P: Bonjour Ellen, I wanted to ask you something: do you mind if I park my beautiful Dacia somewhere on your estate for 3 weeks from Saturday morning? I go to take a portuguese course at the university in Coimbra but parking space is scarce there, so I prefer to park the car safely in […]
Crash course portuguese at the University of Coimbra Read More »
Last week we talked about us, us poor foreigners who are not allowed to vote, and this week we are talking about foreigners again. This week is about them, non-poor foreigners. They aren’t allowed to vote either, but that doesn’t matter because money buys you all kinds of things. A good architect, for example. An
Breaking news: foreigners in Tentugal, Portugal Read More »
Today is the day of the elections for the “Assembleia da República” – the Portuguese parliament. As a foreigner you are not allowed to participate As a foreigner/resident you can vote in municipal elections, which is much more comprehensive than just the municipal council. That layer of government is much thicker here, because it is
Foreigners are not allowed to choose in Portugal Read More »
I actually thought I was going to have a Christmas break – sounds pretty chic, don’t you think? – but the inspiration is flying around my head, so here we go, just keep moving. Then I’ll have an Easter break or something. Because what’s happening? Maria in the tower is to blame Instead of the
Christmas without Maria in the tower Read More »
Be honest: any idea what this is? No? Years ago I didn’t know either, but when I came to one of our regular building materials dealers, he told me – not at all commercially responsible – that instead of a new faucet, I could also do new castles. That’s what those things are called in
I sent some castles via the CTT to my brother in the Netherlands … Read More »
At 3 o’clock it was going to rain. Said the portuguese weatherchannel. It is now half past five, by the way, for those who want to know, time certainly doesn’t stand still, and it is still not raining. We call that “portuguese rain” “It’s okay, isn’t it?” we say, a little bit triumphant, because okay,
Family visits are intens. And the Portuguese elections too Read More »
Or perhaps the Municipality of Soure was the generous giver. Or maybe a little bit of both. We went there, to the open air concert of the National Youth Orchestra Always exciting to see passionate musicians! Nice of the Municipality of Soure to organize something like this. They do things like this sometimes. Soure is
National Youth Orchestra gives a concert away Read More »
Inspired by the link of my brother-in-law (see previous blog), I came across a few impressive musicians. Completely real, not that kind of plastic music, or worse: hip hop. You can’t call hiphop music – sorry, my opinion The only song I ever liked was LLCoolJ’s, and that was in the 80s. Other than that,
If you say Portugal, you say music Read More »
“They” are concerned with statistics. From time to time you have to fill in a survey so that they can make nice statistics. Apparently, statistics are very important. If you have no statistics, you have no data, you don’t know what people need At least that’s the idea behind it. I was in the kitchen
CENSOS 2021 everything you want to know about the portuguese people Read More »
It may have been a long time ago, but the ending of a dictatorship always deserves a celebration in my eyes until the eternity of eternities. If something says trouble, it’s dictatorship. Always accompanied by uncertainty and mistrust. And those are annoying things that you do not necessarily have to look up, because you will
Time to party! It’s April 25th! Commemoration of the Carnation Revolution Read More »
