This morning, I woke up at 5:30 am. I’m typically an early riser, but today something woke me up extra early. The cats? My sinuses, forever congested and troublesome? My shoulder pain? My mind whirling with what I need to do, what I want to do, and what I’ve left undone. One can only guess.
Whatever it was, I got out of bed, went to the front veranda, and opened the shade. To my delight, the sky was dark, clear, and loaded with thousands of twinkling stars; they took my breath away. I immediately put on my sweatshirt and slippers and quietly headed outside to get a better look.
This is just one of my joys living in the northern Alto Minho region of Portugal. The night sky sparkles brightly. I often wait for the moon to rise and excitedly wait for each phase as it passes overhead.
Nature is the Main Attraction
We have now passed one year living in this area, and we couldn’t be happier that we decided to move up here. We made it through our first “busy” summer tourist season, which wasn’t as awful as we anticipated. I guess living in the Cascais area for four years tempered our expectations. After all, we now live in a small beach town, with a population of roughly 1,500.
Even when the summer people came to stay in their vacation homes, and tourists came to enjoy the beautiful beaches, we still had plenty of places we could go that weren’t jammed with people. River beaches, hikes, and not-so-secret ocean beaches that remain uncrowded even in the height of summer.
We learned to enjoy and look forward to swimming in the brisk water of the Atlantic that doctors say is loaded with minerals that are good for our bodies to soak up.
One of our favorite things is simply watching the sunset. We see a different show every night, and it never disappoints even when it’s a bit foggy.
We also love falling asleep to the sound of waves crashing on the shore. It reminds us of our visit to the Surf and Sand Hotel in Laguna Beach, California. We always chuckle when we remember reading the hotel review and one guest complaining that the ocean noises were too loud. It does get pretty loud here sometimes too, but we still love it.
We’ve Refocused Our Attention
I’m still teaching and wondering every semester if I still add value to my students’ education and lives. I hope so. I’ve been reading more, a lot more, and have really enjoyed getting back to it. I always read a lot, but when work took over, reading took a back seat.
I intend to get back to drawing and painting, but that one seems a bit harder to pick back up. I’m sure I’ll get there.
I’m purposely looking at how I spend my time. As we get older, time goes by so very fast, too fast. I’m finding I enjoy the days more when I spend time in nature, walk every day by the beach, take care of myself and Diana the best I can, and spend time with good people who make me smile.
Diana is spending more time writing. She published her first novel, “Conviction,” and she is currently working on a couple of other book ideas that are very interesting. She started a Substack newsletter and writes an interesting article every week. In fact, she talks about “Where’s Home?” this week. You should subscribe; it’s free!
She also continues to work with clients on sleep, stress, anxiety, and other issues in her hypnosis practice.
We spend time with new friends and old, exploring the area, meeting for beach picnics, having barbecues, checking out new restaurants, and attending dinner parties. The pace here is slow and relaxing, and we’ve settled into it well. We have special places we love to dine at and have become regulars at a few spots.
Friends and colleagues have come and visited; some even walked the Camino right by our home, and we love showing off our new area to everyone who arrives.
Rethinking Travel Writing
Long-time readers may have noticed that we haven’t been writing very often or posting too much on social media. That has been intentional. We haven’t been actively looking for travel writing gigs. We stopped attending conferences and have stepped back from traveling.
There are several reasons for this; first and foremost, our two senior cats have needed much more attention lately. This made travel difficult, if not impossible.
We’ve also thought long and hard about what we want to share. We want to accept responsibility for what we write and how that impacts the destinations and places we write about. We have always supported the idea of sustainable travel, and still do. We may still figure out a way to tackle this one.
We love food and always will. Diana continues to make new recipes, and we are always trying new places to eat and love discovering new purveyors of food and wine in and around our Minho region. We are exploring ideas on how best to share these talented people and beautiful places, too.
Immigration Man
We’ve always said since moving to Portugal over five years ago that moving to another country isn’t for everyone. It’s still not. In fact, since we arrived, the immigration laws have changed. A lot. Many people were upset and rant and rave, but the reality is that countries can change their immigration policies at any time and often do.
The only way to get through the immigration system is with extreme patience. You really have to want to be here, and we do.
I read a lot of Substacks and newsletters. One of my favorites is one by former journalist CJ Janovy, who also now lives in Portugal; it’s called “Queer Elder Unsettled.” She writes about her challenges and joys of moving abroad and living in Portugal. I really like her writing style and the topics she covers.
She recently wrote about the Turkish writer, Ece Temelkuran. She left Turkey in 2011 after threats to her life came when writing critical newspaper articles about the fascist dictator in her country. You can read the article on CJ’s Substack for all the details.
What really struck me was the word “unhomed” that Ece used to describe how she felt away from her homeland.
“Unhomed … an almost forgotten English word from the nineteenth century that deserves a resurrection today, when one can be at home yet still feel outside of it — disassociated, unbelonging, like a stranger.”
I just picked up her book “Nation of Strangers – Rebuilding Home in the 21st Century” after reading CJ’s description. I highly recommend it for people who have moved to another country or are considering it.
We don’t watch the U.S. news much anymore. We mainly read and watch Portuguese and European news. When we do see what is going on over there, it’s heartbreaking, overwhelming, and unbelievable. We are glad to be here.
Festas, Festas, Festas!
The summer was full of festas, or festivals, in all the local communities. Practically every weekend there was something going on somewhere. We attended festas honoring saints (there were a lot of those), Medieval festivals, Viking festivals, Burger festivals, Pizza festivals, fisherman festivals, and just marching bands going down our street celebrating who knows what.
We Love Our Community
Even with our still limited Portuguese-speaking skills, we have managed to make good friends with our neighbors. We live in a small walled townhouse community. There are not a lot of units here, and only half are full-time residents. Fortunately, being here full-time has made our neighbors know us and, thank goodness, like us!
We’ve been invited into their homes and invited them to ours for birthday parties and dinners. We have a big community space with a large pool; we are often all outside. We exchange baked goods, flowers, fresh produce, and helpful tips and local gossip. Our neighbors are incredibly kind and always willing to help each other out – it’s a real community. It’s my favorite part of being up here.
We’ve also made friends with some other wonderful people up here. Some are fellow immigrants searching for a safe harbor to peacefully live their lives. We rely on each other for support, laughs, and referrals.
We’ve also settled in with our regular essential workers. At the all-important CTT (post office) there is always someone willing to help us with our postage needs. We are particularly fond of Sophia, who not only assists us but also offers helpful tips, like how long things should take to arrive (a true guessing game). Diana recently renewed her U.S. passport. We were all amazed when it arrived in just a few weeks.
In fact, today we mailed our U.S. mid-term ballots. The clerk said, “Please save the world.” We hope to do our part, two votes at a time.
We’ve found a hair salon we love in Caminha, and Rebekah handles both of our unique hair qualities with ease. She even owns the tasca right across the street with the best prego sandwich in town. Lee at Lojo Top, the local “Chinese store,” always greets us and checks up on how we’re doing.
Our veterinarian in Viana do Castelo is by far one of the best we’ve ever had. We recently had a bit of a scare with our girl Amelia. They took such good care of her and were able to send her home with excellent instructions on how to use her feeding tube and handle all the meds. Thankfully, she’s now sans tube and doing very well.
All these people have made us feel welcome and more at home.
Getting Ready For The Next Season
As the days shorten and the temperatures get cooler, we are going to miss our summer beach weather. But fall is one of our favorite seasons and we really get a sense of it here. The leaves are already starting to change color, the lifeguards and beach cabanas are gone, and we’re getting ready to settle into the season. Soon we’ll be checking out wine harvests, folklore festivals, and Magustos (chestnut and bonfire festivals). We look forward to spending time with friends and exploring more of Portugal and Spain and continuing to get more comfortable in our new home.
