a week split between north and south, with a 7 hour train ride in between and my mom’s pataniscas!

i went to the library and got some new books, almost all for children. one last letter one was a quick read and just gorgeous — it won the international compostela prize for picture books AND it’s about mail! <3

i’ve been watching the early spring, for a change of pace. it’s a silly love story, but somewhat entertaining. tv series are such a time-sucker, but at the same time, i don’t know how else to incorporate more “normal” spoken chinese into life. :( i feel like speaking is still my weakest point.

the chinese history course is going well though! this week we’re transitioning from western to eastern han dynasty history, and the teacher had this amazing background featuring rubbings from emperor wu’s family shrines. people riding on flying fish!

other than that, not much. we’re back in tavira, and it feels good to be here, like it always does. the harshest part of summer is behind us now, and a comfortable warmth remains. it’s so quiet here compared to the city, so many more birds around, such open skies… coming back is always like a hug.

the boy ran a 10k race this weekend and at the end they were serving bolas de berlim… :) how can you help but fall in love with the place?

it’s grape harvest season, so we helped the parents with that this week!

not that they consume much wine throughout the year, but somehow, the vines are there and the wine needs making… in the end, i think it’s more of an excuse to bring the family together, fry some codfish and make some delicious feijoada for everyone!

because the harvest was quite early this year and school hasn’t started yet, a lot of small cousins came to “assist”. i was the official youth supervisor, and we ended the day with only 2 bandaids being used — a win! :P

little niece had another traumatic pool session, in which she cried her heart out from the moment she saw me pick her up from kindergarten all the way to the pool and for some 15 minutes sitting on my lap on the edge of the pool, while the other kids were doing the class… 😭 but then, seemingly out of nowhere, she got distracted and started to splash some water, went in, played with toys and was the last one out. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ kids!

i’m glad we pushed her a little bit and insisted that she gives it a proper try for awhile… but it was hard and a little heartbreaking to see her cry so much. don’t miss the next episode of this pool saga!

i read marjane strapani’s embroideries from the library and also yáng shuāng-zǐ’s taiwan travelogue… which was so confusing! the story itself was good (food + taiwan, what is there not to love!), but the whole meta-fiction aspect of it was a bit too much for me. meh.

a busy week — and the week that i finally made it to the local library! i had been there before moving to aveiro, but now i actually went to make myself a library card and get some books.

i also registered for a mail art workshop they were doing this same week, and so i went there twice! for the workshop, each of us had to create a series of 16 cards, to be included in a kind of time capsule. i picked a kind of industrial theme, with technical manuals, stamps and geometric rubberstamps that the teacher provided. it was hard to make so many specimens in a couple of hours, but i managed! i ended up loving the ones that the children drew most of all.

but i guess the most surprising news of the week is that i bought a ukelele! i’ve been thinking of getting one for years and every time i heard amanda palmer sing the ukelele anthem, i would sing along with her “they’re only $19.99, that isn’t lots of moneeeeey! 🎶“.
so when the music shop down the street put up a sign saying their last units were on sale AND they had a yellow one (!!), i couldn’t resist. for now, i’m stumbling my way through the major chords and strumming patterns, taking it slowly until my fingers get some kind of callus. but i can’t wait to be able to play and sing at the same time — it’s a silly little thing that makes me happy. :)

what else? there was a nice vietnamese place we tried and also lots of pears from the parents farm! pears make me a little wary, because in order to pick them, my dad has to don the beekeeper’s suit and brave the asian hornets buzzing around the pear tree. one of my uncles ended up in the hospital after being bitten by one of those, so…

the pears are lovely though, and as usual, the village is full of small religious festivities on the weekends. whenever we go to one of these, we always find multiple family members there, either participating or just watching!