MEREDITH
[ 00:00:04 ] Welcome back, Portugal Junkies!
Mark
[ 00:00:06 ] Hello!
MEREDITH
[ 00:00:07 ] It's Meredith and Mark, and we're here with our coffee.
Mark
[ 00:00:09 ] Because it's another morning edition.
MEREDITH
[ 00:00:11 ] Damn it! Do you think we say that every time?
Mark
[ 00:00:14 ] Maybe. But I think we should really start doing one of an evening. Well, we used to do happy hours. Yeah, I know. We got away from that. That's bad form.
MEREDITH
[ 00:00:24 ] It's because I would slur my words and say things I shouldn't.
Mark
[ 00:00:28 ] And do three retakes.
MEREDITH
[ 00:00:29 ] And we get really good views on those podcasts.
Mark
[ 00:00:33 ] Maybe that's a reason to do it. Actually, we should do one that's at the pub.
MEREDITH
[ 00:00:37 ] Oh, that would be terrible audio.
Mark
[ 00:00:39 ] I can't do it. I don't care about the audio. I think the rest of it is fine. Of course! I care about the audio. We should drag people in from the bar. It's like, what do you want to say? It could go really bad.
MEREDITH
[ 00:00:49 ] Welcome back, everybody. We've had a very good week, and we've been walking our asses off.
Mark
[ 00:00:57 ] Yes, we have.
MEREDITH
[ 00:00:58 ] We were like, September 1st, it's here, and we're going to be even more diligent about getting our steps in. Like, at least 10,000, which you'd think and look at us and go, oh, wait, aren't you already getting 10,000 steps because you're living in Porto without a car? But there are days where, no. No. We take the dog out. That's about it.
Mark
[ 00:01:21 ] Yeah, and then you're just sort of in the house, either doing work or not. Or prepping for podcasts or prepping for some other things. It's not like you've not got nothing else to do. Yeah.
MEREDITH
[ 00:01:35 ] And it's not like we're literally tearing up Porto every day. I think it's interesting to think about what people think about us. What do they think of us? I don't know. They think that we're literally walking around the city every day, but we don't. We've kind of made it our home.
Mark
[ 00:01:48 ] I can tell you now that I would not walk around the city every day because I would lose my shit. Just with that. With the amount of, particularly at the height of the day, early afternoon.
MEREDITH
[ 00:01:59 ] And we're still in tourist season.
Mark
[ 00:02:00 ] Yeah, we're still in tourist season. It's just.
MEREDITH
[ 00:02:04 ] You are the problem, though.
Mark
[ 00:02:05 ] Yeah, I said that to you the other day.
MEREDITH
[ 00:02:08 ] I mean, we sit here and joke. We are absolutely joking. I mean, we're not joking about the impact of tourists. No. On our walking experience. But we are joking about all stupid tourists, right? Like, we are tourists ourselves. We are. Sort of.
Mark
[ 00:02:23 ] We just have a slight different slant on it. That's right. But not a terrific difference.
MEREDITH
[ 00:02:28 ] So we did walk. So the other day we did walk across the bridge. Story time. Story time. We walked across the bridge to Gaia. So we're on the Porto side of the River Douro. And so we decided to walk across the Dom Luís Bridge, which is the best, like. Start of the walk. Yes, it is the best. And then walk down to Gaia, where all the port cellars are. And then continue walking out toward the ocean that way, because we had only gone so far in the past. We've experienced the port cellars over there at Gaia and only really gotten so far down toward the ocean.
Mark
[ 00:03:03 ] And got up to where the docking area is for the cruise boats.
MEREDITH
[ 00:03:07 ] And so we decided that was our path that day. And so we kept walking, kept walking. We walked all the way down to the bridge that we actually climbed, the Arábida Bridge. The Porto Bridge climb is the second bridge over from the Dom Luís. Or the first, what I'm trying to say is it's not the Dom Luís that you're climbing. It's the next one toward the ocean.
Mark
[ 00:03:27 ] You know that thing you said about, you would say strange things after you've had a drink. Are you sure you're not, I've got something in my head. I'm drinking Irish coffee.
MEREDITH
[ 00:03:35 ] Anyway, we kept walking and we passed that. And by this time I was looking at Mark and I was saying, you know we're not walking home, right? We're Ubering home. Because I mean, I'm not trying to walk 20,000 steps today. I'm trying to walk 10,000. Anyway, we get there. We get like past the bridge. And the whole point was Mark wanted to go see this little village that he'd seen across the river days earlier. He was like, 'The next time, let's walk to that little village over there.' And it's called Afurada. Decima, but short is Afurada. And it was so adorable. Like some of the cutest Portuguese homes, apartments. Yeah. Living spaces that we had seen. Yeah, I mean it was truly Portuguese.
Mark
[ 00:04:25 ] It was so cute. As a small fishing village.
MEREDITH
[ 00:04:27 ] Yes. Right on the water. It was crazy. So we walked up and down the streets and we were like, 'Oh, this is perfect, right?' Like we'll just stop and get a drink.' Get a drink, or a snack, or something. It was horrible.
Mark
[ 00:04:39 ] Everything was shut.
MEREDITH
[ 00:04:40 ] And you know what we've told you, right? That especially in smaller villages, things tend to shut down. From 3:30 to 7 or 7:30. They are not going to be open. They do not care if you want to drink a beer, a glass of wine, anything to eat. It's just the culture. So anyway, we were disappointed because we were like, 'We're in this cute little place and nothing's happening.' All I wanted to do was sit and have a beer. So what did we do? Got a new home. Yeah. That's what I told you.
Mark
[ 00:05:07 ] But it was very interesting. It was beautiful. It was a really, really interesting place because it's the first time in a long time that I've been somewhere. And there's a sort of like the village wash. Not shop, but like a washing. Oh yeah.
MEREDITH
[ 00:05:23 ] Like a public place where you can wash your larger items is what I got the impression of.
Mark
[ 00:05:29 ] Yeah. Like rugs and towels and things like that. But it's just. Or rugs. It looked like she had a rug. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. But it was. I've never seen anything like it. Yeah. That was completely. It was really cool.
MEREDITH
[ 00:05:40 ] It was just like a, you know, it's like a public facility where you can go in there and there's these large like vats you can fill with water and your soap. Yeah. And you're literally scrubbing whatever your item is. But it, I mean the girl, the lady that was in there was like, it was like a carpet or something. Yeah. Something that you can't do at home. You can't throw in the washer. Right. Or something like that. But I had never seen that. It was like. It really felt like. It felt like we were looking at something that was very culturally Portuguese. Yes. For sure. And something that I hadn't seen. So it was really fun.
Mark
[ 00:06:15 ] Yeah. So, that was, that was interesting. So top tip to us. From us. Not doing that again.
MEREDITH
[ 00:06:21 ] What?
Mark
[ 00:06:22 ] Going somewhere and it not open.
MEREDITH
[ 00:06:25 ] Good luck. Well, hopefully. We forget all the time.
Mark
[ 00:06:27 ] Yeah. Hopefully.
MEREDITH
[ 00:06:28 ] We still haven't gotten used to that part. Now in Porto, it's not as common. No. Because they're catering to a lot of tourists. Tourists. And you know, all of that stuff. But yeah. In the smaller villages like that, I'm not surprised. Just be aware. Whenever we've taken some day trips too, that's happened to us. I'm like, oh. Yeah. Well, I guess we're going to wander around for a little while. Yeah.
Mark
[ 00:06:48 ] Punched. Punched. Punched. Punched. Yeah. That and we're going to take cash. I was like, dang.
MEREDITH
[ 00:06:53 ] So it's actually a really good segue into what we wanted to chat about today. Which is reflecting on the things that were really tough for us when we first moved abroad to Portugal from the United States, nine or ten months ago now. Yep. Gosh, is it ten months ago? Wow. Yes, it's ten months ago now. And what, like now we don't even think about it. Yep. That's what we want to talk about today. Because we, we're. This came up in a conversation earlier with us and we're like, there's a lot that we've just adapted to. Yeah.
Mark
[ 00:07:24 ] And I think that's normal. Number one. It's normal. Because you're kind of forced to. Is it normal though?
MEREDITH
[ 00:07:30 ] I mean, I think that it's.
Mark
[ 00:07:31 ] But it's normal in the context that you're forced to.
MEREDITH
[ 00:07:33 ] Yeah. I mean, you don't really have a choice. But I think in the moment when you're having these like initial transition feelings of like. Everything is so different. Right. And you feel like you'll never get used to this. So. So I think it's a testament to adaptability and how you can feel that in the moment. But you will eventually adapt. And so if you're having worries about any of that stuff, I encourage you to just kind of lean in and know. Take a deep breath. That it will happen. It will. And there might still be some things that I'll never get used to. Right. And I get that. And maybe those things will come up when we're talking. But. Um. For the most part, like 90% of the things that were a big deal, yeah, are not a big deal anymore. So, what are those things? Like, what's the first thing that comes to mind when you think about that?
Mark
[ 00:08:24 ] Well, the biggest thing for me, not that it was a big deal, but the fact of not having a car, you know. Oh, I think that the transition away from being car-centric, which you know, pretty much everywhere in America is, yeah. Um, to here, it is. I think it's been very eye-opening for me. I've. I've thoroughly enjoyed not driving, to the point where um, the other day when we were coming back from somewhere, from Foch or somewhere. Anyway. Going to the Uber, and I'm sort of saying to the Uber guy, 'Can you not go that way? Can you go by the river? Because I didn't want him to go left. Because that meant that he would have gone onto the motorway. To come all the way back round home. And when you get Portuguese drivers, and no shame here. But, you know, you know, the driving can be a little scary. Fricking terrible. Quite frankly, um. And so I wanted him to stay along the river. Because the speeds would be yeah, under thirty, yeah, and that was the, that was the only reason, and I didn't care if it was going to cost me an extra two euros fifty, um, because. You know. So. So, that. It's become very easy to step away from a car.
MEREDITH
[ 00:09:38 ] Easy. Easier than I ever thought. I. I. I looked forward to it. To be honest. I. But I. Really only look forward to it in theory. Because I've. Always had some sort of transportation like that. Um. Because of living in North Carolina. I mean. Whether it was my car, or a friend, or whatever. Like. It. We. We. We get places. By car. Yeah. And even in a place like Charlotte. Where we came from. Public transportation. Is not very great there. And it's a shame, but you just don't have those options in a lot of cases um or it doesn't make sense right there's not enough lines there's not enough bus lines or train lines or whatever where we were from to even have the choice so you always had a car and and before we left we had gone down to a one-car household which we thought was a big damn deal then right this was before we were even thinking about moving abroad and it was post-covid we were both working from home um full-time right and we've got two cars sitting in the garage that literally don't get used and so we went down to one car and it was easier than we thought then as well so it's just really interesting I had looked forward to it, I was hopeful that it would be i think it's easy. When you're dreaming about what moving abroad looks like, it's easy to think, okay, well yeah, we get to walk everywhere. We get to go only show shop for groceries, you know, for two days' worth because we don't we have to buy fresh right this is another thing that has changed that we've gotten so used to. But I really enjoy not having a car, yeah.
Mark
[ 00:11:22 ] And again, I just, you know, being being in the center of Porto that in itself comes with an issue of where you're unless you get a house that's got or an apartment that's got parking associated with it um street parking or garage parking that can be pretty hit and miss as to being able to so I don't Miss it, um, and I've definitely gotten used to not having it, yeah. What that's going to be like in Tavira, I hope the same if not better, yeah, because the Tavira is much more of a walkable town, oh yeah, it's not a city, it's not a city, um, so yeah, I'm hopeful that that will continue and help us get our steps up well.
MEREDITH
[ 00:12:01 ] And tying into that is the walking thing right, so like, yeah, you can say, 'Yeah, I like not having a car but like when we first moved over here, walking everywhere you needed to go was kind of daunting and, I mean, it's not necessarily that we were completely out of shape or anything; it's just a conditioning thing, like that first week or so i was like i'm gonna be tired all the freaking time because you just have to walk everywhere if i need a electric power strip i'm gonna have to walk to go get it yeah right things like that that you know at the beginning are so different no technically had to go walking for it anyway so i think those two things go hand in hand but now it just we don't even think about it like uh you know and walking to a coffee shop and things like that like that's that's just how we do yeah i would i did mention that i will say that one of the plus sides of not having a car and walking to everything means that it's okay if you want to have that second
Mark
[ 00:13:04 ] Glass of wine or that second bit because you're only responsible for walking home, you're getting a move at home so that's true, that's true, that could be good impact, yeah, yeah, uh.
MEREDITH
[ 00:13:13 ] The other thing that I mentioned in passing right then was something that we've gotten used to too, which is shopping, yeah, grocery shopping um and so again this dream like I'm only gonna speak for myself when I was thinking of when we were like envisioning what it would be like to move abroad, I'm gonna move to Europe like you envisioned that classic European woman walking home from the market with her fresh trees in her little sack and that's lovely. right but like come on what it really is is trudging your ass to the grocery store every time you need something and then having to strategically decide can you carry all of this back to your home so you you are limited right i think you have to do a little bit more planning and you have to do it in smaller increments like we might plan for three meals two meals something like that i also think that thats a really good thing though because if youre only planning for two or three right youre not buying so much frozen youre buying fresh because you know that in two or three days youre going to eat those strawberries or use
Mark
[ 00:14:26 ] Those tomatoes, or whatever tomatoes and yes tomatoes um and potatoes, potatoes, and potatoes um you know so you are being very conscious about what you're buying and that's also another good habit and no waste right I'm embarrassed I mean that was the thing I was trying to attract and I forgot what it was, old age, I think um it is what was it? No, it was a matter of waste you know we don't waste much at all so little I think the most amount of stuff that goes in the bin are containers like the the milk or the packaging essentially you know very very little in the way of food that we've just you've just led me to number three did I mention another?
MEREDITH
[ 00:15:19 ] Natural segue, ready I'm good, I'm good, but this is a good example of something that, um, I'm not used to yet. I'm taking this off path a little bit, but y'all, our trash can is a what 13. How do I do this? Yes, here's what is the like... well, the bag that goes in it is a 30 liters, and that's an oversized bag for the size of the trash can, yeah. So that's one thing that I'm hoping will change into beer can. Can't believe you're tuning in to listen to me talk about our trash can, but you are. It is the truth, though. I am a, I love to be in the kitchen and I love to cook. Um, the process, thankfully, a trend of the Euro so I can get a little bit out of my way with it, but the process of doing the things that I like to do in the kitchen with a tiny ass trash can is not cool with me, and it is just the way it is in most apartments here. So I'm very much hoping that we will have enough space in Tavira that we can at least get a little bit larger trash can so that we... I mean, we could easily take the trash out twice a day. Sometimes slow, I mean come on, it could happen, it could happen!
Mark
[ 00:16:41 ] And that's if you it is so frustrating empty bottles of Coke or empty bottles of milk or whatever things that take up space that you can't condense down too much.
MEREDITH
[ 00:16:49 ] Okay, so car no, car walking, grocery shopping for two to three. Days, yep, trash can situation has not been resolved. What else um, I would say drying clothes outside, see no dryer right?
Mark
[ 00:17:06 ] I think yeah, I think that's one thing I'm not having to drive but the actual thing of drying clothes outside on an airing rack is something that is not new to me no as a kid growing up in England and throughout different places in Europe, that's what you did.
MEREDITH
[ 00:17:25 ] Yes, that my i can still remember my mom taking laundry out to our backyard and clipping the clothes to the clothes, yeah i mean with clothespins so it's not yeah that takes me right back that takes me right back because when I would do my mom would say
Mark
[ 00:17:43 ] to me go and take the washing out hang the washing up on the uh on the the uh the rack to get ready and for those that are not watching i would have the the pegs and i would put the pegs down your shirt down my shirt that's cute that's really cute just come back to me i would clip them oh gosh maybe a nine ten that's cute yeah you had a i think wow i remember something from my like years ago i can't remember what happened five minutes ago we'll get past that i have gotten used to i joke about this because it was one of the harder things to get used to i think now we've gotten much more used to washing our clothes in our washer there is no dry
MEREDITH
[ 00:18:29 ] Cycle on our unit, um, it's not uncommon here to not have a dryer and so, um, we hang our clothing and sometimes our towels and stuff which is still a challenge for me out to dry right, um, the clothing stuff I've gotten used to like, I'm not there's no there's very few pieces of clothing that like I just that don't work well with that well, I mean drying outside your wear for you, there's no problem easy shut up, he's trying to take a dig at my level, dig accomplished let it wear um, but we've gotten pretty used to that. The thing with the towels and and like bedding and stuff that, sorry, you cannot not dry those things, they need to be soft and like.
Mark
[ 00:19:17 ] Nice on your skin, so what happens in order to achieve that?
MEREDITH
[ 00:19:22 ] He walks across the street to the laundromat and tosses our stuff in the dryer there, yep.
Mark
[ 00:19:28 ] And then what happens as a consequence of that? I'm happy and I make new friends.
MEREDITH
[ 00:19:34 ] Oh yes, he meets all tourists over there. He comes home every time, he's like, 'I met these two people from Canada, I met these two people from Yemen.'
Mark
[ 00:19:42 ] I met these two people; they asked me how to use the machines; he's like the ambassador anyway!
MEREDITH
[ 00:19:48 ] Anyway, I have got so... The moral of the story is this was a really big deal when we moved over here, and it's not anymore. It's not as much anymore, for sure. So, but good thing is in Tavira Do you have a dryer? I just don't know how well it's going to work, so to be honest, historically they're not the best.
Mark
[ 00:20:08 ] They just don't, but you know, so yeah, I might be trying to find the nearest laundromat to do to do the bigger items. Um, one of the things I think there was again, it's a it's it's I think it was a bigger deal for you and that was the shower situation.
MEREDITH
[ 00:20:25 ] I've gotten used to it now, you have now, but I still feel the trauma right. I know that sounds dramatic, but I just a little when we moved to well, actually it was both yeah. The showers here typically even in a brand new, refurbished, beautiful apartment they tend to be small, right. I'm not so it's not so much about the space, it's really about how the space is used. So for me when we moved to this apartment, um even when we came to look at the apartment, it was one of my number one concerns. We do have two bathrooms; one is a much bigger shower than the other, so he uses the bigger one, and the smaller one, um again it's not necessarily about the space, it's about the shower head situation. And I'm going to say this, this is a problem that Europe has overall. We have been to multiple beautiful hotels, and they still have really crappy shower head situations. What I mean by that is the contraptions where you have to like Take the thing off, I know, the wand thing that's fine as a wand if you want to use it that way, but when you're actually trying to use it as a shower head, it doesn't work so hot, meaning hours and well, say my mine in my shower right now is like, you know, that big and it's that how the water comes out of a space this big-sorry, okay, people who are not watching, it's really. It's a very, it's like three inches worth of, three inches worth of water spigot. I need another Irish coffee. Anyway.
Mark
[ 00:22:22 ] No, you don't.
MEREDITH
[ 00:22:23 ] On top of this, you can't, you can't move the shower head at an angle to which it will hit me as a 5'4 person correctly. Correctly. So I am having to literally stand in the back corner of my shower just to wet my hair. Or the worst part, when I don't want to wash my hair or get it wet, it's like, it's just, it sounds ridiculous. And I know that people are probably annoyed with me right now, but it's because it sounds like get over yourself, but your daily shower is like your joy. Okay. And comfort. And it became a very frustrating. It became a very frustrating process at the beginning. Now I'm just used to like basically using a one square foot space in the shower. You go in and I'll know what position you're going to be. So doing your hair or not doing your hair. Yes. You know exactly where you have to move in the shower to get your things done. Doing the robot. So yeah, the shower head. I did have, like, I think we've told that story before, along with the story about Hamburger Gate. Hamburger Gate. But this was a story about the shower head where I literally. It was in tears and Mark, very kindly, as he always is when I lose my shit about things that he doesn't understand why I'm losing it, it's like, let me fix it. And then he went in there to try to fix it and couldn't.
Mark
[ 00:23:50 ] Yeah, it's, anyway, I think that you know just I think on the subject of shower heads and showers and things like that, I think it's a complete, it's seen completely differently over here compared to upbringing in the States. Yeah, what is it? What is that? I think it's just more that it's a. But it doesn't function. For you, because you've got your biases towards what you've, what you know. If you didn't know and you did, this would be the norm. And I think that's the point, is that you're, again, things that you've had to get used to. Because we found, we found what we've got more than, we found what we've got more here than what we know of back in the States.
MEREDITH
[ 00:24:34 ] Oh yeah, like this is the norm. This is the hardware that they use to shower.
Mark
[ 00:24:37 ] To that point, if I go, or I'm going back home to the UK next week for a short period to see my mum, and I know that when I get home, I know what the bathroom looks like. The bathroom's very nice, but the shower is it is so little.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:24:53 ] It's kind of small.
Mark
[ 00:24:55 ] So I'm not looking forward to that. But, you know, it's just what it is. At least you admit. Yeah. And again, I think that that's the difference between, you know, one side of the pond to the other. Yeah. Exactly. That's my take on it anyway, and that's my experience. It may be different for other people.
MEREDITH
[ 00:25:10 ] Thank you for calling out my biases. I get it. But it is experience. It's like, yeah. Anyway, the shower situation. I have gotten used to it. I hope that in Tavira it will be a little bit better. Yeah. We'll see.
Mark
[ 00:25:23 ] I just thought of one other thing. You know, in the States, you've got your sink, and you've got your tap, and you have that, the pull-out. Retractable. Yes. I miss that. We don't have that in either of the apartments that you've had, and we haven't got that in the next one that we're going to. It's just not a thing. But even my short period of living in the States for seven, eight, five years. You got used to that. I got really used to it. I thought it was really cool. It's like, whoa, get around the corners. And it was really good. And here, it's just like, okay, now I've got to fill a cup or a glass to get it around the corners and just like, swill it out. Yeah. So, there are things like that. Functionality.
MEREDITH
[ 00:26:01 ] Yeah. There's a lack of hardware functionality. There is. There's a lack of functionality. Functionality.
Mark
[ 00:26:06 ] It is what it is. It is what it is. We've gotten used to it. Yeah.
MEREDITH
[ 00:26:09 ] I think the other big thing for us that we have really gotten used to, and this has been less painful than I thought, is not only having less space, but just having less stuff. Yeah. Like, buying less stuff. I just, I don't know. I feel like I was a little bit gullible. And when we moved over here, we just stopped that and, number one, it's because we're trying to prioritize experiences over stuff as a whole. It's a blank slate when we moved over here.
Mark
[ 00:26:51 ] It wasn't intentional.
MEREDITH
[ 00:26:51 ] Yeah, it was intentional. But I also think that I definitely think twice about what I buy because I know that we're a little nomadic right now. And, if we're gonna move something. Where I have to move all that stuff right, and so I just am more conscious about buying and what space we have, and anything like that. It's a very intentional purchase in most cases now.
Mark
[ 00:27:17 ] Absolutely, I do, and I'm going to challenge anybody that's listening, watching, whatever-how many coffee cups you have? Okay, I don't know how many we got up to, but back back in the States it was definitely double figures, easily double figures, easily yeah, maybe 20. Probably more than that. Here we've got this one which is the one he's drinking out of for those listening, and we've got a pack of four coffee cups that are here, part of the department, and then one other cup, that's it, coffee cup, yeah, coffee cup, okay, um, and that's it, and that's it, but that's still too many, yeah, but I think that's quite telling. As well, because when you talk about stuff, coffee cups, knives, and forks-those sorts of things are the sorts of things that just accumulate, yeah, over a period of time, yeah, um, you know.
MEREDITH
[ 00:28:25 ] We don't have any Stanley cups, but think about how many travel mugs we had at home when we were moving, yes, I am, I am very much um leaning into this whole sustainability thing that I'm seeing in Portugal, in particular, where they're and it's more it's more focused on like, I think clothing, right there, um, there are fast fashion stores around here, right similar to a Target or a Walmart or something like that, clothing-wise, not like a big box store, but um. There's a lot more emphasis here on donating and second-hand stores, like you can walk up almost any street in Porto and pass by a second-hand store or a vintage shop, and that is part of Porto's culture. And I've just it's interesting to observe that from the lens of someone who literally came from literally ordering Amazon stuff almost every day-like, I hate to admit that, but I did. It's convenience, it's ease of getting it at your doorstep within like, I don't know, a day it's all of those things. And um, I don't know, I've just really been impressed with that whole sustainability thing, especially around fashion here, so it makes I've been trying to be more mindful because I've been on TikTok, I've been like, I don't know, I guess inundated with that or it's been part of the culture that I've been experiencing here and noticing of other people doing. And so it's just, I'm interested um and I know that there have been a lot of people in the United States talking about the same thing but I feel like here it's definitely part of the culture um and so anyway I think that's because I see it more often I'm because you're more open to it and going home these everybody seems to be shopping at the second-hand shop and you know I used to love doing that as a kid, yeah um and just got away from It as I got older, and so I don't know. I just find that really interesting, but it is. It is. They're tied together, right? It's the space we have-less space, so we have less storage, so we choose to have less stuff, and it is freeing, yeah. Like, it really is freeing because you're just able to be as nomadic as you want to be, yeah.
Mark
[ 00:30:51 ] And to the point of, you know, how much stuff we actually have? We're obviously we're moving very soon, and we had the conversation about how long do we take us to pack up the stuff and put it in the van, and honestly, easily within a day-easily, easily within a day, even if we didn't do any prep, yeah. Which we're going. To be honest, but even if we didn't do any prep, yeah, it's mostly our clothes, I think. That's one of the things that I've definitely gotten used to, yeah, um, for sure, it's been quite liberating, yeah, yeah, definitely.
MEREDITH
[ 00:31:27 ] Mm-hmm, there are I would say the last thing, um, that we have had to get used to or some food items, so we have quite a transition. I think that when we moved here, it's exciting when you move here and you go and try different foods of a different culture, and then they're, and most of the time that's that's how we travel, I mean we travel to eat our way through places and get to know the culture that way, and that's how it was at the beginning. Here, but then you have to kind of transition into like the rest of the world, real life, like you know, you're cooking at home, and what does that look like? And I think here we had a little bit of trouble at the beginning of um, trying to take like our comfort foods and things and recipes that we were used to which were never really complicated or anything but morph them into thinking that you could cook right go to the store get those same pretty much those same items or an equivalent and make something that was familiar to us right and I think that took me a little while as the cook in the family, really get my arms around that um, and I say that because even though you can, I'll give you an example. You can go and get ground meat right? You can go and get ground beef, ground pork. We found ground turkey sometimes. You can find ground chicken. Sure, we literally used to eat ground turkey constantly. We would rarely eat beef. Um, here i you know, we got here, got a grocery shop, and I'm like, 'I'm gonna make our spaghetti or something right, like our our typical pasta meal or something and it's just different so, ground turkey here, it just doesn't taste like what you find in the United States because there are rules against whatever crap is that is in stuff in the United States. Right, um, we can do a whole podcast about that, but because it doesn't taste the same, you just have this like that didn't it was okay and so there was a time where that felt like a big deal because you couldn’t find comfort in those things that I thought we would be able to right um more easily now I feel like we’ve kind of turned a corner in terms of a lot of things with the food choices that we make, um, I think we eat less meat definitely in general not because we don’t like it, it’s just kind of gotten... I don’t know, I eat more seafood and I eat less meat, I eat more tofu here than I ever have, yeah I mean we like tofu at home but we’re discovering New ways of preparing it's just different, um, but I find that it's not as big of a deal, and I think in the theme of what we're talking about, like yes there are some food items here that, um, you think are going to be very good similar to what you could access at home, and it's not, and then you just have to adapt and figure out like well okay, well what are the things that I do like here? Um, we had that with really famous foods here, some of the sausages here everybody raves about, and Mark was like, 'You know, and he's English, you guys he loves some sausage, but there were still these moments where it's like, 'I'm supposed to like this, yeah'
Mark
[ 00:34:57 ] and I, I, I know. I don't know about that, but um, but we're doing that um, and I'm just don't right. Although recently I did find the two sausages that were really really tasty, and I was in that peak of power, yeah, anyway, yeah.
MEREDITH
[ 00:35:07 ] So again um, I think certain foods we've adapted to or food choices that we've adapted to it's almost like our diets have changed not because we don't like the food but just because of what's here and what we've learned that we like, and you know to that point, mayor's test kitchen, yeah.
Mark
[ 00:35:25 ] I think, but I think that point of being down in Tavira that's going to be so much more um fish and seafood based because it is right on the water, yeah i mean i can't wait so let me see seafood yeah so i think that's gonna you know be another uh another change and because we've got an outdoor space where we can probably put a barbecue i think we're gonna be able to barbecue um that means grill to you americans like a grill well yeah barbecue we don't we don't really barbecue is either a food item like barbecue or maybe you're up in the north talking about a barbecue shrimp on the bobby that was terrible that was awful anyway i think that's our apologies to anybody from australia that's listening i think that's our cute wrap it up wrap it up all right so we'll see you guys next
MEREDITH
[ 00:36:19 ] Week, we're gonna come back so we have two more weeks um this this episode and then two more weeks before we are so you will see a Porto theme for the next couple of months I think um because we want to pay tribute a little bit and talk about what we've learned while we've been here it's been fantastic yeah but again new chapter, new chapter ready to turn the page absolutely it's exciting. Okay, see you guys later, talk to you next week. Thanks for listening.
Mark
[ 00:36:48 ] Take care.
MEREDITH
[ 00:36:48 ] Listen up, future expats, for more content about our move, the visa process, Portuguese culture and destinations, and of support resources for your own decisions and potential. Move abroad, follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Portugal Junkies.
Mark
[ 00:37:06 ] Stay in touch and help us reach more people by subscribing here and following us there.
MEREDITH
[ 00:37:12 ] Cheers, y'all!