We have been in Portugal for four months now. It has been great, but I am feeling a bit embarrassed of my Portuguese. I hardly know anything. The real issue is the Portuguese are too nice and make it too easy not to learn the language. I have mentioned it before, but they will go to the ends of the earth to help you. That includes using English at any opportunity, even when you want to learn or practice Portuguese.
This does, however, provide the opportunity for odd things to happen in our daily conversations. One of my favorite parts of traveling is trying to purchase something, but getting something different because of the language barrier. What you get could be better or worse, but always humorous.
Yesterday we went to our local butcher and asked for sirloin steak. Somehow we got pork. And… it turned out to be the best pork I have ever had. It was buttery tender like a high quality beef tenderloin. The slices were nice and thick, but we could slice through it easily with a fork. Although not what we were looking for, we were very happy for the mistake!
This topic made for a short post without any fun pictures, so here is a little more. We have not done any epic adventures in the last little bit, but lots of fun little things.
Fun in the sun has been a recent topic 😎.
Of course, food is always a topic of choice. Theo knows what a good strawberry is!
Here is a picture that demonstrates how the Portuguese discount prices. To top it off, cheap wines are great here! For 3 to 5 euro you can easily find quality wines. These easily rival 10 to 20 dollar wines in the States. We have not found wines that rival the expensive wines of the US (good California Cabernet, for example). But, to be honest, we have not tried anything approaching that price range either. The inexpensive wines are just too tasty to pay more. And, when we purchase 10 to 20 euro wines, they have not been significantly better; some not even as good as the inexpensive options!
Speaking of value, our favorite Dim Sum restaurant (in Oeiras) surprised us. The expensive dish we usually get is Peking Duck. It is about 16 euro and we split it with some appetizers. It comes with a sculpted carrot. I can’t figure out how they can sculpt a carrot with this kind of detail and still make money with the food! It is a fish swimming around a piece of seaweed. And the details go all of the way around!
I think we are heading out for a hike this afternoon. If it turns out epic I will post about it!
