MARK
[ 00:00:00 ] Welcome to Portugal Junkies podcast.
Meredith
[ 00:00:02 ] Adventure is a verb, y'all. Welcome back, Portugal Junkies. Hello.
MARK
[ 00:00:13 ] Hope everybody's well. We're here this morning with coffees. Oh, yes. A lot of coffee. For a lot of coffee, because it was a terrible night. Mosquitoville.
Meredith
[ 00:00:27 ] Oh my God. Mosquito gate. So it's a terrible night. What a wonderful way to start the podcast. Last night was a terrible night.
MARK
[ 00:00:36 ] Coming to you in the reality of real life.
Meredith
[ 00:00:37 ] Seriously, though, I cannot figure this out. So I'm one of those people who is the person in the room who is always going to get bitten by the mosquito, no matter what. I don't know. My mom used to say I had sweet meat. That's what it means. It's like, basically, I don't know if that's to do with your blood type. I don't know. I don't even know if that's a real thing, but something about me, the mosquitoes are attracted to. And, um, we had a mosquito gate last night because we haven't even left. So it's been a little warm. Well, I'll say a little warm. It's been the warmest it's been since we've been here, uh, because it's been summer. And so we haven't opened the windows as much in our apartment, which I hate because I love the cross breeze. It's really nice when we can do that. But we've stopped doing it because we get mosquitoes in the house.
MARK
[ 00:01:29 ] We think that's how they get in.
Meredith
[ 00:01:31 ] They terrorize us, but I'm not sure. But we've purposefully not kept the windows and doors and then back balcony doors open on purpose because of this. Okay. So this is probably what the third or fourth time this has happened.
MARK
[ 00:01:48 ] Oh, easily.
Meredith
[ 00:01:49 ] Where we go to bed and we are, uh, awakened because a mosquito is literally feasting on both of us enough to wake us up. So last night, one 30 in the morning, I wake up and I'm scratching the hell out of my ankle. And I'm like, what is that? You know, you don't understand what's happening. Like, you have to sleep halfway.
MARK
[ 00:02:15 ] And meanwhile, I have been scratching at my foot because I've got bitten in two different places on the, on the top of my foot.
Meredith
[ 00:02:21 ] You're either, you're either have to cover up. Completely. And then hope that they don't bite you. Cause last week they bit my cheek. And so last night, I guess my ankle was hanging out of the bed. I mean, when I say bitten, it was like, it was like a good, I don't know, nickel-sized bite on my foot. And then I realized that Mark was up. So at two, one 30 or 2 AM, we have turned the lights on in the bedroom and we are standing around staring up at the, at the like ceiling out, out into the ether, trying to see this damn little fricking mosquito thing. Anyway, I don't know that we ever got it. We tried to get it two or three times, but it was not like a definite kill. There was no, uh, so we were red scarring on the wall forced to go back to bed and hope that we didn't get eaten alive. Anyway, we have heard that the mosquito, I'm not going to catch him.
MARK
[ 00:03:21 ] My arm was like nine. We're going to have to do something.
Meredith
[ 00:03:24 ] I mean, I don't care. I feel all of my Southerners going, where's the skin so soft? And he probably doesn't even know what that means, but like, that's like a, it's a lotion that has this natural repellent for mosquitoes and it actually doesn't stink. So growing up, we would use Skin So Soft. Okay.
MARK
[ 00:03:43 ] If anybody has any and wants to send it, then let us know. We'll give you the address.
Meredith
[ 00:03:48 ] I did see a product in the store that I almost bought the other day, but it was like a kid's sticker. Mosquito repellent. Like, it was, I guess maybe the sticker has a repellent in it. And so they're really cute. And you're supposed to put them on a shirt or something to keep mosquitoes away. And I'm like, that's what I'm going to buy us. I'm going to buy it and put it on 20 stickers on my face before we go to bed. Anyway, the story is ridiculous, but it's true-life. This is what we're dealing with. Mosquito gait. And, um, and I'm sure everybody has.
MARK
[ 00:04:21 ] I'm tired. And nights. And it's always at night. It's never at day.
Meredith
[ 00:04:25 ] Yeah. I don't get bitten in here during the day. It's because they have time to watch us. Well, they've already feasted on you.
MARK
[ 00:04:31 ] They're just like having a downtime now.
Meredith
[ 00:04:33 ] So annoying. Anyway, I will say this: the bigger picture is we have been told that mosquitoes can be pretty bad here in Portugal in the summer. Um, but here's the thing-I come back to. We have literally not had the doors and windows open. So where are they coming from? I cannot figure it out. So. I don't know.
MARK
[ 00:04:54 ] I don't know.
Meredith
[ 00:04:55 ] But I'll stay awake tonight thinking about it. I'm sure like paranoid to go to bed. Anyway, what are we doing today?
MARK
[ 00:05:00 ] We're doing frequently asked questions. Oh, okay.
Meredith
[ 00:05:03 ] So we are doing FAQs today.
MARK
[ 00:05:06 ] Yes, we are. Cool.
Meredith
[ 00:05:07 ] Um, we did get four or five questions. Thank you to those who submitted. Yes. It's exciting. We love doing these. We hope you love listening because it's, it's kind of like a random assortment of things that people want to know.
MARK
[ 00:05:22 ] Yeah. Um, and even like last week's with Heather, it's just really, really nice when you get interaction. It's not just us talking about the thing. I mean, there's somebody who asked or we felt: Hey, this might help somebody in a similar or same situation that wants to know a little bit more. Um, so this, these are more interactive and I, I absolutely love these far more. Yeah.
Meredith
[ 00:05:46 ] I love it. So cool. So what are we?
MARK
[ 00:05:48 ] So, um, groceries or shopping. Okay. Um, what are the non-dairy alternatives and are there any items here that you can't get in USA, but you can't get here?
Meredith
[ 00:06:03 ] No, I think, I think it was the opposite. That question was like, well, we'll talk about both. How about that? Because I have been talking about this a little bit on TikTok lately. If you haven't followed us there, please do. Um, so let's see. I think that there's a lot of people who ask about like certain diets. Um, because when you go to a different country, you have no idea if you can like maintain the kind of diet that you need to maintain. Um, and not just like preferences, but like, yeah, as a necessity, people are obviously going to consider that if you're going to move here or spend a long time here and you should. Um, my first reaction to that is again, the food quality here is something that I think we even have trouble understanding as Americans because we have become so accustomed to all of the stuff that's in our food over there. I'm just going to be straight. It's a lot of processed crap and preservatives and, um, that tastes great. And you do miss sometimes. You do miss, but it's not, not good for you. Yeah. And so I think as on a whole, um, food quality over here is, yeah. Much better, much more natural, much more fresh. And we've already talked about this many times, much more affordable. It's cheaper here to buy fresh produce and cook at home than it is definitely in the US. So whereas like, you know, you have a lot of people in the US go, well, if I'm a single person, it's just easier for me to go out and buy convenience food. Right. And that is true there in a lot of cases. So it kind of, your choices are always going to be your choices, but that puts it in perspective for people who are on a budget with their food and all of that stuff, making decisions about fresh versus processed. Yeah. But non
MARK
[ 00:08:03 ] -dairy alternatives. I think that you've got to, if you go to some of the super, some of the supermarkets, um, yes, they'll have sections for, um, vegan or gluten free and various I think it's very easy to be any of those things here. Yeah, I think it is in the supermarkets. I think it's very, very simple. Um, I think the problem that you might find is if you go to a restaurant or go to the local cafu00ae, I don't know that you're going to find gluten alternatives or non-dairy alternatives as easily.
Meredith
[ 00:08:40 ] As easily. I think that kind of applies though in the US too. It probably does. It's always harder to eat out because you don't have control over your food. Or what's in it. But if, if the question is pertaining to like availability of you buying, for instance, vegan, vegetarian, non-dairy alternatives here, the answer is absolutely yes. Like when you go into any grocery store, the one that we go to within like two or three blocks of us, there is a an aisle of milk on the shelf, by the way, on the shelf, non-refrigerator because we don't have to, it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be. You have regular milk, so cow milk, and then you have oat milk, almond milk, soy milk. There's just so many, all of it. And I love my oat milk, so, and he loves his regular milk, so we don't have any. And I'll tell you, it's very affordable here too. Yeah. I was shocked when we got here.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:09:34 ] You were shooketh.
Meredith
[ 00:09:34 ] I was shooketh because a lot of that stuff, we know as Americans, if you are choosing that type of diet or you have a a medical necessity to have that kind of diet, it's often more expensive. Yeah. And that is shit to me. I think that is, I've always thought.
MARK
[ 00:09:52 ] You've been penalized for a choice or for a necessity.
Meredith
[ 00:09:54 ] Yes. And here it is, you know, we buy a block of tofu for like $1. 89.
MARK
[ 00:10:00 ] Don't think it's that much.
Meredith
[ 00:10:01 ] A block of tofu. And that's, to me, I feel like at home it was probably double that at least, even at like an Aldi. You know? So buying meat alternatives and things like that, you absolutely can do and it's affordable. True. It's affordable. And in fact, you want to talk about our change in diet?
MARK
[ 00:10:22 ] What? The one where you keep starving me? No. Stop it.
Meredith
[ 00:10:26 ] I have found personally, and I have always, I mean, I, I don't like labels, number one. So don't label this anything. But I do find that here I am less inclined to want meat products as much. And I don't know what that's about really. Yeah. Other than I have found. Other, like I've always liked tofu. I just haven't really, I mean, I've until recently learned how to really make it like into anything you want. You can make it into so many different things. I've always liked it. I've used it in Asian cooking that we, I love to cook Asian. So tofu wasn't something that we've never ate in the US, but we're eating it even more here now. Yeah. We find that we eat more shrimp and fish. So I will never give that up. So the only thing that you could ever label me is maybe a beef. Maybe a pescatarian, but I don't even go there yet because I do. There are some times when I absolutely love my chicken and beef or whatever.
MARK
[ 00:11:25 ] Katrina.
Meredith
[ 00:11:27 ] Or yeah, the really crappy food that you shouldn't be eating. But I found that, that like I'm more open to that here and I, it's interesting to kind of be introspective on that because it wasn't like by design, it just kind of became that way. This one, I don't know. What? He, he thinks that he could be vegetarian.
MARK
[ 00:11:50 ] No, I don't know that I think I could be vegetarian. I just think that I'm very ready and you know, whatever to, to take breaks from eating meat. Oh, because I think that there are more options out there if you just open your eyes a little bit further. Yeah.
Meredith
[ 00:12:11 ] Than ever before.
MARK
[ 00:12:12 ] It does take a lot more work when you, you know, when you've grown up with, you know, with the same diet, quite of food groups and then you sort of remove one of the basic or one of the core pieces, it forces you to think much wider out of the box of, okay, well, what can I sub in for protein and how can I make it enjoyable because my steak was fantastic and how am I going to replicate that? You're talking to a southern girl. Yeah. You may be not going to be able to, but at the same time, I think it's just important to, to have those opportunities. Well, for me, I think it's important to have those opportunities. What? To sub out. To sub things out.
Meredith
[ 00:12:54 ] Yeah. I.
MARK
[ 00:12:55 ] And not feel like I'm missing out.
Meredith
[ 00:12:56 ] You know, I grew up, if there wasn't meat on the plate, it wasn't a meal. So, you know, there were not any vegetarians in my family and certainly not vegans, not even pescatarians really. So to me, I have to remind myself that like, you don't have to have meat on your plate. Anyway, we are, we're totally vegan. We're not really going down a rabbit hole with the veganism and the vegetarianism. But the bigger answer to the question is absolutely. I think Europe has probably always been ahead of the US in terms of specialty diet availability for those foods. That's my impression, my opinion only. But we certainly have seen that since we've been here. Yes. Dairy, non-dairy, tofu, meat substitutes. Things like that. And then of course, just being here around all of this amazing fresh food. Maybe it just makes it easy. I don't know.
MARK
[ 00:13:55 ] Just doing a bit like a vegetable medley, just on a tray. Oh my God.
Meredith
[ 00:14:02 ] I made him potatoes and like baby tomato bake the other day with feta. And it was like, I gave him, I don't know, a hundred million dollars. He was so excited. And I was like, Oh, that's all it takes. Yeah.
MARK
[ 00:14:14 ] I mean, it was delicious. Absolutely delicious.
Meredith
[ 00:14:17 ] Anyway. Okay. So we've beat that.
MARK
[ 00:14:19 ] So yes. There are alternatives. Some places you don't need to look too far either. Yeah. So.
Meredith
[ 00:14:25 ] And we are sitting here in Porto.
MARK
[ 00:14:27 ] So keep that in mind if you're going to a more of a village. Yeah.
Meredith
[ 00:14:31 ] But I will say like even when we're going into here, there's a little thing right? There's a continent, which is where we shop here. I can't imagine there's going to be much difference in terms of that.
MARK
[ 00:14:41 ] Well, I think the biggest difference is going to be access to food. Seafood. Because we're right on the harbour front.
Meredith
[ 00:14:47 ] Oh yeah, I'm going to eat the hell out of some shrimp. So. And sea bass. So.
MARK
[ 00:14:52 ] Okay. Following on neatly from there is.
Meredith
[ 00:14:54 ] Next question.
MARK
[ 00:14:55 ] Best everyday places to eat in Porto.
Meredith
[ 00:14:58 ] Oh, the exact opposite.
MARK
[ 00:14:59 ] The exact opposite of what we've just said. But. Well, what do you think?
Meredith
[ 00:15:05 ] What's the first place that comes to mind for you in Porto?
MARK
[ 00:15:07 ] In Porto. Well, I mean, there's not one. There's like a tirade of places. But. Yeah. I think from a very Portuguese standpoint, I think it would be Gazella.
Meredith
[ 00:15:19 ] 100%. That's the first thing I would say too. And we've talked about it before on our socials, but also probably here because we've referenced it because it's really like right across the street from our apartment.
MARK
[ 00:15:30 ] Not being funny, but you can go in there, you can have enough food to walk out very happy and a couple of beers, and it's still under 20 euros.
Meredith
[ 00:15:38 ] Oh, easily. Oh my God. Listen. So here, let me back up. Gazella is. If you're coming to Porto, it is one of those places you must go to. Made, basically made famous by Anthony Bourdain visiting years and years ago. Rest in peace. And he kind of put it on the map because they specialize in the Catarina, which is Portuguese hot dogs, which the word actually means 'puppies'. So baby hot dogs or baby dogs or that kind of thing. That kind of translation. So, Caterinos. It's like a tiny piece of, not tiny, but like a hot dog shaped piece of baguette and it's filled with sausage and cheese and they crisp it up almost like a panini and put the spicy sauce on top of it. If you've ever had a Franciscina, which is another very popular food here. Yep. Another one to try. The Franciscina sauce is like a spicy beer sauce. And so they put the same sauce on the Caterinos. Yep. It's kind of like hot dogs and French fries. That's basically what you're ordering, but it's Portuguese style. When I tell you that the Catarinos are four euros, I'm not joking, and the beers are like two euros. So when he says we can go in there and both get a Catarina, a couple of beers and share some fries for like 15 euros, definitely wonderful everyday place. And it is like on the map.
MARK
[ 00:17:10 ] It's an everyday place, but don't do it every day. Oh yeah. He'll die.
Meredith
[ 00:17:15 ] So what's another one?
MARK
[ 00:17:17 ] Oh, I've got one. Okay.
Meredith
[ 00:17:19 ] The market.
MARK
[ 00:17:21 ] Yes.
Meredith
[ 00:17:22 ] So also in our neighborhood. Don't work for the master. Well, we'll see. I'll tell them. So also in our neighborhood, an everyday place that you should definitely go to, which has a different flair than just a normal restaurant is Mercado. Sorry. Mercado de.
MARK
[ 00:17:40 ] Dolores. Bol. Bolial Market. Jeez. Bolial Market.
Meredith
[ 00:17:44 ] B-O-L-H-A-W. H-A-O. Oh my God.
MARK
[ 00:17:50 ] Drink coffee.
Meredith
[ 00:17:51 ] I'm going to drink more coffee. It's mosquito day. Bolial Market. Jeez. It is one of my favorite places in the city, but it is not like a sit down type of market. They don't have a whole lot of seating there.
MARK
[ 00:18:09 ] No, there is some. But it's more of a market you walk around and you'll spend-Where is the seating? At the entrance where you walk in. There's those two-They're perches. Areas. And then they've got tables and chairs around the edges as well.
Meredith
[ 00:18:23 ] I don't think we go to the same market. I think you need to go again. There are a lot of people who sit on the stairs. It's like two levels. So a lot of people will grab something from the market and sit on the stairs and enjoy their lunch or dinner. But when I think about markets, I think about the market itself. It is probably one of the best markets I have ever been to in any of the places that we've been.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:18:44 ] Yeah.
Meredith
[ 00:18:44 ] It's hundreds of vendors, anything and everything. You can have the fresh farmer vendors where it's fresh fruits and veggies. You have bakery items. You have butchers. You have the fishmongers. You have everything. And then kind of in the middle, you have some vendors that are making food for you to take. Yeah. Yeah. And so, for instance, there's like a pasta in the cheese wheel place there. Delicious. That's so good. Really good. There's all kinds of like, he loves the pastries and like they have some of the English pies in one of the bakery places. You can actually eat seafood right there from the fishmongers too. Fresh sushi. You've got some like just all kinds of stuff, shrimp, everything. And then what else was there? Oh, cheese. All kinds of stuff.
MARK
[ 00:19:39 ] There's a lot of artisan stuff there.
Meredith
[ 00:19:40 ] It is the place to me that it's like, it is definitely an everyday place and it's very casual, but it's like an experience. Like my recommendation is you go there, you get a glass of wine from one of the vendors and you just stroll and taste and just talk and speak with them. It's awesome there.
MARK
[ 00:19:58 ] They're so willing to share any of the history. So I think there's one of them there that's one of the original Cod restaurants. Salt and Cod. Yeah. One of the places. Yeah. But they're so wrapped in into the history that you have conversations with people and they're more than happy to, in broken English, broken Portuguese, still try and get through. Yeah. And help you learn more. Yeah. Just because they take a lot of pride in what they do. Yeah. I love that. And some of the fish counters just behind the counter. There's a little high top table and chair where you can go in and sit. So, you're still in that environment of all the seafood and the fish, and it's a real delight.
Meredith
[ 00:20:49 ] Yes. It is a must if you're coming here. Definitely. Like budget a couple of hours for that.
MARK
[ 00:20:54 ] And a couple of glasses of wine.
Meredith
[ 00:20:55 ] The only other place here, I'd written down a couple of things in terms of the other places. Um, if you don't know what Rizzoish is. It's kind of like a Portuguese empanada.
MARK
[ 00:21:08 ] But it's a lot smaller and more crispy than an empanada. Yeah.
Meredith
[ 00:21:12 ] It's like a thinner pastry. It's usually stuffed with all different kinds of Portuguese flavors and anything you can think of really. Some of them are vegetarian. Some of them are seafood based. Some of them have the, yeah. It's just, it's very much like an empanada. But, um, here they call it Rizzoish and we have a place called Oficina de Rizzoish literally at our neighborhood in Batala. Um, so that is an everyday place that is super affordable. Same thing. It's like they're three or four euros a piece maybe. Actually the Misto, which is one of the best. It's like 175, 185. Ham and cheese. So good. Have it with a couple of beers. Beautiful. It's perfect. Yep. Again, don't do it every day or you're going to have to go to the doctor. Um, and then there's the fish. It's in that other place, uh, for breakfast in Foch.
MARK
[ 00:22:06 ] Oh, outside of Porto. Well, yeah. I mean, it's still within the municipality, but yeah. Yeah. Amelia.
Meredith
[ 00:22:11 ] Amelia in Foch for breakfast.
MARK
[ 00:22:13 ] That was.
Meredith
[ 00:22:15 ] It's amazing. That was lovely. It was really, really good. And you should go there. So there's four places right there. Casual, everyday food. Yeah.
MARK
[ 00:22:22 ] You should go eat. And there are so many. I mean, you can spend a whole hour.
Meredith
[ 00:22:26 ] I could keep talking about this for an entire episode, but we won't. What was the? Oh, Gondolins. We can't leave that off the list.
MARK
[ 00:22:32 ] But I was thinking also, uh, the, uh, uh, the Mexican place that we found, Cajallero. Caliero.
Meredith
[ 00:22:38 ] Cajallero.
MARK
[ 00:22:41 ] Amazing. Burritos. Tacos.
Meredith
[ 00:22:43 ] You're like, you're in Portugal and you find Mexican, you should make sure that you go. Yeah. It's really, it's like the spiciest food we could find in the city and it's still not as spicy as I want it to be.
MARK
[ 00:22:53 ] But if you've got, if you've got specific like, oh, do you know of anywhere like that serves? Asian. Let us know. Or Thai. We'll gladly go and try it in advance for you. Yeah. Before we leave. Um, or point you in the right direction after we've left.
Meredith
[ 00:23:08 ] All right. So that's good. We got four or five suggestions here for you. Yup.
MARK
[ 00:23:11 ] Okay. Um, or language. Touched on it a second ago. Um, language barriers. Are we having problems being understood or speaking and understanding what other people are saying to us? Yes. Absolutely. That's never going to go away. I am not going to be the person that says, 'yeah, it's all right.'
Meredith
[ 00:23:30 ] Until I am fluent in Portuguese. Fast forward five years, 10 years, I'm never going to be able to say we never have a language barrier. But what I can say is that, um, it's very rare that it causes a problem. Yeah.
MARK
[ 00:23:48 ] I've not yet experienced the situation where the language has resulted in walking away from something because you just can't get past whatever the barrier is. You know, at the very, very worst. It's a case of pulling your phone, using Google Translate or whatever translation app, um, typing it in, handing them your phone and they'll reply, switching the languages back and they'll answer it. And you know, we, we've had a few, quite a few, particularly in the bureau, in the bureaucracy side of things where we, you know, first off you go in, it's like, 'How do you speak any English?' Because we don't really speak Portuguese. And they're like, 'No.' And it's like, 'Okay.' So I pull out the phone and say, 'Can we do it this way?' And it's like, yes, let's do it. And I think they're just very amenable and very ready to, to make it work.
Meredith
[ 00:24:43 ] Yeah. I mean, I haven't felt situations were dire. I'll say that. But I will say, you know, I think what people have a problem with, with languages and learning new language, not just the process of learning it. It's getting over feeling like you're going to embarrass yourself. And honestly, that shit just has to go out the window. If you're going to go to another country where you don't know the language and you're learning it, how be it slow or fast or working really hard at it, or just learning it along the way, you have to let go of being worried about looking stupid. I would rather put forth the effort and try to stop. To speak and say something and make a joke about how poor I'm doing and letting them know that that's what I'm trying to do in their country and respecting their language than not ever trying, never learning anything just to save myself from feeling, you know, embarrassed when I shouldn't. Anyway, you have to get over it.
MARK
[ 00:25:51 ] Absolutely.
Meredith
[ 00:25:51 ] Um, that's my biggest, I mean, I think that's the first thing I had to really get over when I got here. Because you can say, okay, learn a little bit. And especially when we traveled here for the first time, you, you know, you learn like what you need to know, what you think you're going to need to know. And you're, you know, 10 days here or whatever. Um, and it's hard to be at the beginning to speak other things. But now I say, so is my new favorite one. Because I usually say, see you later when I walk out of a store or whatever in the United States. And I wanted the equivalent of that. And this one was like, we looked it up and you had been using it. And I was like, I'm going to start using that. Yeah. It's a casual way of saying, see you next time. Yeah. Right. We live here type of thing. Like we're in the neighborhood. This is who we are.
MARK
[ 00:26:34 ] And I think there's, there's a lot of what you're just saying, like, see you later. It's a very sort of informal. And I think a lot of the, the, the times when we come into contact with people, it's in informal settings. There's a different way to say it in a formal setting for sure. Right. It's like anything.
Meredith
[ 00:26:50 ] It's probably the clear indicator that you're learning.
MARK
[ 00:26:53 ] But that's the thing. You know, it's a case of how am I going to. Not fitting because you look different, you sound different. You're never going to like quotes fit in, in that sense of like you're a Portuguese person, but how do you fit in, in the whole conversational aspect of if you go to the pub, if you go to a restaurant, if I'm in a shop, you know, it's, and I think trying to scale it back into being informal and being on a dialect that is shared within a community. I think that's fantastic. But I will say that there are. Yeah. Depending on where you are in Portugal, there are different ways of saying the same thing. So we've got to relearn some of that as well.
Meredith
[ 00:27:35 ] Well, yes. So we were at dinner the other night and our friend who was the waitress was, was trying to teach me something. My zoom means I want one more because you know, I'm always ordering one more. She was, she was also saying that, you know, just as in the U. S. that we, you know, the, you know, in the U. someone who's from Boston versus someone who's from South Carolina are going to say the same thing, but sound so different sometimes that it is very hard. Right. And so she says the same thing happens here where in the North, um, the dialect and the, um, the accent of the Portuguese language is so different from even someone in the South. So it's just interesting. I mean, we probably would not hear that yet, but others do. I'm lucky if I catch anything. I know. I will say it's, I think that overall, and I've said it before, people are so welcoming to you the moment you try. Right. So just try, like that's, that's all you have to do to open the door, to let them know that you are, um, trying to be respectful and learning their culture and their language. And they are just so welcoming after that. And it might just end up being a ridiculous mess because you can't understand and they, they're trying to. But it's okay because you have this technology in front of you. That's not like, like Mark said, it's not like you're leaving a situation and going, Oh, well that was a failure. You just figure it out. You just keep going. Um, so, you know, I, I don't think anybody should be worried and let a language barrier coming to Portugal stop you from coming to Portugal. Right.
MARK
[ 00:29:18 ] I think the only thing, I think the only thing that stops, I sort of speak for myself, that stops me from opening a conversation in Portuguese. Is, is exactly that. It's the, am I going to get this right? Am I going to nose it up? Am I going to be understood? And the answer is yeah. Yes. Without, without a doubt I am. But do you know what? I'd rather do that than not try.
Meredith
[ 00:29:40 ] Did you say nose it up?
MARK
[ 00:29:41 ] Nose it up.
Meredith
[ 00:29:42 ] What does, here we go again. Nose, nose it up.
MARK
[ 00:29:47 ] Just to nose it up. Just to.
Meredith
[ 00:29:48 ] Can you spell that?
MARK
[ 00:29:49 ] Nose. I don't think there's actual spelling for it. It's a very sort of English thing.
Meredith
[ 00:29:54 ] See, I think he makes sense. He makes sense of his own language. No, it's. From the Hundred of Who school, which is exactly the name of the school he attended, y'all.
MARK
[ 00:30:03 ] Yes, it was Hundred of Who in Who St. Woburg. Oh my God. Okay. What is that? But to nose it up is just to like cock it up, to get it wrong.
Meredith
[ 00:30:12 ] Cock it up.
MARK
[ 00:30:13 ] But, you know. Got it. In a nice way.
Meredith
[ 00:30:16 ] Next.
MARK
[ 00:30:17 ] Next. But so, yes, we're learning. No, we're not perfect. It's never been a problem and we'll continue to try. Absolutely.
Meredith
[ 00:30:25 ] One more thing. We really haven't been as good as we should have been yet. Absolutely. About dedicating time like daily or at least weekly to our online course and we've just got to figure that out.
MARK
[ 00:30:37 ] It's like, it's going to be part of that.
Meredith
[ 00:30:38 ] It needs to be part of our day, but it also probably can't compete with when you walk outside and you interact with people. Right. So that's part of it. It's like I know that our course will be very helpful. It's actually, if anybody is interested. It's an online course. I think it costs maybe 300 euros. It's called Portuguese with Anita and she's great. She's really great. I'll link it. But it's funny. I feel like we've learned more just by being willing to be risk takers outside. Yeah. Yeah.
MARK
[ 00:31:10 ] You know, in life, and so many times the conversations are finished at a restaurant or wherever. It's like, okay, so I'll be back tomorrow with a pen and paper, and we'll sit down for half an hour, and you can teach me some Portuguese. Sure. Come back. We do.
Meredith
[ 00:31:24 ] We're not scared to ask people that we interact with to give us a lesson for a minute. How do you say this?
MARK
[ 00:31:29 ] What am I getting wrong? Yeah.
Meredith
[ 00:31:31 ] And they like it. They tend to like it. Yeah. I think they do. I like it.
MARK
[ 00:31:34 ] I think it helps them as well learn English.
Meredith
[ 00:31:36 ] True. But they probably know it well more than. For sure. They don't need to be learning it anymore as long as they know it.
MARK
[ 00:31:44 ] Enough to definitely get past. Yeah. So last to final. Okay. Okay. How much should a couple have to be able to retire and have a similar lifestyle as ours? And I think that this is a, I'm not going to say it's a very loaded question, but I think it's a very individual question with a very individual answer because we choose a particular option or particular way of living in terms of where we live. Our rent could be a lot cheaper if we were out of the town or in a different area. Yeah. We choose not to have a car. We don't have kids. We have one dog. There's a lot of things.
Meredith
[ 00:32:24 ] Maybe the way so this is a question that we get and it's hard to answer, but maybe if we can outline our expenses. Maybe if we give our expenses, it'll help people kind of think for themselves and back into it. The actual move over here was not as expensive as one might think. Other than flights. Right? Like your, the process, it depends on, you know, for your, for your visas. If you do it yourself, you're paying for the application. That's pretty much it. I mean, there are some little things along the way that you have to pay for, like your FBI fingerprinting and things like that, that are nominal amounts of money. I think the biggest thing, and we've talked about it before, is getting your lease in place and having to have the lease in place before you even get it. And then apply. So you're essentially kind of up fronting money for an apartment that you're not using. That's probably the biggest expense.
MARK
[ 00:33:26 ] But if you have an opportunity to use the Schengen rules.
Meredith
[ 00:33:29 ] Yeah, you can come in and stay in it for 20 days while your visa's being processed. Just don't have to stay. You know, I'll say, so that's one section. It's, we can actually come back and maybe talk about like the cost of the move over here at some point. Mm-hmm. We've got our expenses, and maybe that will help people. Okay.
MARK
[ 00:33:50 ] So utilities. Yes. Okay.
Meredith
[ 00:33:52 ] So, less than a hundred bucks a month for electricity, and we haven't even, I think during the summer we just got close to a hundred for, because we have electric air conditioning. That was only because we've been literally running it a lot. Yeah. Like we used to ration it because we didn't know what to expect. Didn't know how much it was going to cost. So. And then when we realized that if we just left it on, yeah, most of the time it was like a 20 euro difference a month. We were like, okay, oh, we'll foot that. Yes.
MARK
[ 00:34:21 ] So a hundred for electricity, water, 15.
Meredith
[ 00:34:28 ] Okay.
MARK
[ 00:34:28 ] Maybe. On average. A month. And you know, that's daily. And this is a two bedroom, two bath here.
Meredith
[ 00:34:34 ] Yeah. Our rent. And again, don't come for us in the comments. It's 1595 euros. We very much know that that's probably still too high. Yep. But we loved the location and this was a brand new refurbished nobody's lived here type of thing. And it was all modern. Cookie factory. Amenities. It just worked for us for the experience that we wanted. Yep. You can very much get a one bedroom, one bath apartment here for much, much, probably half of that.
MARK
[ 00:35:06 ] Yeah. In the city somehow. You won't be in the center of the city. You'll be on one of the outskirts. But you could. But you can do it. And the Metro system will allow you to be in town when you want to.
Meredith
[ 00:35:15 ] Speaking of Metro, how much do you think? I mean, like transportation stuff. So we chose not to have a car. Right. So we don't have the expense of a vehicle or a carriage cost or parking or gas or anything like that. But what you trade for that is taking trains and Ubers and the Metro and things like that when you need to. Yeah. But I mean, the Metro here is what? A dollar. It depends on which zone you go to. If you stay within the main zone, yeah. But in town, right around a dollar or a dollar fifty or a dollar and a half. Sorry, I keep saying a dollar. A euro.
MARK
[ 00:35:47 ] I wasn't going to correct you. But I'm waiting.
Meredith
[ 00:35:48 ] A €50. Look. Forty-five years of dollars. Okay. So Ubers. We Ubered home from Gaia. Where did we Uber home from the other day? It was four. Oh. From Fosh. It was like five euros. Yeah. So that was four or five miles all the way across town. Through town. Basically. Five euros. What are some other big expenses? I don't know.
MARK
[ 00:36:13 ] But again. I think if you're looking at transportation, yeah. In like as a monthly average between Uber and the Metro and Uber and Metro for us, yeah. I think per person we're easily coming in, I don't know, €50 to €75 a month. Yeah. Easily. Yeah. And sometimes far less because either we don't go out so much or because it's so nice with the weather, that we're walking. That we're walking a lot more. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's one of the other advantages. So yeah. I think transport-wise, you can do it. Oh, you can do it for much cheaper than that. For much cheaper than that.
Meredith
[ 00:36:53 ] There's a like a monthly card that you can get, that's what? Forty?
MARK
[ 00:36:57 ] Going to catch me on that. I can't remember.
Meredith
[ 00:36:59 ] It's a monthly card that you can get. If you're using the Metro all the time and the trains all the time, you can get monthly passes. Yeah. And we just don't do it because we don't know enough to know how often. If you were here and having the Metro to work every day then you know better than we do. They need to kick a bit. Ours is more random. I would also say. The next expense is your groceries. And gosh, you guys have probably seen how affordable we've been. I mean if you've been following us on socials at all. I'll do like little grocery hauls and show how much things cost. And we are shocked every time. Like our biggest hauls have not exceeded what 85, 90 euros. And that's when we go and try to really like. We're really down to nothing and we need to restock for a while. But we don't do that very often because we've been. We don't have a big fridge. We don't. And so, or freezer. It's rare. Yeah. Our freezer is literally the size of a shoe box. Yeah. So. Groceries. If I had to say like maybe a hundred a week. Four hundred euros. That's about 450. And we could be much better about that. Like we could. We could pare that down even more. If we really wanted to. And then, of course, you're eating out. That is all going to be relative to your choices and your lifestyle. You know you can go to Gazella for 15 euros. For both of you. Or you can go out to a normal like we went out last night. And what was it? 30 euros. Something like that. And it can range up from there. That's all going to be relative. But I think. Is there anything else like big expense. Oh, Health insurance. We do two. It's 270 something. For health insurance. For us. For both. For both of us. For both. Our cell phones are pay as you go. Because we weren't sure if we wanted a contract or not. Right. So we've stayed pay as you go. And it's €26, €24, € 24. 70, yeah, € 25 a piece. Euros a piece. So 50 something euros. € 55 euros. Something like that. Yeah. I don't even remember. Roughly 55 euros. For both of us. For 10 gigs. Each. Yep. A month.
MARK
[ 00:39:16 ] And then if you add the Wi-Fi in. That's 48 or. Yep. So it's about €100, yeah.
Meredith
[ 00:39:21 ] The Wi-Fi is 48. And I think that's high. I just haven't changed it. Because we've had.
MARK
[ 00:39:26 ] Issues. Anyway. We don't even want to go there.
Meredith
[ 00:39:28 ] But I think that those things can be packaged too. Yeah.
MARK
[ 00:39:31 ] But I think communications-wise, phones and Wi-Fi. Yeah. You know, I think that comes in at 100 for us.
Meredith
[ 00:39:38 ] Oh, phones and Wi-Fi. Yeah. You know.
MARK
[ 00:39:41 ] Other things.
Meredith
[ 00:39:44 ] I can't even. The rest of it's travel for us. Yeah. So again. Lifestyle choices. But I hope that. That helps kind of frame out the expenses on our side that we've chosen. And I will also give a caveat. We could be in an apartment that's even cheaper. And I think that as you follow us, you follow us. You will likely see that happen for us. Because we were going to Tavira and we got a cheaper apartment. And we may in the next place, because you start to realize what you really need. What's important. And what you really don't need. Right. And where you want to be. And versus like is that really worth it? Yeah. And so. I mean, the thing is. We'll see.
MARK
[ 00:40:27 ] You know. This place could be a one-bedroom. But. And the second bedroom that is... That is here. Could be. You know. If that was a storage room or something. Then that would be perfect from our perspective. Yeah. So again. It really comes down to what you're going to pay. Is largely going to depend on where you want to be. Yep. I think your two biggest. Because location dictates the pricing.
Meredith
[ 00:40:51 ] Yeah. Your two biggest choices are where you are. In terms of what the rent will be. And your choice of whether or not you have a vehicle or not. Those are the two biggest. Absolutely. Expenses that you could have while you're here. Yeah. The rest of it is. Especially in comparison to the United States. It's much more affordable. Yeah. So. Anyway.
MARK
[ 00:41:18 ] That's it.
Meredith
[ 00:41:19 ] Hopefully that helps. It's hard to say. Here's a number. You know. Put a number to it. But hopefully that helps a little bit.
MARK
[ 00:41:26 ] Yeah.
Meredith
[ 00:41:26 ] So. All right.
MARK
[ 00:41:28 ] Absolutely. Perfect. Okay.
Meredith
[ 00:41:29 ] Thank you for the FAQs. I love them. I love them. We love doing these episodes. I mean, I hope it's entertaining. Because, yeah.
MARK
[ 00:41:36 ] We're just talking.
Meredith
[ 00:41:38 ] Talking. Talking. But we do. We like doing these. We like getting questions.
MARK
[ 00:41:40 ] I think the next FAQ we should do should be later in the afternoon. Maybe in the evening. With some wine. Because I think it will get a lot. A lot funnier.
Meredith
[ 00:41:49 ] Oh, yeah. You're not funny.
MARK
[ 00:41:51 ] Well, I am.
Meredith
[ 00:41:51 ] And 'funnier' is not a word.
MARK
[ 00:41:55 ] You should know better than that; it's a lot more funnier.
Meredith
[ 00:42:03 ] Thank you guys. Thank you very much. We will see you next time. Absolutely. And yeah. Cheers y'all. Take care. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.
MARK
[ 00:42:29 ] Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.
Meredith
[ 00:42:34 ] Cheers y'all. Bye.