We have now been coming to Portugal for nearly 10 years.
Most of these trips have been together, but R has taken a couple by himself with other groups or individuals.
We have taken Portuguese language lessons and R speaks and understands more and more, me, not so much. It has come very slowly for me. I am able to understand enough words to get the gist of what is being said, but cannot speak Portuguese yet, only a few words mixed with English.
We have also had the privilege of bringing each of our children and hope to one day bring them back with us again someday.
This current trip is a long stay for us, nearly 7 weeks. While we have spent much time with other people, we have also spent some time by ourselves. This includes living in an apartment in Mealhada, taking a day trip to the beach, and two days at a guest home in Cascais.
While driving by ourselves the other day, we missed an exit or two, and ended up driving through several small villages while searching for an exit to the highway we could see about a quarter mile away. Every so often we would see an faint sign of hope -- "Sintra" with a small black arrow pointing in the direction we were headed, but no distance or additional detail. We sat behind buses, we waited at crosswalks while elderly Portuguese SLOWWWLY walked across the streets.
We saw life in Portugal far from the sun splashed beaches, the sights of Lisbon or the cellars of Porto. This was REAL Portugal.
We noticed something had happened as we detoured to the beach -- we did not panic.
We did make our way to the highway and to the small aldeia (town) we had planned to go to and had a great day in the white warm sand and sun.
Later in the day on the drive back to the apartment, we made an important observation about
us. Certainly we are not fluent and experts on all elements of Portugal, but neither are we fearful nor is it completely foreign to us any longer.
Rather, we are now " functional" in Portugal!!!
We can now:
* navigate our way through the grocery store and pay without total confusion.
* go into the cafes and order our favorite coffee drinks the way we like them.
* part on the curb (double and triple park with the locals) and run into the bakery and pick up bread to take home.
* drive any vehicle with a stick shift and get to our destination -- sooner or later. Well, me, not so much with the stick shift. R is doing all the driving.
* handle driving through and paying at the toll booths with the correct amount of change.
* interact with people - owners of small businesses we walk into, owners of an antique store we stopped at, stands of people selling their various Portuguese products, people that work at the museums we see, etc.
* begin to interact with friends at church.
* understand the sermons (with R as my personal translator)
Now granted, many people here of all ages are speaking more and more English as it has become the "universal" language, but many people won't speak it until they hear us trying to speak and interact in Portuguese first. It is always worth a good chuckle when I think about that.
This realization has made Portugal, with all its beauty, quirks, wonders and troubles, much more comfortable, familiar and enjoyable for us. But it leads us to one big question --
Where are all the Americans???
We know they are visiting and spending time all parts of the world and spending lots of money. As we enjoyed our grilled pork, turkey and shrimp kabobs with delicious refreshing sangria at an ocean front and view restaurant last night for 30 euros, or a hand selected picnic lunch overlooking the sea for 6 euros, or two incredible coffees and pastry for 4 euros, or wondering through an incredible castle and museum this morning full of treasures and art for free -- and we heard no American voices.
In the past 36 hours as we have spent time in a very international ocean front community and town and have heard German, Dutch, French, British, African dialects and Irish, and we even can now distinguish the Brazilians from the Portuguese.
Where are the Americans? ... Hmmm, maybe a future post...
(Written with the help R, we make a good team!)
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