September 15 marked ten months in Tavira. That’s all the fingers (and all the thumbs) of both hands! Did you know there isn’t a word for fingers and toes in português? Fingers are dedos das mãos (digits of the hands) and toes are dedos dos pés (digits of the feet). Hand (mão) is feminine and foot (pé) is masculine, and in their plural form mãos and pés.
A Recap
How it started: a scouting trip in August 2024, applying for a D7 visa on October 1st, then arriving to Portugal on November 15th. We received our approvals in late November, then had to leave the EU and re-enter to Portugal (we went to London). Then, we visited friends in Seville and took a side trip to Caminito del Rey. Returning to spend Christmas and New Years (and Tom’s Birthday) in Tavira. We joined the East Algarve Clean Up team in January too.
It was a cold & rainy winter, but we managed to explore east algarve on bikes and by train. In early Spring we saw three Carnaval celebrations (in Tavira, Loulé, and Moncarapacho). After three months of emailing nearly every day, Tom got scheduled an AIMA appointment and celebrated with gelato (as one does). I joined a crafternoon group. I also started a spree of injuries by breaking my finger play netball, then catching my foot on some brambles and really doing a number on my knee. We pressed on exploring a famous trail called 7 hanging valleys and having more than our fair share of Folar (a bread that is common around Easter time).
On Easter Day, we went to São Brás de Alportel for the festival of flowers (totally awesome and will do it again next year). Then, we made our way up to Viana do Castelo to apply for a temporary residency card. It was a long trip, so we flew to Porto for a few days and this was when we had a multi-country power outage. With power restored, we continued to Viana do Castelo only to have my appointment rescheduled to Castelo Branco. So in May Tom quietly had his appointment in Faro, we moved into a new apartment, and then we headed up to Castelo Branco for my appointment. In June, Tavira celebrated the day of the city. We visited Sagres and got our first taste of Portuguese sardines at our former landlord’s house. In July we head toward Lisbon, stopping in Évora. Between the two cities, I managed to gash my knee bad enough to have to go to clinic every other day. We are going to put injuries on hold for a while.
In LIsbon, we visit Sintra and Cascais (super windy day). Then get back in time to stomp grapes. August arrives and our residency cards do too!
Blog Reorg
I’m starting a bit of a blog reorg. Most of the Portugal blog posts show up in the Daily Life category. Because we have been exploring every week, I started adding those to the Everything Bagel blog post to make a table of contents of sorts. Well, that has become a little ungainly because there is so much layered in. We brake for miradouros with panoramic swings, old windmills, megaliths, ruins & relics, etc. Stay tuned while I figure out how to wrangle this.
Giving back
One of our core values include giving back to the community in which we live. We started doing that on a regular basis in San Diego with Meals on Wheels and the American Cancer Society. Here, we are trying to find our thing.
We tried a few things such as tending to feral cat communities but our cats got too jealous so we let that one go. Tom also tried a couple other things including a community garden (that seems to have stalled) and a community based project giving surplus foods to people in need (this was a 9pm-midnight shift which was a bit too late). But we found a couple keepers.
On Sundays (except in summer), we go out to pick up trash in various places in the East Algarve. The people in this group are wonderful and we have coffee after collecting trash.
We also have settled in volunteering in the Red Cross, with me working in the warehouse and Tom in the loja.
This Week’s Adventures
On this week’s adventure day we went to Orchards of Flavour in Luz de Tavira with our friends Debbie & Dave. It was a ton of fun — we got to smell fragrant leaves and taste interesting leaves, flowers, and fruit. So good!
With the weather so nice, we took a ride to the salt pans and stopped to explore Forte do Rato (where Tom saw a rat, ironically enough).
To celebrate some life events, we got paddleboards with removable kayak seats! Our first paddle was a sunset paddle near Forte do Rato to a place commonly called “Poor Man’s Beach.” I was not super thrilled to see a rat swimming near the shore, shortly after we got out. A couple days later, we returned during the day to do a 4.5mile paddle.
Unrelatedly, Tom broke his scapula on a minor bike accident. He’s fine, bummed, but fine. I guess that pause button I mentioned earlier is faulty.
More Portugal
Read more about daily life, the embarrassing moments, and the process for having a long stay in Portugal. If you are more of a picture person, follow me on Instagram.
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