Pleasant Portuguese Phenomenon

Things that make me go hmmm....

I walk to the beach most mornings. I stroll along the river till I hit the boatyard. I turn one block west and then south to the delta. I walk on the beach till I get to Caramelo, then up the path to the Sports Complex and across town to our home. Sometimes I reverse the route. Typically, it is early and the beach is nearly empty. Perhaps a few men treading for clams in shallow water. Sometimes a fisherman spiking two or three poles into the sand. I must admit on many days my mind is more conscious of the podcast¹ being broadcast into my ears than the surroundings. But some days, even though my AirPods are firmly in place…I stop and it hits me, “I live here.”

17 May 2025, I stop and look back … my footprints on the beach.

Growing Up

I guess you would say I came from a working/middle-class family. My father owned a lawn mower shop and my mother was a bookkeeper. I was the first Whiteman to graduate from college. Despite that privilege, I never really thought my life would be exceptional. I did move more than others in my family. First in central PA, then back to Philly and the suburbs, then to Florida, and finally southern California. But it wasn’t until the 2016 election that I gave any thought to moving abroad.

Denise on the other hand, had joined the Navy (in part) to travel at someone else’s expense. She had lived in Japan. For her living outside of the US was something she thought about. And fortunately, with her encouragement we did.

But this post is more about those small learnings, the surprises, the things that still make me go hmmm 4.5 years later. Let me share three with you today.

Vila Real de Santo António marina. Just two blocks from our home. Photo taken during one of Onix’s morning walks.

1. Community

There are many different boats in our marina. Outboard, inboard, small sailboats, and expensive yachts. They float side by side, Together they rise and fall with the tidal water. They are sheltered from the wake of the large fishing boats that steam toward the sea … they are an analogy of our small town. A safe harbor, a community, if you will. A place where a true sense of community exists despite the diversity.

I was speaking with a neighbor recently … I’ve mentioned “Linen Ana” before. She and I were discussing my obsession with the stray cat population. A few days later she asked me if I knew the lady with all the cats. She described her physical characteristics and I realized she was talking about a transgender woman who lives nearby. I didn’t know she had 13 cats in her home. Linen Ana explained that she had lost her job, was poor, and needed food for the cats. I walked down the street and asked the pet shop owner what brand of food the woman with 13 cats typically bought. Of course, she also knew her. I delivered a 20 kg bag of cat food to Linen Ana’s shop.²

13 cats…hmmm. 13 cats in what I assume is a small Portuguese home…hmmm. But Linen Ana didn’t seem to consider that. She was a member of the community. And, if we can, we try to help out those in our community…hmmm.³

Photo taken 2 March 2022 when the community came out to show support for Ukraine.

2. Work-Life Balance

When we first arrived in Portugal I found myself often visiting shops that were shuttered … it was lunchtime. How could I have forgotten? They will open again at 15:00. A 2-hour lunch at home or a cafe. Not 20 minutes at your desk while checking emails…hmmm.

While I may become frustrated about the inability of Portuguese to provide an accurate time estimate or deliver what they consider “bad news” … I will never tire of their commitment to a work-life balance. You may recall me mentioning Fabio #1. Unfortunately, he left our golf club some time back to take another job. It wasn’t a promotion or more money. To my American mind, it was not a “better job”. But it meant he would no longer need to work weekends. He would have more time for his family … which made it a far better job…hmmm.

Our home.

3. Don’t Talk about Money

Finally, let’s talk about money. I am comfortable (as you can tell) talking about money. But the Portuguese … not so much. Two examples follow.

• We purchased all our furniture (indoor and out), rugs, and lamps from the same company. As you might imagine, while significantly less expensive than buying custom furniture in the States … it was still a pretty large order for a furniture company owned by 2 brothers, employing just 5 or 6 furniture makers. So when Denise said, “Let’s buy that funky dresser we saw at White Oak for our guest room”, I video-called António. He located the dresser in his showroom so we could verify it was the right one. I asked if he could build one and change the pink drawers to gold. He said, “Of course.” I inquired about the price. Instead of saying anything, he held up the price tag so I could read it.

The funky dresser.

• Last month, we finally got our habitation license through Finanças.⁴ We now know how much our annual property taxes are. They are only a few dollars more than what we were paying on the shell. The annual bill is less than 1/12th of what we paid in the States. More to the point, when the process was completed our lawyer did not send us a bill. I asked a friend who had also used this attorney, how he was billed. “I had to ask him for the bill,” he replied. So, I sent the attorney an email asking what I owed him. He replied to the email with a form that showed the amount, adding “applicable VAT must be added”. I then emailed to ask what the VAT rate was, and his email replied “23%”. You have to ask for a bill … just like in a cafe … hmmm.

From California to Lisbon … as the Thais would say, “Same, same but different.”

Comments?

If you are not Portuguese but have the good fortune to live in this country, please share what makes you go hmmm.

Até à próxima semana, fiquem bem, beijinhos…

Nanc

1. Offering my latest podcast obsession for those into true mystery stories…Blink. “Jake is handed a death sentence. He has a terminal progressive disease that's eating away at the white matter of his brain. In six months, he'll be dead. As the months progress, Jake slips into a coma, lying there in total darkness. But something odd has happened... Jake is fully conscious. Nobody knows that he can hear them. They’re certain he's no longer in there. With the promise that Jake will never recover, friends and family visit less and less. Until there is just one person left. A person who begins to whisper strange admissions in his ear.”

2. It was heavy…I need to work out!

3. I realize there are good people everywhere that help a neighbor in need. I am heartened by those that protest when servers, bus boys, cooks, farm workers, and students are rounded up by ICE. Are these the vicious criminals and rapists the candidate Trump promised? I wonder what crime is he distracting us from by sending National Guard and Marines to LA.

4. You may recall it took about 9 months to get the license from the Câmara. It then took our lawyer 14 months to complete the process with Finanças.