Our Home in Armação de Pêra and What Do Portuguese Look Like?

This Airbnb is really luxurious. Not in a super expensive way, but the thought put into details. For example; when I’m someplace for a long time I want to clean up… like sweep or vacuum. Pascal, the owner, has a soft good quality broom and there’s even a little battery-powered vacuum like a Dyson. It’s so easy to just whip around and clean up the debris blown in (because we always leave our doors open and Portugal has yet to embrace the concept of window screens). All of the pots and pans are excellent. They have a Nespresso machine—my favorite. And they even provided me with a box of Nespresso brand coffee pods! They also had a bottle of white wine. All of the black-out blinds are electronic. Just push a button and walk away. It’s really nice.

I sit here on my giant patio with a view of the pool and all the various things people do on vacation. A lady and her husband come everyday with a little tiny puppy in a carrier. They just left to be replaced with five teenage boys. Oddly enough one brought a guitar. They stood around for awhile making half-hearted attempts to sing along with him, but they got bored and now they’re trying to work up the courage to get in the cold water. Portuguese men have this really interesting thing they do… they clap their hands when they’re passionate about something. You’ll see that when they’re arguing, or in this case they all clapped their hands to get themselves worked up to jump in. It worked. They are all in now.

We’re in the upper end of town away from the tourism. In the morning it almost feels like a campground with the various waking up noises. One dog begins to howl the second his master leaves for work. It sounds like something between a human in mortal agony and a basset hound. The sound of babies is everywhere because babies are everywhere. There’s one little baby girl who always says, “Ola,” to me and waves her little hand.

I’ve had a lot of people ask me what Portuguese people look like. For some reason this question always throws me for a loop. What do they look like… besides Portuguese? I guess I’d say a mix between Spanish and Italian, maybe. Olive-complexions, straight noses, dark thick hair, dark eyes, tall around 5’11”, short around 5’. Mostly slim, though the elderly ladies can fill in like little barrels. For the women, no need for make-up, therefore they wear very little.

In Portugal, especially southern Portugal, the dress is very casual. Up north lots of men wear suits to work, but otherwise it’s jeans and shorts. Women dress in slacks or dresses for work, shorts and skirts for casual. I have never seen a Portuguese person of any age wearing pajamas or house slippers in public… maybe shorts and no shirt, or a bikini top, but not pajamas.

Those who wear sweats in public wear the nice ones. For many, many years, I’ve had people tell me, “If you want to stand out as an American, wear white tennis shoes!” This is definitely not true. The vast majority of people in Europe, and especially Portugal, wear white tennies. Other colors are worn, but usually not the heavy dark walking shoes we wear. White is in.

The other night an elderly couple was dining with a younger couple. Grandma, around eighty, was dressed in a black fitted dress. She had lots of make-up on, and her hair was pulled up into a French twist. When it came time for the photos, she yanked down the front of her dress to show some cleavage. Some things never change.

The normal swimwear is shorts for a man (though some men wear a speedo-type trunk) and thong bikinis for the gals. It doesn’t matter what the girl’s butt looks like, if she’s under fifty years-old she’ll be wearing a thong. I stand out as an American because mine covers my bum. As for hair, women wear it long and unstyled. Either in a ponytail or not. Men have the classic short hair on the sides and slightly longer on top. There’s a barbershop on every corner.

The language sound is somewhere between Spanish and Russian. Hard to describe, but it has a harsh sound to it combined with the shhh sound which softens it. But, like Italians, they talk with their hands with lots and lots of emotion.

Attitude? Hmmm… that’s a tougher one. They come off as being content, comfortable in their own skin, proud of their heritage—but respectful of other’s. It seems as though some of the older crowd is a little sick of tourists. There is sort-of an invisible wall between us, which usually crumbles once we start talking to them but not always. All-in-all, I’d say they’re unpretentious.