Portugal Power Outage
We survived the power outage in Portugal on Monday the 28th.
Welcome to As the Dinoson's Turn, where we chronicle the adventures of the Dinoson family, a seemingly ordinary family from Iowa who decided, hey, you only live once. So let's move to Portugal. And now your hosts, Jason and Tracy Dinason.
SPEAKER_03Alright, welcome to As the Dinason's Turn.
SPEAKER_01Take two.
SPEAKER_03Right. We had this recorded yesterday and the audio wasn't very good, so we're doing it again. But we've had some other adventures this week, too, with the great power outage of 2025 in Portugal and Spain.
SPEAKER_01I have to say that, like everybody, we thought it was construction. And because they were doing construction um right down the street from us. And the apartments, I figured they were just hooking them up because they're almost at that point, I would think. And turns out, as I was my iPad was almost dying, I needed to get to work because I was not ready for class yet. So I thought I'd go someplace that had power and Wi-Fi. I didn't work. I um texted a friend and said, Hey, I'll take you out to lunch if you want to get together. And she said, We can't. There's no power in the whole country. Oh! So I parked on the street. But then I got to hang out in Gimaraish for the entire day, and that was actually a really fun time. What about you? What was your morning like?
SPEAKER_03Well, the power went out around 1130, and I we've had random power outages because of construction or water outages that last 30 minutes or so because of construction. So that's just what I thought it was till you texted me after you got it to work and said it's across the entire country. But oddly, we st at least where we were at, we still had cell service. So we could get on the internet through our phones, so I was just following along with the news until eventually cell service went out around 3 30 in the afternoon, and then it was out till around 9 p.m. and then came back on. But I don't know, hung out on the couch, and the kids played with Legos and It felt very early 2000s, even out and about.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it reminded me of when I was living in Spain in the early 2000s, people out on the street interacting, enjoying a beautiful sunshiny day. Nobody on their phones. It was glorious. Like it was just like the best time. And I loved all of the relaxation vibes. I loved everybody interacting and seeing what happens. That's one of my favorite things about being in the city is when you see everybody come out of their homes, or you see them poke their heads out and they talk to each other and like one's in the building, one's on the street, or they just kind of wave their arms to make sure you're good in the atelier. And it was just really nice to see people coming together and having those conversations. There was the boas festash, happy holiday, things we didn't know we were gonna get. A lot of people were out on the street having a good time. And now then the uh grocery stores were also exanely busy because in Portugal you don't usually buy more than a day or two of food at a time. And so people were like, Well, this could happen at any time. We've been told already to get ready for at least 72 hours without power, and we'd yet to do that. Oops. So now we know exactly what kinds of things we need. We did fill the water up, like in the bathtub, um, just in case, because if the power out is out for too long, of course, the water treatment plants, all of those things could have problems. But we were pretty lucky this time. Um I love the different cultural nuances. So at the grocery store, there were the only breads that were left, were bagels, tortillas, and gluten-free bread. They were even buying that at the end. They were like, oh okay. You should have seen it. It was funny. Um, there was no tuna to be had, and we're talking like caseloads of thousands of tins of tuna, like three of them, all of them gone, nothing on the shelf. There were some mussels left, but all of the pool, the octopus, the sardines, everything was gone. All the bread was gone. Um, a lot of the beer was gone. A lot of the wine was gone, chips, some of them, but everything else, like all the fruits and vegetables were taken too.
SPEAKER_03Well, what did someone say to the German tourist who was all worried about the power being off, and one of the Portuguese people said something to them?
SPEAKER_01I loved this. He said, Why would we worry? We're Portuguese and we have wine. And I love that. I mean, it really just comes down to that fact of taking everything in stride. And really, it was about enjoying the moment because you can't do anything to change it, so you might as well take advantage of it.
SPEAKER_03Right? The power was out, and eventually the phones went out. It's like you can't do anything, you can't do anything about it. So you might as well have fun.
SPEAKER_01Now then the schools did not close because the canteens and the cafeterias had already made all the food for the day, and so and they didn't want to send students home because, you know, especially if it's um students who were supposed to be there all day. I mean, um, they stayed until parents came and got them or until their usual release time. Um, the rule was that if the power hadn't been on by 6 a.m., then the next day would be closed as well. But the power came on, which was a good thing and a bad thing, because I think the boys were hoping for another another day off. Friend of mine was like, maybe we'll get the whole rest of the month. Because today is May 1st, and May 1st is also Labor Day here, and so it's a national holiday. They were just really going for it. I thought, well, you're optimistic. I don't know that we'll make it all the way to Thursday, but okay.
SPEAKER_03Uh it did remind me, you know, 90s, early 2000s. I mean, obviously we had electricity back in those days, contrary to what our children might say about us big uh young in the stone ages, but we did have electricity in the nine nineties, but no cell phones and no internet Well, there may have been internet. Internet and a computer and yeah, but people it was different then. You didn't sit in front of you didn't stare at your phone all day.
SPEAKER_01Well, and this is the thing that I noticed. And the kids like at school they interacted with each other much more and had their heads up, they were having conversations, they were joking around, they were engaging. Of course, they weren't using their phones during my 230 class because they were afraid they weren't gonna be able to charge them again, so that was a good incentive. And then my individual lesson didn't show. Um, he's an art uh history professor, and so I'm sure that that was a crazy day for him as well. And then my 530 class, two students showed. And we just had conversations because I couldn't do any of my usual teaching. What I love is the response in the group chat at the institute was okay, we'll be old school, we'll do books and pens and paper, and we've got light, natural light, we'll use it. I don't really teach that way, so that was not an easy thing. So I have to say that this was an adventure, and then we went back to class, and last night my 530 students were all there and they were back on their phones just as they were before. And I'm like, Did you learn nothing? Did you learn nothing from Monday? Put it down. So they're gonna have to put all their technology in a box when they enter my room now. I know we're gonna make our own forced environment. No phone for you.
SPEAKER_03I remember no phone for you. Um, but no, I rem don't you remember those days of I remember starting in the workforce in a while back. Um, and I remember how quaint it almost was. We had Outlook and getting an email, but you checked your email like first thing in the morning, and it was almost like getting a letter in the mail or something if you had an email in your inbox first thing in the morning.
SPEAKER_01Well, and I think that that was a that was nice because you only had to deal with email once a day. You could check it again before you left if you needed to, but you weren't like connected to it or living on it. And I think that we need to do more of that. And now it's just you have to do the forced time. The problem is that that phone and all of those things, the email, it's all a dopamine rush. So we have to detox ourselves, like really. Um, and we know there'll be more power outage. They've told us that there will be more. Um, we just know it going into summer with Ukraine and the war and all of those other things. We don't know what things are gonna be happening, but they're also like maintenance times, and there are times where we've got construction around here and hopefully all goes well, you know. But I do love the conspiracy theories of what happened. Um immediately my students at my 230 walked in and said, Teacher, it's Russia. And I'm like, I don't know about that. Like, nobody's actually proven any of that yet. But um, there were all kinds of things, and I don't I've not been able to verify any of the things. They were like, it goes all the way to like Switzerland and Germany and all these other places too. They don't have power, and I thought, oh boy. So um it kind of grew a lot. That was an entertaining tale. Um, and I said, Well, you know, for there there are rumors that there's fires in that part of France, and you know, um, there are rumors that Spain was the target and that Portugal just gets sucked in because we get a lot of our power from Spain. Um, that's a huge debate right now. So the government is now pushing back on um some of the other departments in the ministry to say we can't have this type of dependency on another country when it comes to our power. And the the response is, but it's cheaper, and they're like, No. Like we do have a lot of renewable energy in Portugal. What I've found is there aren't a lot of batteries. So people rely on this renewable energy and they use it all the time, but there's no battery charging backup piece, and so I have a feeling that that's where some of this will go because it's solar power everywhere. I mean, we do live in a place that they say gets over 300 days of sun a year. Um, but we do get like 65 days of rain probably straight.
SPEAKER_00That's true.
SPEAKER_01And even on sunny days, the sun does come out um some days even when it rains. So I think they count those.
SPEAKER_03But so we've got to get our emergency kit and make sure we have cash. I always in the US had cash because I had read a book 20 some years ago called How to Live the James Bond Lifestyle. And it actually I was sad because I okay, last weekend I actually was looking for that book on Amazon. I found the ebook. Oh my. And I did some searching, and apparently the author just passed away not that long ago. And anyway, I had read that book so much it fell apart. It was a paperback book, but so how to live the James Bond Lifestyle actually wasn't how to be like some Playboy spy. It was more the mental side of being James Bond, the confidence.
SPEAKER_01Okay, I still feel like that's a bait and switch.
SPEAKER_03So, anyway, um the book talked about always having cash. Being like Sinatra, who's another manly man that I try to emulate.
SPEAKER_01Um yet he's still alive. This one I mean, Jason still lives.
SPEAKER_03Peeling off hundred dollar bills in Las Vegas and just handing them out, tipping people, and always having your money clip with plenty of cash in it. And we don't do that in Portugal. We probably should, because when things like this happened, the grocery store was still open, but only if you could pay cash.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And they would try and run cards, and every now and again a card would go through, um, but not consistently enough. And um I have to say that we don't use cash, we use MBWA, which is one of the best things in the world, because it's tied to your phone number, which is tied to your bank account, and you just scan a QR code and it pays it. It's fantastic, I love it. But when technology doesn't work, then MBWA doesn't work, and of course, all the banks had to pull everything down, and I think that that was more a security concern, more than oh my god, we don't have power, blah, blah, blah. You know, I think that they pulled certain things down. And I also think that's kind of what happened with the telecommunications network because they waited, they were waiting, I think, because they had to, we know telecommunications versus you know electricity, those are different systems. But I think it was just so flooded with people going, ah! And they wanted people to quit calling and telling people, I'm out of power. Um, and so that was kind of an important thing. I did listen to the radio all the way home when we still didn't have power, and I could understand what was going on. That was great. They did talk about how Lisbon would be the last to go online because it was the largest and the most complicated, but also that once they brought Lisbon online, they didn't want to again hurt the grid bad enough, like add that much load to the grid that it went down again. So they needed to do that in steps and take things piece by piece. But uh, you know, a day without power, it was a fun day, honestly. Things we know besides cash, we need a grill or and we need a propane stove. That was the thing I was worried about was like no coffee in the morning.
SPEAKER_03That's true.
SPEAKER_01That is scary. Like, so a mocha pot and our little propane stove. We also had no way to cook food, so it was a sandwich this evening, which was fine. But if you can't cook any food, then I think you get into um a little bit of a bind. Um, I had already cleaned out the refrigerator the day before. It's like I knew it was kids met. So I'd cleaned out the refrigerator, but we had just done a shop. So we had to take and get rid of yogurts and things that didn't quite make it through the day. Um freezer stayed completely frozen, nobody opened it. Um so but now our job is to eat through our freezer and make sure there's nothing really in it. Um, because we know if power goes out, then obviously we don't want to and waste all of those things. So it's just a transition into a new season. They also say you should have at least um three days worth of water for every member of your family, and that's six liters of water per person. So we need to get some of those things pulled together. I really, you know, Jason still works, he didn't have a presentation on my day. Otherwise, like we couldn't have told you could have told anybody who had to do that. Couldn't have done anything.
SPEAKER_03There was no no internet, the hotspot didn't have internet connection. Cell service was down, so we couldn't even communicate with anyone. So it was like the nineties, but without the rotary phone in the kitchen.
SPEAKER_01Okay, that was in my grandmother's house, and that was from like the 1960s.
SPEAKER_03Well, we didn't have a rotary phone either in the nineties. We had but it was in the kitchen, and it used to be a rotary phone, and then it was still a wall phone, and you took it off and you pushed the keypad.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well, I I don't know. He grew up on a farm, but us city folk, we actually had, you know, cordless.
SPEAKER_03Well, we did too. We had the wall phone and the the a handbook.
SPEAKER_01I have to give you a little bit of a hard time. You're making it sound like we were born in like the 50s or 40s. We we were not, we were born in the 70s. So um, but I do have to say that we also need to find some type of a solar battery charger that then will charge our phones, but we can charge a computer because we need to make sure Jason can still do his work. Um, and we know telecommunications shouldn't go down at the same time. They'll let people know, you know, what things go on, but that way at least you have an ability to work. Otherwise, I think we are gonna get really stuck. Yeah. I don't know. It was it was actually kind of a lot of fun because the kids were hysterical when I got home. I thought, oh, the moment the one of the kids in my 230 class realized he wasn't gonna be able to go home and play Roblox, it was almost fetal position withdrawal. Like it was like, oh God, I was like, oh god. We're like, it's okay. And they uh they've given each other American names, which is funny. So it's like it's okay, Johnny, it'll be okay. And I thought, well, we'll see what happens when I get home. But the boys were hysterical. That was the most engaging conversation I've had since I usually I come home, one of them's on the computer, the other one's on like they're on the Xbox, they're not even talking to each other. It was crazy. And I think that this was actually really good because they started to realize how important social interaction is. Because guess what happened yesterday? I am so proud. Okay, so first of all, um, some of the girls in Jack's class invited him to have lunch with them. So this was the first day he didn't really eat alone. He's a very shy, introverted person, but he did eat lunch with other people. He's like, Mom, you'll be so proud of me. And he does know all of these people's names. I verified he's never good at names, but I did verify and ask. Um, and then Tyler was playing Fortnite with his table partner Denish and some of Denish's friends, um, and they won. The two of them won. They were having like the best time. So it just meant that that social interaction piece wound up being more important and a little bit easier, I think, for them. So I think that was great too. My students at school did say that they were talking to more people than they were not talking to before, and so there was that little change, and they actually liked it. And I I'm telling you, if we could just arrange for the cell phone network to go down between 5 30 and 6 50 on Mondays and Wednesday nights, I would be very happy with that. That would make my teaching life much better. Um, otherwise, I think they did pretty good.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we got through it.
SPEAKER_01We did, and we had just filled the car up with gas too the day before. So gas pumps were still working because like the gas stations and the grocery stores have generators, and so it's just enough power to get through some things. But again, when the card system, the banking system was pulled down, you had to pay cash for everything. So we need to make sure we have cash for any of our necessities. We have cash for gas, we have like we we've got quite a list of things to start pulling together.
SPEAKER_03I'll share the how to live the James Bond lifestyle book with you so you can read that.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that that will be entertaining. Absolutely. Oh God. I thought you were looking at it to see if you could give it to Jack for his birthday. I mean, boy's gonna be 17. Does he need to learn how to be James Bond?
SPEAKER_03He might. I guess that would make a good gift.
SPEAKER_01We'll see what he thinks. I think we should do that for him because I just I think it's hysterical, and I can hardly I will record that reaction and send it to you all. That will be fantastic. Well, uh, you know, it was a great day, honestly. And I do love that everybody was outside. We were playing, they were playing music, they're drinking beer, they're drinking wine, they're laughing, having a good time, dancing in the middle of plazas. And remember, we're in Portugal, we're Portuguese, we take things in stride, and we have wine. So what else do you need?
SPEAKER_03Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Like, really, wine, chorizo, queijo, pão, sardinhas? Yeah, I think we're good. Let's just make ourselves a charcuterie board.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01All right, we'll get on that.
SPEAKER_03All right, join us again next time on As the Dinoson's Turn.
SPEAKER_02You've been listening to As the Dinoson's Turn, a podcast presented by Dinoson Media Ventures. Don't forget to like and subscribe, and catch us again next time for another episode.