Category: weeknotes

weeknotes, 26/26

week 26 of year 26 was a happily mundane week in the north.

spent time with little niece at the swimming pool and also at the “marchas populares” of her parish. all the bigger kids from the local kindergartens and schools “marched” and did little choreographies, and even the seniors joined in the celebrations. there was street food and some live music after the kids’ bedtime. it was cute — the kind of stuff summer is made of in more rural areas. they technically live in aveiro, but once you’re out of the center-center, everything feels very countryside-like here, the houses low and spaced out by corn fields.

otherwise, we just did the normal stuff of life: working, exercising, procrastinating on the ikea trip to get the million little things this house still needs… 😩

we went to torreira with friends on one of the days, and saw them offloading the fish from the boats. sooooo many seagulls! i’m amazed we didn’t get pooped on. the day after, they came to visit us in aveiro and we walked around town, doing the touristy thing and dodging the occasional rain showers. thankfully, the weather has been pretty mild here, compared to the extreme temperatures in the north of europe.

i finally finished leviathan wakes, which took me much longer than it should have and i’m not even sure why… i do like a good space opera, but this one somehow didn’t really click with me and i ended up dragging it around.

i started i deliver parcels in beijing, which tells the story of a courier in china and is a kind of behind-the-scenes glimpse into what happens when you order something online. i’m planning to build a kind of “china curriculum” for myself (made of books and online courses), before i decide if i want to enroll in the “china studies” masters at the local uni in the future.

then on sunday, we loaded the car with the small one and the boy’s mom and went to visit my parents (and his dad). the trip is a little long, and the kid almost always ends up falling asleep, after asking a million times for the bread song, her current favourite.

my mom uses these weekend trips to offload all her zucchini and other summer produce (strawberries, cucumber, green beans, plums…) on me, so our fridge is bursting right now. not complaining though! :D

we’re halfway done with this year, and the speed at which this first half passed is a bit dizzying… i’m hoping summer will slow things down!

weeknotes

weeknotes, 24-25/26

a couple of weeks back in portugal. the first week was spent in the north, mostly checking in on family and catching up with work.

and then we came south to catch up on friends, vitamin D, the salt pans and their birds, the PO box mail, our favorite restaurants, the neighbors’ spectacular bougainvilleas…

it’s such a beautiful time of the year to be here! the harshness of full-blown summer hasn’t arrived yet, and so the days are just long and bright and (mostly) mild. the city is gearing up for the santos populares next week, and there’s a kind of eager anticipation in the air.

and also, it was my birthday this week! i turned 44, which is not a very lucky number in chinese… but i kind of like the symmetry of it! also, it’s half of 88, and i hope to be so lucky that i get to 88 someday. :)

i got some nice gifts, all bird-themed! they made me happy.

i’m still reading leviathan wakes, but in the meantime i squeezed in a quick read of roald dahl’s charlie and the chocolate factory, in a very battered copy that i picked up from the bakery’s bookshelf. i enjoyed it, and then we watched wonka, which i wasn’t even aware was a musical, but turned out to be the perfect choice for a birthday movie. yay!

just before the week ended, we packed up the car and drove back to aveiro again. we ended up driving quite late in the day, and were pleasantly surprised at how empty the main highway was. if we have to drive, we might do it in the night… but i’m actually hoping we can start taking the train again, using cp’s green rail pass. the only hiccup is that, when you use that pass, you need to wait until the day before to book tickets, which feels a bit risky. but maybe we’ll give it a try, stay flexible, and see how it goes!

weeknotes

weeknotes, 20/26

a quiet week, getting settled in aveiro. everything feels very temporary, with plates, cutlery and other things borrowed from family. but at the same time, the city is all new and fresh, with surprises (and ovos moles!) around every corner.

we registered for the buga bike scheme and i rode them around town on a couple of days. what a beautiful thing, all this infrastructure on our doorstep, ready to be used! :D

we spent a couple of days with family, picking (and eating) even more cherries straight from the trees! friday was “international day of family” and our seniors’ daycare center invited us to attend a little party they were having there — now we live close enough that we can just go and attend these things. :)

i haven’t had much time (or energy) for reading, but still finished a prayer for the crown-shy (the second book of the monk and robot series) and nana upstairs and nana downstairs these past few weeks. i’m digging into leviathan wakes now, a space opera that my czech friend recommended. it’s been fun!

i had another look at my cholesterol levels, and although they’ve improved a bit since the last check, my LDL levels are still highish. they’ve been that way since forever, and i think everyone would be more comfortable if they were actually within the limit. but how does that work, if we’re already not eating much meat at all, and close to no dairy/cheese…? well, the ovos moles might not be helping, but this feels like a complicated jigsaw puzzle without a happy solution in sight. sigh.

birdwatching in czechia weeknotes

weeknotes, 17/26

this week had 2 highlights! first, me and the boy celebrated 20 years together, if you can believe it! <3 we had a nice pasta + tiramisu dinner and then watched when harry met sally. :) i mean, 20 years…!! what a brilliant adventure this has been.

this week’s other highlight was a quick solo trip to czech republic to meet a dear friend! we’ve been talking online for years, but had never actually met, and so it felt like it was time. lately, i feel like this might be the best reason to travel: just go and hug the people we care about. i don’t know if it’s because i’m over 40, or maybe because i feel the phantom threat of alzheimer’s on the horizon (made much more real by seeing how dementia robs us of our loved ones)… it’s probably a bit of both. it feels like the universe is always telling me there’s no better time than this to get out there and do things with the ones we love — so i try to listen sometimes.

i packed my stuff into a tiny ryanair-sized suitcase and flew across europe on a friday to spend the weekend with my friend D, and it was just lovely. we spent most of our time walking, talking and birdwatching. my phone battery died halfway through the day and i didn’t care one bit. i came back home the next monday with a huge smile on my face, ready for whatever.

plus, the country is just gorgeous, of a greenness that feels unreal to us southerners. rolling hills and thick forests where deer (and ticks…) roam. grilled cheese and gingerbread snacks. you can pay with cards or apps everywhere, and it’s so smooth that you barely even notice you’re using a different currency.

traveling alone also makes me brave, somehow — the more i get out there and prove to myself that i can do things on my own, the more i believe it and want to do more. so it was a very good week. more of this, please!

weeknotes

weeknotes, 15-16/26

two straight weeks at home! the weather is finally warming up but not yet too hot — just perfect really, shorts and tshirts and sandals all day, and no need for the AC. bliss!

it has been so nice that we went on a long walk with friends to see some birds in castro marim!

the bee-eaters are back, filling the air with their gurgling sound. it’s always a joy to hear it again every year and realize they are back.

we’ve had good news from an apartment we saw and liked in aveiro! we successfully managed to negotiate a more affordable rent and are now reviewing the rental agreement. hopefully we can get it signed soon, and then we’ll have a new headquarters in the north, so that we can spend more time there exploring and also getting stuff done while we’re there. it’s really difficult to get anything done when we’re at the parents…

i’ve started supplementing with iron again, because my ferritin levels are still low and my heart has been doing some funny hiccupy dances. the vitamin D levels are also low, but the doctor told me this is normal after winter and that i should just make an effort to get a bit more sun. i’ve been trying to do that, in the form of bike rides in my shorts in the middle of the day. i hope they’re working!

entertainment-wise, i listened to the river has roots and read the irresistible urge to fall for your enemy (another dramione fanfiction turned book) — both entertaining. we re-watched howl’s moving castle, which was a bit disconcerting after having read the book — they’re so different! we also watched a complete unknown, the movie about bob dylan’s early years.

because it was sprouting everywhere around the garden and constantly shedding leaves, we decided to take out the bamboo we planted some years ago… well, easier said than done. the roots have spread wildly all these years, and are super stuck to the earth. in the process, paulo accidentally damaged a water pipe, which meant we couldn’t turn on the water in the house until a handyman came to disconnect it. 😩 thankfully, the person came earlier than expected and was able to do a temporary fix, so we can shower again. pffew!