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!