Eating Baby Yoda and other oddities of life in Portugal

This should post on Christmas Eve.  It’s probably the only present we could give to everyone, so why not make it a long one.  It’s time to sit back with your cup of coffee, tea, hot cocoa or glass of Scotch and settle in for a lengthy, hopefully amusing, read.  

This is another of my musings from Portugal posts.  As for the headline, I’ve been having some issues with headline writers lately (ask Ann about some of my rants), so I decided if I can’t beat ‘em, maybe I should join ‘em.  And if you’re offended by the title, I guess you were a bit upset during the show where Baby Yoda kept doing something (think round things some people eat for breakfast) that Mando kept telling him not to do.  That, or you don’t watch the show and you’re just offended.  Sorry.  Anyway, this post is about some of the . . . let’s call them oddities about life in Portugal.  

I have to confess that I still have not really resumed my Portuguese studies.  Despite all my guilt, I’ve just been too busy with work and still trying to tie off loose ends with our move and settling in that I just have not gotten started.  There’s hope I’ll start back up during my Christmas break . . . .  Anyway, the serious dive into proper pronunciations has paid off in droves and I’m hoping that my watching of football (soccer) in Portuguese will pay off once I resume studies.  In some ways I think it has, because I’m now starting to think of player names in Portuguese instead of English, even when they’re not Portuguese.

It might seem kind of strange that I say that, but it wasn’t until I came over here that I really came to realize that in the US we pronounce lots of people’s names horribly wrong.  Why that would suddenly become obvious now I can’t say, but it wasn’t until quite recently that the light-bulb lit.  Having learned German, I know immediately (and am somewhat annoyed) when someone is mispronounces the German player Timo Werner’s name with a distinct “W” sound instead of a “V” sound like it’s pronounced in German.  Portugal names are much the same.  The Portuguese language differs from other Romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish) in that the vowels are often pronounced very differently and there’s a different word structure (explained in one book I read as Portuguese having been based on working-class Roman Latin and the others on elite Roman Latin).  So, for example, often the “e” at the end of a word is near silent (more of an aspiration).  So the defender Pepe (currently with Porto, formerly with Real Madrid) is not Pepé, with each “e” emphasized (and certainly not pronounced Pee-Pee like they did in Liberia), it’s pronounced Pep, like Pep Guardiola, the Spanish coach/player.  

Another oddity with the Portuguese language is that a word, or name, ending in “O” is actually pronounced as a “U”.  So the Portuguese player for Liverpool, Diogo Jota (Jota is a nickname, and is the Portuguese pronunciation of the alphabetical letter “J” and comes from the fact that his jersey has “Diogo J.” on it) is actually pronounced “Diogu Jota” - Dee-óh-gu.  

So Portuguese is, hopefully, sinking in by osmosis, but here’s the real kicker.  I’m now speaking people’s name in Portuguese, all names of people I don’t know personally.  For non-football lovers, Diego Maradonna, one of the greatest of all times, recently died.  Of course at all of the football matches around the world (several of which I watched, with Portuguese commentators of course) they had a moment of silence for “Diegu Maradonna.”  I can’t not throw that “u” sound on the last “o” any more.  Doesn’t seem like much of an issue but . . . 

Since we’ve moved here, Ann and I have discovered a really good Greek yogurt that is not only delicious, but is very good for us.  It’s become our go-to snack when we want to feel energized.  Plus, we even know how to pronounce it properly.

So imagine my consternation a few weeks ago when Ashoka revealed Baby Yoda’s name on The Mandalorian.  We’d been eating Baby Yoda for a snack!!  When I pointed out my concern later to Ann she said, “Dan, his name is GrOgu, not GrEgo.”  Boy, was that a relief.  I really doubt you get any brownie points with the Force by eating a Jedi.

Moving on . . . So, here’s a question.  What’s wrong with this picture?

If you said, “Why does that phone have a power cord in it while it’s sitting on a mag-charger . . . oh wait, that’s not Dan’s iPhone 11, that’s an older phone.”  Then you’d be right.  It’s the back-up phone I have where I usually keep my US SIM card because I have one company that will not allow two-factor authentication via e-mail - only by SMS.  So when I want to make a bank transfer (I guess I gave away what type of business it is), I have to turn the phone on so I can transfer money.  But that’s not the point for now, what is the point is that my iPhone 11 started having issues.  So Ann went down the rabbit hole of Apple Care in Portugal.  

It started easy enough with a chat session with Apple that was done in English.  Apple did it’s magic test and yeah, apparently there was an issue with the phone, but they couldn’t figure it out.  No, Braga does not have an Apple store, but there is an authorized repair shop.  “Here’s the name of the company, they don’t have an on-line process to schedule appointments so you’ll need to take it there directly”  Ann finds their website and sees a “contact us” page and shoots them a message explaining we have an Apple warranty repair and asks when should we bring it in.  They respond by e-mail saying, “Sorry, but you’ll have to make an appointment online - you can’t just come in to drop it off.  Here is where you find the form on the website.”  So Ann goes to the website and tries to make an appointment.  She gives all of the vital information, to include the Apple warranty number, and picks a day-time for the appointment.  Unfortunately, like a lot of Portuguese on-line forms, there are some really strange info boxes Ann didn’t fully understand, so she left them blank and hit enter.  Surprisingly, the site took the form (despite the missing form fields) and gave her a store job number and an appointment date and time.  Then nothing.

No e-mail confirmation, no text (to Ann’s number).  Nothing.  After awhile, Ann is scratching her head wondering whether the form actually went through.  So she e-mails back the business and asks, “So, am I supposed to receive a confirmation of my appointment?  Or do I just come in on Friday at the appointment time and wait?”  Ann gets an e-mail back, “Oh, it usually takes 2-3 days for a repair.  Just come on in any time between 10:00-18:00 Monday through Friday and drop it off.”  So . . . what was the purpose of making an appointment?

We dropped it off the next day - a day earlier than the appointment.

And here it is, my iPhone 11 is back and thanks to Ann, I get to look at Hans again every time I pick up my phone. 

The repair took a few days longer than they said, but we’re on Portugal time so that’s not surprising.  A hardware test didn’t show anything wrong so they wiped the hardware and reinstalled the operating system  and updates.  I followed their protocol and reinstalled individual apps instead of restoring what I had before, as painful as that can be.  At least I used it as an opportunity to cull some of the many unused programs from my phone.  So far, so good, it’s not having the connection problems it was having before, so I’m happy.

While my phone was in the shop, Ann brought us an early Christmas present.  I think I’ve mentioned that we’ve been thinking about getting a new photo printer, but have been uncertain if we’d get the same one we had in the US, or get a different model. We ultimately decided that since Epson had “fixed” some of the issues that led us to choosing Canon over Epson last time, and there was no news of an improved Canon version, we’d wait for the Epson to come out.   Well, apparently Epson has finally worked through its Covid-19 supply chain issues and news came out that orders should start shipping in early December and they should be appearing in stores by the end of December.  Note, that’s what they were saying in September too, so we were a bit skeptical. 

So imagine my delight when, one morning while working at my computer an e-mail comes in from Ann.  It has a hyperlink to Colorfoto, the biggest photography store in Portugal, and a note from Ann.  “Says they’ll be in December 24.”  My response, “We should be prepared to order it on Christmas Eve then! Merry Christmas.”

Then about 30 minutes later my phone rings.  It’s Ann (yes, we will occasionally call each other [and text as well as e-mail] because we’re separated by two floors of solid concrete and block).  “Uh, you know that printer at Colorfoto?”  “Yeah, the one available on the 24th?” I said.  “Well, I just put it into my cart to see what happens and it says it’s available!”  “What?”  “Yeah, then a chat window came up, and I asked if they speak English and they said yeah.  So I asked, ‘Hey, what’s up?  It says I have a printer in my cart, but they won’t arrive until December 24th.’”  I say, “Ok . . . .”  Ann goes on, “Then the guy says, ‘Yeah, we got one in today, but we haven’t updated the website yet that it’s in.  But only one arrived.  You can buy it if you want.”  So Ann asks me, “So do we want to buy it?”  If you have to guess what my answer was you really don’t know me.  

So we have a printer in our cart, and here’s where the real Portugal fun comes in.  Our research has warned us that you really should buy an extra set of inks, because what Epson sends with the printer is enough to get it ready and do a couple of prints, but that’s it.  Like the Cannon, inks for this machine (an Epson SureColor P900) are quite the investment so I wanted to split a purchase on two separate credit cards because the US banks have occasionally gotten nervous with extremely huge purchases over here.  Well it didn’t like one card.  And didn’t like another card. Despite the “card denied” notice, we got e-mails saying that the purchase was . . . we couldn’t really figure it out.  So we resorted to the Portuguese bank transfer system, which is really rather convenient, even though the chat person said “That usually takes a bit longer.”  Well, when we got an e-mail with the Multibanco infomation, we were really confused. So we went back to the chat window and asked what’s up with all the emails. The Colorfoto chat guy said, “Yes, take the credit card e-mail we sent you and contact your credit card company to pay it.”  What?  Who does that to buy something online? . . . Portugal needs to work on their online shopping experience. Instead, I went online and paid both invoices, and in short order we received confirmation e-mails of payment from Colorfoto in minutes. (So how does using Multibanco take more time than a credit card?) [We think the problem with the credit cards was Ann was going through on the login she had created but with using my card, which had things that didn’t match up . . . nothing has ever showed upon the cards.]  Anyway, we seemed good to go.  

A bit later I got a text message that said DPD [a delivery company] was going to deliver our printer from Colofoto the next day some time between 8:30 am and 6:30 pm.  Wow! One day!  Although Portugal is so small that even if it was coming from Lisbon instead of the Porto store, that shouldn’t be a big surprise. And with a purchase like this, they might want to just hire someone to deliver it (you should see some of the vehicles things arrive in).

Well, Friday came and passed and after watching the latest release of  Star Trek Discovery and the Mandalorian, we figured that the delivery wasn’t going to come.  It didn’t.  And since nothing arrives over the weekend (except for the weekend before Christmas it now seems) we weren’t surprised when we didn’t see anything. 

Then on Monday Morning I got the following: [the first text below was the Thursday Text].

Great, a delivery some time between 3:30 and 4:30. Though I might have jinxed myself because early that afternoon I was chatting with Bill about work and told him our new printer was arriving.  And then I added, “It’s Portugal time, so they say 3:30-4:30, but it’s probably more like 5:30 or 6:00, if at all today.”  

I could not have been more right.  It did not arrive on Monday.

But ye of little faith, I get the following text on Tuesday morning:

And sure enough, on Tuesday, at 13:42 our printer arrived! Third time’s a charm.

I guess now we know why they don’t have Blue Apron or other types of food services generally in Portugal.  They have them in Lisbon, but just for the Lisbon area, and we’re sure the packagers delivery it themselves.  It would be tough doing food deliveries with delivery timing like what we’ve consistently seen.  Still, we can order most things online so we shouldn’t complain.  We just have to manage our expectations concerning delivery dates (and packaging if from Amazon Spain).

As for the printer, while we set it up this past weekend we haven’t started printing yet.

Here’s me shaking an ink cartridge before inserting it into its proper slot.

And here’s a wider view of our printing area.  

I’ll have to do a post on our photography work area, but for now you can see that Ann has set us up with a nice monitor to look at the images we’ll be printing, and there is a lot of surface area to set prints down.  

Things will be slowing down through Christmas and New Years, so you should start seeing the return of Printing the Image posts in the near future!

But back to life in Portugal.  Given that here, like everywhere else, folks are exercising additional precautions given the rise in corona virus cases (Portugal has had an increase, but nothing stretching the health care system like many places in the US). We’re doing our part with a lot less unnecessary shopping.  But you can stay sheltered for only so long. After doing so much organizing in the house, we finally needed to get some more stuff from Ikea. Ann decided to try the click and collect.  We made our order and Saturday morning I went out to pick it up.

Well, instead of an accessible pick up point, I had to walk into the store/mall to the customer service office.  Ok, not quite a drive up service, but at least I didn’t have to wander through the store.  On the way there, I received a phone call that they didn’t have one of the items we wanted so they would refund that amount. . . was that ok?  “Yes, of course it is.” 

When I went to pick up the order I went through my routine of I don’t speak Portuguese, do you speak English, and the usual “pequeno” which doesn’t mean the “a little” the word suggests, but usually quite a bit better English than one would expect.  Anyway, as she punched in the numbers from my order form her eyes got a bit wide.  I said, “I received a telephone call and I know something is not available.  Não problema.”  She shook her head that she understood me, but then walked into the back for a few minutes and then came out and walked over to another register.  The two of them chatted for a couple of minutes and then walked over to a third register.  After a couple more minutes one of them waived me over.  So I go.

Next thing I know there are 4 people figuring out exactly how to process an order that doesn’t have everything in it that was ordered.  One of them (the second person who was approached, and apparently the best English speaker of the bunch) explained to me the issue (and I confirmed I was aware of it) and I wound up having to sign 2 different documents (nothing new in Portugal) as well as receiving a 10€ voucher (additional signature required) for our next call and collect order.    Eventually, they came out with a cart full of our stuff. 

I must say, I really can’t complain about the way Portuguese want to help out.  It may not always be the smoothest of operations, but they’re usually really kind and helpful while doing it!  Even if it does still sound like they’re having an intense argument between themselves while they figure out what’s going on. 

And finally, a couple of updates for you.  Much to our surprise, Honking Man hasn’t been by for a couple of weeks now.  Whether he’s taking a break for the holidays, anxious to resume his honking after the new year, or he’s gotten over whatever it was he has against our neighbor, I guess we’ll find out. Ann wonders whether it was a cease and desist order or something else.  Despite the occasional annoyance he brings, we hope he’s not ill.  

Talking about our neighbor.  We have found out that the guy across the street is not the Mayor of Braga.  The Mayor lives behind our house on the other side of the playground.  I know because one morning while coming back from dropping off our recycling, he was sitting in his car (waiting for his youngest child to come out) and I looked over and said, “He looks just like the photo of him on the Braga website.”  Reading the description of him, the facts match - 3 daughters (as opposed to two sons and a daughter across the street).  But now that fact leaves us baffled about Honking Man - why does he honk (and give the evil eye to) our neighbor’s house (across the street), and why did he honk when we were in front of the Parish Council offices? It couldn’t be us could it?  I guess we’ll have to come up with a new story about him.  

And one final update.  Yes, we still have beautiful skies here in Braga.

We still may be in lockdown mode, but we can at lest still appreciate the beauty of nature.  We can’t wait to get back out photographing in landscapes with skies like these.

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! May 2021 quickly make the insanity of 2020 a distant memory!