october was the month we spent away, half in berlin and half in south tyrol, and it was glorious! i missed traveling, i missed our friends, and i missed walking and autumn and all the tasty food you can’t find here.
words fail me… it was bliss.
Month: November 2022
Categories
weeknotes, 45-46/22
time feels really slow, now that we’re back home. ? the days blend with one another, nothing special about most of them, just the normalness of being here. still, there are things to do and they are getting done!
– i chopped a good bit of my hair off, because of swimming pool frustrations. the showers there spray a fine mist of water all over the place… except on your head, which, when you have long hair, is a nightmare. so, off the hair goes!
– through instagram, i heard about revista farta, a new portuguese magazine focused on food. it reminded me of my beloved (but long dead) lucky peach, and i ordered the first volume, which is all about francesinhas! <3
– we watched minari, a bitter sweet korean-american movie. and still on the korean theme, i’ve been reading pachinko, a story set in ww2 times in korea and japan. it’s long, but quite good so far. i’ve also visited the library and came back with a arm full of graphic novels. the first i’ve read, comer beber, was short and focused on one of my favorite subjects: food!
– the weather was nice last week, so we took a couple of days and walked the stretch between lagos and portimão, with a stop in alvor to enjoy the ria. the mosquitos were crazy, but the views around the river were brilliant.
ah, september! the summer starts to wind down slowly as kids return to school, and the algarve is left to its own.
the mediterranean diet fair took place, and we saw bits of it, including a few concerts. and then we packed and took the train north, to help with family stuff. there was chefs on fire — a neat outdoor event in which we filled our bellies with nice food, hung out with friends and saw concerts. also, the house painting started, and i came south to oversee its beginning but then quickly went back north again. all in all, a good month, with lots of music, friends & family… and lots of getting sick on trains, my new speciality *sigh*.
aaaaah… home sweet home. we didn’t do anything extraordinary this week, and it felt brilliant. just the novelty of of seeing friends again and sleeping in one’s own bed was enough to carry us through the week.
– there are a million chinese characters to review, and a million emails to reply to… but we’re back to our old routines, and it’s kind of nice to work on things we didn’t get to in a long time.
– the house is freshly painted and what a difference it makes. it looks like new! it rained pretty hard on monday, and we didn’t notice any water getting in on the previous trouble spots, so that is a relief.
– we met a couple of new friends and it was nice to just chat with calm people, who listen and talk unhurriedly. how rare this feel these days, that people just let each other talk without interruptions.
– we tested our cholesterol, just to check how we were after so many weeks away eating out, and surprisingly, we’re not that out of range, nor did we gain a lot of weight… i don’t know what kind of sorcery this is, but i’ll take it!
– i missed the beach.