Armação de Pêra; Can We Call This Home?

[A week old entry] We’re heading south to Portugal's Algarve. Now I sit in my favorite little café overlooking the park and the bay. It’s such a great town, I’m going to miss it. Funny after I said I wouldn’t live here. I still wouldn’t, but mainly because the grocery stores are too limited. We would have to own a car to drive over to Caldas de Rainha.

I absolutely loved going for walks on the beach. It’s level and firm, so I could wear my tennies for my walk. Then I’d cut up to the sidewalk to work out on the community gym equipment. Joe usually tagged along and did his workout on the beach. If I lived here, I’d have my thin wetsuit and be able to swim in the bay. Not my favorite, but I could do it. Today I watched a dog body surf. I’d never seen that before. It would race along the beach next to the surf and then it would leap in, diving under the wave. When the next wave would come in it would ride it. I couldn’t capture a pic of it on a wave, but I tried.

A couple of times a week, we walked on the boardwalk to Salir do Porto on the other side of the bay. This town doesn’t have much to offer other than housing and several restaurants… and of course it’s famous sand dune. It’s extremely quiet and peaceful.

Poised over the bay is a pretty chapel. We’ve admired from afar many times. I finally decided to investigate it and found that it’s a popular easy hike. I researched it and determined that a warm day was required to go. The reviews said it’s super windy up there. Well the conditions finally matched my willingness to get windblown and we went.

I highly recommend this walk. We started on a white gravel trail next to the community pool. At first I thought I’d screwed up my directions, but the trail turned into an unused road that climbed up to a wider ridge road. At the end of the road it turned into a steeper trail that was slippery with fine gravel. I don’t advise you to do this if your reactive-balance isn’t good.

It took us about an hour to get to the chapel from the pool and it was worth it. The views from the ridge are amazing. It wasn’t too windy until we were within about fifty yards from the chapel. I wish we’d been able to visit it before they rebuilt it. Apparently it used to be gorgeous ruins. Now it’s a quaint little white chapel to get married in. The Old Customs House is below it on the beach. Joe and I decided it wasn’t worth scrambling down to the water’s edge to visit it, but it’s an important part of Portuguese history. Vasco da Gama’s boats used for the Indian Campaign came through here. Including the Nau São Gabriel, Vasco da Gama’s flagship. World changing stuff.

We’ve arrived in Armação de Pera, and now I’m sitting in yet another café. Joe walked to the beach to work-out. When we arrived yesterday on the cross-country bus, we climbed off, gathered our belongings and watched the bus leave. We got an Uber to our new place and as we were offloading, we realized my backpack wasn’t among the bags. This is as close to tragedy we’ve come to in our travels. This laptop I'm writing on, our passports, Euros, and all my pants and shorts were in the pack. I immediately called Rede Expressos and talked to a sweet young man. He said he’d contact the bus driver and tell him to give me my backpack next time he came through. So, three hours later (and pizza, beer, and a glass of wine) we stood nervously waiting to see if the driver really had my bag--intact. In most countries Joe and I travel through it would have immediately been stolen or at least emptied. When our bus came back, my pack was sitting in the window and the driver gave me the thumbs up sign as he pulled in. I had to fight the urge to hug him.

Our little apartment in Armação de Pêra is on the twelfth-floor of the Torre Ouro (Gold Tower). The view and sounds of the ocean are amazing. The only negative is the rock-hard mattress. This time I don’t have a memory-foam-futon to sneak off to. The first night, I slept three or four hours. The next day I pulled out every comforter in the place and made a mountain of folded comforters. That night I slept fine--with ear plugs. I know. Why ear plugs? Though the sound of the ocean is wonderful, the sound of cars driving over the loose manholes below our window isn't as wonderful.

I woke up to a calm peaceful day. Clear skies and calm waves. I could hear birds chirping… a lot of birds and very close. I went to the kitchen balcony to investigate and located a nest directly above the door. The baby birds weren’t visible, but they were certainly audible. I waited to see what kind of bird it could be, but it was obviously pretty nervous about me standing there. I retreated into the kitchen and closed the door. I have to say, this is a much better noise than the bar below us at the last place.

So, Portugal is shaped like a loaf of bread. The Algarve is the bottom portion, maybe one or two slices of the loaf. This city is located in the center of the Algarve on the rocky coast. The eastern half of Armação is an estuary opening on to a wide sandy beach. The western half has beaches nestled up against the red cliffs. The erosion has created a work of art.

This town has surprised me. I thought it would be more Portuguese, but it’s mostly expats. In this case the people wandering the promenade seem to be mostly Indian with Europeans being a second and some Africans third. I’ll admit I’m disappointed with that. Everyone is as polite as usual. We could probably make friends easier here than a Portuguese town, but it feels like cheating somehow.

The wide-open beach is full of lots and lots of people. The Portuguese youth were all out on the sand playing fút-volley. This is a unique Portuguese game of standing in a big circle and using their feet to kick the ball high up in an arc, like in volleyball. Fútbol is an obsession here that I’ve talked about before. It’s not the same as the obsession with football back in the States. Football is watched, fútbol is played—by everyone. Kids everywhere are scooting a soccer-ball in and out of the adults walking along. Without a second thought everyone, granny included, will capture it with a swift foot and send it along to the next unsuspecting walker. Last week in São Martinho, we watched a group of boys playing soccer in the park. A woman was sound asleep on her blanket in the park. The ball flew all around her, finally it ended up on the other side of her sleeping form. The boys quietly poised themselves on each side of her and expertly kicked the ball in an arc over her, and the game continued.

This town, Armação, has a lot of grocery stores. The Lidle is my current favorite. Though it doesn’t have a butcher-shop, it does have lots of precut fresh meat. We got our basics and will go back today for dinner food… probably salmon and small potatoes. I brought my Cajun seasoning for the salmon. Yum. A couple of days later I discovered a butcher shop in the local market, which is open every morning. I bought ribs and they were excellent. I also bought an amazing fig, date, and nut cake.

The other night we went to The Water Dog, an English Pub. It was great. Really good crowd of people and the food and wine was very good. We had a big bowl of chili con carne, fries, and breaded prawns. The place was packed. As I sat there at our outdoor table, I noticed a lady around our age sitting with two men. I smiled, she smiled, I raised my wine glass, she raised her wine glass, and we mouthed cheers from thirty-feet away. Naturally this caught the interest of her husband and brother-in-law, so they (Irish) all raised their glasses in a distant toast. I’m sure you can guess what happened next… we ended up at their table for the rest of the night. They enjoyed teasing me about being of Scottish descent, saying the Scotts are very tight with their money. Naturally Joe loved that and immediately joined forces against me. Super fun night.

We wandered all over the middle of town and so far, I’m not impressed. It’s not as neat and tidy as I’m used to. The streets and promenades aren’t as clean. I haven’t seen a street cleaner person with their rolling garbage can yet. Both Nazare and São Martinho do Porto were immaculate. We did find a Vodophone shop, so I’m loaded up for data. At least they have a barbershop/salon/tattoo parlor/&body piercing shop!

There’s a quaint little fishing village church. It’s Catholic, so it has that bowl of water right inside the door to do the sign-of-the-cross, but instead of a bowl it was a giant seashell. All of the statues inside depict the importance of the fishermen’s lives.

The food at the restaurants and cafés in Armação de Pêra are all great so far. Lots of variety of places… Japanese, Indian, Italian, Irish, British, etc.. And so far I haven’t had a bad glass of wine. So, this begs the question; how important is food and wine to me? Can I change? What are we willing to sacrifice? We will have to make this decision unless we can find a place that has both the classiness and culture of the Portuguese and the variety of food and wine of the expats. I’ll continue to explore this dilemma in the up-coming blogs.

Joe discovered a ridge trail that I absolutely love. I go for my morning walk, Joe goes part way and picks a cove to work out in, and then I join him to put my hot feet in the freezing water. By-the-way, Joe says it’s not freezing, but it is. I can get in to about my hips. For those of you who like ice baths (Izzy, Caleb) you’d love it. I love the rock formations with all their little caves. This is the best thing about the Algarve. We can’t find an outdoor gym here… that’s a big disappointment. I get bored working out in the front room.

So, right now São Martinho is our favorite, but Armação is growing on us. Especially because I finally found a jar of Skippy peanut butter at yet another huge grocery store. That makes five  grocery stores here in walking distance. That’s a serious consideration, and two of those have extensive meat counters. One even has precooked rotisserie chicken—granted it’s a fifteen minute walk, but we can deal with that. One of the cool things about trying to find all these grocery stores is we get to see the non-tourism neighborhoods.

We’re going to take road trips to other nearby towns to explore this region. Today the plan is to go to Carvoeiro. We were going to go yesterday, but it was Portugal’s Independence Day. We were afraid a lot of the restaurants and shops would be closed. I think we were wrong. Nothing was closed here in Armação. The only excitement was a huge group of motorcyclists going through town. Several hundred of them. I know that touring the five hours between Spain and the west coast, Sagres, is very popular with cruisers, so it may have been one of the big groups who travel together. Whatever the motive, it was a sight to see while munching our hamburgers.

Spoiled Americans

I usually look for the things that I see as being as good if not better than what I see in the States. However, there are times when I feel I’ve been spoiled by certain innovations or behaviors back home. So here I’ll point out some of those things I miss.

Screens on doors and windows are such an amazing invention. I can’t imagine what I’m going to do without them when we move to Europe. I guess I’ll have to do what locals do and hang up those hanging bead or string curtains. I really hate it that I can’t have all my windows and doors open to let in the fresh air without losing the view behind beads. The other day we were talking to an expat who mentioned that he leaves his windows open even when he’s gone. Not remarkable for Portugal really, but it begged the question—what about the flies? He said, “I’ve got screens on the windows.” We were amazed! He modestly admitted that he’d hand-made them.

Clothing dryers are another invention that hasn’t caught on over here. I’d say it’s an electricity usage issue, but a lot of people, like us, go to the laundromat and pay to dry their clothes. I told Joe that one of our biggest extravagances in moving here would be to purchase a dryer.

Here’s one that isn’t better or worse, just different. The hot water heater is always in the kitchen (as is the clothes washer) and it’s on-demand. So when you turn the water on hot, the heater kicks on. One thing I’m not very fond of is the exposed tubes and pipes that seem to be part of every kitchen. Remember, we don’t stay at hotels, we stay in homes. So, my complaint is that the water has to be on full blast to get hot water… as soon as you turn the volume of output down (to save water) it goes cold. Plus, all the piping is exposed. :/

There are wall heaters throughout most houses, or maybe a fireplace. The nice thing about wall heaters is you only heat up the room you want to be warm. For example, I like the bedroom to be cold but the front-room to be warm. This place has two rolling heaters, which is nice.

There must be an EU rule regarding toilet seats. Maybe there’s an extra tax on them or something? I’d say that the vast majority of restaurants don’t have them. If they do, then I’m in ecstasies over it. It is one of the things that will get me to go back to a restaurant. Most bathrooms are like the ones on a boat—extremely small and lacking toilet-paper. Even here at our condo the toilet seat is actually bolted down off-center. :/  The absolutely most bizarre public bathrooms I’ve seen are in São Martinho. The public bathrooms have bidets. I know SM is a little ritzy, but bidets in public bathrooms? And all the toilets have seats. Very luxurious here. It’s a bit ironic that one of SM’s nicknames is “the bidet of the Marquises” because it was so popular with the Portuguese nobility.

Speaking of toilets, here they’re called bath-houses… casa de banho. The fun part is the huge variety of signs telling which is male and which is female. S is senhora-female, H is homem (though senhor would be appropriate, but you can’t have two Ss), with various depictions of men and women. The most common is a skirt versus pants, but some are more creative.

Oh, and remember that WC refers to the bathrooms. Here’s my favorite sign telling me the general location of the WC.

A cool household item here is the de-humidifier. It’s absolutely amazing how much water accumulates in the water tank. It’s nothing to empty out a half-gallon a day. When living in coastal towns like up in Humbolt, California, everything stays so wet. It’s really destructive to a house. Everything gets moldy and yucky, clothes and even dishes take forever to dry. This machine is brilliant, especially in the bathroom. The mirror takes forever to defog after a shower. With this little thing it's cleared up in minutes.

Some things are just etiquette or societal norms. Here, people don’t greet you on the street unless they know you… unless you greet them first. Then they look surprised and respond politely. One thing I really miss is the lack of public displays of affection. In Italy people greet each other with hugs and kisses. Women stand holding hands while they catch up. Here in Portugal, I’ve never ever seen a hug, no matter how excited they are to see each other. One time, just once, I saw two ladies do the cheek kiss. They are very physically affectionate with their children though. Lots of cuddles for them. It’s rough because I’m a hugger.

I’ve mentioned it before, but a lot of people smoke cigarettes in Portugal, and Italy too. Because it’s so normal, they don’t really get it that we don’t like it. Though the law forbids smoking in public buildings like restaurants, they just step right outside the door frame and smoke. It’s so weird. There’ll be two or three of them chatting and puffing away just two feet from where your table is. We usually move further into the place to avoid it.

Food is different here, just as it is all over the world. Some things I prefer, some I miss. I like the country-style of buying eggs unwashed. That way they can be stored on the shelf, not the fridge. It also means that part of making breakfast is washing eggs.

Butchers at the grocery store will cut up anything you want, anyway you want. However they draw the line at cutting a piece off a whole chicken. Some stores have prepackaged sort of fresh meat. So, if I luck out by getting to the store before the leg quarters are gone I’m fine. But when I say I want leg quarters and they don’t have any already cut up, even though there’s ten chickens piled on each other, they’ll say no. “We don’t have any.” I point to the chickens and they shake their heads no. Today I asked the guy to cut a whole chicken for me. I demonstrated by making imaginary cuts on my chest and hips. Every cut had him looking questioningly at me. It’s like he’d never done it before. Even at our favorite BBQ place the guy told us, “We’re sold out of half-chicken plates. You can get two quarter-chicken plates.” I wish you could see my face as I write this… one brow up and a half smile.

The concept behind dried fish is brilliant, but not my cup-of-tea. Especially cod. I can’t stand cod. This will deeply hurt my Portuguese friends, but I can’t help it. Cod is gross here. It’s fascinating to see rack after rack of fish drying out on the beach. Octopus, squid, cuttle-fish, and of course, cod.

Pink hot dogs in a jar offends every American sense. I like a higher-end dog back home, like Hebrew National dogs. Here it’s either a pink doggy or a hard sausage. And why, oh why, can’t they have sour cream? I’ll admit cream cheese can substitute on a potato. Funnily enough, our Lisbon friends really like the way I serve baked potatoes with cream cheese! Another thing I have to adjust my recipes for is the lack of relish. It’s kinda fun to buy the pickles, olives, and onions in a jar. I just dice ‘em all up and call it relish. Europe, in general, I think has a different view on salad dressing. In the States, salad dressing is an artform. Here it’s olive oil and vinegar… period. Plus, we really, really like our sauces. Barbecue sauce, for example is hard to find.

Police do give parking tickets here, but they make a show of it. You don’t want to be the first car they fine, but everyone else has time to run out of the cafés to buy tickets before the cops get to their car.  The other day a cop looked around for the owner of the tuk-tuk in front of us. The guy sitting by us was sipping a beer and told him, “I’m waiting to get change so I can buy the parking pass.” The cop shook his head with a smile and walked off. Stunning. Then the waitress brought his change and he did go over and get a pass, so I guess he was telling the truth—maybe.

Lots of Airport Information, Random Pics, and Expat Humor

The Portuguese just had an election and now there’s talk of bringing back the NHR tax scheme. This would allow retirees and (digital nomads) to live here for ten years (spending money, not taking jobs, not committing crimes) without having to pay Portugal taxes on passive income we already pay taxes on back home in the States.

Plan B? We’ve discovered an Italian tax scheme aimed at retirees. If we move to one of the designated southern states, to a city with a population under 20k, we can pay only seven percent taxes on our passive income. Hmm, I think I can handle southern Italy! Right now we’re looking at Otranto in Puglia. Have you heard of this town? Have you been there? What do you think? The three states we’re interested in are Abruzzo, Campania, and Apulia (Puglia). [Red dots are states involved in the 7% tax, the white dots are the states our Italian friends advised against us for various reasons]

Airport advice: When coming from San Francisco to Lisbon on TAP Air you will land at Terminal 1. In our experience, you turn right as you exit the plane to go through immigration and customs. Follow the signs, and people, to get to immigration. A giant set of arches are in front of you. To the right is the one you will be tempted to take. That is a really slow line. The one in front of you that says electronic passport is probably for you. There are lots of English-speaking employees standing around for you to ask if you feel nervous about which line you should be in. When it’s your turn, you will hold your USA passport against the scanner, stare at the camera, step forward to have your passport stamped, and be done. This will save you about an hour. Go down multiple flights of stairs to the luggage dungeon.

If there’s no line you can get your sim card at the Vodophone shop by the luggage carrousel, but no worries, there’s more shops elsewhere. If you don’t plan to be here for more than a month, this sim will work fine for you. If you plan to be here longer, like us, you may want to wait for a regular cellphone shop (Vodophone or MEO). This is only because the airport plan is just for one month, but after that you can put money on it and see how long that lasts you… when it runs low just pop into any cellphone shop and reload it (they’re everywhere) or download the app. After our month was up, we stepped into a camera-shop with Vodophone and MEO stickers on the window and put €15 on our cards. We’ll see how long that lasts. The Lisbon Airport has free WiFi, so you can order an Uber or Bolt, etc., without a new sim card.

Once you get to the really nice food court and shopping center inside Terminal 1, stay to your right until it comes to an end (past another Vodophone shop on the left) with “My Bistro” and escalators in front of you. To your slight left is a set of glass doors. Go out those and turn right. On your left is the metro entrance. Inside is a bank of ticket machines. For some reason, we prefer the ticket counter with its short line. Now you buy a metro pass-card and put money on it. When it runs low, put more money on it, but don’t throw away the pass… it costs money. These work on buses, ferries, local trams, and local trains all in the Lisbon area. I’m not sure about the fancy funicular trollies—we’ve never tried it.

When you are going back to the USA, you need to be aware that you will actually go through what seems like two security portals with a first one to get into the terminal and a second one to fly to the USA. We’ve made the mistake of thinking we were done and sat to enjoy breakfast and coffee. We almost missed our flight because we had to stand in a massively long line for forty-five minutes. But we got plenty of exercise before the eleven-hour flight by running to our gate.

My final advice is to purchase food for the flight home (from SFO to LIS you should bring food also). This is because TAP Air doesn’t give you very much food for the long-long flight. They will provide one hot meal and one mostly bread sandwich. I don’t eat bread, so I always bring food on the plane. I peel the slice of meat and cheese out of the bun and roll it up—which is about as big as a cigarette. Also bring a water bottle and fill it before getting on the plane. The attendants don’t come by very often. If you like beer or wine for the flight, you should know that the Portuguese government forbids the ordering of alcohol other than with food service on flights. I order two glasses of wine (Joe gets two beers) with the dinner service and I let the second one sit there until I want it an hour or so later.

Right now I sit at a café trying to write while a really nice Belgium man who was born in Scotland and living in Portugal talks to me in English. He’s telling me all about his dog… a Portuguese Podengo. It’s a hunting-dog breed, and his dog is deaf. He got it from a rescue center. Welcome to the world of a writer :) Another topic in town is the tsunami alarm that went off at six this morning for ten minutes. Normally it goes off once every day at noon. Ten minutes was exceptionally long. Joe and I got dressed and stood nervously watching the bay and listening for the resultant chaos from such a serious alarm. Not a soul stirred. Occasionally someone would stroll by at a leisurely pace. No one we spoke to had any idea what it was all about. Later our Portuguese waiter suggested that a fireman got drunk and accidently set the alarm and couldn’t figure out how to turn it off again. Whatever it was, I’m really surprised no one reacted to it!

A couple of fighter jets just flew overhead. They’ve done that a lot this last month. The friendly Belgium said it was Portugal’s entire military fleet. Then he chuckled for several minutes before adding, “One of ‘em is probably from Belgium.” One of my favorite things is when people joke about their own, or other, countries and politics. Fortunately, I don’t know enough about what’s going on to be offended.

Sometimes conversations take a more serious turn. In Lisbon we got into a discussion about mental health. We’d just seen a teen dragged from the street by the police—who had gotten tired of trying to reason with him. Cops came from everywhere. People stopped and watched. No one pulled out a cell phone to record it for social media. Our friends said the mental health problem in Portugal was a result of drug use. He made the comment that all people have a degree of mental health issues. Drugs just trigger it. I imagined us all with various types of flammable material in our minds… some have pinecones, others kindling, and others wet oak. With the right amount of flame, we all eventually ignite, but that’s enough philosophy for now.

Obidos, São Martinho do Porto, Nazare, and Italy

Obidos, this is a must see for everyone. An authentic castle town with completely intact walls. It is amazing. It has several streets with cafés and shops, but it doesn’t feel like Disneyland. I’d seen on a vlog that going early was a wise move if you wanted to walk the perimeter town walls. You can do it any time, but the idea of shouldering past people on a ledge with no handrails didn’t sound like a good plan to us. Joe insisted on splurging and taking an Uber from SM to Obidos. I would have stood at some bus stop hoping I was in the right place for an hour, but thankfully we used Uber and were there in thirty minutes.

We requested to be let off at the city gate. It was ten in the morning and the only person around was a guy singing and playing guitar in the giant guard room at the gate. We took an immediate left after that room and ascended the stone stairs past the sign that warned us how dangerous this decision was.

The walkway skirts the entire town. It’s not for the faint of heart or the frail. It’s a serious climb with really tall steps. The top of the wall is on one side and nothing is on the other side. The walkway is on the interior side of the wall to give the guards a view of the valley all around through cut-outs.

This city was apparently made for the king’s wife, way back in 1195. Over time it was fortified and inhabited, but never abandoned. The main church was an odd mix of ornate and extremely simple. The exterior is simple. The interior is also simple, except the alter which is gold-plated.

We found a “medieval bar” and plopped down to rest. It was perfect as it was on a narrow cobblestone street under an ancient arch. Plus it was nice and cool, which I appreciated because the wall-walk was pretty long and in the sun.

I highly recommend a day-trip to Obidos. It was magical, especially in the morning before the crowds arrive in tourist groups, though when it got crowded Joe struck up a conversation with a 91-year-old gent. They were like two peas-in-a-pod as they discussed exercise, travel, and Spanish language schools in Mexico.

We Ubered back for another thirty bucks. I have to say it was worth it. Plus, Joe says we’ve reached that magical age when muscle and money are about equal. In another ten years we’ll have more money than muscle. Sobering thought.

Here in SM is an object of deep fascination to me… an abandoned hotel. This hotel was a thriving business for many years until they got tired of it and decided to retire. According to rumors, they just walked away from it. It’s not like they went bankrupt. They just abandoned it. Now it is being consumed by nature.

Every time I walk past it, I think how much fun it would be to play around this building with its outbuildings. IF I lived here, and IF I were really rich, I’d open it up to kids. I’d remove everything from inside and hire a little herd of goats to come clean up the grounds. I don’t think I’d even put a play structure there, except maybe a slide from the second story to a sand pit at the bottom. This absolutely could never happen in the USA. Somebody would get hurt (without a doubt) and sue me, even though they knew it was a giant old abandoned hotel. But here it could work.

Now is time to give my verdict on living in São Martinho do Porto. Nope. Not gonna happen. It is a great place to come on a week-long vacation, especially with little ones, but to live? We couldn’t do it. First of all there’s no hospital that I know of. The grocery store is a minimart. The big grocery store that you have to walk to is limited. We learned to go to the far-away one early to get the meat, otherwise all the good stuff would be gone. The local open-market is great for fish and oysters, but no red meat. Lots of veggies though and a surprising area of clothing. By the way, I solved the lack of sleep and hip pain...Thankfully they have a memory-foam futon in the front room.

We are bored here, which is why we’re planning little mini-trips like the one to Obidos. I imagine this is a happening place in the summer. I’ve seen pictures and they look nothing like it looks now. I prefer Nazare, by far. ~~ Sooo, we just got back from Nazare. We decided to spend the afternoon there and walk back up to Sitio for the best burger and fries in Portugal. Then went came back down to walk around and build up our appetite for dinner reservations at Restaurante Tabernassa for the best steak in Portugal. Nazare was absolutely chaotic. There were people, children, dogs, pigeons, and seagulls everywhere. I was honestly a little overwhelmed by it all, especially when I got pooped on by a pigeon. Joe had to wash it out of my hair and off the back of my shirt. Thankfully, I’m a country-girl at heart. I just put it out of my mind until I got home to my shower.

We walked to the quieter end of town until dinner. Tabernassa is an absolute favorite of ours, and last night was made more special by our waiter, Paulo. Joe and I always pray before eating. When we’re out in public, it’s a silent prayer, but we hold hands. When we’d finished our little speed-prayer we looked up to find Paulo watching us. He was actually emotional about seeing us pray. He brought it up several times and kept putting his hand to his heart and telling us how touched he was. It’s funny how something so simple can have an impact on a stranger.

That night when we returned to São  Martinho, it felt incredibly peaceful. It felt like home. So, I guess the verdict is: If São  Martinho had a good grocery store, we’d prefer it. We could always drive to Nazare for entertainment.

The weather is supposed to clear up for the remainder of our stay here. Joe will probably join all the school kids getting in the water. The other day they had a group of middle-schoolers out there in kayaks. I’ve mentioned this many times, but the willingness of the Portuguese to let their children take risk fascinates me. Until we started coming here, I didn’t realize how much we’ve removed risk in America.

Regarding the mysterious tunnel from the bay to the open ocean. I posted some videos on Facebook and I got lots of questions asking why the tunnel is there? What’s its purpose? I have two answers, one more charming than the other. The first hypothesis is the tunnel was built to help defend against invaders trying to get into the bay. I like that one. It’s very pirate-like. The other, and probably correct, purpose was it was built in 1948 to divert sewage to the open sea. That seems more of a medieval plan to me, but so does defending the bay. I don’t know which is correct.