a very quiet week in tavira.

chinese language classes started again, and i confess i’m a little disappointed. it’s my own fault: doing the same class for the third year in a row isn’t ideal, but there are no alternatives at my level and i feel like the weekly checkpoints are still helpful. so i persevere, and try to find ways to make the same classes more interesting in my head.

at the same time though, what is this new trend of online classes where everyone has their camera off…? i feel bad for the teacher, who gets zero reactions from the students and is just talking and asking questions to a bunch of screens… so i keep my camera on, but i’m always the only person in the class who does it — it’s me and the teacher, looking at each other pitifully. :/ i feel really disconnected from the class, which doesn’t help.

i’ve been enjoying being back south, though… it’s not just quiet here in the literal sense — it’s also metaphorically quieter in my head. we cooked a strange new recipe and had toasts in the local café that is usually filled with an interesting mix of construction workers and foreigners. there was pizza and japanese food, and we watched calle málaga (oh, how i missed our little cine-theater!) and sentimental value.

this time around, we came by train and the car stayed in the north, so we’ve been managing just with our bikes. it’s been surprisingly easy! the nearby supermarket has all the essentials and occasional trips to the big shopping mall that i ride by on my way to the swimming pool help supplement the rest, with occasional train rides to faro for the boy to get to his appointments. i’m glad we can make this work — not just for the savings, but also the environment.

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.