  However, the necessary things that I am aware of include:  establishing our residency, switching our health insurance, registering the car, and getting a contract for our portable internet hotspot.  It was a pain because as Americans we had to find a Portuguese resident who would serve as our fiscal representative (basically that means she will pay our debts should we skip the country owing someone, which obviously we will not do), so once that was done we went last week and began the process, only to find out that the system was down.  Friday was a national holiday so the office was closed, so we all went back on Monday and took care of it.  Yippee!!

We are also hoping to have a car this week.  Frank found a cute little Fiat convertible without too many miles on it, so once the minor repairs are done on it, we are planning to buy it.  It will make our lives much easier to have a vehicle!

Max is very happy that the cord for the Wii came in--he's been waiting for weeks.  Now if I can just get  it to show up on the TV in color...

The electrician finally came yesterday and fixed all the things on the boat that needed fixing:  the radar, the autopilot, and some of the wiring.  Now all our lights work--we brushed our teeth with the lights on for the first time in three months!

And finally, the other major thing that we want to do is to get a dog.  We've been planning on doing it for a while, but this week I am going to make arrangements to see some.  I'm not sure if we should take Max with us or not, but I'm thinking that we should, so he can have some input.

The Summer is Over! The Summer is Over!--Final Summer Blog Post

23 September 2012

The summer is over!  Max is going back to school tomorrow!  I am so excited I can hardly stand it!  OK, now that I've gotten that out of my system...

It has been a truly wonderful summer.  We've gotten to travel more than I ever thought possible, we finally managed to find a boat and get moved into it and gotten it here and we're learning our way around Lagos.  We've seen Max's school, met the teachers, helped work on the school getting it ready for the year to start, and we've gotten to spend way more "quality time" with Max than most parents ever get to spend with their children.  It's been truly fantastic and life is good...

However, it's time for Max to head back to school.  I know he's enjoyed the summer, but he's looking forward to going back and using his brain for things besides math games on the computer.  Since he's been hanging out with us so much, his time with other kids has been limited.  He's met some kids at the pool, but they have mostly been on vacation and have had to leave within a few days, so it will be fun for him to meet some more permanent friends.  Also, since he will learn Portuguese, it will be easier for him to understand what's happening at soccer practice and to talk more with his teammates there.  Max is excited about learning Portuguese and I am looking forward to getting into a bit more of a routine.  I've been wracking my brains trying to decide what to do with myself professionally and once Max is gone during the day I'll be able to devote some serious time to this issue.  I'm also looking forward to playing tennis with Frank (if he can keep all comments, both good and bad, to himself :) ), and coming up with some sort of exercise routine.  Frank and I are also planning on taking some Portuguese classes too.

All the parents of the first class were asked to make some sort of roll/case for the students' drawing utensils, so I am including pictures of what I made here.  I know I've posted these on Facebook, but I am way too excited about it, although now that I'm looking at it I wish I had made it smaller.

All rolled up-the ribbon is to tie it.

It's got individual spots for the wide ones and the narrow ones.

The back of it, with his name and the year.

This past week was quite busy.  We rented a car for three days and did some sightseeing.  On Tuesday we went to Silves and checked out the old Moorish castle.  

The Max who ate the canary...

This was the inside of the cafe where Max had ice cream and Frank and I had coffee.  Such a pretty room!

Wednesday we went to the water park.  We had promised Max for ages that we would take him once September came and the tourists left so it wouldn't be crowded (it was also nice that in September he got to go for free) and we were right.  There was almost no one there and we never had to wait longer than about two minutes to do anything--Max even got to sit in the front row of the roller coaster three times!  No pictures from there because I wanted to go on things too, but here is a picture of a picture of Max holding a boa constrictor...

Thursday we went to Sagres (about 30 km the other direction) and saw the fort and the end of Portugal.  Then we went to one of the most beautiful beaches in the world for lunch and a swim before we had to return the car at 4:30, so here are a few pictures from that little jaunt...

Today was our first rain since we've been here, and it was not only rain, but it was a full-blown thunderstorm.  It lasted about an hour and then it was cloudy for most of the rest of the day before the sun came through.  It's supposed to be nice for Max's first day of school tomorrow, so will post more soon!