Centro Cultural

A few days each week I head down to the Centro Cultural and use their free internet to do research, email friends and family, and be surrounded by people. It is very much like the bookstore and library area where I work in Vancouver. Unlike Vancouver, where our users are usually quiet and reasonably well behaved adults, this place is used predominantly by people under the age of 16. Kids are not usually quiet and very often not well behaved.

There is a group of five girls who seem to travel the town in a pack. I see them on the beach and they come to the center most afternoons. They know maybe four phrases in English and like to try them out on me. My answers seem of little interest to them. They usually come in and sit on a wooden bench about three feet from me and take turns saying hello. Then they all giggle waiting for me to respond. Then I get a chorus of how are you today. After those two phrases they try to come up with something new each day. I think they are taking English in school and I get the “phrase of the day”.

The boys are even louder. They wrestle, talk loudly, throw things at each other and generally have a good time. Then they settle down to using up the bandwidth gaming online.

There are two guys who try to maintain order amidst the chaos. And they make me smile each day. They are gracious as the girls try out their flirting skills, and fun but firm big brothers to all the young boys that come and go. When they deal with me they smile at my badly translated Portuguese and switch to English to help me. Although, when we were trying to hook my computer into their wireless printer system I did get the phrase “well with normal computers we just do…” PC snobs. Apples rule.

When I sit here I try and imagine the reactions to this scene that the Robson Library staff would have. Yani, Michael, Eva, you guys would go crazy. I can’t wait to show Michael.

Obrigadinia!

I had visitors this week. Three friends from Robson came to town and they dragged with them a friend of theirs from Lisbon. Hopefully he will be a new friend for me as well, when he gets over how disgracefully drunk I got in his presence. These girls are quite a combo. Keenan has a way of making a paper bag fun. Elsa has a grace about her that I quite envy. Laura is starting on her first solo travel experience and I hope it is as fun as she is. Jayme is a friend of Keenan’s and I am really glad to have met him. The four of them shook me out of my routine. We travelled to Fatima, Alcobaca, and Batalha. While we were spared the burden of a vision of Mary, we did see some great sites. There was a true devotee in Fatima who crawled on her knees to the shrine for worship. If only my beliefs were as devote and clear.

We then hit up a local bar and managed to embody the best and worst images of travelling girls. I need to apologize to MVS for the drunk dialing we did. I know how little he cares of it, but we did it anyway. We missed our other Robson folks and wanted to say hi. Elsa managed to captivate a lovely Portuguese flyboy named Carlos and later two cute Italians. Although I understand now that all the email address have gone missing. I guess fate will be in control of the future. Keenan managed to captivate the rest of bar. The owner even started buying us a few free rounds. This was the beginning of my downfall I think. And Laura did not smoke while she was there. I crushed a little on our bar manager Carlos. Who is a lovely guy and I am sure he and his girlfriend will be very happy together. Oh well. Hopefully he will turn into another English speaking friend for me. We helped him close down the bar and then everyone headed back to my place. Why I don’t know. After we got there I remembered that we had drank all the alcohol there before we left. But, that is probably a good thing. I don’t know that I would have had the sense to stop if there had been more. As it was, I spent the next day almost entirely on the sofa. I only got up to walk the dog, shower, drink some water and take Tylenol.

In Portugal waiters will often bring things to your table that you have not ordered. If you eat them you pay for them. This custom drives me a little nuts, because it is not always universally applied. The first night the gang arrived we headed out to dinner. The waiter brought us buns, olives, and cheese before we had even ordered. Luckily they are all so yummy that if you know you are paying for them, you are happy to see them. When poor Carlos (bar manager) brought us a bowl of faba beans to snack on that night we immediately asked… how much. The concern about charges makes it difficult to be gracious. They were free, not particularly tasty, and we ate bowl after bowl.

So, thanks to Keenan, Elsa, Laura, Jayme, and Carlos for such an enjoyable few days.

Now back to work. A novel won’t write itself.

What Up?

I have a question for the men of Portugal.

What is up with the manshake?

There seems to be a complicated number of hand movements that are required each time you see each other. There is the palm slap, the back of the hand slap, the fist bumping top, bottom and knuckle to knuckle. And, all this is often followed by the lean in chest bump with your arms curling around the back of your friend. This is not quite a hug, but more close contact than I am used to seeing in men or boys.

I asked a new friend about this the other day. He is partially Portuguese and is living in Lisbon right now. He had now idea what it is about, but when I asked him about it he new immediately what I was talking about. He has seen it as well.

I see it everywhere. The guys who come into the Centro Cultural where I spend my afternoons trying to write engage in varying degrees of it. Each pair seems to have a different set of motions they go through. I wonder if the level of intimacy between the shakers sets up the guidelines for what they do.

Casual friends = bank of hand and palm slap
School Chums = do the above and add fist bump
Close Friends = do all of the above and add the chest bump

Jayme has even seen the ticket checkers on the subway doing it. It is everywhere man.

So there is my question.

0h by the way, I love the eyeglasses and shoes you wear.

Mondays

Kootenay dug a hole today.
This was not the normal bury your tennis ball hole. This was a deep, my owner is not paying attention to me hole. A nice South Carolina couple and I chatted about pets, travel, life and vinho verde. They rescued greyhounds and the husband carried dog treats with him when he travelled so he would not feel far from his pets.
Elderly American tourists are starting to appear with regularity here. When they ask me where I am from and I say Vancouver Canada a surprising number of them have been there. And they often feel the need to tell me how they really liked the city. Despite the homeless and drug (they whisper pot) problems the add. Friends and family would be proud of my restraint. I have, so far, managed to bite back my thoughts about the tulmult their current government has thrust upon the rest of the world.
Kootenay took my inattention as an opportunity to dig a hole big enough to fit a 50-pound dog or an eight year old in. When this couple and I looked up from our conversation all we could see of Koot were her hind legs and tail. The tail was wagging with abandon like a flag on a child’s sandcastle. The joy she personifies when allowed to dig with abandon was palpable. When I called her to us she backed up out of the hole with the remains of her ball in her mouth. What was left of the tennis ball managed to look like someone had painted a bright yellow smile on her furry face.
How will I ever go back to working?

Wine Anyone?

Portuguese wine rocks. I was going to dinner at a new friend’s house the other night. Wanting to be a good dinner guest I made my way to the wine store to bring an offering. When i say wine store i mean store that has wine. Because, here you can buy wine at the supermarket, at the corner store, at the shoe store….
I went to a store down the street. It specialized in wine and hand woven cotton mats. How these two services found a home together is beyond my grasp of Portuguese. But, they have, and this is where I went to get a bottle of wine. I have been drinking vihno verde. This is a cheap white wine that has a bit of a sparkle to it. I love it. If you can find it go get it. Here it runs about 2.95 euros per bottle.
But, as I was a guest, I thought I should splurge on a nice bottle of red. There were three types of wine over 20 euros. There were a ton of wines for less than 4 euros. It turns out that splurging here is about 7 euros. So I splashed out. I bought an 8 euro bottle of wine and was assured by the man behind the rug counter that my dinner companions would like it. I am used to BC wine prices. I almost felt bad bringing a bottle that seems so cheap.
My hosts were suitable impressed.

Language Barrier

Kootenay and I had the ultimate inter-cultural experience the other day. We were doing our usual morning beach routine. I had a nice cup of tea in my travel mug and was enjoying it in the sun while Koot ran after her ball.

A bus loaded with tourists pulled up and off loaded fifty or so Japanese tourists. When they walked down the seawall one woman caught sight of Kootenay playing and was overcome with excitement. She stood beside me and laughed and giggled each time Kootenay caught the ball and then applauded when K brought it back to us. After a few minutes of this we ended up with the busload of people standing around us. Then Koot’s original fan started to ask me a question. Despite the language barrier I quickly caught on that she wanted to take her picture with K. Not with me.

The tour guide came up to me to ask me some questions. This is where things got complicated. I had no idea what he was saying. I told him, in my best Portuguese, that I spoke English and was from Canada. Turns out that he could speak a bit of French. So I stretched my high school French and came to understand that all of the women from the bus wanted their pictures taken with K. I asked the guide if they knew that she wasn’t Portuguese. He indicated that they did, but they didn’t care.

So now pictures of Kootenay on a beach in Portugal will be in the holiday albums of about thirty Japanese families.

Missing

People have been asking me what I miss. Living here has meant that I have had to adjust. Food tastes different here. There is more seafood than I am comfortable with. My hot water tank and stove run off a tank of butane that I must refill. And, lighting the pilot light for the hat water is not easy. It is also difficult when you don’t speak the same language as the people around you. It can make a task like getting a cell phone fixed a real challenge. It took me three weeks of going from store to store until I found a place that both sold my phone and had someone working there who was willing to use their little bit of English, my little bit or Portuguese and sign language to help me fix the problem. Mostly it is family and friends that I miss. But, there are some comforting things I miss…

I miss Hawkins Cheezies. Little crunchy bits of heaven. The junk food here runs mainly to sweets, and I am a savoury girl.

I miss good loose tea. Luckily I brought with me a few bags of Creamy Earl Grey tea with me, but I am running out.

I miss bags for picking up dog poo. I haven’t been here long enough to just leave it where it falls, like the locals do. I went out and bought some cheap sandwich bags that I use, but see through poo bags are a little gross.

Kootenay misses a few things as well.

She misses her Kong, which I forgot at home. Now if I leave the house without her she gets a treat, but it doesn’t last long.

She misses the little orange balls that are usually used by road hockey players. But for her, they are things to run after that don’t fall apart halfway through a good came of fetch. Tennis balls are too easy to crush.

Nightmares

I don’t have nightmares. Or at least I haven’t had them in many years. The last time I can remember being truly frightened at night was after I watched The Exorcist. I saw that when I was sixteen. Wait. That isn’t entirely true. I did get a little freaked out when I saw Seven. But, neither of those movies gave me nightmares.

Last week I read Irene Nemirovsky’s book Suite Francaise. I was fine if I read it during the day, but when I read it at night I would wake up with nightmares. I have no idea why it bothered me so much. It is not a “scary” book. It takes place during the German invasion of France in WWII, and follows a few characters as they leave Paris prior to its occupation. Then it shifts to depict a number of people in a small town during the German occupation.

The author’s ability to show the best and worst of people under duress gave me nightmares.

Guess I will have to go back to watching scary movies so that I can get some sleep.

And you should look past the ugly cover and read the book.