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Penha Mountain Rolling Cart Race
Mount Penha is visible from our house and is a treasure that deserves its own post where we can talk about the area’s majesty. To frame today’s story just remember that we can normally hike to the sanctuary at the peak in under an hour (leaving from our front door) and the direct route takes…
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The Tour And Tiny Bricks
I hadn’t given much thought to the Tour de France prior to moving to Europe, but after catching snippets in several Olhão bars and cafes back in 2022, my curiosity was piqued. I started with the Netflix show Tour de France: Unchained (I highly recommend it), and was shocked at how nuanced and complicated this…
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Olhão: We’ll Miss…
We’ve talked a lot about why we decided to move to Guimarães but wanted to take time to go over some of the counterarguments. We weighed each of these ten things (and more) as we made our decision. In no particular order here are ten of the things we know we will miss that won’t…
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Goodbye Dear Neighbor
I have been totally neglecting my cross stitching hobby. I purchased a couple of cross stitch magazines at a bookstore within months of moving to Portugal and unfortunately they sat on a shelf untouched. Maybe I am dedicating more time to playing piano and more frequently saying yes to social engagements. Maybe the arrangement of…
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UEFA: 3 Ways
UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) is the European branch of FIFA that hosts a European Championship tournament every four years. This tournament is the second most popular in the world with only the FIFA World Cup ahead of it. Football (soccer for our readers in the United States) is extremely popular throughout Europe, but…
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We Traded That For This
Our 2 year anniversary of living in Portugal was June 20th! We desperately wanted to change our lives and here we are. Let’s celebrate with a slice of life comparison of then vs. now. Two Cars For No Car: We like the freedom of not worrying about parking, paying for insurance, and planning never ending…
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Wrapping Up 2023
October: We headed back for Year 2 of Portuguese language class. With any luck, at the end of the course we will have a B2 (upper-intermediate) language level, and hopefully a bit more ease with conversational Portuguese. Our favorite neighborhood kid Bianca needed help with a school project and it was Halloween themed, so definitely…
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GOAL, GOAL, Goal, Goal, Goal, Goal, Goal, Goal… Goal!
Michelle and I begrudgingly watched the Super Bowl about every other year, before moving, for the commercials and a reason to make themed food, but otherwise we had little interest in football in the United States. American football (to me) seemed like a bloated, over-commercialized, and excessively violent waste of an afternoon. Other than the…
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We Made It 1 Year
June 20th marked 1 full year in Portugal and the time blasted by like a bullet train. Maybe that means we have been having plenty of fun (“day drinking” European style is next level – even our background in emergency services did not prepare us for this), or perhaps we are just oldish now and…
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We Skipped Ugly Christmas Sweaters This Year
Andrew: Brother Visit: Rob made his first trip to Olhão in early December. His arrival matched up almost perfectly with the beginning of the rainiest week of the year. The rain poured down and both Michelle and I got horrible head colds two days after he got into town but we still had plenty of…