* If you’re landing here for the first time, this is the last of several posts describing my first visit to Portugal to decide whether I’d want to move here.
If you want to read this section in order, start here: Chegada a Lisboa para explorar
And here’s the beginning of the whole story: Onde esta história começou

Keeping with the pattern of strikes on this visit, there was no rail worker strike on my last journey, returning to Lisboa for a few days before my flight back to the US.

This time, I stayed in the Olivais neighborhood. And that’s so similar to Olaias that I kept getting the names mixed up 😂

My experience was that these different parts of town had very different vibes, but I can’t say how much of that is about the neighborhoods and how much of that was due to the way my perspective had shifted.

I picked this last spot because of its proximity to the airport – just about a 10 minute walk to a Metro station on the red line, which runs to the airport.

It turned out that the apartment was in a brand new building. Like, I think it even had central heat / air conditioning, which is incredibly rare in Portugal! It was way more than I actually needed, but my entire focus in booking this spot was to make my travel day as simple as possible.

In contrast, the place I stayed in Olaias was a very nice little apartment in an older building. It had wall-mounted space heaters and no a/c.

But over the course of this visit, I started judging neighborhoods by what I called the dog shit index – how much shit is there on the sidewalks? My assumption was that people who actually care about their neighborhood will be less likely to leave shit on the actual sidewalk, and more likely to discourage their dog from leaving a deposit there in the first place.

Based on that, Olivais seemed to be a much nicer area!

The most significant feelings that I associate with my time in Olaias were those of being a fish out of water, trying to figure out the basics of functioning in this brand-new-to-me space. Honestly, this is making me think that I should go back to walk around that area one of these days, to see what impressions I get now that I’ve been living in Lisboa for a couple of years.

The feeling I got in Olivais was relief to be back in a regular residential area where people are going about their regular lives, instead of on vacation or catering to tourists.

That’s not to say that no one stopped me to pet my dog, but it happened with a more comfortable frequency, and people were more polite about it!

One of my favorite parts of this stay was a little breakfast and lunch restaurant that I found about a block away from where I was staying. In a sharp contrast to the Algarve, the restaurant employees barely spoke any English. Thankfully, by this point I had started picking up some of the essentials, as long as people spoke slowly.

Like many authentic Portuguese restaurants, they have a “prato do dia” (plate of the day) menu instead of a fixed menu. As someone who prefers to check the menu online before deciding where to go, that took some getting used to!

And I think this was the first time I encountered getting both french fries and white rice as my side dishes with a protein! I forget what it was that I had, but steak, fish, chicken, whatever, don’t be surprised if that is served with both fries and white rice!

At another nearby traditional restaurant, I tried alheira for the first time. That regularly comes with french fries (batatas fritas) and a fried egg. I should note that batatas fritas here are generally hand-cut, which tastes way better than those in the US. But they’re rarely seasoned, which is not so great!

My other favorite thing about this area was a low key neighborhood park with a dog park. Like, this was just a nice residential area that I could see myself living in. I was already set on moving to Setúbal, but I could see this being a back up plan.

But also, this was close to Estação Oriente, a major transportation hub, and the Parque das Nações. A lot of CP train routes begin or end at Oriente, and there’s a Metro station and bus station in the same spot.

There’s also the big Vasco da Gama shopping mall right across the street from the train/metro/bus station, but I wasn’t interested in that!

Once I passed those features, I made it to the park, which apparently was the site of the 1998 Lisbon World Exposition. The best part for me was the long trail along the riverfront on the Tejo river.

At this point, the Tejo is an estuary, rather than a regular river, so I think that stretch of mud between the walkway and the river is because we were there at low tide.

I didn’t get nearly as many scenic photos from this stay, because I was emotionally preparing myself to head back to the US on 19 Apr.

The day before I left, though, I did take time to bookend the day with photos of the sunrise and sunset from my balcony.

I think the last little visual I have from this stay that seems worth sharing here is this short video of the blinds in the apartment:

These blackout blinds are so common here that I’ve started to take them for granted. My apartment has some that are controlled by remote control, which is a fabulous way to “turn the lights on” in the morning, but not so great when the battery in the remote dies 😂 And others use a pull string to open and close.

But this was something I don’t remember ever seeing in the US, and they’re freaking brilliant.

Even though there were challenges and I didn’t love every part of this 8 week journey, I was absolutely in love with Portugal by this point. I wasn’t looking forward to “going home”. I was preparing myself to go get my affairs in order so that I could come back to build a new home.

This was the town where I wound up shouting at some old British man to just leave me alone!

* If you’re landing here for the first time, this is the 7th of several posts describing my first visit to Portugal to decide whether I’d want to move here.
If you want to read this section in order, start here: Chegada a Lisboa para explorar
And here’s the beginning of the whole story: Onde esta história começou

I’m very glad that I spent these 8 weeks traveling by train around Portugal, because it prepared me for life here. It turned out that rail workers were on strike on every other one of my travel days – including this journey. By this point, it was just normal.

Comboios de Portugal (CP) generally runs a certain minimal level of service. So I had to plan ahead better than I would otherwise need to, and the trains were maybe a little more crowded than usual, but I could get to where I needed to go.

I feel like being able to just roll with disruptions like this is an absolutely essential part of living here. The immigration process is messy, and has been since I started paying attention. And that has driven some people who moved here to decide to move elsewhere. But I’m sure I’ll come back around to that when I get to that point of my story…

The trouble with traveling by train was that the station is right near the central touristy part of town in these smaller towns. I don’t know whether that was by design – if they decided to put the station as close as possible to the popular destination – or if that area became touristy because of people looking for lodging and restaurants near the train station.

Either way, this was another sensory overload, with a side of too many encounters with super-entitled vacationers.

We rolled into town a little later than I hoped, because it was either that or way too early. The trains I had hoped to take were canceled by the strike. But I arrived in time to find my airbnb, get all checked in, and then make it down to the beach. There was a super moon that night. My basic iphone camera isn’t all that great for such photos, but it was cool to see in person.

But, then I walked back toward where I was staying, and stopped at one of the restaurants along the way for dinner. Of course it was in the touristy area. And of course I had Mocha along with me.

As I was sitting at a dining table in front of a restaurant, OBVIOUSLY there for dinner, some horrible person thought it would be cool to let her dog come get in Mocha’s space.

Mo was laying calmly right next to me, and this awful, entitled, inconsiderate woman thought it would be cool to interrupt my dinner for her dog’s entertainment.

And that was really the vibe in Lagos.

When I got out of the city center, it wasn’t so bad. But there were a lot of people on vacation who seemed to act like everyone else is just an NPC there to entertain them.

The beaches were absolutely gorgeous, which is of course a big part of what attracts crowds.

I arrived on 6 Apr, which is still the off-season, so they weren’t completely packed… Tho they weren’t entirely empty, either.

And it was pretty cool to walk around the old city walls. There’s also a castle in the city center that I walked through but didn’t take photos of.

The restaurants in the city center were fine, but I didn’t see anything to write home about. But I did find a couple of spots outside the city walls where the food was worth taking photos of!

The best day I had in Lagos was one when I didn’t have any meetings or anything (I was actually working remotely, not just on vacation!), and was able to just take off for a walk way south of the city. Looking at a map now, I don’t remember how far I made it. But the views were absolutely gorgeous.

We kept going after the boardwalk ended, blissfully walking along a trail through the scrub brush, mostly letting Mocha have fun running off leash because nobody was around.

And then, near the access point where I was planning to leave that area anyway to start heading back, I saw this sign:

Pine processionary caterpillars develop urticating hairs that cause allergies on the skin, in the eyes and in the respiratory tract of human beings, and can cause the same symptoms in animals.

The greatest risk of allergies occurs between January and April, when the caterpillars come down from the trees until they bury themselves in the ground.

😬

Thankfully, we got lucky! Because of that, I’m kind of glad I didn’t know about these until the very end of this adventure – I might not have had as much fun if I had known the risk!

There were some good parts of this stay, but it very much did not feel like the sort of place where I could stand to live.

I’m incredibly glad that I was able to bring Mocha with me on this trip. She does actually serve as a service dog – all that training wasn’t just so that I bring her in the cabin on the plane.

But she’s gorgeous, and it’s absolutely fucking exhausting to have that many random strangers coming up every day wanting to pet her.

At this point, it’s probably relevant that I’m autistic. I was formally diagnosed in my early 40s. I can mask well enough to have gotten by undetected until then, but I have a limited capacity for interactions with random strangers.

On my last morning in town, I finally reached my breaking point. I had checked out of the airbnb, walked down most of the way to the train station, and had a little time to kill.

So I stopped to order something at one of the restaurants near the train station.

I was completely over being in this town, and just wanted to be left alone until I could get out of there.

But of course, some old British man decided he wanted to pet my dog.

And I tried to politely tell him no, she is a service dog and is working right now.

Did he respect that? Nope! In hind sight, he was old, maybe he genuinely didn’t hear me, and I needed to raise my voice. Maybe he just didn’t take me seriously, and I needed to make a scene.

Either way, I wound up shouting at him loudly enough to make a scene to just leave us alone!

Like, the waiter came over afterwards to make sure I was ok because it was a scene.

But my gods, how many times am I supposed to put up with random strangers bothering us every gods damned day?

I didn’t get this dog because I want random strangers approaching me all the time. I got this dog because I wanted a dog who doesn’t shed all over my house. My last dog was a collie / german shepherd mix who created dust puppies all over the house if I didn’t vacuum at least once a week. So I got a standard poodle because she’s smart and doesn’t shed.

But so many random strangers don’t give a fuck about me and think they’re entitled to interact with my dog.

Get your own damned dog!

Grumble grouch grumble!

I don’t hate every interaction with someone who wants to pet my dog. Some people are actually respectful, particularly in regular neighborhoods, not tourist traps.

But the number of those interactions in Lagos was just completely fucking overwhelming, and I was so fucking glad to get out of there.

This was where I felt my first pangs of something like homesickness. Except that it wasn’t for the US.

* If you’re landing here for the first time, this is the 6th of several posts describing my first visit to Portugal to decide whether I’d want to move here.
If you want to read this section in order, start here: Chegada a Lisboa para explorar
And here’s the beginning of the whole story: Onde esta história começou

Before I visited Portugal, I expected to fall in love with the Algarve, the southern coast. Looking at just the areas near beaches, that’s the hottest part of the country. Sure, you get hotter temperatures in some inland areas in the summer, but those areas also get colder in the winter and lack beaches!

I chose Tavira as a destination because a neighbor in Atlanta had spent time there and just loved it.

The train ride went smoothly, with no strike! We transferred to a regional train in Faro. Mocha handled it better this time and hopped onto the train on her own.

But, then, in what seems like a bad omen for the week, getting from the train station to the airbnb was way more difficult than it needed to be. The host sent coordinates that were supposed to take me to the rear entrance instead of the front door, because that side was closer to the train station.

Except he sent the wrong coordinates.

And I was tired and hungry and needed to pee, and now I’m lost! Wah!

I eventually made it to the house, and it was fine.

And then I went out looking for dinner, and wound up just… wishing I could go somewhere else.

The vibe was overwhelmingly “tourist trap”.

Now, I know that some people love that vibe. Tourists flock to places that have that vibe and that vibe develops because businesses provide the experience that tourists want. And if that’s the vibe you love, then I’m happy for you to enjoy it.

But that feels like sensory overwhelm and the walls closing in on me all at once.

I don’t like when waiters start talking to me to convince me to eat there because I looked like I might be pausing to read their menu.

I don’t like crowded spaces.

I didn’t go to Portugal to be surrounded by Americans and Brits.

And that’s when I started feeling something similar to homesickness, except that I wanted to go back to Setúbal.

So that was a big sign for me!

One of the reasons I planned this trip for a whole 8 weeks was because I think that’s the longest I’ve ever spent outside of the US before this.

In high school, I spent a summer as an exchange student in Naha, Okinawa. That was 30 years ago, so I don’t remember for sure, but I think that was only a 6 week program. I do remember that culture shock started kicking in around 4 weeks into the program.

And then, in grad school, I enrolled in an in-country language training program in Indonesia. Before becoming a librarian, my plan was to become a cultural anthropologist, studying the indigenous religious practices of the Iban, a small ethnic group in northwestern Borneo. So I spent the summer of 2006 in Madison, Wisconsin at the Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute (SEASSI), and then enrolled in COTIM – Consortium for the Teaching of Indonesian and Malay – in the summer of 2008. That was in Salatiga, in Central Java, Indonesia.

The COTIM program was structured with 4 weeks of intensive language classes, one week for independent projects, and then 4 more weeks of classes. I planned to travel to Pontianak to meet some people that my PhD advisor was providing an introduction to.

A week or two into the program, my PhD advisor died. It wasn’t a surprise – he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer the previous fall. But he had become like a second father figure, and it hit me harder than I expected it to.

I made it through the first 4 weeks, and then went home instead of going to do my project.

So I have no idea how I would have adjusted under normal conditions, but I know I went home at around the same time that I started feeling the culture shock in my previous stay outside of the US.

I arrived in Tavira right around the 6 week mark – so I was doing better than I ever had before!

After the first day or two, I did start exploring further afield and found some beautiful spots.

The old castle is still close to the center of town, not so far out, but I guess we went at not-peak times!

There wasn’t much going on, other than some fishing boats docking, on the other side of the river from the main touristy area. I let Mocha run a little bit over there, and caught some great sunset views.

And a little way up river, we found a nice park to walk in, and some trails where Mo could run off leash more freely. But, they had this feature that I’ve never seen anywhere else!

This shows up on google as Parque Rodoviário – it’s several intersecting “roadways” with at least one roundabout, with each lane about as wide as a standard bike lane!

This was a rare empty shot, because I don’t think it’s cool to take photos of other people’s kids. But most of the times that I walked by, it was full of kids on bikes, roller skates, and I think even some skate boards, all just looping around, following the rules of the road 😂

I did also really enjoy the bright flowers climbing all over the houses.

But, I didn’t fall in love with Tavira.

I did, however, get a laugh out of this BDSM Jesus poster for an easter service 😂 I think it was actually for a religious service, but that image looks like an ad for a kinky gay bar to me!

* If you’re landing here for the first time, this is the 5th of several posts describing my first visit to Portugal to decide whether I’d want to move here.
If you want to read this section in order, start here: Chegada a Lisboa para explorar
And here’s the beginning of the whole story: Onde esta história começou

The trip to Setúbal (which is pronounced more like Stúbl) went pretty smoothly, and it wasn’t long before I fell in love!

I booked a small apartment in the historic district, which is very cute with a lot of pedestrians-only streets and narrow travessas. Once I got to that area, I was stopping to check the map on my phone practically every 2 minutes, because it felt kind of like a maze!

The host met me at the door, which was super convenient for him because he lives right next door. That worked out because he was entirely respectful and very friendly, and was more present as a host than at any of my other stays on this trip. He reminded me of what airbnb used to be about – actually meeting people and sharing experiences.

Our conversations were challenging (in a good way!) and relied heavily on google translate. He’s from Belgium, so fluent in French, and I think knew some Spanish, but was just learning Portuguese, while I only spoke English, plus the tiny bits of Spanish that I remember from high school. I was very proud of myself when I was able to produce a couple of super-basic sentences here and there that he could actually understand!

Setúbal is a decent sized city, about an hour by train from Lisboa. Compared to São Martinho do Porto, it felt like it has every amenity I would need on any sort of regular basis.

This is the part of town that I spent the vast majority of my time exploring.

There are a lot more residential areas and parks to north and east of this section, but most of the times when I headed out to go more than 15 minutes in any given direction, it was toward the Parque Urbano de Albarquel to walk along the sandy beach.

The best part was further to the southwest. As far as I could tell, the end of that slanted wall from the beach up to the sidewalk was the end of the official parque.

But when the tide is out, you can keep on walking.

I never got my timing right to check it, but I think that at low tide, you can walk all the way to Praia de Albarquel, at the bottom left of the map above. This seems to be the first place to go underwater as the tide rolls back in! If you zoom in closely enough, you can see a group of people on the trail on the other side of the water – they started wading across in what I thought was really cold water!

And this beach is a big part of why I fell in love.

It was about a 30-40 minute walk from where I was staying to the end of the beach, so I didn’t make it there every day. Most days, though, I made time to go sit by the waterfront in Jardim Engenheiro Luís da Fonseca, which was just like a 6 minute walk from the apartment.

I loved how many other people seemed to be doing the same thing I was – just going to sit by the water and watch the sun set.

I have a truly ridiculous number of photos of dramatic clouds and sunsets taken from this park 😂

Writing this post is making me want to get back to the water!

Another thing I loved in Setúbal was the Mercado do Livramento. After the municipal market in São Martinho do Porto, this seemed HUGE! I didn’t take any photos or videos, but you can find some great photos shared on the google maps page if you want to get a sense of it.

I did take several photos of the stuff I bought there, that now look pretty unimpressive 😂

So this is a loaf of fresh bread, olives, dates, a tomato, broccoli, strawberries, a jar of piri piri (hot sauce), and a pastry that I now recognize as a bolo de berlim. Then, I didn’t know the name but thought it looked yummy! (And it was!)

Again, in hindsight, this seems like a strange thing to be so excited about that I had to take photos 😂

But I had never been to a farmer’s market in the US that was anywhere near this big, with this quality and range of products, and at a price that’s comparable to or lower than grocery store prices. I know it’s a matter of scale and policies in the US, but I associate farmer’s markets with paying twice as much for the same food. It’s often higher quality, but that’s still a barrier.

(And this isn’t “ooh, Portugal is so cheap”, which is offensive. This is a not-yet-well-informed policy critique! I don’t know why the prices for produce in Portuguese markets is comparable to grocery store prices, but I love it. But that’s a whole side rant!)

There’s also a ton of public art all around town.

That statue is the choco, or cuttlefish, which seems to be one of their mascots. One of the dishes that Setúbal is known for is choco frito. They cut the meat of the cuttlefish into strips, bread them, fry them, and dip them in mayonnaise. The choco itself doesn’t have a particularly strong flavor, and it’s protein-dense and low fat, at least until you fry it!

The other mascot of the town is the dolphin, or golfinho.

Setúbal is located on an estuary, where the Sado River meets the Atlantic Ocean. And there’s a pod of golfinhos that live there. I heard all about it, but did not go out on the boat tour to see them.

And statues weren’t the only type of public art in town. One drizzly evening, I heard something, and went out to see where the sound was coming from.

A group of older men were huddled together under some umbrellas at one of the restaurants nearby, singing about the spring.

As a side note, I surprised myself when I played this while picking which photos and videos to include here – I actually understand what they’re singing! At the time, I probably would have recognized “primavera” if I had been able to distinguish it as a word. But my brain wasn’t registering that much at that time.

Now, I understand most of it:

Quando chega a primavera, é bonito [can’t quite make that last bit out]

When spring arrives, it’s pretty!

I was originally scheduled to spend a week and two days in Setúbal, but I talked to the host, and the apartment was available for another week.

So I extended my stay! I was there from 13 to 29 March, so just a little over 2 weeks.

Setúbal was the first place I felt like I could love living in. To be fair, Coimbra got kind of short changed by me coming down with covid, and I didn’t give Porto a fair chance. But I really did fall in love with Setúbal.

The airbnb host was fabulous, and if you ever plan to visit Setúbal, I’ll happily share his info! He invited me out to join him and a friend who speaks English for dinner at a place with great choco frito one evening.

And when he had a day available, he invited me to take a trip out to the Farol do Cabo Espichel, driving through the Parque Natural da Arrábida. Along the way, we stopped (A) at the ruins of a fort, and (B) a scenic viewpoint near Convento de Nossa Senhora da Arrábida.

As usual, the views were absolutely stunning. This video is from the first stop, at the 7ª Bataria de costa, the abandoned fort.

The weather was starting to warm up, and we would be heading south from here, so I found a groomer to take Mocha to while we were there. She did a fabulous job!

At this point, I feel like I’m rambling, even though I have so many more photos I could include! I don’t really want to end this post – it’s bringing back all of the feelings from that time that I don’t really have words for. It just felt right, like I could be really happy here, and those feelings hit as hard as they did because I hadn’t felt that way in a while.

So I’ll wrap up with photos of displays along the wall at the southwest end of the Av. Luisa Todi. The text is in both Portuguese and English, so you can learn a little more about the local fish if you zoom in!

* If you’re landing here for the first time, this is the fourth of several posts describing my first visit to Portugal to decide whether I’d want to move here.
If you want to read this section in order, start here: Chegada a Lisboa para explorar
And here’s the beginning of the whole story: Onde esta história começou

The next stop on my journey was a small town along the “Silver Coast”. This was the one point at which traveling by train became a limiting factor.

After visiting Porto, I wanted to check out a smaller coastal town, but at least half way to Lisboa. They’re not really that far apart when compared to anything in the US, but the northern part of the country is known for being colder and rainier.

But, there aren’t a whole lot of train lines that make it to coastal towns in that part of the country.

São Martinho do Porto is one of the few stations that fit that description. (I think Figueira da Foz is the only other option, so I picked the one further south!)

We wound up back in Coimbra long enough to transfer to our first trip on a regional train, and Mocha was NOT happy!

We learned that there are several different types of trains on the Comboios de Portugal (CP) lines:

• Alfa Pendular (AP) – these are nicer, make fewer stops, and cost more. The are two main lines that runs from Braga in the north to Faro in the south, and meeting in Lisboa.
• Intercidades (IC)
• InterRegional (IR)
• Regional (R) – these are the least fancy train cars, make the most stops, go to the most destinations, and cost the least.

I don’t remember whether we were on AP or IC trains before, but they were smoother to get onto. There’s a smaller gap, you step on, and then go up some stairs. And I think they’re a little quieter at that point, too.

That regional train from Coimbra to São Martinho do Porto was pretty noisy, with a bigger gap between the platform and stepping on… And part of that was because the first stair was lower, not matched well to the platform height. So it felt more natural to step over onto the second step up.

I’m not sure which part of that was the issue, but Mocha DID NOT want to get onto that thing!

I literally had to pick her up and put her on the train!

She’s around 22.5 kg / 50ish lbs, so I’m glad I’m stronger than I look 😂

Also, I don’t think I’ve mentioned my packing situation yet. I was there from Feb in Porto through April in the Algarve, so I packed for a range of temperature conditions. Plus I was lugging Mocha’s food, bowls, and bed around.

So I had a very large wheeled suitcase – like close to the maximum size allowed for checked bags without an extra fee. Plus I had a backpack that was the maximum size for a carry on, with her bed rolled up and tied to the bottom of it.

Getting onto this train was a production 😂

But we got there. And again, the airbnb host picked us up from the train station. This time, it wouldn’t have been too far to walk, but I think the weather was looking a little iffy.

This was a cute duplex with a nice balcony.

Again, the scenery was stunning.

That photo was taken a bit north of town, overlooking the Praia da Gralha.

I think I may have mentioned this already, but I love to walk and explore! But as we were about half-way down the hill to this beach, which was completely empty in the middle of the day in the first week of March, I realized that it probably wasn’t the smartest thing to be there all by myself, with no one knowing where I was!

The power of the Atlantic Ocean was kind of overwhelming. I kept going to walk along the beach for a bit, as long as I had come that far! But we didn’t get too close to the water, because it felt like it could easily wash us out to sea if we weren’t careful.

The town itself is situated around a neat little cove that creates a calm swimming beach.

The blue circle is where I stayed, and it was about a 10 minute walk downhill to get to the northern tip of the cove beach.

Again, this was early March, so we didn’t even consider going swimming, though we did see some other people all the way in the water. Mocha had fun splashing a little bit, but mostly just loved zooming around in the sand.

Everyone that I interacted with was very friendly, but this is a really small town. And while I was there in the off season, I got the sense that it would be overrun with vacationers in the summer months. I can’t say exactly what gave me that impression, other than it reminded me of being in a college town during the break between semesters.

This was the first time that a host mentioned the Mercado Municipal and recommended that I visit. It was pretty small – my memory says fewer than 10 vendors, though I’m not sure that’s actually accurate! And, it’s a small town, so it makes sense that it wouldn’t be huge.

While I wasn’t super impressed with their market, that influenced me to check out the markets in every other place I visited.

Another distinctive feature of this particular apartment was the wooden shutters instead of the regular blinds.

When I first arrived in Lisbon, I was fascinated with the blackout blinds on the outside of the windows. But those are so common here that, when my storage was getting close to full, I went back and deleted those first “oooh, this is so cool” photos!

The place I stayed in this village had these gorgeous solid wooden shutters to block the sun out of my bedroom, which seems less common.

And then there was the food…

I had my first Portuguese hot dog (cachorro) here:

And I think this might have been my first time getting pizza in Portugal, too.

Yes, that is sliced egg and whole olives on there. If nothing else, this visit confirmed for me that any American who gets weird about pineapple on pizza is just announcing that they don’t travel.

Overall, I would absolutely go back to visit, and would happily rent the same place. But I didn’t fall in love with São Martinho do Porto.

I’m assuming this was one of those situations where the town is accessible because it’s popular for tourists, so I might find the town of my dreams along the Silver Coast if only I would buy a car.

But one of my dreams was to NOT have to own a car. So if I need a car to get there, could it really be the town of my dreams? I don’t think so.

I arrived here on Mon, 6 March, and was scheduled to travel on to my next destination on Mon, 13 March.

That was already looking like a less than fabulous travel day, because there’s no direct route from São Martinho do Porto to my next destination.

Using the Comboios Portugal app, it looked like 4-5 transfers to reach my destination.

4-5 times to get antsy about figuring out where I’m going and whether I’ll make it to the right platform on time.

Add another strike on top of that.

Whee!

I decided to nope out of that challenge. My host was able to give me contact info for a pet-friendly taxi driver who regularly runs to Lisboa and back.

And so, I scheduled with him in advance and took a taxi to the Sete Rios station in Lisboa. It cost around 100€, but it was entirely worth the reduced stress.

And, when I arrived at Sete Rios, I learned another important lesson:

Comboios de Portugal is not the only game in town!

Fertagus is another company that runs trains between Lisboa and Setúbal. They only run that one route, but that meant that I could take just one train instead of having to transfer in Pinhal Novo, AND I don’t think their workers were on strike!

Porto

* If you’re landing here for the first time, this is the third of several posts describing my first visit to Portugal to decide whether I’d want to move here.
If you want to read this section in order, start here: Chegada a Lisboa para explorar
And here’s the beginning of the whole story: Onde esta história começou

Side note – most cities don’t get the definite article (like “the”), but Porto does. So Lisboa is just Lisboa, but Porto is O Porto. My Portuguese teacher has offered no explanation, just that there seem to be as many exceptions to every rule as there are grammar rules!

My Coimbra post wrapped up with the challenges of making it out of town during a rail strike. We did have to make one connection in Porto, from the long distance train to an urban commuter train, but that was only about a 30 minute delay.

I whined a lot because I was still recovering from covid and ready to get to my next stop and relax, but it wasn’t a big deal.

Finally, we made it to the São Bento station, where google maps said I had like a 7 minute walk… Except I couldn’t take that route, because of some major construction project. And then, after I found my way around that, it was almost entirely uphill 😫

Honestly, the detour only made it like a 10 min walk, but I was tired and whiny and recovering from covid!

But we made it to a tiny little studio apartment right near the Torre dos Clérigos. That turned out to be another important lesson. That’s right in the historic downtown touristy area, which is very much not my vibe.

And that apartment had to be intended for people going downtown for a 1-2 night stay to party, because it was bad.

The neighborhood was cute.

But after I found dinner and relaxed for a bit, I headed for the shower. I don’t take the ridiculous 40 minute showers that I did as a child, but I do wash and condition my hair and wash my whole body (yes, legs and feet included, with a washcloth*!). I haven’t timed myself, but I’d say I generally need about 10, maybe 15 min.

By the time I finished just shampooing my hair, it was clear the drain wasn’t draining correctly.

By the time I finished the fastest shower I could, the whole bathroom floor was under water and it was threatening to flow into the hallway.

Anyway, that was a headache, but I was able to get a partial refund on that place and move to a different spot, just up the hill from the Porto Campanhã station. It was along a major street, not in a cute neighborhood, but it felt a lot more laid back than the touristy area and it was super close to the Metro and train station.

I have a ton of gorgeous photos of scenery, and Mocha in front of the scenery, to add below. But the only other memories that really stand out to me from Porto are the food!

My first morning there, I had breakfast at a cute little cafe where I tried shakshuka for the very first time. OMG, it was SO GOOD!

It’s also worth noting that I was not the only person dining outside at 50ish degrees F in February in Porto. More people were choosing to sit inside, but I wasn’t the only one bringing my dog along with me when I went looking for food!

And then, I had my first francesinha at a cute little restaurant over near the second place I stayed.

The decor was distinctive 😂

And then, there was the basic Portuguese restaurant just down the hill from the second spot, where I went for take-away a few times!

I have to admit, that I came to Porto with the assumption that it would NOT be where I would settle. Based just on weather and beaches, I expected to fall in love with the Algarve, the southern coast of Portugal. I wanted to be able to say I’ve been to Porto, but I didn’t really give it a fair chance as a potential place to live.

And so, I spent a lot of time walking to the scenic spots for photos!

These photos are all from Parque das Virtudes:

And these were from a few days later, when we walked along the Douro River for a while, and then crossed Ponte Luis I to the Vila Nova de Gaia side of the river.

The next leg of our journey went much more smoothly. It was an easy walk downhill to the train station, and the strike was over!

* If you also don’t feel clean unless you use a washcloth, plan to bring your own along when you visit Europe. I brought 6 cheap ones, and every place I stayed for more than a couple of days had a washing machine I could use.

A week in Coimbra

* If you’re landing here for the first time, this is the second of several posts describing my first visit to Portugal to decide whether I’d want to move here.
If you want to read in order, start here: Chegada a Lisboa para explorar

On Monday, we were off to spend a week in Coimbra, about mid-way between Lisboa and Porto. For the most part, I spent the week being impressed by fairly normal things because they were new to me. It wasn’t until I tried to leave that things became challenging!

In an earlier post, I mentioned that a former neighbor in Atlanta put Portugal on the map of places for me to consider, because she was so excited about moving here herself. And this is where she chose to make her new home. We’re not close enough for me to stay with her, and her container ship with her furniture hadn’t arrived yet at that point, anyway! But we did catch up a couple of times while I was in town.

One of the less fun parts of traveling by train here is that any dog that’s not in a carrier is required to wear a muzzle. I’m not sure whether that applies to recognized service dogs, but I didn’t (and still don’t) have the documentation for Mo to qualify as one here.

I knew about this ahead of time and came prepared, but Mocha was NOT a fan!

The airbnb host for this stay picked us up from the train station to give us a tour while driving us to the apartment, which was very kind.

I was even more thankful by the time we reached the apartment, because it was beyond comfortable walking distance from the train station, even for me. And I’m that friend that you can’t trust, because I’ll tell you something is not far, just a couple of blocks away, and the next thing you know we’ve gone two miles 😂

While I could take Mocha on the train with me, no problem, she’s not allowed on buses.

We were out in the ‘burbs, not the city center or anywhere near the University of Coimbra, “one of the oldest universities in continuous operation in the world.”

But, I like to walk when I’m not also carrying luggage for 8 weeks away! So we made it down to see the riverfront and met up a couple of times with my former neighbor.

Right off the bat the day I arrived, I went to the grocery store for a few things, and was the weird American taking a photo of eggs out on a regular shelf, not refrigerated 😂

And some video of the elevator in the building I was staying in, because it was the tiniest, scariest elevator I’ve ever been in 😂

We also found a super cute “pet café” near the apartment we stayed in, and Mocha got to be featured on their facebook page!

Unfortunately, on Thursday, I started feeling under the weather. And then just really crappy.

On Friday, I bought a covid test, and it came back positive.

I was fully vaccinated and wore my N95 mask in the airport, but I believed the hype about the quality of air filtration on airplanes. So once we were in the air, I took the mask off until it was time to land.

I’m assuming that’s when/how I finally caught it, and it just took a week for me to start feeling it.

Thankfully, it was a relatively mild case, and I mostly just felt exhausted.

Being sick all alone in a foreign country is not fun! But even out in the burbs, there were plenty of restaurants that were close enough to walk to for take-away.

And even in February, it’s normal for cafés to have tables set up for people to sit outside, and even leave the door open for airflow.

(In case you haven’t kept up on the actual science to know why that matters, think of the Rona as invisible smoke hanging in the air. You’re more likely to get sick / share it in enclosed and/or crowded spaces, just like you’re more likely to notice cigarette smoke. If you’re in a setting where you probably wouldn’t be bothered by someone smoking, then you’re probably not too likely to share/catch covid.)

So I spent most of the weekend in the apartment, and then had:

A horrible travel day!

I was scheduled to head off to Porto on Monday, 27 Feb.

I tried to extend my stay for a couple of days to give myself a little more time to recover, but the place was not available for even one more day.

Challenge #1: getting to the train station

In Portugal, the popular ride-sharing app is Bolt. Taxis are also pretty common, but I didn’t know how to call one and I didn’t know where the nearest taxi stand was.

Bolt has a “pet” option, which I thought meant it would be easy to book a ride for Mocha and me.

The driver rolled up, saw Mocha, and asked where her box is.

Do what now?

Mocha is a 22 kilo standard poodle. Any kennel that would be big enough to hold her would not fit in this man’s car!

His English wasn’t great, but it was better than my Portuguese. He drove off saying something about checking to see if he could borrow something, and then canceled the ride.

So I’m just standing on the curb with all my stuff, already locked the key in the apartment to “check out”, and feeling like shit because I was still recovering from covid, with no idea how the fuck I’m going to make it to the train station.

I texted the airbnb host to see if he could help. He had told me he would be out of town over the weekend, so I wasn’t sure he’d be back yet.

Thankfully, he was back in town and not busy. He came to pick us up and take us back to the train station. If you ever plan to visit Coimbra, let me know and I’ll give you Francisco’s Whatsapp number! The place wasn’t super fancy, but it was fine, and affordable, and I think there’s free parking!

So yay, that problem was solved!

Challenge #2: Strike!

I’ve come to learn that strikes are just a regular part of life here. And I fucking love that they have strong unions and worker protections. Right now, the crosswalks all around my neighborhood are painted with info about a general strike coming up on 11 Dezembro to protest a new law rolling back some worker protections. I’m looking forward to seeing how that goes, and hope they really do shut it down to protect their rights and their futures.

But this was my very first time showing up at a train station during a rail worker strike.

Traveling by train with a dog is pretty easy overall here. I have to buy a separate ticket for her, so it can double the price (some categories of trains discount pet tickets, others don’t).

But I have to buy the ticket at a ticket booth, not on their app, so that the agent can check her documents. Now I have a simple EU pet passport. Then, I was traveling with my 8 page USDA health certificate from the US, so it took a little longer for them to find the info that mattered. Either way, they want to see proof that the dog has its rabies vaccine.

I knew there would be a strike, and that there would be fewer trains running than usual. There would be a certain level of “essential” services, but there’s enough of a reduction to feel like a disruption.

I did not know that the ticket booths would all be closed.

So yet again, I’m freaking the fuck out!

Here I am in a city where I have nowhere to stay, and I’ll be paying for a place in Porto whether I make it there or not, and there’s no way for me to purchase a train ticket!

Thankfully, before I freaked out too badly, someone told me that you could just buy your ticket on the train during a strike.

But this wasn’t a railway employee, it was just some random person.

So I tried googling to see if I could find verification of this, but didn’t find a conclusive answer.

At this point, it’s probably helpful to know that I’m autistic. I have a more flexible relationship with rules than a lot of autistic folks, but I need to know what the rules are! The idea of jumping onto a train without knowing whether I was going to be allowed to buy a ticket or whether I could get a big fine was not cool.

Finally, the train rolled into the station.

As soon as it stopped and the staff stepped out onto the platform, I go running toward the first Comboios Portugal (CP) employee I see to ask how I can buy a ticket.

He tells me to get on and wait in the space right by the door.

Whew.

When the train is ready to get rolling, he hops on and takes care of checking Mocha’s paperwork and selling me the ticket.

And we’re on our way to Porto!

Arrival in Lisbon to explore

On February 16, 2023, I left Atlanta to spend 8 weeks exploring Portugal with my dog. I spent hundreds of hours training her to work as a service dog, so that she could go with me. But that’s a separate story.

I did learn before leaving that EU countries have stricter regulations around service dogs in the cabin. Because I trained her myself instead of working with an approved organization, she could only be in the cabin with me on flights with one end in the US. I had to change my itinerary to make my connection at JFK instead of CDG airport!

Mocha was absolutely amazing on the plane. I expected her to behave well, but I was prepared with plenty of treats in case she was more nervous.

When we boarded, the flight staff were keeping a close eye on us. The regulations around service dogs in the US make it a lot more accessible to get this support, but also a lot easier to scam, to call a cute pet a “service dog.” All it takes is one of those nasty lying liars to make a flight attendant skeptical about every dog they see board a flight.

By the time we arrived, they stopped by to say she was the most well behaved dog they’ve ever seen on a flight. That was a regular pattern each time we crossed the Atlantic in this whole process. I took her training seriously!

We landed in Lisbon bright and early (8am) on Friday, 17 Feb. Because I was traveling with an animal, I had to stop by the airport vet before I could go beyond baggage claim.

They checked her paperwork and checked that her microchip matched, and that she appeared healthy.

And then we were on our way to the taxi stand and my first gaffe!

I had been in contact with the airbnb host, so she knew around when to expect me. That part was all good.

Before I got in or gave him the address, I asked the taxi driver whether he accepts payment by card. Because my brilliant self didn’t have any local cash yet. I thought for sure he said yes. And in hindsight, he may have actually said yes, thinking I meant a local MultiBanco cartão.

We arrived at the destination, and no, no he did not accept my no-foreign-transaction-fee visa credit card 😬

I don’t remember the exact amount or what the conversion rate was then, but he accepted a $20 bill instead of payment in Euros. If I overpaid, well, that’s the tax for not paying the ridiculous conversion rates at the airport.

I don’t remember much from that first day beyond getting into the apartment, taking a shower, and crashing. I don’t sleep well at all on an airplane, so I was running on maybe 2 hours of sleep.

My next big challenge was getting my day started on Saturday.

At this point, it helps to know a few background details. Around the beginning of high school, I developed disordered eating habits. I didn’t manage to consistently eat three meals a day until I was 18 and living in a friend’s basement, where I was free to smoke weed every day to boost my appetite.

After my body was used to that many calories, I realized that I could maintain that habit by making breakfast something of a ritual. Almost every single day for more than 2 decades at this point, I started my day with a solid breakfast that included protein as well as carbs. That almost always meant 2 eggs, but occasionally if I went to a conference and had a room with a refrigerator, I’d make do with some greek yogurt and granola.

I say ritual instead of routine, because breakfast took on something of a magical quality. There’s probably actually a scientific explanation related to neurotransmitters or hormonal balances or something. But a good breakfast means that I will be able to eat a healthy amount that day. Missing breakfast messes up my appetite for the rest of the day, and it can be really easy to fall back into disordered eating patterns. So it feels safer to break mirrors and have a dozen black cats cross my path on Friday the 13th than to not have a good breakfast.

So I woke up on Saturday morning and went looking for breakfast.

I found pastelerias with lovely carb-heavy pastries, but that’s not what I needed. And I didn’t know how to ask for what I wanted in Portuguese.

I was starting to feel like what have I done? I’m all by myself in this foreign country and I can’t even figure out how to find a good breakfast, which carries SO much more weight for me than it does for normal people…

And then, a homeless man asked me for money. I told him I don’t speak Portuguese, so he switched to English.

So I asked him if he knew of anywhere nearby that I could get a breakfast with eggs 😂

I told him I’d buy him breakfast, too, if he helped me find a good breakfast 😂

So he led me to a restaurant attached to a hotel just around the block from where I had met him and helped me get service.

The man at the counter also spoke English, and checked with me about whether I really wanted to buy food for this man, but a deal is a deal.

I don’t honestly remember what I did about breakfast the next day. At some point before too long, I learned about savory pastries with meat in them – empada, pão com chouriço, and merenda mista. There was also a grocery store close to where I was staying where I could get greek yogurt or buy eggs to cook for myself.

All I remember was that everything got easier after that first morning!

Olaias

That first stay was in the Olaias neighborhood of Lisboa. I chose that location because it was close to a Metro station and the airport. I only spent three nights there to recover from the flight and start to recover from the jet lag. I didn’t intend to move to Lisbon, so I didn’t plan to spend much time here.

One of the things I found that I loved was that, even in this dense urban area, there’s a huge green space nearby. Google maps is listing at least three different names for different parts of the park, but the area I was in is showing up as Vale do Casal Vistoso Urban Forest.

We also took the Metro to go explore a little bit of central Lisboa and averaged around 15K steps per day that we were there!

Another chore we took care of during those first few days in Lisboa was to find a pet supply store and buy some new food for Mocha.

I brought a little bit of her regular food with me, so that I wouldn’t have to run out immediately to find dog food, and so that she could transition. I’ve been told many times that you’re not supposed to change their diets abruptly, instead you’re supposed to mix the old and new food for a week or two.

Mocha did not support that plan AT ALL 😂

Overall, once I got past those first couple of hurdles, I enjoyed my time here. I don’t remember Olaias as an area I’d want to actually live in – the best thing about the location was the proximity to a Metro stop. But I felt safe walking alone at night, which alone was a huge change from the US.

Up next: Coimbra!