Season 2, Episode 6: One Year in Portugal

SPEAKER_01 0:00

All right, welcome to another episode of As the Dinoson's Turn. It's our one year anniversary, if you can believe that.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

I cannot even believe that we are at one year. Literally March 15th of last year, we got on a plane. March 16th, we got here. And by the end of the day in Portugal, we were here. It was dark, it was rainy. I was driving roundabouts for the first time and like forever freaking out in the middle of the night. And it was like, oh my God, what are we doing? And yet here we are.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

It's I can't even believe it's been a year. It doesn't seem like it. I don't know how long it feels like it's been, but not a year.

unknown 0:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Um, yeah, I, you know, we've learned so much, not only about Portugal and our town and ourselves, but also about our kids. This has been, you know, quite the adventure just in general. So definitely a closer family. You learn a lot about each other when you live in like 300 square feet. Um, and I'm sure the boys uh appreciate not having to share a bed anymore, but they still share a room. I love hearing their conversations and the things they talk about. Like it's just hysterically funny. Um, Jack will randomly put out some type of sports information, and Tyler will add some video game thing to it. Um, and then they have like these very serious political conversations. They're watching what's happening in the States, and I am horrified. But that's also like we're not, you know, we live in a place where there are changing political elements here as well. So I don't know. Like, what are some of the things that that you feel like you've learned over this year?

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Well, that's you're putting me on the spot here.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

I am.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

But I think that I mean, when we moved, I don't think we really knew what we were getting into. No, which I think was a good thing for us. We talked about in our last episode about burnout, and I think that part of conquering the burnout was getting in a different space where you don't know what the next move is going to be. And in a culture where it's like, well, you have five things on your to-do list, but you're only going to get one of them done today. And that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

I have to say, when I get two or three things done in a day, I feel like I have won the lottery. It's like, wow, look at me. That's like Olympic adulting right there. Like gold medal, definitely. Um, yeah, I would say though, like I've seen you do a lot of things this year that have been really hard for you that you've taken on. Like trying to learn a language. Not been easy.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

It's definitely not been easy, no.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

I think we we said that on our list of five things we wish we knew when we moved here that think not being naive about the language or being careful where you move, depending on your language skills. If you don't have language skills, thank goodness for you, to be able to help with some of the the big things. I mean, it's one thing to not really know what you're doing and go to the grocery store. You could probably figure it out. But to go to the doctor's office, the first time we went to the doctor's office, I mean, it's it was very strange. Like you take a ticket and then you get called up to the desk whenever your ticket number gets called, and then you sit in this gigantic waiting room, and they call you over the intercom, which is fine, but that intercom, that first time is like and then like all these people, they just get up and walk back like they knew what was going on, and I'm sitting there, huh? The only good thing is that you know dinoson, dinoson is not a Portuguese name.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

I was gonna say it. It's not like your name would be difficulty.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Remember when that time we were sitting in the doctor's office that this was not that first time, but it was later, and it's like Joao Gonzalez, and then the next person would be Joao Gonzalez. It's like, how do Joao Gonzalez's order?

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Joao Maria Gonzalez, Joao Gonzalez, yeah, Maria José. I mean, like, yeah, I have to say that.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

But okay, so but imagine sitting in a waiting room. So that other time where everybody was named Joao Gonzalez, that was a nurse actually coming out and calling for people, and you could understand that. It wasn't. But when my name was called, it was Jason Dean. Actually, my name is Jason Thomas, and they didn't call me Jason, they called me Thomas. Okay. But anyway, I knew that that was me getting called back. But that was, I guess, you know, things like that would be very, very I think it would be impossible if you didn't speak the language or have any skills in the language.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

If you didn't live someplace that had a lot of English speakers, I think that that's the other key. We live in a place that does not have a lot of English speakers. Right. The doctors do speak English when you get back there, so you don't have to worry about that. But um, I think that's been that's been a definite growth um in this area, and we've seen some changes over the year, even since we've been here. Um people don't have kids the same age. There's some littles, like little littles, you know, that go to the elementary school. So, I mean, there are a couple of people in town. It's like you see each other, you're like, oh, you speak American English. I know you. Um, but I have to say, yeah, the I think you know, conquering the language is still on our list. And Jason and Jack are gonna get to take uh classes at the university this summer to work on language every day. Yeah, for a full month. That's gonna be fun. Um, but I think that we also learned that taking language courses online is good, but we're missing out on the camaraderie of the Braga expat group that are taking language classes together. And so, you know, it it's worth making that drive and being a part of that in some respects and and getting those connections. So I've also seen you learn to drive a manual vehicle again, right? And today you're gonna go pick up a kid from school that's definitely outside of comfort zone because it's it's chaos, but he's done it a couple of times, and so it's par for the course, working it out, you know. But those are definite like growth and conversations, and you understand a lot more than you did before. That's a good thing. Yeah. I have to say though that we definitely have elements of our community that we adore. Like we still have our favorite cafe. We love a senora who works there, she's wonderful, and she calls him the professor, which is funny because she knows I was a teacher, but she's like, oh, now the teacher needs to be the teacher, the student becomes the teacher, and so she calls him U Professor, which is hysterically funny. Um but I don't know, I think that let's see. I had no idea when we moved here that our town was in the middle of a giant festival for Sa Saint João or Saint Joseph, who is the patron saint of our town, which is also the patron saint of fathers, and Fathers Day is coming up here in Portugal. That all happened within like our first week. But I had no idea the amount of celebration, like we're talking two-week giant festival, and we will bring you some video of things that are going on in town. Um, I just knew that the lights that were set up on the main drag were a way for me to get through all of that navigation and figure out how to get from point A to point B. But I had no idea. And our town does parties, like big time parties. Like we're talking big time. So I mean, we live in a pretty good place. Um let's see, the boys. Oh my gosh, they have learned so much this year. This is crazy. So um are they fluent in Portuguese? No. Are they doing well? Yes, they are. Um definitely at grade level or above in almost everything. Jack's still struggling with math, which is always Jack. Um, he's struggling some with language, but things are coming together. They're like they're, you know, switches are are being fired, and and I think that that's helpful. He pulled together a history presentation. I helped him with some grammar stuff, and we pulled it together in Portuguese, which is saying something, because I think most of his teachers expect him to do things in English, and he decided to do it in Portuguese. And the only comment we learned is that we had a country name that we used the Brazilian country name for it instead of the Portugal country name. I was like, so he was like, so whatever. Anyway, we did a great job, mom. I was like, so it was really funny. Um but he's he's hanging in there, he's doing a good job. Tyler is Ty. He's ultra smart and caring and pays attention to other people, and everybody loves him in his his group, and they send each other messages in their WhatsApp group, and it's absolutely adorable. But it's a great, it's a great turno. Like this his class is just a great class, and they get along well and have a great time. So they're thriving in a lot of ways, and in other ways, I think they're kind of lonely, um, because there aren't other people around that are going through the same things they're going through. So I think that was one that's one of the drawbacks. But one of the big pluses is that our white male privileged children have learned what it's like to be the other, and that was definitely important for me in all of this. I did not want to live in a part of the country where you could speak English the entire time and continue being a privileged American. So score in the favor of Bahax. Like, I'm just telling you, it was oh man, the responsibility of raising white male children that are just privileged in general. I'm just so glad that they know what it's like to be the other. And they're observing additional things and kind of sticking up for other people too in different ways that I don't I don't think they would have before. So that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

I always think it's interesting. Tyler in particular hardly ever says a word, but yet everybody loves if you go to the grocery store. This happened in America too. We'd go to High V and people would be like, It's Tyler, it's Tyler, and they'd be yelling at him from across the store, waving and jumping up and down, and Tyler would just kind of like raise his hand and wave back at Or give the little smirk and head knob, like, yeah, that's me.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Hi.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

But that happened here too, didn't it? Just recently.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

It does. Like, yeah, we were walking into Continent, which is the equivalent of what we would call our high me home here. So we were walking into Continent, and one of his classmates is named Caillou. Um, yes, that is his name is Caillou.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Not spelled like the annoying cartoon. Uh the cartoon character Caillou Caillou.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

I don't know how it's spelled anyway, but uh yeah, so C-A-I-U, I think is how it's called. I don't know. Anyway, but Caillou was so excited to see him that he stood out there and he was like, Hey Tyler, hi, hi, where are you? And he was trying really hard because he's actually a native French speaker who's learning Portuguese. His parents are Portuguese, grandparents are Portuguese and speak Portuguese. His parents speak some Portuguese still. But I love the fact that Caillou just had to stop him. We hadn't even been two steps in the door. He had to Caillou had to meet me and we had to meet his parents. It's like this is the Tyler. It's like, okay. So infamous at the very least, if not famous. So it's really adorable.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Well, when we first moved here, the kids weren't even going to go to school right away. They were supposed to finish out in U.S. online school. And then like a week after we got here, we discovered not even a week, was it, it was a few days after we got here. We discovered that, oh, you have to come back to take some tests.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

And we couldn't come back because we couldn't leave the country until we had our residency cards in hand. And so that was fun. But I think it was a good move. Like they're repeating sixth and ninth grade. I think that part of them is are pissed off about that. Um, but at the same time, I think that it's been a good decision. They immediately had they have things to do all day, and they have connections and they have class schedules and all of those things. You'd like zoned out. Like it's just I'm like, I'm like, are you there?

SPEAKER_01 13:42

I'm just sitting here.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

All right, cool. No, so I think that that was that was a hiccup that turned out okay. So we have not had some of the poor experiences that some of our other expats that we've talked to have. Um, the school really tries hard and has really tried to meet them where they are and does quite a bit for the kids and made sure that they were tested and that they could argue for the resources to make sure that they could actually give them lingua non materna support. And I think that was really good. That is not the case in a lot of different places, and including some of the places we had thought about living, like Porto, that has not been in the experience of many people that we've talked to from there that are now moving north to Praga. So that's been interesting. Um, but I have to say, like, at least that went that was a big hiccup that went well. Um buying a car, oh my god, like we figured it out, but I think that that was really hard, and we probably could have made a better decision when we first got started if we'd been able to actually think more or know more of the system. So uh like those are things where if you know more of the language, the better off you are. Um and so that's a that's something that I think will work out. Maybe we'll we'll sell a car here before too long. So keep an eye out, you know. Um at the same time, like I think that we've had a lot of things that have worked out that were just like divine, divine providence. Like it was just meant to be for us to find this place. Um it's just kind of like aligned itself, and that's been great. Um you really do have to have like a lot more faith that things are gonna be okay, especially when it takes you four weeks to get access to a bank account. Um, but now it's like, oh yeah, we need to do something like that again. And you're like, okay, well, this is gonna be our all-day thing. So I think that's par for the course. I don't know. It's been good. Yeah. I would do it again. I would probably make a couple of different decisions um about like I hmm. See, this is kind of like our our what I call our compromise. I'm easing you into city living-ish. We're living in an apartment now. I really do think that being in Brago would be better than where we are now.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Well, you probably don't want to know that I've been researching on Google countries where you can get cheap farmland and just move there and farm.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Well, that will be an entertaining thing to bring to you later. As long as I've got a pottery studio and there's some type of uh life for me out there, we'll see how that goes.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Well, I think that the life outside of the farm might be the hard part on some of that.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Yeah, I I'm trying to get him to move to Braga so that we're we can, you know, like will we sell this place? Probably. Rent someplace later on. We've talked about that. We don't mind renting. Um it when we were moving and all of those things, we got to the point where there were no rentals available, and that was a panic. So it definitely, if you're gonna move, there is a time of year for rentals that you need to know about that you really have to be looking at rentals in summer. If you're coming like we were in, you know, November, December, January, there are not rentals on the market. So know that. Um, and I mean literally, there aren't rentals on the market. So keep that in mind. Um, but yeah, I'd say that that was something that we definitely learned. Um if you buy a property and you pay cash, good for you. If you need a mortgage, it's gonna take time, right? Everything takes time, and that's okay. There are a lot of things that I like. Do we still have the automatic checkouts? Yes, but they're manned by a person, right? There there are a couple of people that are assigned to these three or four machines that are out there to make sure that your experience is running smoothly, right? I mean, I think that those are there are differences. So, and literally it's like I think the ratio I figured looking at paces is one person to every two to three machines. So it's not like you go into like Walmart and there's one person for like ten machines or something like that. It's like one for every two or three, and they tag team and help each other out. So I don't know. There are things still things like that. There are still things that drive me crazy. Um, there are times like that it's a miracle that I get through the grocery store without like pummeling someone for going really like dumb. Um, or like driving times still drive me a little crazy.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Driving is still chaos.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Well, and it's really the people who are walking along the side of the road that are really walking down the middle of the road. Um, or the bicyclists. You were saying even this morning that you're surprised there aren't like giant bicyclist postings because they're everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Yeah, the bicycles are everywhere during the good weather times, especially in um they just kind of are meandering down the middle of the road, and people drive like psychopaths here, and it's just a miracle that it's like you don't see like mangled bicycles and like read about like the corpse of a mangled bicyclist was found in the ditch or something the other day because no flair for drama here.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Yeah, no, I think that you're right. I mean, it's amazing that there aren't more things that happen like that, but you know, people actually stop and they stop when you're at a crosswalk or when you're going to, and all of those things cross the street. I do appreciate when people use the crosswalk instead of jaywalk. So, you know, a few pet peeves, but it's a good place to be. It's been a learning experience. Um, I love the fact that I've gotten to know our kids so much better, and that's been huge. Like they are funny human beings, like they are just hysterically funny and and have interesting ideas, and we have some very interesting conversations. Um, and now that they see that our lives are busier and kind of falling apart, and I make a list of things that need to be done. Tyler is all about doing all of the chores that are on the list, and Jack is not he's like, what ups? You know, if I say things like, All right, you guys are gonna have to be ready to help cook dinner tonight because we've got other things going on, they're at least starting to pitch in. So um, that's a huge change from before. And I think a lot of it's because you can't just pop in a microwave meal. Those don't really work very well here. And we don't live someplace where you can just door dash it either. Um, and so I think that's been a lot more cooking and a and a lot more conversations about, you know, family meals and who's gonna be in charge of what. I don't know. It's been an adventure. I do enjoy having a bigger kitchen, I do miss having a dishwasher. Someday there will be one. Uh I miss having my own washer and dryer. Someday that will happen. But I think that I don't miss a lot of other things.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Yeah. I think it's been a it's been a good year.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

Yeah, and so our visa is good until June of 2025. And so we'll see what happens over this next year, like what we think we'll do, and all of those pieces. But um, I've already let him know that if we move back, I absolutely have to bring my coffee machine with me because that baby is a miracle. Grind your own espresso, milk frother. I'm just telling you, it's it's perfection. I like it a lot. So I mean, there are some good perks here too.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

That will travel with us wherever we go.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

It will have to. There there are there are requirements. That is never going anywhere. Not unless you're gonna upgrade it to the next level, because that was an expensive purchase, but it is more than paid for as well.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

It certainly has, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

I'm just saying, that is like my favorite thing. Yeah. And if we like when or we move or any of those things, I have to say that I'm glad we don't have as much stuff. So I don't miss the stuff.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Um, and we've been really good about only bringing in stuff that we really need or that we really like.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

So that is not to say that I won't have my own coffee cup collection of things that I've made or collected from other potters. So you know, stuffs. But it's been good, I have to say. I'm happy. Yeah. We'll see what the kids think when we try and get their reflections on a year.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

We'll have to have them on on our next episode.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

I think that or even and we might get like a 30-second video if we're lucky for some of them. So that might just be an additional video, but we'll see how it goes. And we are gonna take you on our one-year celebration, which is gonna be to go to this carnival through town. And I'm just saying, I love seeing all of the food stands, and there's like a midway, and there are concerts and fireworks and dances and activities and night runs and 5K's, and like I'm just it's it is quite the event.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

It is.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

All right, well, happy one year anniversary, kid.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

All right, we'll catch you on our next episode.