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Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. So when we saw that a group of expats were going to be celebrating an American Thanksgiving in Caldas da Rainha, less than an hour from us, we decided to join the festivities.

The food lived up to the expectations; turkey, pumpkin pie and all the rest. Best of all, we got to meet fellow expats, some of whom we had met online in various forums about living life abroad.

Festivus – Airing of Grievances

I have to keep reminding myself to keep my grievances down to a minimum. Complaining can become habit forming. Even though the list of injustices may be a constant drumbeat inside my head, in reality they are all relatively minor. Being cut off in traffic cannot be compared to the atrocities that many people have experienced throughout history. Or still experience today.

During the holiday season, we are often reminded to count our blessings. Ever witness an emotional meltdown at the Thanksgiving dinner table? On a day that epitomizes thankfulness, your son or daughter announcing that he or she is a vegetarian shouldn’t warrant a DEFCON 1 situation. Neither should an announcement that your offspring moved in with their same-sex partner or married someone of a different race or religion. Are they happy, healthy? That is pretty much all that matters.

By the way, you may not know this but even the Cuban Missile Crisis didn’t reach DEFCON 1. There is something about family dynamics at the Thanksgiving dinner table that can escalate minor disagreements to the scale of a global conflict. If anyone has an opinion on why that is, please share your thoughts.

William Bradford – Blogger Ahead of His Time

Bradford came over on the Mayflower in 1620. He wrote his journal, Of Plymouth Plantation, from 1621 until 1646. That takes discipline to blog for 25 years with a quill pen.

From his journal we know that most of the original Pilgrims died from starvation and disease. If it weren’t for the indigenous natives coming to their aid, they all would have surely died. And that is how the tradition of Thanksgiving began.

The first Thanksgiving in 1621 had 90 Native Americans and 53 Pilgrims. And they actually did hunt turkey and play ball! History for the Native Americans went downhill after that, as we are well aware.

Our First Visit to Germany

Fast forward to 2019, my wife and I recently got back from visiting my stepson and his girlfriend in Frankfurt. They were there on a business trip and were nice enough to invite us there to meet them. One of the many benefits of living in Portugal is the ability to hop over to another European country without being cramped for hours in a sardine can or having to recover from jetlag. It is also far less expensive than flying from the U.S. so we were happy to take them up on their invitation.

When we arrived at the Frankfurt airport, we had hoped to grab an Uber to our hotel. But the word “Uber” on many of the doors at the airport mean something else in the German language. I think it was informing us to cross the street. Still not entirely clear because Google Translate shows many meanings for Uber.

They Drive Fast on the Autobahn

Finding no Uber, we had to take a taxi. Our driver was cruising between 160 and 170 kph (between 100 and 105mph). We got to the hotel in record time but the fare was still 46 euros. Speaking with my stepson later, he was charged 36 euro. Either our friendly taxi driver took us the long route, or the fare was higher due to our late evening arrival. I think it was the latter.

We found out later that the train goes straight from the airport to a couple blocks from our hotel. And it is faster than the fastest taxi driver! When we went back to the Frankfurt airport to fly back to Lisbon it cost us less than 10 euro combined using the train. It leaves every 15 minutes and it was truly amazing.

Why they didn’t tell us about the amazing train when we made our reservation, I’ll never know. I even asked them, prior to our trip, if they had an airport shuttle and they said no. But they never mentioned anything about a train. They could definitely use that as another incentive to book at their hotel.

Experiencing Frankfurt

Whenever we mentioned Frankfurt as our destination, we were told by a number of people, including Germans, that we should visit Munich or some other hipper city instead. Seeing as my stepson would be in Frankfurt and not Munich, we stuck to our original plans. Besides, we are not all that hip anymore.

Let me just say that my wife and I both fell in love with Frankfurt. It felt very safe, even at night. There were a lot of great restaurants and food booths. The people were super friendly. We had a nice time at the Städel Museum where there was a fabulous Vincent van Gogh exhibition. There were blocks and blocks of colorful street markets because Christmas is a very big deal in Germany.

We had never been to Germany before. In my mind, I related Germany to the horrors of Hitler and WWII. I know that isn’t fair but that was in my subconscious due to the many books I have read of that insane era. I am happy to report that the Gestapo was not out to get me at any time.

There were policia with automatic rifles on many of the street corners, as well as concrete barriers to keep vans from plowing through the crowds. But that is more of a sign of the times and I felt protected rather than intimidated. I even asked one of the automatic rifle-carrying policia for directions and he was super friendly and helpful. I was sure not to make any quick, jerky motions, though.

[edited to add: I was remiss in not acknowledging that the day of this blog’s publication, December 7th, was the 78th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. This forced America to declare war on Japan and Germany, now two of our strongest allies. My dad was one of the many brave seamen who landed on Normandy during D-Day. He never talked about it until just before his passing.]

Portugal’s Role During WWII

Okay, this is my last bit about WWII before moving on. Seeing as we are now living in Portugal, I wanted to know Portugal’s role during the war. Portugal was able to remain neutral during WWII.  They withstood pressure from both the allies and the axis powers to pick a side. However, Portugal was a very poor country with few resources to help either side, which helped them avoid a major role in the war. They did allow the British and Americans to use the Azores Islands as a base later in the war.

Also, Portugal was still reeling from having lost many of its civilians during WWI. While only 12,000 Portuguese troops died during The Great War (to end all wars), 220,000 Portuguese civilians died; 82,000 from food shortages and 138,000 from the Spanish Flu.

Closed for Lunch

Moving on, and back to 2019 again, one of the things that takes some getting used to in Portugal is that most businesses seem to close for lunch. When is the lunch hour? Apparently whenever I show up.

We had some things we wanted to mail at the post office the other day. We were walking and took a wrong turn (par for the course), but only a few minutes out of the way. Just enough to get locked out. As we approached the door of the post office, we saw the postal woman locking the door. Yep, lunchtime. It was 12:30 and they wouldn’t reopen until 2:30. The post office closes for two hours for lunch.

So we decided to kill some time as we waited for the post office to reopen. We walked around our quaint village of Ericeira, as we love to do, and stumbled across a cool looking place called The Original Nut Shop. I liked the sign because it was made to look like it had gooey, drippy chocolate as part of the logo. I knew it had to have good stuff inside. But it was also closed. Not for lunch, but for the holidays. From November 18^th to the 29^th. By “holiday”, I think they probably meant family vacation. Regardless, this just happened to be November 18^th, so no Original Nut Shop for us.

On another beautiful day, we were walking and started to get hungry. We saw this cool looking pizza place with mouth-watering pictures of giant pizzas. We walked in and it was closed for lunch. A pizza place closed for lunch. Granted, it might have been a little late for lunch. I think it was around 2:30 in the afternoon, but it’s pizza!

One place that does not close during the day is McDonald’s. There are very few fast food joints where we live and I am happy for that. I vowed to never eat at a McDonald’s while living in Portugal. Well, I broke my vow. I thought, Hey, it is quite possible that McDonald’s food is better in Portugal. This McDonald’s was state-of-the-art. Super clean. You can even order from robotic kiosks in the center of the “restaurant”. Lots of cool visuals inside. I had high hopes. But the food still sucked, even more than we remembered.

Portugal Residency Update

We finally received clearance for our Visas 112 days after our appointment at the Portuguese Consulate in San Francisco. This seems to be about twice as long as it is taking for most folks. We did receive an email long after our appointment saying that we owed $8.52 cents. The reason we owed that was because they kept giving us the wrong figure.

As I wrote in a previous blog, we were originally told that our fee for the consulate was $101 each. But when we got there, we were informed it was $101.03. So we had to go out and get new money orders because we were off by three cents!

It turned out that that was also wrong and, a few months later, we had to get $8.52 to the consulate for our visa process to continue. That $8.52 cost closer to $40 because it is hard to get a money order in American dollars to the U.S. when you are in Portugal. And they don’t take credit cards.

Once we were cleared, we had to send our passports back to San Francisco with a pre-paid, self-addressed envelope to a U.S. address. Then there needs to be arrangements for someone to send them back to us here in Portugal. Our passports just arrived in San Francisco yesterday and we are hoping to get everything back before our temporary 90-day visa expires later this month.

Then there will be the interview to be accepted for residency. The process gets confusing and frustrating at times but it always gets approved in the end unless you really blow it somewhere along the line.

About now, you are probably asking, Is it really worth it? Hell, yeah! We love Portugal. There were a few days that I got down because it was cold and rainy and I was afraid that it may be a little bit too much like Pacific Northwest weather in the winter. But it only lasted a few days and the sun has been shining for the past few gorgeous days with temperatures in the sixties. We are told this is what we can expect most of the time. We might get a fairly nasty month or so but not months on end. I love all the sunshine here!

So Why am I Thankful?

Yes, finally getting back to the Thanksgiving theme of this blog, I am thankful to be in Portugal. I love the Portuguese people. The weather is delightful most of the time. The ocean is invigorating to be near even though it is too cold to swim in during the winter months. I am also thankful that I was born in America. It was a great place to grow up. For me, though, the pace and priorities here in Portugal suit me just fine at this stage of my life.

There is also something to be said for new adventures. I am happy and thankful that we made this lifestyle choice and that my wife was adventurous and supportive enough to help make this happen.