Finding Joy in the Everyday

If Ted and I have achieved another milestone on our way to building a new life in Portugal, it has nothing to do with how many historic sights we’ve seen or which must-do items we’ve crossed off our bucket list.

It’s that we’re starting to feel at home here.

All the signs point in that direction.

I’m delighted to offer a few examples as we begin our seventh month of life in Porto.

We have friends.

And do we! For a May 3 drop-in we hosted at our apartment to celebrate Ted’s 73rd birthday, we had a guest count of 20, including neighbors and new pals, locals and expats.

Portugal, Brazil, South Africa, Scotland, the Netherlands, North Carolina, Chicago and Atlanta were all represented. Talk about your United Nations! Not only that, but fluent Portuguese was spoken at length in our apartment. Music to our ears. The photo above features some of our guests.

A good time was had by all, including the Birthday Boy.

Here’s another shot of the Sunday soiree–Ted with Jennifer, one of our investment advisers, and, on the left, Janet, a Chicagoan who moved to Porto a few weeks ago. She and I met at the neighborhood laundromat when she was puzzling over the euro insert on the pay machine. Really! It’s a conversation starter, for sure.

We’re learning the ropes.

Old hands at city bus transport, Ted and I have memorized the names of all 10 stops we pass on our way to the club where we swim a mile three mornings a week.

We reload our bus and metro passes monthly using the machines at the metro stations. (Our first few months here, we required human interaction to do this. We just couldn’t get the machines to work. Now, we’re flying solo.)

And wonder of wonders, the other day I made it through the self-checkout lane at the Pingo Doce, our local grocery store, without staff assistance. AND without translating the screen to English.

Not earth-shattering, by any means. But a band played and a few “you’ve arrived!” fireworks went off in my head as I “pagar-ed” (paid), grabbed my groceries and strutted toward the door. Small pleasures, indeed.

We have a “usual.”

Our swim club, the Clube Fluvial Portuense, has a cafe called “Splash,” where we typically stop for coffee after our swims. Our order is often the same: a cappuccino for Ted and a meia de leite for me (like a coffee latte, a meia de leite is half steamed milk and half espresso, without the cappuccino’s foam and cinnamon on top).

Sometimes we share a queque de noz, a gooey, mildly sweet muffin with a hint of orange flavor and crunchy nuts on top. A luscious reward after our workouts in the pool.

“O habitual?” asks the friendly server when I go to the counter to place our order. It means, “The usual?” and makes me feel like doing a little dance whenever I hear it.

It’s like the song for the old TV show Cheers … “where everybody knows your name.” Only at Splash, it’s with caffeine and cake instead of booze.

We have personal trainers.

When the conversation turns to exercise and working out, I’ve always thought it sounded a bit silly and pretentious when someone would say, “I have a trainer.” I stand corrected.

Since we arrived in Porto in November, Ted and I have found that, as wonderful an exercise as swimming is, it hasn’t alleviated the tension that has coiled inside our joints and muscles … making us feel that we’ve aged considerably since we started the anxiety-intense process of immigration last Spring.

We needed something more than laps in the pool. And we’ve found it with two trainers who put us through weight-lifting, stretching and balance exercises a few times each week.

It is working wonders. And strengthening the swimming, too.

My trainer is Rodrigo, who provides his expertise at a new, remarkably inexpensive gym that recently opened near us in the Cedofeita area of historic Portugal.

The Element gym is part of the largest health and fitness network in Portugal, which recently, interestingly enough, has been expanding into the Czech market. I like how its modern glass reflects the quaint, older shops and apartment buildings along Rua de Anibal Cunha a seven-minute walk from our apartment.

Ted’s trainer is Alder, who has his own gym by the Douro River and came highly recommended by our neighbors. He specializes in workouts designed for the older crowd. And is a fascinating character, too.

So we take back everything we’ve said about folks who “have a trainer.” We’ve gladly joined the club, so to speak, and our bodies thank us for it.

We love the mix.

Porto is a culturally rich city. We love the history, the native people and the restaurants that serve the dishes traditional to the area. And the immigrants who call it home add to the mosaic. People from Ukraine and other Eastern European countries. And the Middle East.

Take Michel, for example, a software engineer-turned-restaurateur who owns a cozy little place that serves dishes traditional to his native Lebanon.

Michel’s restaurant, Yalla Padaria, catered much of the food for Ted’s birthday gathering. Hummus, baba ghanoush, pita bread … it’s all delicious. And it’s made by loving hands.

Like Raja’s, pictured below.

Yalla’s staff kindly took time from a busy Thursday lunch service to let me take a group photo. Yalla is across the street from one of Porto’s biggest tourist attractions, the Crystal Palace and its lovely gardens, so the restaurant’s business is brisk whenever its doors are open.

Neighbors like us help keep the place bustling, too.

The flatbread, man’oushe, fired in a 500-degree gas oven on the premises, is a miracle on a plate. And the baklava? Wow.

We love how our city has embraced Michel and his team, who recently provided the food for a Seder meal hosted by the Progressive Jewish Synagogue of Porto.

Speaking of diversity, there is also an interesting small grocery in Porto, the Slaviansky offering food from Poland, Germany, Ukraine, Russian and other Eastern European nations.

In addition to sausage, cookies, vodka, and pirogi (the list goes on!), the store offers sour cream, which is difficult to find in Porto’s mainstream grocery stores. At Slaviansky, one finds on the refrigerator shelves a veritable rainbow of silky varieties, with butterfat content ranging from 12-30%.

Indeed, it seems sour cream is the shop’s main draw for U.S. expats like us, who long for baked potatoes topped with the tangy, fermented condiment that we had in the States. Slavianski sells real horseradish, too, and it will lift the top of your head off, exactly what good horseradish should do.

Making a home

I’ll close with a brief story about an email we received recently from a friend in the United States. He asked, “Have you guys been traveling around Europe?”

We had to laugh at the question, because there hasn’t been time to do much traveling since we arrived in Porto. We find we like it that way, focusing on getting to know our new city instead of playing tourist across Europe.

Especially as we watch the bulldozing of democracy–literally and figuratively–in our previous homeland, we treasure life in a country where our liberties, and the liberties of those we love, are not on the chopping block. Where terror and cruelty aren’t planks in the ruling administration’s platform.

In view of all that chaos, life in Porto … ordinary life … is like a soothing massage for the soul. Real people. Real life. What more could we ask?

We do want to travel more, eventually. To share photos of thousand-year-old churches, ancient stones with hand-carved lettering by the Romans, spectacular vistas from the Douro River Valley.

Though for now, we’re enjoying staying put, taking pleasure in the everyday routine and feeling not quite so much like strangers in a strange land. I guess you could say we’re putting down roots in this wonderfully diverse city.

And look! Things are growing already.

(Note: The photo shows two of the three planters on our rooftop balcony, where we’re growing basil, sage, chives and assorted flowers from seeds. Another homey touch at our Porto pad.)