Season 3, Episode 1
After a 9-month hiatus, we are back! This episode gives an update on what we've been up to. We are back to weekly episodes now, so more to come!
Welcome to As the Dinoson's Turn, where we chronicle the adventures of the Dinason 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_02Well, hello, and welcome to As the Dinoson's Turn.
SPEAKER_01It's now it's like an adventure. And I can't even believe we're coming up on two years.
SPEAKER_02We are. Two years here in Portugal and nine months since we've done a podcast.
SPEAKER_01It's been a little bit crazy.
SPEAKER_02A little bit crazy.
SPEAKER_01A little bit.
SPEAKER_02But we wouldn't expect anything else out of us, I guess.
SPEAKER_01It definitely wouldn't be us if it were crazy.
SPEAKER_02Never a dull moment. That's kind of our tagline. Isn't that what I said when we were engaged and we had that little get together the night before our wedding, and we played some game about what would your life be called if it was a TV show?
SPEAKER_01And that's exactly what it was. This is where as the dinosaurs turn comes from. Actually, you said it would be as the dinosaur's turn because there's never a dull moment. And I think that is totally true. There's never a dull moment. I wouldn't have it any other way, but I think that he gets a good benefit of being married to a person who changes themselves all the time and is always learning new things. So, and I get the benefit of being married to somebody who's a hardcore entrepreneur and has great ideas and follow-through. So between our own devices and our luck, I guess you could call it luck, maybe luck thereof. Um, it has definitely been eventful, an eventful nine months.
SPEAKER_02It has been. Well, we we tried to come up with a schedule after we uh you know, after our April, whatever, April 15th or whatever episode, we were going to come up with a schedule and have themes. And that just kind of never happened.
SPEAKER_01We did come up with ideas of what to talk about, but we did, but we figure like in this one, we really just need to let you know kind of what we've been doing because a lot of things have changed. We're still living in Povo de Linoso, we're still living in our apartment in Fontarcada. Um, but there's been a lot of kind of good things that have happened. Both boys passed to the next class. So they passed to the next level. Jackson is now in secondary school, studying multimedia technology and loving all of the content that he's doing, but then also having the benefit of being, he says, much further along than his colleagues. So I don't know if that's true or not, but grades reflected it pretty well. I mean, it's on a 20-point scale, and a 10 is is passing. And he has everything, this lowest grade is a 12 or a 13, and he has all the way up to 18, which I'm told is impossible to get. So good for him. Good. And then Tyler's doing great, um, other than not memorizing his science vocabulary enough. So we'll be working on that this year. Um, but things are going really well for them, they have a lot more confidence. I think that you have a lot more confidence too with language, and I think that they're seeing that too.
SPEAKER_02Well, I've had to go out a few times on my own and do certain things, and I've survived, I guess.
SPEAKER_01Well, you always survive. It's not like if you're a poor language speaker, they're like off with your head. It doesn't work that way. Well, I suppose so. Yeah, but I think that showing them and doing the risks and taking those risks has been good. And they're really giving him a hard time about not doing as much as he could be. So I think that's part of the reason why he started going out and doing more things and making it a challenge. It's kind of a game for you, right? So, um, because the boys are feeling pretty cocky, they're feeling pretty good, they can understand everything they say. Um, but they're not speaking very much. So they're working on that, supposedly. We'll see.
SPEAKER_02I can understand sometimes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Depends on the speed of the speaker a lot of times. Um, and moment to moment, I never know. Sometimes it's like, oh, I know everything they said, and then other times it's like I have no clue what that person just said.
SPEAKER_01Well, and my language skills have gotten immensely better. Um, ironically, because I'm teaching English. So I'm working at the Instituto Luso Britannico of Guimaraesh. So it is the British institute there. They've been there for a very long time. They have an excellent Celta pass rate for their um employees, and then their students do great at all the Cambridge exams. So I'm there teaching 12, 13-year-olds and then all the way up to 15, 16-year-olds, um, working in the evenings. But with that, um, comes a lot of Portuguese thrown at you and very fast. Like they have, they don't hold back at all. And so my comprehension's gotten really good, and I've been able to speak more coherently and cogently. Last year, even in the summer when we were working on our things, even though I was speaking at the atelier and all of that, it wasn't enough speaking and enough input. And so now that I'm teaching several times a week, and I have, of course, like my colleagues, we all speak English with each other because it's a they're all English speakers, they're all native English speakers. So um, I think that's been a big difference for me is getting the uh teenage information. Um, I do have to say they still use American slang wrongly, like they don't use it correctly. So now I'm also correcting their slang. Um, but they use American slang while they're speaking Portuguese, which is always entertaining. So we've had a few of those conversations. But that's been fantastic. And it's so good to be back in the classroom again, to be at the point where I'm not so burnt out I can't do it. And to be creative and silly with them has been so much fun. Um, did I ever think I would be teaching sixth, seventh graders? No. Um, it definitely helps that I have a child who is 13 years old. And um, I don't think I ever would have considered it otherwise. So I do have to admit that the older kids are still easier for me to teach and connect with, but that's because I'm not stellar at really stern classroom management. So I'm gonna be working on that this term.
SPEAKER_02I just have to bring up that Portuguese kids are good kids, but they're very energetic. Are they not? Like it's not like they sit there like perfect little angels.
SPEAKER_01No, I mean, they are my my students are brilliant, they're fantastic. This is a private school that they go to after they've been at school all day long. So there's also a lot of status in coming to this school as well. Um, some of their parents have been to this school, you know. So there's all of these elements that are kind of intertwined with that. We're meant to be fun as well. So it's not like I'm gonna treat them as I would if I were their teacher during the day. There's that. But yes, smart, brilliant, funny, very loud, very loud, very um active, right? And I'd say that I am thankfully not having to deal with battles against telephones too much. I mean, they're banned in our school, they're banned at their schools now. So it's one of those things. Um, it's really just that they're very boisterous and they really all love each other and they all care for each other in ways that I've not witnessed very often among my American students, even at the collegiate level when we've studied abroad or done other things. So that's been fantastic to see. But yeah, they've they give you a run for your money, let me tell you. There's something about a 12, 13-year-old boy who's been cooped up all day long, and it's a lot. So we're working on it, right? It's a work in progress.
SPEAKER_02So you get to go out every day and have those adventures, and I've had a few too. We're gonna, there's gonna be an offshoot of as the dinosaurs turn.
SPEAKER_01This is what he's planned.
SPEAKER_02So let's Jason share your calling called Jason in Portugal. It's kind of an offshoot of like what Emily in Paris or something. We've got a little Portuguese flag that I'm gonna use for the thumbnail, me holding the flag up and and uh you know, for the camera or whatever. Um, and just I don't know, I call it like the middle-aged white man from Iowa making his way through uh another country.
SPEAKER_01And it's doing all of the daily things that you wouldn't think that would be as difficult as they are.
SPEAKER_02Things like uh the time I had to go to a physical therapy appointment and I got trapped in the continent parking lot because the the arm wouldn't work, the arm on the the parking gate thing wouldn't open for me afterwards.
SPEAKER_01I mean, that's definitely true. I mean, you need to be looking at the camera. I'm gonna remind you again instead of at the screen. We don't have a desktop computer, which means that we have um all kinds of additional tech, which is good. But yes, I think that this will be very entertaining and interesting seeing what Jason comes up with. And I really think that your idea is that you're just gonna be filming yourself when you do these interactions, not the other person, just to be like, okay, because it's illegal to film other people in Porscheville.
SPEAKER_02That's the hard part is that the it's the interactions that are probably the most entertaining is I well, like at the grocery store. See, this is what happens. I can kind of understand what people say. That's true, but then when I try to talk, even if I look at it on my phone, then I'm like, um, so we were trying to find hand sanitizer at the grocery store.
SPEAKER_01And with our favorite checker, by the way. So I mean, we have a few of them, so it's people that we just love and adore. She's sick right now, and so I'm trying to give her like tea and all kinds of things as we were going through the line. She's like, No, I can't. I was like, no, you definitely need to go and you know get off your feet. But you're trying to mime to her.
SPEAKER_02I couldn't remember what the words were, a hand sanitizer. I know what hand sanitizer is. It's one of the first things that you learn in the language learning apps, actually, is hand sanitizer. But in the moment I couldn't think of the word, so I was miming it to her.
SPEAKER_01He's doing this.
SPEAKER_02I had my hand held up, I was like squeezing and then rubbing my hands together, and she looked at me like I was completely insane.
SPEAKER_01Well, you did look a little insane. There weren't a lot of other people in continent at that time, but you did look a little crapped. I'm not gonna lie.
SPEAKER_02You were like a little weird.
SPEAKER_01That's all right. She's forgiven us and show like we did laugh hysterically after that. All of us laughed really hard after we figured that one out. But it is one of those interactions. Like when you go and you're like, okay, you know, the next thing is we have to get our car serviced. We have a problem with one of our cars. And um, I think Jason should be the one to help kind of take care of those the information when we actually go to the auto shop, because inevitably, in an auto shop, no one speaks English or understands English at all. And so this will be a good test, test run for you. Um, but I think that those are the fun, entertaining things about living in another country and also learning another language. That's part of it. I mean, so many people out there can uh relate to this, like the or the faux pas of using the wrong word and then being like, oh no, we don't say that. Or I don't think you meant to say what you just said. Yeah, things like that. And of course, the language apps kind of help, but again, the pronunciation is completely different. That's what we find, of course, because all the pronunciations of Brazilian Portuguese, which is definitely not the pronunciation here. But in the north, I have to say, people are really helpful, so that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_02Sometimes I try to say things the same way that the locals do, and it doesn't come out right. Like at the so I was at physical therapy, and the fee was 18 euros, so dezoito, but in the app, this is in the actual Portugal Portuguese app. Okay, it's like the du uh the way that they do that, they swallow the some of the words so it's kind of zito. Yeah, so I said to the the young woman at the the checkout, well, the the receptionist, I said zoito. Thinking I was really smart. I was witness to this.
SPEAKER_01She looked at him like he'd lost his mind and just like de zoto and then said 18 and then handed it to me. But you tried. I tried, and you've now got a great connection with this uh receptionist who I'm she mainly laughs at me, I think, but hey, I think that trying is all you need to do. I mean, definitely. So I think that those types of interactions are great, but we've learned a lot of things. I mean, you've talked about, you know, you've done physical therapy, we're navigating the health system in a different way, which is fantastic. We do have private health insurance because getting into the public health care is difficult.
SPEAKER_02They have us down in the system as Brazilians, don't they?
SPEAKER_01They fixed mine. My my public health number works, no problem. But we've got to figure out what's going on with uh Jason and the boys. So yet again, I'm gonna go and see what I can get done. Um, but yeah, they it says that you all are Brazilian and it won't let them actually use the number. So I have to get that fixed because they did some type of magic when I was there seeing a doctor, and then it worked. Um, so we shall see. But navigating all types of things for physical therapy. Um the boys have had their psychiatry appointments. I mean, you've had psychiatry appointment, we've done therapy, the kids do therapy. I mean, it's so there's like all kinds of interactions that you've had, and most of the most of the medical staff speak English. Some of them will act like they don't speak English, some of the nurses, and then all of a sudden they're speaking brilliant English to somebody else, and you're like, because you tried to speak Portuguese, which I appreciate, instead of them going, oh, English speakers. So that's been that's been positive. So I think that that's been a very good thing. At the same time, right? You have we have had a couple of providers that really speak some English, but don't know all of the language enough to be able to have that conversation. So they'll give a mix of Portuguese and English. And you understood our last doctor very well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So input is great. Um, output, we're working on, right? Uh, let's see, what else?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think for this episode, we mainly just wanted to start up again. Um, it's amazing how many people say, What are you guys doing this again? They don't really care what we talk about, is what I find.
SPEAKER_01Well, what I love is this is also partially my fault because I now teach five days a week and I'm gone in the evenings and all of those things. And it's been a little bit crazy, um, which also means that I don't pick up kids an evening and Jackson takes a bus every day, and Tyler will have to start doing that now, that taxis and and all those things will be upon us before too long. Um, so I think we've just been really busy. And I think it's because we're living our lives. Like between that, I've got the pottery studio and I'm learning all kinds of wonderful things and gonna start selling my my work. Um, and we've I've got book club, which I can't get to because it's you know, and then we've got friends to do things with going out and doing things has been fun. So I mean, at least we're adjusting. But um I think that if we spent all of our time talking to all of you, we do miss you. Um, then you should be worried about us if we did this all of the time. But we do owe you more than a nine-month hiatus. So we'll keep working on it.
SPEAKER_02Okay, well, let's wrap up this episode. Join us again next time. Gotta look at the camera right there. See, he's figuring it out. Join us again next time for another episode of As the Dinoson's Turn.
SPEAKER_00You'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.