We are thrilled that you are visiting our blog, Portugalizar! This blog is our attempt to share with you everything that we have learned and discovered about living in Portugal. We are thrilled because what we have learned and discovered is nothing short of absolutely amazing.
Within a week of our arrival in Portugal, we learned our first lesson by way of example. Nothing is more important to the Portuguese than to make a stranger feel welcome and at-home. We want you to feel welcome and at-home here at Portugalizar.
Feel free to choose your preferred language by clicking on the flag tab in the upper left corner of the main menu. Also, please know that your privacy is important to us. We are not collecting any of your data nor will we or anyone else try to sell you anything. Period. So relax and enjoy.
BECOMING PORTUGUESE
Throughout our three decades together, Zé and I have shared a mutual dream. We have both wanted to dive into the unfamiliar rhythms of daily life as strangers in a new land. Our reasons are vague and varied, as dreams often are, but for now suffice it to say that wanderlust and self-discovery have been motivators. By sheer serendipity, Portugal is where we made our plunge.
This blog is about the pleasures and enjoyments we have found living in Portugal. It is equally about how Portugal is gradually becoming our home. In this blog we will try to share the experiences of and the encounters with the people, the language, the culture and customs, the history and the place that, in combination, have revealed Portugal to us.
Before I get too far along in this blog, I need to be upfront with you. Our observations are from our perch here in Santa Luzia, a tiny village within the city of Tavira. Tavira sits on the very edge of Europe in the eastern half (o Sotavento) of the Algarve; it is just one slice of a dynamic and diverse Portugal. In addition, our lens is that of expats (os estrangeiros); we are seeing everything for the first time and the perceived differences can be as intoxicating as they might be jarring.
By way of further disclosure, the verb portugalizar does not actually exist in Portuguese. I have contrived “Portugal” into a verb, and, as a contrivance, portugalizar is meant to help me explain why we came to Portugal. The meaning I have ascribed to this verb — familiarizing oneself with and ultimately becoming Portuguese — is the fulfillment of my/our long-held dream and it is what this blog is all about.
Our aim, as well, is for the blog to be the start of a conversation with new friends, like yourself. We hope that you will share with us your own story including your observations and experiences of this place on the edge of the world that is called Portugal. It is an adventure, we hope, that we can all enjoy together.
My goal is to post at least one blog every week. Each blog is intended as just one tiny stone that fits into a bigger mosaic of Portugal. Each blog will focus within one of five areas: people, language, culture and customs, history, and place.
PEOPLE: These blogs involve interviews with or stories of the people we have met in Santa Luzia as well as elsewhere in Portugal. It is our chance to introduce you to the many interesting people we have encountered here. Among these are both Portuguese locals and other estrangeiros (Brazilians, Mozambicans, Indians, Italians, French, etc.) who, like ourselves, have made Portugal their home. Together their voices and their stories are Portugal’s voice and story in the 21st century.
It is also our hope that, eventually, some of the interviews will be vlogs, videos, so you can actually meet, at least virtually, some of these fascinating people.
LANGUAGE: These blogs are perhaps the most personal and introspective. They are about the contours and complexities of the Portuguese language from the perspective of an estrangeiro who is, let’s say, mature. These blogs force me to reflect on how learning and wrestling with Portuguese teaches me about my own native language and how American English has formed me and oriented me within and toward the world.
CULTURE & CUSTOMS: These blogs are a grab bag of interesting tidbits. For example, I share my encounters with the poetry of Luis Vaz de Camões and Fernando Pessoa; with Moorish art of the 8th century as well as Portuguese abstract expressionism of 20th. There are blogs on Portuguese cooking and the relaxed pleasures of dining out. These blogs also cover Portuguese customs around holidays, weekends and the all important vacation (as férias).
HISTORY: These blogs will concentrate on the transitions that allowed Portugal to evolve into the people and place it is today. Portugal and equally Tavira is an archeological composition with layer built upon cultural layer over more than 400,000 years. The story is as fascinating as it is poignant: it cycles through arrival, conquest, flowering and yielding. Each new chapter follows on the last; no final chapter has yet been written.
PLACE: These blogs are about the unique and fascinating places we are discovering; for example, an abandoned church being resurrected, and birding on the salt flats and the marshes of the Ria Formosa. There are blogs about our walks along the rugged country dirt roads, early morning runs on the beaches of Barril and Terra Estreita as well as relaxed lunches on those very same beaches. These blogs share our adventures, big and small, that have come to comprise our life here.
