Monthly Archives: December 2020

Reality Check Observations

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From the daily and mundane to more complex matters that we tend to take for granted, the ways people in one country do things often differ quite a bit from how they’re done in another.

Take banking, for instance.

Checks are virtually unheard of here in Portugal and Spain. Instead, one does almost everything through “Multibanco” machines that do much more than disperse cash from your account, or allow you to move money from one account to another within the same bank.

You can pay bills and/or transfer money to other people, businesses, and government agencies … regardless of their bank. And those recurring charges—like your electric, water, car payment, insurance, and telecommunication bills? They’re billed to and paid directly by the bank, without you needing to lift a finger. Forgotten your personal IBAN number? You can obtain it — as well as a history of your transactions, withdrawals and money deposited — electronically through your home computer or mobile device and, of course, the Multibanco!

Driving is another activity that’s quite different on this side of the pond than the other. No, I’m not referring to which side of the road we drive on or where your vehicle’s steering wheel and pedals are located. It’s much more complicated than that.

Consider speeding …People where we live in Portugal tend to be either speed demons or slow pokes. They’ll tailgate your butt before pulling away and leap-frogging several vehicles to get ahead of you (even if you’re driving over the posted speed limit) … or they’ll drive you bonkers because of their motorcycle-cum-cars with sewing machine engines that slow everyone down, since they just can’t get up to and maintain speed.

Keeping up with (if not ahead of) traffic is the name of the game here. And, whether or not you’re driving fast “enough,” there are always those who want to drive faster. So, move onto those special “laggard lanes” on the right, where available, and allow others to pass you!

Speed “bumps” are serious here, big and high, rather than the puny strips usually found in the USA. Then there are those “rumble strips,” urging you to slow down—especially when approaching a stop or yield sign. And, each time you enter a village on a paved, country road, heed the “Velocidad Controlada” signs. Exceed the designated speed limit and you’ll automatically trigger a red traffic light. Those striped lines where passengers have the right-of-way to cross the street? They do! And roundabouts (???!!!) Personally, I loathe them; but many swear by them—no matter how convoluted or complex. Give me a good, old-fashioned red, green, and yellow traffic light any day—blinking or not!

Without rhyme or reason, and in no logical order, here are some other curious or odd observations we’ve noticed while living in Portugal and Spain, which make living here quite different than back in the colonies:

• Coin-chained supermarket carts cut down the clutter and damage caused by shopping carts abandoned, helter-skelter, in parking lots.

• I’m not particularly a fan of “soft” drinks or soda “pop.” But, every so often I do crave a Coke or Pepsi. Sugar (not artificial sweeteners) is used here. Likewise, I’ve yet to pick up a bottle or can of almost any condiment and found the equivalent of “High Fructose Corn Syrup” listed as an ingredient. Someone told me that such preservatives are prohibited here. If so, good for us!

And forget about meals eaten at “American times.” Restaurants don’t even open here for dinner before 7:00 PM … and few tables are taken earlier than 20:00.

• Food and drink beg mentioning the sensitive topic of tipping. In the USA, where restaurant workers and other service providers frequently earn less than the minimum wage, tipping is appreciated and practiced – especially for superior service – typically to the tune of 15%-20% of the bill. (Some restaurants now automatically add a “courtesy charge” gratuity to your tab.) While certainly appreciated, tipping isn’t expected or necessarily proffered in the smaller towns of Spain and Portugal. Most people we know who do tip, will leave one euro or fifty cents for a €20-25 bill. Still, the workers are surprised … and genuinely grateful.

• Vehicle license plates (“tags”) stay with the car in Portugal and don’t change with each new owner. Look at the plate: you’ll know the month and year when a vehicle was first registered and put on the road.

• Used cars come with an obligatory full year warranty in Portugal, rather than 30-60 days of “power train” coverage. But, there’s more paperwork required before you drive a car off the dealer’s lot: among other things, you’d best bring acceptable documentation attesting that there’s adequate insurance coverage in effect on said vehicle.

• Pets need to wear seat belts when out in the car, driving with their families. It’s the law here. We’re not talking about those improbable imitations of baby car seats adapted to dogs (or cats), but a leash that attaches to your pet’s collar on one end and gets inserted to the seat belt buckle/clasp on the other. There’s plenty of leeway for the dogs to sit, stand, lie down, even roll over … but they can’t jump out the car window or bolt from a door that accidentally opens. Rather not tether them using these pet seat belts? Then, you’ll need to transport them in appropriate pet carriers.

• People, by and large, tend to treat their pets (especially dogs) differently in Portugal and Spain than do Americans. It’s not that they don’t love them or consider them part of their families, it’s just that the psychology – between both people and pets – differs from what we’ve been used to in the USA. We’re those “Americanos lo/u/cos” who treat their pets like surrogate children and walk their dogs on leashes, picking up after them and depositing their litter in refuse receptacle bins. Most small town Portuguese and Spaniards open the door and let their dogs (and cats) out to roam the streets and take care of their business. After all, it’s their business … not theirs.

• Expanding into more personal hygiene, at the risk of being offensive, it behooves me to mention bidets and toilets. Most Americans know what bidets are, even if we find them somewhat redundant. All I will say is, “Try it, you’ll like it.” As regards the even more sensitive subject of toilets, let’s just say that the paper here isn’t what Charmin has led us to expect. Few small towns and villages here have plumbing that can accommodate anything other than human waste, which means that tampons, tissues, paper towels, and even toilet paper must be disposed of alternatively (and appropriately).

• Houses shouldn’t be money pits—so, people, not houses, are heated and cooled. Outside the USA, fuel and petrol-based products cost more. Why heat or cool an entire house, when we’re occupying only certain rooms or areas? Unlike the USA, where whole houses often are “air conditioned” — heated or cooled — including rooms and spaces that aren’t in use or occupied, Europeans use “inverter” units in separate rooms. When sleeping, the bedroom aircon is turned on. Feeling cold while entertaining company? Only wood burners, pellet stoves, or space heaters in the kitchen, dining area, and/or gathering space need to be operating, while the rest of the house isn’t consuming energy. No need to keep a tank heated–just heat the water when/if you need it. Gas-powered water heaters provide an unending stream of hot water (until the gas tank runs dry, usually at the most awkward and uncomfortable moments).

• Mediterranean Europeans – those from Portugal, Spain, and Italy especially – enjoy their long lunch “hours.” They wouldn’t think of working on vacation days or many “ferias” and holidays celebrated throughout the year. Often, they don’t begin work before 10:00 AM and pace themselves according to their internal dictates and physical needs, rather than external schedules and time clocks.

• Is Portugal alone among the Romance languages in the way it counts and designates days? Spanish, French, and Italian all have similar words for Monday (Lunes, Lundi, Lunedi) through Saturday (Sábado, Samedi, Sabato) and Sunday (Domingo, Dimanche, Domenica) … but, when it comes to Portuguese, except for the weekend, the days of the week are determined by when they fall in terms of Sunday as the first day of the week and market days: Segunda-feria (Monday), Terça (Tuesday), Sexta-feria (Friday). It’s too confusing for me to keep count!

• I’d be doing us all a disservice if not mentioning the need to come to grips with international weights and measures. With my trusted tape measure, I can deal with centimeters vs. inches. But I always go online to convert kilos to pounds and kilometers to miles. Forget about converting temperatures between Celsius vs. Farenheit. Nobody will ever convince me that an infernal 118ºF isn’t hotter than 48ºC … or that 0ºC isn’t colder than its 32ºF equivalent!

Obviously, these are just my personal observations … and some may be skewed or faulty. Nonetheless, Russ and I believe ourselves better off now because of these differences that teach us to value the customs of one country – and its culture – even when compared to another.

Maybe you have observed other comparative distinctions between life as an expat here and your prior experiences elsewhere. Please, share them so that others can be better prepared to appreciate the value of our diverse ways and means.

Shared here are personal observations, experiences, and happenstance that actually occurred to us as we moved from the USA to begin a new life in Portugal and Spain. Collected and compiled in EXPAT: Leaving the USA for Good, the book is available in hardcover, paperback, and eBook editions from Amazon and most online booksellers.

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Days of Summer Past

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It’s just about six o’clock Friday afternoon in our village, and it appears that everyone is out in the street.

After a relatively mild and overcast day, the sun suddenly is bright and burning off the sticky skies.That is rather unusual here in Portugal, whose weather tends to feel more like a sauna than a steam bath during the summer season … and cold, dreary, overcast skies with rain in the winter.

Little old ladies wearing their black widow’s weeds move slowly, some clutching canes and others with walkers, heading towards the church. There are services tonight, not to be missed, although the widows let me know that church services are held every day here.

Seated on the wall which encircles the church, elderly men, solitary yet together, form a ring. They won’t go inside. For them, it seems far safer to comment on their world, to cuss and complain about whatever, than to seek shelter or solace in the sanctuary.

Others, too, sit outside, in front of their houses, where it’s cooler in the shadows cast by houses so closely facing theirs. Men use handkerchiefs or rags to wipe sweat from their brows, while the women – some of them, at least – fan themselves, slowly but surely, with advertising circulars.

People are arriving home from work, with far too many vessels clogging and clotting the capillaries doing the work of major arteries on our tight little “main” street. They’re impatient.

Already, they’ve been held up by a tractor inching slowly, cobble by stone, down the road, as a shepherd and two dogs herd some sheep along the way. Then, there’s a truck, blocking traffic, as it stops to unload groceries at the corner market.

Once the sheep and the truck and the tractor are out of the way, some drivers speed down the little road as if it’s the Grand Prix, cell phones held up in one hand and cigarettes dangling from the other. Several mostly older men, with their wives as passengers, steadfastly refuse to press the accelerator and go any faster; why risk losing control, when they’ll get there soon enough?

The smell of diesel fumes is intoxicating, anyway.

Ironically, unlike other places filled with anxious people squeezing too many vehicles into hold-your-breath spaces, nobody honks a horn.

It’s just not the way things are done here.

Just about now, the bus pulls up to the periphery of town, discharging a stream of people who’d left early this morning to work in the big city. They, too, crowd the street, trekking tiredly towards their homes.

But, first, they must stop for coffee.

Vehicles – cars, trucks, vans, tractors, and trailers – jockey for position to park three deep by coffee shops on streets where founders and planners hardly envisioned vehicles when building such towns and villages. Maybe they didn’t consider the implications of getting around in a place with three coffee shops, but not a single place to eat here in Lousa. So, vehicles are unattended momentarily, motors still running, while their occupants dash off for their evening coffee fixes.

Meanwhile, the young folks – old enough to drive Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs, souped-up Fiats, Renaults, Citroens and Peugeots … and roaring motos, especially – are eager to escape, to get out of town and go elsewhere. Somewhere. Anywhere but here.

Right about when things seem to be less hectic, disaster unexpectedly strikes: a truck too big for our street and driven too fast, lops off the balcony of a nearby house. Concrete and balustrades topple heavily onto the street. Everything halts, as the momentary shock and silence quickly yield to a collective gasp that grips and takes hold in the village.

Suddenly, everyone is drawn, like a dragnet to the magnet, flies to a spider’s net. People stand around, beers (not coffee) in hand, some puffing on cigarettes, opining on what happened.

No, it wasn’t a “hit-and-run” … the driver, head hung sheepishly, is there among the crowd, too, looking up to the missing terrace and around to the scrapes along the side of his truck and its missing mirror. He shakes his head in amazement.

Somebody hands him a beer.

Slowly, as the sun sets, people disperse and quiet returns to our village, except behind the closed doors and fly curtains. It’s cool now. People are inside, watching television with the volume turned up too loud. The church bells peal.

It’s Friday night in the village.

Tomorrow, the days of counting – segunda, terça, quarta, quinta, sexta-feira – will be over for now and days with real names, Saturday and Sunday, will have begun.

Welcome to the weekend.

Bom fin de semana!

Shared here are personal observations, experiences, and happenstance that actually occurred to us as we moved from the USA to begin a new life in Portugal and Spain. Collected and compiled in EXPAT: Leaving the USA for Good, the book is available in hardcover, paperback, and eBook editions from Amazon and most online booksellers.

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Creature Comforts

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With all due respect to our friends and acquaintances who live in Portugal’s bigger cities and Spain’s metropolises – or, at least, in more upscale dwellings than ours – we who make our homes in the small towns and villages of these two Iberian countries lack and may covet what you probably have that we don’t: Creature comforts.

I’m talking about petite pleasures and little luxuries like central heating, mold-free residences, bug barriers, food without flies, and gnats not whining in your ears. Wouldn’t it be nice not to wipe down our digs daily because a layer of grit always appears overnight, sprinkling silt and dust bunnies on our table tops, furniture and floors! Most of all, however, I’m referring to the pure delight of starting my days with long, luxurious, hot, über strong showers.

To prioritize these niceties:

Along with our “creatures” – three Miniature Schnauzers – we work, eat, sleep, shower, and attend to life’s necessities in two adjoining rooms measuring no more than 40-square-meters (combined). In other words, about two-thirds of our time is spent in a concrete and plaster crucible with windows but zero, zilch, insulation. Nada. Which is why we mop and dust daily. We indulged ourselves and invested in an 18,000 BTU inverter air conditioning unit that, according to our research, is the most cost-effective and efficient way to keep us warm during the cold times, yet cooler if it’s hot. We set it at 19º C (66º F) when the temperature falls … and 24º C (75º F) once the heat hits those shades of hades. Yes, I know that we pay a steep price for such succor, with monthly electric (EDP) bills averaging 150 Euros for a three-story, 135m2 house.

Which brings me to my current rant:

We needed to replace our (gas-fired) water heater.

It’s bad enough that the infernal contraption is located up in our attic and almost impossible to reach … that each canister of propane fueling it weighs over 75 pounds and costs €24.40 or so in Portugal, €11.50 in Spain … and getting the canister up those misplaced steps to the attic, where it takes the contortions of two Cirque du Soleil performers to lift it up the stairs … roll it across the attic’s cement floor … stand it up again … and connect it to the water heater on the far side.

All of which wouldn’t be quite so awful, except that:

• We never know when the hot water is going to give up and run out, but it usually happens while I’m in the middle of a shower and need to shout my partner out of a deep sleep and a warm bed to venture up to the attic and change the canister;

• To achieve maximum heat from the water it outputs, the pressure setting must be dialed down; and

• When all is said and done, the shower water is still but between a dribble and drizzle of tepid, lukewarm water at best—and certainly not forceful enough to rinse the shampoo out of hair, shaving lather from a face, or soap off one’s skin. We were going through three gas cylinders that serve only our bathroom’s sink and shower every month. Adding insult to injury, there’s always – always! – unproductive propane still left in the tank.

The lady who owns the corner mini-market where we exchange our depleted “garrafas” for refills shakes her head “não,” wagging her finger. She explains emphatically (in Portuguese too rapid for me) that gas should only be used in the kitchen for cooking. Water, she insists, should be heated electrically. “But the electric is so expensive here …” I counter. She shrugs. And asks, “E aquelas?” referring to the three propane tanks we’d been going through each month. “Quanto custam?” How much arewere we spending every month on those propane canisters?

Eighty euros!

Would our electric bills increase more than that if we were to replace the feeble gas water heater with an electric one?

She doesn’t know, but suggests I ask EDP (the electric company), an electrician, or the appliance store where we buy the new unit. Fortunately, we’ve got a great electrodomésticos (appliance) shop managed by a good-looking guy who knows his stuff – he’s actually “energy-certified” – and explains the problem to us: Because the weather is colder, it requires more gas to heat the water. And since it’s coldest in the attic where the water heater is located, we’re not getting our money’s worth out of the propane. Always, some will remain.

Handsome João concurs that an electric water heater will serve our purposes better … and operating it should cost less than the €80 we’d been spending monthly on gas. Even with the 120 liter capacity model recommended for three people taking back-to-back showers.

We bought the unit and made arrangements for it to be installed, which included having electricity brought up to the attic. All should be ready to use in another week or so (probably “or so,” this being Portugal). Until then, we dashed down a flight of steps every morning in our terrycloth robes to avail ourselves of the guest bedroom shower.

We also did battle with water on another front: the mold. The most common causes of mold growing on walls and ceilings here are high humidity, condensation, and water leaks (often hidden inside the walls or ceilings). Check. Check. Check. In houses like ours, it’s not uncommon to have all three. Condensation forms when water vapor in the air meets cold surfaces and cools to become liquid. Leaking pipes near or inside of walls are a common cause of mold.

Say “hello” to typical village home construction in Spain and Portugal!

A bottle with bleach in hand, we spray the ceilings and walls whenever we notice any “damp” (as our British friends call it) shadow appearing. During colder times, especially, we move furniture away from the walls and take our clothing off the wardrobe rods that come in contact with walls. Following a heavy douse of bleach solution, we follow up with special “anti-mofo” spray and let the areas dry for 24 hours.

After the rainy season, we’ll need to have a new €8,000 roof installed next spring: a special “sandwich” with insulation between the faux-tile metal top and its bottom surface, that should cut down on the leaks and the moisture—along with the mold. It would also keep us warmer, reducing the electricity consumed by our aircon and new water heater.

Despite spending a bundle on our new water heater, we counted on all the money we’d be saving on our EDP bills.

Yeah, right.

The flies and the gnats already are gathering in anticipation.

Shared here are personal observations, experiences, and happenstance that actually occurred to us as we moved from the USA to begin a new life in Portugal and Spain. Collected and compiled in EXPAT: Leaving the USA for Good, the book is available in hardcover, paperback, and eBook editions from Amazon and most online booksellers.

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

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