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Festival Med 2024
We LOVED our time at Festival Med in 2023. This year our full time guest was my cousin Elsa, but we also enjoyed a day with Jorge and his friend from Lithuania, and a day with Karen. The festival itself, for the first time, had a featured country – Morocco – and every aspect of
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Porto: Boat Tour And City Sights
In late June we went back to Porto for three days with my cousin Elsa. The main reason we went was to attend the Festa de São João (Saint John’s Party) which I will NOT be writing about today. For various reasons we will write about that festival after we go back to do it
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Tourists For A Day In Tavira
During cousin Elsa’s visit we tried to balance relaxation and beach days with travel, attractions, and tourism. One of the best day trips from Olhão is a quick 30 minute drive to Tavira. There are a ton of great restaurants, scads of picture opportunities along the Gilão River, cultural events, plenty of shopping, and even
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SO Many Algarve Beaches
We are not sun worshippers by any stretch of the imagination. That being said, we have made our way to a praia or two during our time in Portugal. Usually we visit beaches close to where we live in the Eastern Algarve. Portuguese people ADORE the Algarve for the beaches, and people from all over
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Bye Bye B Levels
Although Andrew and I finished year 1 of Portuguese language class with good results, I felt overstimulated and my brain pleaded for a respite. Despite this, Andrew encouraged us to enroll in B levels for the subsequent year, primarily because we adore our professor and wanted to ensure that we would study with him again.
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A House In The North
Our house hunt kept circling back to a terraced house In Urgezes, a small community very close to Guimarães, just south of Braga, and about an hour train ride away from Porto. We were curious about the layout since the pictures seemed to show four bedrooms but the listing was for two. We researched Guimarães
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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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Olhão House Tour – Update
Back in August of 2022 the estimated “2 weeks” to arrange our bounty of American belongings in our tiny Portugal house was a pipe dream. We had done a decent job of Medford packing Step One – sell, donate, gift, or keep and ship. Unfortunately we still had a lot of work to do with
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Olhão Street Art
I think that interesting street art can make the dreariest part of any city feel alive and, amazingly enough, little Olhão is home to a very active and talented crew of artists. Throughout the nooks and crannies of the city you can find works by Blubla Crew, the artist SEN, and others. SEN’s work is
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The Perfectly Imperfect Day
“Where is the jazz concert?” was the question that Jorge asked most frequently on the perfectly imperfect day in May. He had proposed a light dinner out and a concert in Faro and we say yes to almost any outing with him if we are free. Our time together always consist of speaking Portuguese, a