Day 18: relaxing and random facts!

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Ransoms facts day:

It’s normal to drink a beer in the streets or to bring wine or port to sit by the water and drink.
The surf instructor said it has rained only once so far this year! Crazy! Lots of fires this summer and getting worse by the year because of global warming and people deliberately starting fires according to the news. I also think the smoking everywhere does not help. We’d be in gardens and forests that are attractions and people have cigarettes dangling in their mouths.
Alcohol is soooo cheap! You can buy 10 yr old vintage port for 4$ and wine bottles for 2-4euros or a beer for 1euro. You can also buy sangria and wine by the liter out of an oak barrel and fill up your bottle in some grocery stores. Love it!
Light switches are almost always on the outside of the room which takes some getting used to.
Speed signs on the hwy here have chips in them so it shows the speed limit on the dash of the car, cool!!
Speed signs are recommendion, not a rule because everyone goes way faster !
We have not seen any police on roads anywhere in 3 weeks, just police walking around in big cities
It’s nonetheless the country Geoff and I have visited that seems and is the safest ! You could pretty much walk around anywhere and feel safe even at night. It is known to be very safe country apart from a few pickpockers in tourist areas of course.
The Portuguese love their eggs , on everything … on steak, on hamburgers, on sandwiches, tons of stuff.
Honking : we noticed right away that honking is the way to go here, with all the small roads in big cities, it’s a good way
To let people know you are there.
People are hired to do graffiti on hey walls etc and have their person at work sign
Sooooo many people smoke here! Camille said we’d need masks more for that! Ashtrays everywhere and smoking aloud on terraces. So not used to that anywhere.
No big restaurant chains, tons of family restaurants with 5-10 tables. If is normal to have babies and little kids out at midnight walking around and in restaurants.
I’d say 80% of population speak good à English, especially the younger generation. The 75 and older speak more French or just Portuguese. In the main cities, most speak English and in the middle of Portugal, it’s harder to communicate as they might not see as many tourists. Even when they speak it, they seem to prefer not to.
Fanciest McDonald’s in the world is in Porto and is in an old awesome building and has fancy chandeliers.
In grocery stores.cashiers are always sitting not standing like us and no self serve cash checkouts.
Customer relations does not seem to be as important here as in Canada, They’ll see you waiting at the cash register and just keep doing whatever they are doing, no hellos, can I help you, I’ll be right there or smile in alot of places. We seem to be much more friendly and approachable in stores. Restaurants are better for that.
Eggs and milk are not refrigerated here. Milk is in a carton and they are both on the shelf.
There are many grab and go vending machines in the big cities to buy anything from a hamburger to coffees.
You can buy a small beer or a big one in a glass bottle.
When we walk by older people, we usually smile or say hi but they just stare and do not smile, ever! I had one lady smile back and say hi in 3 weeks. Different culture as us I guess.
Face masks? What face masks? Nowhere except on public transit and taxis. A few random here and there. Very uncommon.
Tolls on highways and it beeps to let you know money is flying out the window! Will be interesting to see our toll bill tomorrow!
One person car and trucks are seen here.Seems so unsafe but cute!
McDonald’s - different names for food items, mc royal cheese is the quarter pounder and they sell pea soup!
Allergies: so much easier to figure out than in Canada! For one, small restaurants so they go talk directly to the cook, more homemade less processed food, so less ingredients.
We had an app to translate written ingredients so it made it easier in grocery stores.
McDonalds - press on. Screen for allergy menu - nuts. Gluten etc. Get on that Canada!
So many gluten free options here!
No salt and pepper on tables in restaurants, instead it’s virgin olive oil and vinegar.
In some grocery stores, you have to go see a lady who weighs your fruit and veggies in the dept and puts a sticker on bag for you. We learned that the hard way at the cash when we couldn’t understand what the cashier was telling us grocery stores smell! They smell like fresh fish, as it’s always a big part of the store. You can buy eel, prawns bigger than the size of your hand and preserved salted fish.
We spent almost two hours reading ingredients the first time we bought groceries here.
There are nuts in almost all the bread and soft serve ice cream is made with powder (that contains nuts) and water so our go to was pineapple and mango popsicles !
Roundabouts everywhere and traffics lights more rare.
Lots of places do not take credit cards , 40% approx unless big store or restaurant as it’s more the small business owners.
No big merchants except in major cities. We didn’t see any chains like McDonald’s, Starbucks for weeks except at the beginning and end of our trip in places like Lisbon, Porto, Faro.
Some toilets have a second seat for toddlers , Awe! Every toilet here has two flush options, one for big and one for small to right size the water and save water.
Recycling so much better here! You don’t just see one garbage can on streets, you always have the green, yellow, blue garbage bins for recycling glass, plastic, paper.
No lids at McDonalds, Starbucks unless you ask but frowned upon.
After you’ve driven 2+ hours, car dash console tells you : Youv’ve been driving for a while, take a break and stop for coffee!
Ordering Coffee here takes a while to get used to any we always ordered two in the end as they are still tiny even if you order a cappuccino or an Americano
When you make a call in Portugal, ring tone sounds more like our hang up sound.
First three numbers in our Lisbon air bnb is 911, feels strange to enter those numbers

What did we do today: catch up on sleep, kids slept til 12:30 after Camille being so sick from heat exhaustion the day before. We have also been go go go for weeks. Played card games, Trou de cul and bullshit. Cameron needs to remember he is president, doubt he’ll forget and that maman is the asshole! Went swimming in the communal pool in front of our place and had pool to ourselves. Went out for a walk and had supper at 10:30 at night. Geoff finally had a huge plate or grilled sardines (6!). I had a huge plate of salad and fries and on the side, they brought me a flaming kebob with prawns and tuna. Very cool way to serve it. Another pitcher of sangria was served to help the economy of course! Kids had margherita pizza again and Camille had ribs. We walked around at midnight and shopped a bit, streets were packed with families, patios were lively. Kids got a slingshot helilight as they lit up the beach at night. They had fun with it.

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