Busy Busy Busy...

As ever I am feeling ridiculously busy at the moment. Just a little summary for those who care, here is where my life lies at the moment:

• Internship at an EU agency;
• Doing a research degree;
• Volunteer researcher for the International Drug Policy Consortium;
• Teaching English;
• Portuguese lessons twice a week;
  
• Running and DJing an indie clubnight;
• I'm the new Spotter on Lisbon's SpottedByLocals;
• Maintaining my blogs

It feels like I have my fingers in quite a lot of pies at the moment - I mean it's good to keep busy but it's going to take me a little while to get all this in some sort of manageable state.

My visit to the UK last week was amazing. It was great to see everyone and to visit my beloved Manchester again after 10 months away but I was strangely glad to get back to Lisbon and try and get my affairs in order.

I'll hopefully write more about the UK visit soon.

It's been too long...

It's been a little while since I posted in here, I've just been far too busy with other things...(urgh, I nearly wrote 'projects' then, I hate it when people say that, it makes them sound like such dilettantes.)

Anyway, since I last wrote in here we have a new, same government. The election of last week went smoothly and, amusingly for me as an outsider, produced a result that managed to please no-one (probably with the exception of Paulo Portas).

As expected Socrates' PS lost a load of seats, relinquishing their majority in parliament but still being the largest party and so forming a minority government. PSD gained a few seats but after a major case of mishandling the ball didn't pick up nearly as many as they had hoped to. They had tried to play some dirty tricks involving leaking emails and communications about government spying but it was all so badly done that it ended up back firing on PSD, and the President, Carvaco Silva, and making them look a bit incompetent. It's nice to see that doing things 'em cima do joelho' extends all the way up the government.

As far as the smaller parties went there were mixed feelings. The communists were replaced by Bloco de Esquerda as the main left wing opposition but early exit polls had put BE with as many as 22 seats so their eventual 16 was a bit disappointing (even though this meant they had doubled their tally from the last elections).

The really big winner was Paulo Portas' CDS-PP who went from 12 seats to 21, a worrying swing to the right.

All this means that the next few years will mean muddling through and trying to make friends with people who have just been stabbed in the back. It should make things a little interesting at least.

Roll on the municipal elections.

Em cima do joelho - the Portuguese way...

It's nice when nations have idioms which succinctly and vividly paint such an accurate picture of what that nationality is about.

Of course in English we have "stiff upper lip" which describes well our reputation for coldness, aloofness and stoicism. The Portuguese have, "Em cima do joelho" which literally means "on top of the knee" and perfectly describes the attitude here of doing things in a last minute, rushed fashion without thinking of the consequences.

In everyday matters if often hits you, "who would put a bus stop at the corner of a busy junction?", "Why do most bars and clubs only advertise their attractions the night before", "Why is this website so beautifully designed yet never updated". And these thoughts are repeated sources of amusement - until they happen to you.

So yesterday I get a phonecall and the chap whose bar I was supposed to be playing at on Saturday rings me to tell me he was just doing the week's agenda (on Wednesday!) and he's double booked the night. I had booked it two weeks ago and been doing my best to promote it myself, even been to the place twice to meet the guy and he tells me this now.

Now obviously these things happen, they happen everywhere, and I don't blame the guy, he's really nice and friendly and was genuinely sorry, even giving me 2 dates in October to replace the one that's canceled, but as I rang round everyone I had invited the reaction of people was extremely telling - how typical!

September brings ghouls and lesbians...

With the now inevitable end of summer firmly upon us (even though today, just to rub it in our faces, is a beautiful day with barely a cloud in the skies) this means the return of two of the most unwelcome styles of dress.

Now that the students are back at university we are now starting again to see the tunas on the street. These are traditional musical groups/choirs comprised of students and each university has them. They all dress identically in black suits (women wear suit jackets, skirts and thick tights) and capes covered in patches and badges (collected a bit like the scouts) and can be seen wandering all over the place, occasionally strumming a guitar or singing some traditional songs. There's something so obviously and overtly geeky about this (especially for people in their late teens, early 20s) that I can't help but to cringe when I see them on the street, thinking of the kind of stick they would get in the UK. Unfortunately I think this says more about me than them so if you are visiting Lisbon (or wherever in Portugal) then you should definitely take advantage of this strange sight.



It's now getting a bit nippy which means that thousands of young Portuguese women are putting their open toed cork monstrosities back in their shoe closets and dusting off that old hiking boot/jeans combo. Whoever convinced the women here that this look was attractive/flattering/advisable was obviously playing a huge joke on everyone. The only effect this look really has is to make it look like thousands of lesbians have descended on the streets of Lisbon (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Cork

The Portuguese are mad about cork. It’s one of those facts that the Portuguese like to drop on the unsuspecting foreigner,

Portugeezer - “Did you know that Portugal is the world’s biggest cork producer?”

Me – “No but I will store that in the part of my brain only accessed during pub quizzes and the annual family Christmas Trivial Pursuit Deathmatch. Thank you!”

If you actually live here then the love of cork slowly begins to seep into your everyday life. At first you begin by noticing that pretty much every woman is wearing cork wedges. This slowly builds and builds, next you might notice an attractively cork tiled floor. Head to Alentejo and most things there seem to be made out of the stuff.

There’s a novel by Jose Saramago called The Stone Raft in which the Iberian peninsular breaks off from Europe and floats into the Atlantic. If the unlikely happens and life imitates fiction then Spain is screwed but Portugal will just bob happily along.

Portuguese shoes



Portuguese handbag



Portuguese umbrella



Portuguese cap



Portuguese tie



Portuguese chair



Portuguese car

Multicultural Lisbon...

This weekend was pretty jam packed full of activities and so I've only just had chance now to write about them. Friday saw me visit a wonderful bar, O Século, for the first time. Located on the edge of Bairro Alto it is something of a cultural centre, offering tea and coffee with art in the day and beer and music in the evening. We went there on Friday because I had approached the owner, Manuel, about putting on my own DJ night. He was very enthusiastic about the idea and we arrange to put it on on the 26th September, so there's a date for your diaries.

The space itself is wonderful, it has a really informal atmosphere, something like a school disco. The night we were there they were hosting a birthday party held by this group, who were mostly African. When we got their they had their tables laid out and had been having dinner and then at about midnight they put all the tables and chairs round the edge of the room, turned up the kuduro and kizomba and had a dance. There were some really good movers in the group.

I'm really looking forward to the night but I'm also pretty nervous, I'm just hoping whoever does turn up will have fun.

On Saturday S and I met an old friend of hers, P, in a great park in the north of Lisbon, A Quinta das Conchas.

Now one of my big complains about Lisbon is that there isn't much grass but this place is amazing. It was a revelation to S and I. The picnic we had was very nice, just 6 or 7 of us. We chatted and P graced us with probably the best Tyra Banks impression I have ever seen. He's a talented chap.

When it started getting a bit tired and cold we decided to make an evening of it. We made a small pitstop back at the flat to get warmer clothes and then headed over to one of my favourite parts of the city - Martim Monitz. Now this area has something of a bad reputation amongst a few Portuguese. Mainly because the place is, what the UK press would diplomatically call, 'multicultural'. It is basically one of the poorer areas and so where a lot of the immigrants from Africa, India and China have come to live. There is a certain dinginess to the place but I love it. In the daytime the area has some of the best Indian, Chinese and African shops in the city as well as my favourite Indian restaurant in Lisbon, Palacio Indiana.

When we arrived at the square we re-encountered the other guys, this time with a couple of other friends and we went to the nearby esplanade. It was a really nice place with pumping African music, a friendly crowd (and a very friendly barman from Cabo Verde) and S and I have already promised ourselves that we will return. Most people are so nice round there and the Praça itself is one of the nicer in Lisbon and it's with a sense of incomprehension that I have heard some guys here talking about having to pluck up their courage before they go or recounting a night out there as though they had been to Iraq. Strange.

The main course of the evening was a big multicultural festival that had been taking place over the weekend which was being rounded off with a large free concert in the Largo do Intendente. Well now if Martim Monitz is like Iraq for some people then Largo do Intendente must be like walking through Bagdad with an "I hate Muhammed" t-shirt on.. It is the roughest bit of the roughest area but I used to work near there, know the area pretty well and I really like it. S and I spent a good while in awe of the apartments around there which must be huge and dirt cheap.

The concert was much better than I had dared to expect, I'm not the biggest fan of 'World Music' but the guys we were with helped me get in the mood and the band were surprisingly good. They were the typical mixture of umpteen different nationalities and styles but it was nice to have a dance and was definitely worth the free entry.

I have to say not everyone enjoyed it as much as we did though:



This guy had obviously had the foresight to bring a chair but not to stop himself from getting absolutely hammered on red wine that he kept in that coke bottle. Unfortunately I woke the chap up taking the next photo and then had an embarrassing and hasty walk away.

The concert was wonderful, it didn't finish too late but S and I were completely knackered (It's one of the things about Portugal, the night before, even though we didn't think we'd been out that late we actually went to bed at 03h30) so we headed home and to bed.

What a way to start a day!...

If I see another chubby legged girl in 'wet look' leggings I am going to scream cry.

North/South divide...

Much is made in the UK (and here in Portugal) about the North/South divide. That is the differences (economic/social/cultural/etc.) between the towns and populations of the North, which are comically (if a little romantically) described here by Lucy Mangan.

I've said it before that the relationship between Manchester and London is somewhat similar to that between Porto and Lisbon. Having lived in three of the aforementioned cities I feel that not enough is made of the similarities. It would perhaps be a bit of a huge job to compare all of the cities so instead I'll concentrate on the biggest geographical divide, Lisbon and Manchester.

Much has already been written about the Portuguese in Manchester. But aside from the Baron de Sousa Deiró and Earnest J Soares there are many other distinct similarities:

We both love sausages made from blood:



Our men wear flat caps and do no work:




...and we let our women do most of the work...which can take its toll:

Pears

I just nearly bought a pear. I don't like pears very much but I was ordered to buy one by a scary looking, bull-necked woman outside the train station in Cais de Sodre.

She just sits outside the station all day behind her box of 6 pears, staring people down from under her impressive eyebrows and yelling, "pêras" as they scurry past.

I don't think I've been as scared of anyone since I moved to Portugal.

Worrying times...

Last night S and I had dinner with our favourite Portuguese judge, F. He's a great guy who amusingly talks at about a million miles per hour both in Portuguese and English, a trait which belies his roots in Alentejo. F's a really nice guy to be around and because he talks so fast we usually get through many topics. On of last night's most interesting subjects was politics. There is that old saying that politics and religion are not suitable subjects for the dinner table but we forgo these little in our house in the hopes of stimulating a little debate and quickening the blood.

The current issue in Portugal is the fact that there are elections at the end of the month for the legislature (27th September). Currently the ruling party is the Partido Socialista (PS) headed by José Sócrates, a centre-left party whose popularity is somewhat on the wane (as many ruling parties across Europe are having trouble). Their main rivals are the Partido Social Democrata (PSD) a centre-right party headed by the (eerily reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher) Manuela Ferreira Leite.

(Here's a wonderful sketch of her by the comedy group Os Contemporâneos - for those of you whose Portuguese is up to it)



Now obviously any right minded person would be horrified by the prospect of a centre-right government but here the prospect is heightened by the odd Portuguese voting system . Here we have proportional representation which allows a number of smaller parties to flourish. the main ones being Bloco de Esquerda (BE) (literally 'Block of the Left') who are a more left wing group of smaller issue (sometimes even single issue) groups who people here fear know aren't ready to rule. Then further left you have Partido Comunista Portuguesa (PCP) who are grouped together with the Greens, enough said about them but they still get the odd seat in parliament and then you have the 'far' right, Paulo Portas' Partido Popular (CDS-PP). Now there is some question as to how far right they actually are. I don't think they're quite calling for the expulsion of the Jews but they're as far right as you get here in Portugal and so they obviously attract their fair share of nutters (usually seen with 'right wing hair' and monarchist stickers on their cars).

At the moment the polls are pretty even but what this means is that should PS win they surely won't have enough seats to form a government and they've annoyed enough people over the past few years to make forming a leftist coalition next to impossible. If PSD win, which is likely, they are bound to form a coalition with CDS-PP meaning a return to right wing government, something I thought I had left behind in the UK.

S is quite worried, being a civil-servant because we all know what it means for the public sector when the right is in power, it would be really very sad if the best we could hope for was that CDS-PP weren't given influential ministries.

We'll have to wait and see but in the meantime I'm off to plan a revolution.

Lies, damn lies!...

Oh and I might as well clear the air. This weekend was also when I uncovered a lie that S had been living for the better part of 16 months...

I thought I was living with a true Portugueezer but it was all lies!!!

We made the shocking discovery over the weekend that because S was born in London before 1983 this means she is automatically a British citizen. She's also a Portuguese citizen because of her parents and so I'm now going to be marrying a PortuBritlander

Planning, plotting & scheming

OK so the big news of the weekend was not, as I explained earlier our trip to either the wedding or even Festa de Avante! but rather the news that me and S have now (almost) got a date for our wedding.

I really don't want this blog to turn into one of 'those blogs'* and at least recently I've tried as much as possible to avoid it just being about me and my life and attempted some kind of more general impression-giving blog. Almost an anti-travel blog if you will - not that this is in anyway supposed to dissuade people from visiting Portugal, quite the opposite in fact, but rather it's supposed to be something of an antidote to those fluffy, romantic travel guides. Even those 'hip and happening' guides like Le Cool and Wallpaper naturally tend to hype a place and I just want to document my view from the street. This is the travel blog equivalent of Bill Hick's 'The People Who Hate People Party'.

Anyway, S and I have been engaged for 9 months and we really didn't want it to be one of those engagements that go on forever as some kind of semi-permanent state that is meant to avoid any real kind of commitment. In the back of our minds of course we have always had the thought of the Portuguese Wedding and all that that entails and we're really not very traditional so it was until this weekend something like an unspoken agreement that when we did it it wouldn't be a traditional affair.

All the thought of weddings this weekend brought the whole thing to the front of our minds and considering that we don't want a traditional wedding we accept that there will have to be a hell of a lot of planning involved. Not least getting my crowd over from the UK, a job which it's best to give as much notice as possible. There is also the small problem that we don't want to do it in Lisbon. We figured that if we do it out of town, in the countryside then we can invite a bunch of people for whom the travel and fuss will be too much and therefore only those who really love us will make the effort.

There are other general aspects of weddings that we want to dispose of too, there will be no 'top table', everyone will sit around together and can talk together so there will be no sense of 'the chosen few'. We also don't want the usual starter, main course, desert meal preferring instead to have a big barbecue with enough food to feed a small army. Our wedding will have to have speeches too, which although traditional in the UK isn't here in PT. There's also hope that we can get some friends to play a few songs with their band as well as having a DJ (it will have to be someone I trust implicitly otherwise I will be doing it myself).

In terms of dress code we're desperately trying to think of how to word the invitation so that everyone doesn't turn up in suits and their Sunday best. This is a fact that S's dad was very happy about. S says she has her dress already planned and so I'm going to have to start thinking about mine soon.

I'm sure I won't be able to help adding the odd thing in here about this whole process which is unavoidable but I'm sure it will give me opportunity to have many more insights into Portuguese life and culture.

*By one of 'those blogs' I of course mean those tedious blogs full of, "Thursday - washed my hair", "I wonder if she really loves me", that kind of rubbish.

Public Transport...

I have a confession to make here. I know it's not fashionable and in some ways it's a little grimy but I love public transport, especially buses.

The second thing I have to confess at this point is that I don't drive.

That simple statement is enough to raise eyebrows in the UK, here in Portugal you get almost complete incomprehension. "Wait, you're breathing, what do you mean you don't drive?" I have mentioned before that the Portuguese love their cars, I should, for the sake of accuracy, extend this to all private motor vehicles because there are plenty of motorbikes and scooters around here too. As if to stress that disability should be no hindrance to exercising your right to pollute the skies and cause traffic jams I even see, on a regular basis, a man with no legs riding his specially made tricycle around the Saldanha area. It's as though he's trying to rub in the fact that not driving here is something worse than a disability.

All this means that those left to ride the buses here really are something special to behold. I've only been catching the bus here regularly for two weeks now and already I've had more surreal experiences than the previous two months. I've already seen a woman so pissed she got up to dance and sing to some Rolling Stones music for the entertainment of the other passengers, I've seen huge arguments erupt over things as trivial as an empty seat, I've seen a bus almost emptied because one man's hair smelt so badly.

Riding the bus also affords you the opportunity to observe those things outside the windows that you just miss when you are gliding past in a car. Yesterday for example I watched as one man (drunk or mentally ill, I wasn't sure) took off all his clothes and through them in the fountain at Rossio, an act I would've completely missed if we hadn't had to stop to pick up passengers.

S is now piling on the pressure for me to learn to drive and I do think it's a valuable skill that I will have to learn but I don't see it curbing my bus riding, especially in the city where there's so much to see.

Salty bits of goodness (Portuguese food #1)...

Portuguese food is a wonder. Not a modern wonder like a skyscraper or a bridge or a dam but more like an ancient wonder, the Pyramids for example, which is essentially a simple structure but which was conceived and constructed over time.

Portuguese cuisine has been centuries in the making and, most people would say, there is little room for innovation. The dishes are generally pretty basic but always well done. I will come back to this theme again and again because I have been wondering how to approach the subject of Portuguese food for a long time. Not only am I someone who loves and appreciates food on multiple levels (not just the taste but I appreciate the artistry that goes into it) but also because the Portuguese are unusually touchy when it comes to food.

Just as the weather is a constantly safe topic for conversation in Britain the same can be said for food here (as long as you are complimentary). The British have a strange relationship with food, working with people from all over Europe I am often subject to people deriding my national cuisine but I usually let it wash over me and let them enjoy their ignorance. What people don't realise is the huge variety on offer in Britain, both in terms of restaurants and for buying ingredients (in fact a Portuguese acquaintance of mine now living in London described Borough market as one of his favourite places). It only really hits home when you do move abroad.

The quality of Portuguese ingredients cannot be argued with, the meat, fish and vegetables are all of top top quality, fresh with lots of flavour. The only problem is that there aren't a lot of them. You're lucky in most supermarkets if you get a choice between more than 6 or 7 vegetables (and no, a potato isn't a vegetable), I'm exaggerating here but there is seriously nothing to compare with what we get in the UK. It's simply because most things are grown here, they import very little. This is great for taste but leaves you little option when it comes to dishes to cook (The same can be said of cuts of meat too).

This is the ultimate problem with Portuguese restaurants, 9 times out of 10, probably more the food will be great, huge portions and cooked well, but if you're here for long you just get a bit tired of the same 5 or 6 dishes on the menu everywhere (and I mean everywhere) - bacalhau à bras (or asado or whatever), secretos de porco, bitoque, etc.

I'll have to stop there as the purpose of this post really wasn't to whinge but actually praise and today I am in praise of something the Portuguese do very well...salty snacks.

One of the great Portuguese passtimes is sitting (or actually more usually standing) in the street, drinking beer, and watching/talking about football and they have two of the greatest aids for doing this: tremoços and pumpkin seeds. Tremoços are lupin seeds, stored in brine. many bars you go to will provide you with one glass of beer and one glass of tremoços and the method for eating them is to grasp betwixt forefinger and thumb, bite off a side of the tough outer skin and with finger and thumb pop the soft inside into the mouth. It's tasty and fun!

Pumpkin seeds are a rather newer discovery but I seriously cannot stop eating them. They're so so salty that you can't help but take a few big gulps of beer after them. You are ideally supposed to crack open the outer shells and only eat the seed inside but I just gobble down the lot and think of it as added fibre. My health I think is starting to suffer and I will have to start rationing myself but until I get my blood pressure checked I'm going to carry on eating them

The marxist struggle of my weekend...

As has been the theme for the past few weeks the invitations and plans have been coming in at such a rate that there is simply not enough time in the day to do everything that S and I would like to, never mind the fact that we both have work (I have my fingers in a few pies actually) and study (we're both either doing or preparing Masters). This all leaves us not only with an almost permanent sense of exhaustion but also the feeling that we're not fully experiencing everything we could.

This weekend is both a perfect example of this sentiment and also how our varied tastes can leads to some interesting choices that we have to make. The choice we have to make this weekend is to attend the wedding of an old colleague of S or go to the annual festival organised by the Portuguese Communist Party, Festa do Avante!

S and I both have some knowledge of Portuguese weddings, in fact that's where we first met, and know how traditional they can be. my main objection is that I would have to wear a suit, something which I hate so much I can't put into words. We would have to put up with the families from both sides and the kisses from bristly grandmothers. I feel incredibly uncomfortable on these formal occasions and one of the things I'm most glad about is that they way we are planning our wedding is to avoid all the stuffy formality and just have a big party for our friends. There is still some debate as to whether we can totally ban the suit (I'm currently winning this argument and it has now reached a stage of shirt but no tie, with a possibility that I might be allowed to wear trainers) as I see the clothing as the complete antithesis of fun and 'letting your hair down'.

There's also the fact that weddings, being a family affair and the Portuguese family being what it is (based on a model between the mafia and a medieval feudal system), means that it is an opportunity for the family to show off (down to the little boys dressed like their fathers, something which makes every fiber of me shudder), and/or complain and generally make a fuss. Most of this I will happily miss but there is always an atmosphere at these kinds of events like a sense of obligation hangs over it. There are unwritten rules that I am not privy to, I'm commonly excused from them being a foreigner but it still leaves one a bit on edge.

The alternate choice would however mean coming into contact with lots of Communists, a group of people that I have little time or sympathy for. My own political persuasion is pretty far left, I think everyone was born equal and deserves the same opportunities but there's nothing I love more than baiting those so stuck to their own ideology that they effectively use it to remove the logic from their own argument.

S assures me that the festival is a lot of fun, she has been before and says you get a real sense of community spirit and everyone helps out and gets involved and that does sound like a real plus. You get the typical festival entertainment, music food, dancing and as much or as little propaganda as you can take. But I still can't get over the fact that Portugal has an active and popular Communist Party!!!

In the UK the far left is something of a joke. The UK Communist Party exists in little more than name and one of its many offshoots, the Socialist Worker Party is only really the province of students and guys with dogs on string trying to sell you their paper. Here there are signs everywhere (in fact I can see one from my office as I type) and they actually do well in certain working class and rural areas, they even have people elected to Parliament.

We will just have to see what happens at the weekend, nothing is decided yet but I'm sure whatever we do it will give me something to write for this blog.

Holidaysick...

I have just returned from a wonderful weekend, hidden away from the outside world in Mora, Alentejo. The house we stayed in was wonderful, large and air conditioned with 4 double beds and a pull out sofa bed, so plenty of room for the seven of us plus the baby. The house had an amazing swimming pool and tennis court and we spent the whole weekend alternating between browning ourselves in the sun and then cooling off in the pool. I attempted one game of tennis with S but as soon as she was confronted by my formidable skills she felt a little embarrassed and claimed the heat was too strong for her. Entirely understandable in the circumstances.

We had some great meals and I increased me repertoire to include barbecuing now. I left the first one to R and he murdered the already quite dead meat so the second one I did to a slightly less crispy consistency. It was all good though and it was really nice to have everyone together and (more or less) relaxed. It also afforded me the opportunity to test out a little theory of mine. I don't think the circumstances were quite right, it being a holiday period, but I went for it nontheless.

There is undoubtedly a formula out there, somewhere, which will accurately predict the amount of time it takes for a group of Portuguese people to make a decision and act upon it. Between us, S and I, we do not have this problem - we're one Portugueezer and one Britlander and we decide things all the time in mere seconds, from dinner plans to what films to watch. (The latter here being less a joint decision and more a diktat from me.)

I am very much used to quite a regimented and ordered variety of relaxation. It's the same with going on a night out - we meet at this time, we drink here then, at this time we do that, etc. My holidays have always been so well scheduled and planned that there is no chance of wasting a second of fun!

I noticed how different things are here in the first morning: there's a consultation period, everybody slowly gathers in one area where all opinions are sought and evaluated. Everyone's feelings are taken into consideration. There is an informal (and silent) round of voting done mostly through special glances and raising of eyebrows and then this is evaluated. Any decisions that weren't popular are then discarded and the next round of deliberations take place. Any feelings that might have been hurt in the previous round are also placated here. And so on until a decision is reached diplomatically and through consensus and we can finally sit down and start breakfast.

When we have to leave the table it starts again.

I have of course known Portugueezers for many years now and grown accustomed to this decision-making process but this was an opportunity to see it in a large group which is always enlightening.

We were extremely lucky to have with us probably the calmest baby in the world. M is now, I think, about 3 months old and we barely heard a wink out of him. He seems to spend his day sleeping and eating and really, all things considered, what does he have to complain about?

It was sad to see the weekend come to an and, as I write now my office is filling up with the returning masses and it starts to feel like the end of summer. Soon things will have returned to normal and the old routine will start up again. The coming months will be quite busy and should this be, as I expect it, the end of summer then I can look back and be happy with it, it was my first in Portugal and my love for the place has grown and continues to grow. It is indescribably different to experience a place by living there as opposed to visiting it and now I am here for good settling back into the routine is almost comforting.

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A big sign that summer is coming to an end here, as it is everywhere, is the sudden appearance of all the adverts proclaiming that school is starting up again soon. I have never worked in the stationary trade, nor do I know anyone who has, but this period must be incredibly exciting for them. It's pretty much the only time of year that pencils and protractors are at the top of anyone's shopping list and I can imagine at stationers conferences they must talk with knowing nods about the 'Back to School' season targets.

Here in Portugal we have been presented with an advert that makes me chuckle every time I see it:



It can't just be me who thinks that this girl advertising a return to classes looks suspiciously old!

Alentejo...

I won't be updating over the weekend. Not that I usually do but now I have a reason so I might as well tell you about it.

S and I and a few friends are taking the cars, our books and enough food to invade Spain with and moving ourselves over to Alentejo for the weekend. Alentejo is a lovely region of Portugal which comprises the southern half of the country except for the Algarve. It's a very beautiful place with rolling plains, a breathtaking coast and so very interesting towns and villages along the way.

The region is also the butt of several Portuguese jokes due to the inhabitants' legendary slowness and dimness, in much the same way as the Irish are to the English, (the Portuguese are slow enough in general (physcically that is) so I found it difficult to imagine something slower but it's true!) my favourites include:

• How do you know when a worker has finished for the day in Alentejo? He takes his hands out of his pocket.
• Did you hear about the farmer from Alentejo who tried to teach his donkey to live without eating? He was so exited, but then it died.

I had one S's father told me too but I went and forgot it and S can't remember it (she is also useless at comedy, being a girl).

It's a shame that we plan on taking so much food with us really because one of the things that the region is really famed for is the food (which reminds me I really need to do a full post about Portuguese food soon), the wine and pork are especially delicious, but there is some reasoning behind our methods. The weekend will consist entirely of reading our books and lying by the swimming pool with the occasional break to grab another beer or put some more picanha on the barbecue. If it sounds idyllic that's because it will be. It's the perfect way to see out this hectic holiday season.

It's not yet the end of August, the temperature rarely drops below 26-27ºC and already the shops are full of winter clothes and it's pretty much officially the end of summer.

A blast from the past...

It has often been said (perhaps most often by me, but not exclusively) that one of the interesting things about Portugal, and indeed one of its great charms, is that in some very striking ways it reminds us of our country of origin but from a distant time.

My frequent refrain has been, "it's like Britain in the 50s/60s/70s" and comfortingly this sentiment has been expressed by friends and colleagues alike who have come to Lisbon from a variety of cities and countries. It was also echoed by Paul Theroux, in the book The Kingdom By The Sea, who says that certain countries exist in a certain time. If Britain and America are now then Japan is 5-10 years into the future and some countries inexplicably in the past.

This thought obviously only comes to me when confronted by certain situations - in many ways Portugal is an extremely advanced country, it leads Europe and possibly the world in things like renewable power and it's still a mystery to me how the metro system in such a hot country can consistently be so cool when London's is stifling in half the heat. But the thought does come, invariably, once or twice a day and today I have already reached my limit, but today i'll just tackle the one that comes up the most.

Spitting

In the UK spitting (the expulsion of saliva, possibly liberally mixed with phlegm from the nose, from the mouth) in public is exclusively the domain of 'yoofs' and professional footballers, two sections of society largely linked by haircuts and IQ if nothing else. It's not something socially acceptable and in fact is seen as something distinctly antisocial and threatening. Here in Portugal though barely a head is turned and seemingly the majority of people with grey hair will spend much of their daily constitutionals clearing all oral and nasal passageways and depositing the results spectacularly on the pavement.

It's quite disconcerting to see some, otherwise respectable looking, person engaged in such a disgusting habit and, startlingly, it's not limited to men. It is also fact that most of the elderly here are still dressed like I imagine people in black and white films to be dressed. The men in sharp suits with brightly polished shoes whilst the women are dressed like movie stars from the 50s complete with huge, insect like sunglasses, so to see them hawking up goo is quite a sight.

It all reminds me of the story I have heard many times since my childhood of when my grandma first got an electric fireplace fitted in her house (in what must've been the 1960s) and her father, my great-grandfather, had up until then only ever had coal fires and so my grandma had to patiently explain to him that this was one fireplace he was expressly forbidden from spitting into. A request, much to the annoyance and disgust of my grandma and mum, he would often ignore.

Portuguese 'utilities'...*UPDATE*

In a startling display of efficiency we had our gas switched back on at 21:30 last night...and the man who did it also flooded our kitchen!

Portuguese 'utilities'...

As I write this the shivering is finally subsiding. This morning I was forced to take a cold shower because we were without gas, as indeed was the entire building, and had been since the evening before. What had happened will probably never be discovered, all I can say is that when returned home with S, after our shopping, we found a fire engine parked in front of the apartment building with a few surly looking firemen wandering about and a couple of police officers wandering around trying to look like they were doing something.

On questioning no-one really seemed to know what was going on but whilst we patiently waited in the hallway that was filled with emergency personnel and a couple of confused looking electricians, shopping bags and all, it finally became clear - the electricians had been working and then smelt gas, they had rung the emergency services but now no-one really knew what to do. As a precaution(!) they switched the gas off and we were later told that it wouldn't be reconnected until some point today. We were told that it would be on again this afternoon, call me a cynic but I won't hold my breath...actually on second thoughts maybe that would be a good idea.

All this trouble with these services reminded me about a great blog entry I read a while back on the An Englishman In Lisbon blog here. This entry hilariously (and most importantly truthfully) describes the situation of electrical wiring in Portugal. S and I's flat for example has some beautiful, retro, light switches, which for some strange reason each have two switches, the second being entirely superfluous. We have ourselves suffered the tripped switches when we try to run the hairdryer and the microwave at the same time, and don't get me started on the basic two-pin plugs which give, according to S who I think is protesting too much, a 'satisfying crackle and flash' so you know when the plus is in.

Those are the dangers inside, outside we have to walk past installations like this on a regular basis:


It wouldn't be so bad, you could laugh at the absurdity of something like this still being allowed, if you hadn't seen one explode like I have. It happened early in the year when the weather was particularly bad. There was torrential rain and I had just dropped S off at the university. I was walking back down Avenida de Berna in Lisbon and the rain has turned the street into a river. It was obviously too much for one junction box which exploded in the street. Again the firemen looked on, surly and confused, it really doesn't fill me with confidence when I read "Bombieros Voluntarios" on their trucks, I want professionals!