Coffee drinking is a serious business in Portugal. There’s no way you can come here and not have to order a coffee at some point, so here is some essential information.
These are general guidelines. No two cups of coffee will ever be identical no matter what words you use. Relax, it’s just a drink.
I’m sorry, tugas. I apologise, it’s just a sacred drink. Please go easy on me, I’m just a beginner, a humble student if you please. And please if you have some corrections, additions or some anecdotal contribution to make, be my guest.
The most popular coffee is an espresso. In Lisbon you would order um bica (oong beekuh) and in Porto um cimbalinho (oong simbalEENyo). Elsewhere um café (oong kaFEY).
There are infinite variations on how it comes, so don’t be shy about being specific about your needs. Cheia (shayuh) is a full espresso cup, tres- quartas (tresh kwartas) 3/4 full, a ristretto is called um italiano (small, strong, the first few seconds of the machine’s coffee). You could ask for it não quente (nowng kent; not hot;) and they’ll put a dash of cold water in it for you.
In this pic (below) there is um italiano (top), um bica (right) and um cortado (left). In Portugal a cortado is a standard measure from the ’small cup’ button on the machine, not to be confused with a spanish cortado (cut with milk, see below).
Staying with the small cup theme, your poison may be um pingo (oong pingoo) also called um pingado (oong pingardoo); an espresso with a drop of milk (sometimes hot milk, sometimes not). Um garoto (below, left) has more milk; about 50/50 coffee-to-milk ratio but still in a small cup. In Spain this is known as a corto or a cortado. In Australia it’s a piccolo caffe latte. Uma carioca (below, right) is the opposite of a ristretto – a full small cup minus the strongest first two seconds of an espresso.
For a long black, or a large black coffee, you would order um abatanado. This could be also called um café americano, but ordering an americano may get you an instant coffee in some places. If that’s what you want then order um nescafe. If you’d like a double espresso, order um café duplo (oong kafEY DOOploo)
Going the milky way, um galão (oong galowng) is served in a tall glass and is about 3/4 milk. Traditionally a galão is made with a second passing of coffee from the machine and is very weak. If you want something more like a caffe latte than coffee flavoured milk, order a um galão directo (deeretoo). You can also ask for a dark one escuro (eshkooroo) or a light one claro (klaroo). Ordering a galão after midday will provoke funny looks, unless you’re over 80. It’s either for breakfast or it’s a nanna’s drink. You might save face by ordering uma meia de leite (maya de late) which is half milk in a regular cup, like a flat white in Australia. But like my half-Australian buddy, you could try ordering a layer de mate, mate 
Special thanks to frogdropping for her impeccable production assistance in the rain and everything.
This furniture is an inspiration. I spotted it in the Portuguese design magazine Attitude, impressively included in an Orgulho/National Pride editorial, a couple of years ago. I kept it in the back of my mind to go and see them whenever I got to the Alentejo.
When I finally made the trip visiting the Agua de Prata workshop it was the highlight of my visit to Evora. Roman era temple? For what we came. Pre-history Cromeleques? Saw them. But Nossa Senhora Da Graça Do Divor… Conquer me!
The studio is situated on an enviably pretty hill, next to a notable church on a gently undulating Alentejan plain, dotted with the ancient water wells that supplied Roman Evora its silver water, agua de prata.
The wool producing town of Arraiolos is about 15kms away, and supplies the artist, João Videira, with the wool with which he reinvents and revives old furniture frames and other objects. There’s a magic fusion that happens between the old framework and the intensely coloured wool that creates an altogether new and beautiful design piece. The warmth of the recollected meets the tactile wool in a way that makes this furniture irresistible; it’s at once modern and antique, designer and personal, precious and cuddly.
And the recycled and recreated philosophy fits perfectly with the concept for my house. By taking what has heritage and soul and stripping back the parts that have deteriorated. Then restructuring and repairing those bones for a modern use, adapting outdated living concepts for today’s needs and integrating modern desires for comfort and pleasure. The result is honestly beautiful, luxurious and unique furniture of character and simplicity.
My favourite things are, naturally, the Pedras de Lã, Wool Rocks. At first glance their organic shape made me curious about the support around which the wool is carefully wrapped. Their weight gives nothing away, except that inside they couldn’t be hollow. Nor are the stones hard; they have a sponginess that adds to the organic characteristic of their shape. The answer is, that the Pedras are solid wool, a ball so carefully and tightly bound that it has taken on its own natural form, and like all the Agua de Prata works, is individual and unique.
And if you’re passing the town through at lunchtime, as we were, wondering where all the folk could be, tuck your head into the first café on the left, which will be packed and dishing out delicious local plates with atmosphere and conviviality. Happiness all round.
http://aguadeprata.blogspot.com/
I consulted the Portuguese pastelaria encyclopedia www.fabricoproprio.net to see where the experts say the best Bolas de Berlim can be found…and my place already has been discovered, and it rates with the Portuguese too. Naturally. (Natário in Viana was where my berlim initiation/problem began. Yes, I agree they are very very good. But I now know better.)
You only have to look at me to know how much I love bolas de berlim. I have been testing the berliners of Portugal since my arrival, so that’s now thousands of them I have put away, so I surely know a good one, especially as I have also tried berliners of Berlin, as some kind of starting point, and can say with some authority that they are crap.
The Leitaria da Quinta do Paço can be found at Praça de Guilherme Gomes, (bit of a mouthful… it’s in ‘Vitória’ up towards the Igreja do Carmo) in Porto. It has recently had a groovy makeover that reflects its own history (as a milk factory) and its commitment to quality. I love this about modern Portugal: more and more it recognises itself in context of history and the wider world. This place says; we were a little milk factory for a hundred years which treated its workers well (check out the photo of the 1959 staff excursion) and took pride in the quality of our milk (there’s a shot of their display at an Expo). Now we are a café with charming old photos on our walls. We have a humble history, we believe in quality, we are proud.
And they have the best bolas de berlim in Portugal.
Google maps link Praça de Guilherme Gomes Fernandes, Oporto 4050, Portugal
6. Casas do Xisto
This is what I like about travelling. Sometimes you know what a place looks like beforehand, so when you see Santorini in its postcard blue-and-whiteness, the tourist in you is satisfied that you’ve come to the right place. Portugal is a bit more obscure for simple visual snapshots, but the tourist might cling to the same blue-and-white image that is typical for the Alentejo region, just as it is for Greek Islands, the Spanish coastline, villages in Tunis and innumerable other places in the Mediterranean.
But what the traveller is looking for is authenticity, something surprising or “undiscovered”. What is the “authentic” Portugal? Of course it’s a lot of things, and it can’t be reduced to a mere one-shot postcard. The Casas (and Aldeias) do Xisto are a humble and traditional housing style that I’ve never seen anywhere else in the world. I find them curious and charming: often hidden in forest or off the beaten track, they are like little hideouts of a closed community. So simple, and essential, like little caves. I like them so much I bought one.
7. Espigueiros do Minho
They are a bit of a grand statement just for storing corn, hey? Imaging having so much granite lying around that you can use it to build a mini-barn. Cool. The crosses are there to ward off evil locusts. The Minho (far north) landscape is wonderful in itself – a bit other-worldly, windblown and spooky. And then clusters of these funereal sarcophagi appear straight out of the middle ages, or outer space…
8. Elevador de Santa Justa (Lisbon)
It’s just a fancy ironwork folly really, but isn’t she sweet? Who better to inspire a landmark-just-for-the-sake-of-it than Monsieur Gustave Eiffel, of Tower fame. Although this lift was designed by a student of his, Gustave was responsible for three bridges in Portugal, in Porto, Viana and Caminho, and very nice they are too.
Technically speaking it’s not a folly, as the Santa Justa has a practical use: it saves you from the stairs between the Baixa and Chiado districts, and there’s also a café at the top.
9. Palácio Nacional de Pena (Sintra)
The National Palace of Pena is so Disneyland it’s hard to believe it’s a UNESCO world heritage site, and a national monument. It was built in the 19th Century as a summer house for the royal family, and they were personally involved in the design, so I figure they must have been a crazy and creative bunch. The style is called European Romanticism (this castle is considered the finest example of the Romantic Style in the world, in fact) and it certainly has a Bavarian Fairytale Castle feel. Romanticism is a mixture of styles: Manueline, Renaissance, Gothic, but what stands out to me is the Islamic influence. It’s so much fun, so camp, so extraordinary.
10. Azulejos
Probably Portugal’s greatest single contribution to world architecture are Azulejos, traditional Portuguese tiles. At one time Portuguese hand-painted tiles were exported to every corner of the globe and were considered the finest in the world. Certainly the Arabs are pretty keen on tiling too, but the Portuguese design and style is unique. Tiling is prominent all over the country, from delicately painted biblical or historical scenes to graphically coloured glazed and embossed, tiling is used on exteriors and interiors, on floors, walls and ceilings. The varieties are infinite.
OH NO! Already 10?!? But what about the Bolso do Porto, Alvaro Siza’s Museum of Contemporary Art, the Prague-like grand cafés of Lisbon and Porto, the restaurant Galeto, the Palácio do Buçaco…. can we make it a Top 100?
To conclude: Of course, I understand that Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder. Sure. Except the Beholder might need glasses.
MORE PICTURES
Injuries: none… well nothing physical, anyway.
Life Satisfaction Index: down 18%
I should’ve known that a holiday would be a bad idea. But it’s not everyday you get invited to Paris by a generous brother, and we all need a shot of Paris once in a while.
It’s maybe my 4th or 5th visit to the City of Light but every time I’m spellbound by how beautiful it is. And I swear it’s getting more Parisian all the time. It’s as though every ordinary cafe has been retro-renovated to look like it was always a classic old French joint. Or maybe the rest of the world is getting more modern and bland and Paris is still as cool as it always was. Maybe it’s me who’s changed. I know I’ll sound like my mother when I complain about how expensive it is. Café Portugal: 50 cents. Café Paris €2.50! And to use my Portuguese friend Tania’s words “and it’s shit coffee!”. I’m not one for definitives when it comes to films or coffee, but I’m certainly used to the smooth, caramel flavour of Portuguese coffee. In contrast the french cup tasted like a burnt chop.
After waving my family goodbye on the train to the south of France I wandered dreamily around Montmartre without realising that the mobile phone that just died was the one with the correct time. My other phone was still on Portuguese time. I woke up to this ten minutes too late. Thus, I missed my flight home. After forking out for a new ticket, I bedded down at the airport, along with half a dozen other jet-set refugees.
Thanks to Ryanair, who will provide almost free flights for those desperate enough to want to check in at 4am, I am accustomed to an airport sleep over. Me and the world’s backpackers. I laughed out loud the first time I saw Stanstead airport after midnight. It turns into an industrial sized dormitory, with thermarests and sleeping bags lined up in orderly fashion along every available wall. Numerous times I have carefully selected a quieter, darker, sneakier spot, only to wake up sharing the bed with 50 others. The really professional air-slumber-party-goers carry eye-mask and ear plugs, courtesy of some airline, but at Paris Orly they were truly a cut above : they were watching tele on their laptops and portable DVD’s.
So anyway, I arrived home tired and emotional. The cat wasn’t at home. He hadn’t been seen by my house minders for two days. Panic. Just as I’m on the hotline to sympathy sister, he comes slinking in the door looking as fat and content as ever. Then I realise the reason he’s been out: the neighbour’s tom cat has been in and has pissed all over the house. It reeks. Mao not happy, me not happy.
And now to the dogs. Wookie has lost his voice from crying after being tied up 24/7. I appreciated his enthusiasm to see me but this was overshadowed by Babywookie’s absence. Where was my Babywookie? No one had seen him for 5 days.
Could it be that my neighbour’s threats to get rid of any dog of mine not leashed have been realised? According to my neighbour, all dogs are potentially bloodthirsty sheep massacring psychopaths (except his dog). Even the toy poodles that another neighbour keeps are lethal teeth-gnashing werewolves. I’ve tried explaining that in Australia dogs work with sheep and we also employ a concept known as a fence to protect our warm investments.
Another neighbour firmly believes that my over-fed, one year old playful pups are going to kill their goats. Goats: 120kg, Dog: 12kg. Goat: horns. Dog: bark. But forget logic and commonsense. “We know dogs here” I am told. They know maltreated dogs, more like.
At this moment I can’t help see the significance of the arrival of two lambs and two goats since my departure a week ago. Coincidence? Or motive?
However, as my ex-policeman neighbour pointed out, you cannot know for sure what you haven’t seen with your own eyes. And there it is. And I’d prefer not to know for sure. I’d prefer to believe he has charmed his way into a nice home a few villages away where they have taken him for an abandoned dog. Now that the truth is subjective, and I can choose what to believe.
Meanwhile I’m trying to occupy myself with the immediate reality. Wookie hasn’t eaten anything for three days. It seems he’s on a hunger strike until his little brother comes back. So I’m tempting him with things formerly forbidden. Cat food, fresh meat, vegemite toast… so far he’s only taken a toffee caramel, which we can’t count as any kind of victory.
I pacify my mind with sweaty hard work. I’m digging a trench down one side of the annexe to seal the lower part of the wall against water. My good neighbours, who are very very good, drop over to see how I’m holding up. We get talking about an overgrown patch of land that is standing between me and fire safety. And wouldn’t you know, they own it. “Want it?” she asks, in that off-hand portuguese way. “For how much?” I ask. And in a nice piece of circular symmetry she wants the same amount as the flight from Paris cost me. Either the flight was very expensive or the land is a bargain. But just like the truth, the value of things is completely subjective.
I didn’t come to Portugal looking for a house, but I think the houses came looking for me.
I liked Portugal right away. The people are so laid back and unpretentious, the coffee and pastries are to die for, and the architecture is amazing. Lisbon and Porto, and many of the smaller towns are extraordinarily grand but so many of the richly decorated buildings are neglected and falling down. Passing through the countryside in the train or bus, I’d see hundreds of gorgeous old houses and stone buildings in ruins. And everywhere: for sale signs. Mostly old and crappy hand written ones that are also saying “no one wants me”. I was intrigued.
The idea of living here for a while was really appealing.
So I got on the internet to have a look at prices. Very affordable, I thought. Not as cheap as Bulgaria, the property hotspot in 2007, but it had far better re-sale potential. I researched building costs, the cost of living and I looked at my own budget. (To come – How I Finance My Freedom) I could make it work if I could renovate it, doing a lot of the work myself, and then sell before running out of money. But I also saw it as a slow-build, during which I would be living the village life and learning Portuguese.
Then I explored foreign ownership, the buying process, capital gains rules, and looked for any restrictions on DIY renovations (as exist in France and Italy). It’s all out there on the web. And there was my residency visa situation. As an Australian citizen without an EU passport, I have no automatic rights to stay or work anywhere (except New Zealand). So this was another obstacle to overcome.
After three weeks of going back and forth from my tiny old hotel room across Avenida Liberdade in Lisbon to an internet café in an enormous 18th century dance hall, I felt like I had a fair grasp of the situation. It was all possible. Not easy, but possible.
finding a property
The two major real estate agents, REMAX and ERA both have nationally-based websites where you can search according to region and price and more. A price-based search from €10k – €50k resulted in properties from the Lisbon area to the far north, with particular concentrations of properties around Castelo Branco (centre-east) and the Minho. In general terms, the Algarve and the coast are more expensive than the north and the interior. The south is more “blue and white” in architecture and there is very little stone on the coast. There was nothing in this price range in the Algarve or lower Alentejo, the most southern regions. I’m not saying that there are no bargains to be found there: all it takes is one agent to take an interest in rustic properties in a particular area to generate a market. I’m sure you could choose a region and drive around visiting the local agencies and investigating ‘for sale’ signs. You’ll need to speak Portuguese for this. But there are also English- speaking independent agents (and smaller agencies) on the net who focus on rustic properties.
But I was after properties in bulk and I didn’t have a particular area in mind. I wanted to see everything.
Using a phrasebook to patch together emails to agents, I zig-zagged all over the country looking at anything in the price range. But when I arrived in the Minho I recognised what I was looking for: Stone. All over the Minho are small granite ruins, in stunning countryside. I saw one-bedroom-and-kitchenette-type potential for around €15k; larger ruins on 2000m2 with beautiful views for €20k. It got me excited. The potential of these places was obvious; these stone ruins already had so much character and charm. Sometime in this early stage, I saw the house I would eventually buy and it was not in the Minho but in the Beiras (centre), south of Coimbra. It would remain my favourite for the rest of the search. But there were problems.
the trouble with rustic-rural deeds
The advice from the internet was to make sure the deeds, ‘artigo’ (article) in Portuguese, for the property are correct. That is; what is on paper describes what you are looking at. You may have several articles for one property. In my area the land is divided into tiny 25m2 parcels, for example. Most of these rustic/rural properties have not changed hands for many years, if ever. Many will have been inherited, many will have been added on to without official permission, bits of land may have been swapped with a neighbour or other pieces given away; perhaps informally, without updating the records in the council, the lands office or the tax department.
As a result the deeds, which describe the size of the land, the buildings, who the neighbours are and the history of the building, can be out of date.
The original deeds may have never been correct in the first place. In order to pay less tax, people often underestimated the size or standard of their property. There many reasons why the records may have not been kept accurate. I imagine that during 40 years of dictatorship (prior to 1974) people were less inclined to deal with officials and tried to keep to themselves; during the last century Portugal had a very low level of literacy and your average country farmer had little money to spend on lawyers and notories. The idea of a property ‘market’, and the house as a temporary asset, is only a new concept. The family house was to be inherited by the kids (actually, yes, the oldest male) who would also live there for eternity. But mostly there’s the ‘if I want to build a nice stone shed for the goats it’s really none of anyone’s business’ and I agree! But as time goes on, it becomes more and more complicated and more expensive to make the corrections.
My guess is that a Portuguese ruin-buyer might know the people involved, can talk to the neighbours to verify any details, is more familiar with why discrepancies exist and might be less worried about being ripped off the way a foreigner might be. However, as a foreigner, you’re sailing blind, you don’t know who to trust, you don’t speak the lingo and all the advice says “BEWARE”!
This was the problem with my house. The deeds were wildly inaccurate and the estate agent was useless. He neither understood why it was important to me nor had any inclination to find a solution. It was already obvious that agents in Portugal don’t work the same way as other agents I knew. ‘Work’ might be an overstatement. In Australia, real estate agents tend to be highly motivated people unnaturally focused upon material possessions and success. In Portugal they are different. My impression was that they were not prepared to do anything much at all to sell a house. For example: I make an appointment at their office with a week’s notice to see the documents for a house. I get there, no papers. They are trying to sell a house and the client hasn’t given them the piece of paper that says they own it?!? When eventually some papers appear they make no sense. The house has, at-a-glance, 100m2, and the agent is insisting that what we saw together was 25m2 because that’s what’s on the papers. Huh?!? One agent actually told me not to ask questions. Huh?!? One agent told me that my husband must trust me very much to let me see properties all alone. Uh-Huh?!?
I understand that these old places are not worth much in commission, but I was a keen buyer saying please sell me a house! The other curious business about Portuguese agents, male variety, is it seems to be almost obligatory to crack onto your potential buyer. I had begun to feel like a supermodel for the all the passes coming my way… Such a pity the “unprofessional” vibe wasn’t a turn on… Anyway, I had to give up on my favourite house for the time being as it was too complicated. So I looked at another 25.
locating ‘the magic’
Yes, another 25 more houses! I was looking for ‘the magic’ of the favourite but I also had boxes to tick. I could see now that the house that I was buying would most likely become a “casa do campo”, a country holiday house. I had come across a very useful brochure published by a lender which analysed the Portuguese market and, in particular, the profile of the “2nd home” house buyer. It told me that the ‘casa do campo’ market was alive and well and was in fact predominantly made up of Portuguese buyers and not foreigners. The brochure outlined the average price (€150k) the median price I.E., the price more people are willing to pay (€115) and what they want for their money: the usual light/ space/ aspect/ ambience factors but specifically: 3-4 bedrooms, a garage, a usable garden, etc, and in what order these things were important. How important was having shops/café/bars nearby? Not as important as having an open fireplace..
Therefore, my ruin needed to have this potential if it was to do well, once it was finished, in the Portuguese marketplace. My own instinct was, if the house was going to be a useful as a weekender, it should be no more than three hours from Lisbon or Porto, where the people were making their money. This also suited the foreign buyer; no more than three hours travel from the closest airport.
three strikes
I attempted to buy three out of the last 25, but they all fell through. Two were fantastic bargains and were snapped up by someone who either didn’t care what the deeds said or was given privileged access to them before me. Or perhaps they put down a deposit in good faith and checked out the problems later – who knows. The third property had restrictions on extending the size of the house.
More important than the details written on the deeds, is how the land is ‘zoned’. You need to know whether the property is a on a rustic title (land only) or urban title (buildings) and what the local council’s rules are governing these. The rules govern whether any new buildings can be constructed and how big they can be, whether the existing buildings are legal and can be retained and whether anything existing can be extended and by how much.
I was coming to the end of three months in Portugal, which is all Australians are permitted (actually it’s three months in the whole of Europe to be precise, but that’s another story). I’d seen 33 houses, and I didn’t have a house to buy. I was still thinking about my favourite one. I explained the situation to another agent from the same franchise, someone bilingual, with more experience. He agreed to help.
The plan was to request that the owner make a rectification on the property; IE update the records, thereby confirming exactly what it was that he was selling. We saw the house again and negotiated with the owner. I was very impressed when the helpful agent talked the owner €3500 off the price.
I briefed a local lawyer (who spoke some English) on a promissory contract. The contract would include the rectification request but as well the submission of my building project plans to the council. I’d only be committed to buying the place if the plans were approved. This ensured that if there was anything dodgy about the legality of the existing buildings I would not be stuck with a dream-house dud.
berlin
Then I left Portugal and went to live in Berlin. I had to do this to apply for Portuguese residency. It took a few weeks for the contracto promessa de compra e venda (promissory contract) to be written, but by end January 2007 it was signed by the owner. In the meantime I found a builder and architect through an English guy I met on the plane, who was also building a house there. I made a quick trip back to Portugal to sign the contract, put down the deposit and to brief the builder & his architect on the house. They said it would take about two weeks to do the plans. They lied.
In the contract, the owner had 60 days to make the rectifications to the deed. March comes: nothing. I’m sending emails and calling my lawyer frantically about the seller breaking the contract. The lawyer gives them two more weeks. Nothing happens. I rant and rave some more but then realise that it’s not doing any good and I give up and focus on getting the project plans finished. “Two weeks” had become two months. For more on that saga you’ll have to see Building (to come).
Mid-April: we get an update from the agent who has been trying to sort things out. Unfortunately by this stage I’m not interested in the complicated alternatives that he’s come up with nor hearing about the problems he’s encountering: I see this is as the owner’s problem and his obligation is to honour the contract. I have problems of my own (see Visas – to come). All the while, I am in constant contact with the council explaining my situation and trying to find ways to circumvent or speed up the process. The problem is that I need the rectification to legalise the existing buildings so that they can be included in the project. This tiny little council (pop. 3000) has a bilingual ‘international relations’ person and he is awesome, ferrying questions to and from the decision-making engineer.
June comes along and I receive an email from the agent saying that everything is ready. After a moment of joy I ask to see the rectification papers and THEY ARE WRONG! One of the buildings on the property has mysteriously not been included in the rectification. Emails fly in all directions, reasons are given, excuses are made. I want to speak to the owner directly but the agent says that his wife is sick in hospital and won’t give me his number. My Portuguese teacher and I look him up via yellow pages and his wife cheerfully answers the phone. After telling me off, the owner says hasn’t seen the rectification papers and is speechless when we tell him about the missing building.
I come to the conclusion that after six months of lawyers and agents I’ve got to find a solution myself. I go back to the council. To work out an alternative we need the final plans from the architect. “Two weeks” has now become six months. The bilingual-builder-go-between has done a disappearing act. So we call the architect direct. My daily Portuguese lessons have now become problem-solving workshops as my feisty Brazilian teacher and I take on the recalcitrant men of Portugal. Now, apparently, the architect hasn’t given me the plans because the builder hasn’t paid him. But I’ve asked the builder repeatedly, in writing, for an invoice or some account details so I can send payment. The architect had been told a variety of elaborate stories about me. Now I’m feeling like I’m part of some convoluted conspiracy and Portugal is some Twilight Zone full of mad people. Things have become so weird it’s funny.
But I get the plans. I send them to the council. We find a solution. The plans show a house that is a bit less than 200m2 and that’s the limit for that area and my parcel of land. I pack up my life in Berlin and book flights.
back in portugal
I go straight from the airport to the architect’s office without stopping once for a coffee & pastel da nata. I take the project from the architect and deliver it to the council myself. Naturally as it’s August, all the right people are on holidays including the owner who needs to sign something to allow me to submit the project…. but I’m used to the whole obstacle course thing now and eventually the project gets submitted. It takes three months, but it gets approved. Hooray.
Meantime I’ve hired an all-new crew: New spunky-chic lawyers who are charging a quarter of the usual foreigner rip-off rate. Superb new spunky-chic architect and her engineer who also charges one quarter of the usual foreigner rip-off rate. He says the project will take two weeks. Somehow I doubt that, especially as it’s exactly seven times the size of the first project. It could take years. It takes two weeks.
Just as I was thinking things were going to run smoothly from now on, the shit hit the fan again.
november
The day before we are set to sign the deeds, my clever-spunky lawyers discover a problem. Their manicured hand shook as they reached for their ciggies. I try to supress a smirk. After everything I’d been through, one more disaster will not upset me. Perhaps also I am so damaged from the process that I enjoy watching other people suffer.
A moment passes, the ladies exhale. The rectification, they say, (using the one word I never wanted to hear again) is not, in fact, a Rectification. It is a Fabrication! Instead of updating the old deeds, someone created a brand new article as though the house and land never existed before. Considering the exhaustive proofs required to create a new deed (affidavits from all the neighbours for instance) my lawyers cannot imagine how this was achieved…
Anyway, the upshot was that the original articles for the property still existed independently of the new one, and therefore the owner would be at liberty to sell a piece, or the whole thing, to someone else without me even knowing! Scandalous! Oddly enough, I wasn’t harbouring bad thoughts about the owner or the agent, despite myself. I accepted that we had tortured each other equally. And as I told the lawyers, deep down in my soul I didn’t believe that they were trying to diddle me. We came to the same conclusion: that I buy all the old articles as well as the new one. If the owner was acting in bad faith, he wouldn’t go for it. But he did. It would cost me a lot more in taxes, but all the deeds, in all their imperfection, would be mine, in just a few more days’ time.
the celebration of the escritura
That’s what they call it. That’s the time when one signs papers and hands over cheques and there are handshakes and best wishes, a time that one might be tempted to call it ‘a celebration’; one might be tempted to think that the nighmare is over and at last the ‘dream’ is realised… but no, no, no! It’s never over until the fat lady sings…
Earlier in the day the owner had shown us all a bag of antique keys for the house and how he had labelled each one for me. After the signing, he left with the bag, neither agent nor lawyers, nor I catching him in time. When I get to the house in the afternoon, I discover that it’s still full of their stuff; family photos, crockery, doilies… things I had expected them to have taken away. After all, they have had AN ENTIRE YEAR to do so. I was told that the owner intended to come back in a few days, let himself in with his own keys, and collect the rest of his and his wife’s belongings.
At first I let it mingle with all the repressed indignation of the well behaved foreigner I’d become. But after a quiet night’s rest in my sweet hotel bed (again), I decided enough was enough. Using my old film producer’s voice I told the lawyers THAT THE SITUATION WAS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE, that I was CHANGING THE LOCKS and THROWING THEIR SHIT OUT ON THE STREET.
My lawyers had to go beyond the call of duty. Apparently it took an entire day of negotiation, but the owners came at six the next morning and removed themselves from my life. And then I popped the champagne.
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Injuries: 0. Cups of tea: 8
The weather has deteriorated. The day started with snow, which might have been nice except it was so unbelievably cold. Then came fierce winds, more rain, sleet and hail. Apparently now it’s officially the worst winter in 15 years. I heard this from two different sources on the same day so it must be true.
The dogs had to go to the vet to be chipped so we rugged up and went out. Only once we were about half way there I realised that I actually didn’t have the €120 that it was going to cost so I took the dogs for a galão e bola de berlim instead. Only the café didn’t have any bolas de berlim nor the milk required for the galão (caffe latte). Radical compromises had to be made. The dogs were having fun at least.
On the way home Babywookie did a major vomit between the two front seats. Not only was it on me and my seat but it oozed down onto the floor and very nearly got into my handbag. The handbrake was covered, so there wasn’t going to be any using that, and with every movement of the car it oozed around more so that every last orifice of the floor was filled.
Did I mention that I got out in the rain yesterday and washed the car, inside and out? Looks like I would be doing the same thing today. It snowed again while I was on my hands and knees scraping half digested batatas fritas from the tracks under the seat.
Which reminds me of the day wookie vomited eyes.
I was conceived during the Woodstock Music Festival of 1969. It was a beautiful moment in history filled with love and peace and marijuana. My parents weren’t actually at the festival at the time, and quite probably they were unaware of it even going on.
Certainly they were not smoking any marijuana as they didn’t have the time for fun. My mother was busy raising my four older siblings and my father was busy wondering just how much longer his sideburns should be.
My start in life has been poetically described by my mother as “one of the nights she gave in”, almost like a preamble for the middle-class ordinariness of the childhood to follow. Although I did manage to direct my first short film while still in the womb (a film industry joke), my childhood was otherwise uneventful.
So, I left school and the next day started working in the film industry where I remained for 18 years until the day I said NO MORE and I decided to simply throw myself at the world and see what happened. I had actually thrown myself at the world before from time to time, and it was always quite a lot of fun. But this time I was serious. After all, I had sold my entire wardrobe on the internet for $250, so there was no going back because I would have nothing to wear.
Here was the plan. I had done a lot of research about Croatia and Bulgaria and restaurants and hotels and cafes and real estate. I knew that buying a house, renovating and selling it was something I could do legally almost anywhere. Outside of the film industry, travelling, cooking and building stuff were my three big passions. On one of my flights into the world I opened a café in an oasis in Egypt. I’ve renovated every house I’ve ever lived in. I was the kind of girl who asked for a tool kit for her 21st birthday. Besides, I’ve directed two films and produced billions of dollars of television commercials so therefore I am sufficiently up-myself to believe I can do anything. Alright?
So that was it. I had a list of about 10 countries to go to and I had a bunch of friends to catch up with. I’d go looking for something to do. First I went on a “holiday” of three months in South East Asia. One of my most favourite places on earth is Laos. It was about 10 years since I had been there and it was great to see that is was still paradise. If everything goes up the creek I know can always go there and live on $5 a day.
Then I went to England to see a good friend and get her married. Then Berlin, another friend, and then Sweden, more friends and some family. Then I started on a tour I thought would last a couple of years: Portugal was to be followed by Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, bit of Bosnia maybe Hungary, then some Sicily, Copenhagen…
But I liked Portugal so much I decided to stay…
READ NEXT: how I came to buy my house in portugal
