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We needed to make a day-trip to Costco in Seville, so we decided to take a culinary detour on the drive back to Portugal. The small Spanish village of Jabugo is about an hour drive to the west of Seville and is known for its signature ham, Jamón Ibérico. The company Cinco Jotas has been making Jamón Ibérico in Jabugo since 1879, and its products are generally considered the best in the world. We arrived in Jabugo in time for a brief lunch at the nearby Restaurante Las Bellotas. Then we took a very informative one-hour tour of the Cinco Jotas facility, learning about the company and the process by which Jamón Ibérico is made. We learned that each ham is graded (via a color code), based primarily on the breed of pig which was used and the process by which it was aged and cured. Every Jamón Ibérico leg carries a color-coded bar code tag which, with an available app, will tell its grade and the history of its processing. Even in restaurants, if the colored tag is not attached, the grade and quality of the Jamón Ibérico cannot be known. As we neared the end of the tour, we came across this "traveling locker." It looked to us like luggage one might bring on a 1920s ocean liner. But it was outfitted to carry a Jamón Ibérico, with all of the equipment needed to store, carve, and serve its precious cargo. We learned that Cinco Jotas does offer a full-day course to teach buyers how to carve their Jamónes. Perhaps this locker was offered for sale to those to attend the course. After the tour, we had a tasting of three different cuts from a black-label Cinco Jotas Jamón Ibérico which had been aged for three years, along with a glass of dry white sherry. It was so fantastic, we dove right in and forgot to take pictures of our repast. But we were able to take some Jamón and sherry home with us, so we could enjoy it all again at another time. It was a fabulous tour that we really enjoyed and a lovely day trip to Spain!
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Our dog-walking friend, Janice -- who originally came from San Diego -- hosted a Cinco de Mayo party. As you may know, Cinco de Mayo commemorates a Mexican battle victory over the French in 1862, but in reality, it's really an excuse for Americans (and their friends) to eat Mexican food and drink margaritas...which is exactly what we did on a nice spring afternoon in Tavira. Janice created a very nice fish taco bar, and friends chipped in with side dishes and drinks. We brought Mexican shredded beef (for tacos and burritos) and homemade margaritas with lots of fresh lemon and lime juice. Unlike in the US, "margarita mix" is not a thing here, so all margaritas have to be mixed from scratch. We had a wonderful time at the party, then all went home for a late afternoon siesta.
On April 30th and May 1st, many Portuguese in the Eastern Algarve put out handmade, close-to-life-size dolls -- made of old clothes and straw or rags -- on doorsteps, windowsills, or in public places throughout villages and towns. They are sometimes accompanied by signs with written poems or sayings. The tradition of the "Maios" (men) and "Maias" (women) dates back centuries and has roots in pagan rituals celebrating the renewal of life and the beginning of spring. Over time, it became entwined with Christian festivities, particularly May Day celebrations.
Portuguese independence from its 48-year dictatorship ended on April 25, 1974 with the bloodless turnover of power termed the "Carnation Revolution." Throughout Portugal, the 50th anniversary of the revolution was marked by festivals and celebrations. The small Algarve hill town of Alte held a festival which included both bike and trail running races. Mark, who had been jogging with friends for the past couple of months, decided with them to participate in the 14K trail run, his first foot race in almost 40 years. The course conditions were tougher than we had expected. Both uphill and downhill grades were at times quite steep, and the trails were not just dirt and gravel. Softball and basketball-sized boulders were common. Sections were so steep and dangerous that participants had to walk, rather than run. We all finished the race, most with some scrapes and bruises. It could have been worse. One participant broke his arm, and the paramedics had to rescue him. This was probably Mark's first and last trail run! We had a meeting with the builder of our under-construction apartment to discuss its status so we could begin making our plans. We found out that because of a new law which came into effect in Portugal this year, habitation licenses are no longer required in order to begin "transferring of deeds" (i.e., sales), and our builder expects transfers to begin in mid-June. This new law will make it imperative for us to create a "pre-close punch list," items which must be completed before we will be willing to complete the purchase. The good news is that our builder is not pressing buyers to close by a certain date, due primarily to their being behind schedule. Once we are reasonably confident of an expected closing date on the new apartment, we will then put our existing apartment on the market. All in all, we hope to be in the new apartment by around the end of this summer. This is the latest video of our new apartment complex. Our kitchen is shown at 1:06-1:10.
Our dealings with the bureaucracy of the Portuguese immigration system are completed for another three years. In the last year, Portugal has taken to opening up renewals on a quarterly basis. So if your residency card expires in a given calendar quarter, a set of instructions will be issued sometime in those three months on how to renew. Unfortunately, the rules can also change with little notice, which is exactly what happened to both of us. Mark's residency expired in Q4 2023. In late October, it was emphatically announced that all renewals would be done in face-to-face appointments. After scrambling for several days to secure an appointment via an online booking system, Mark was able to get an appointment for late November in the Algarve. Lots of paperwork was gathered in anticipation of the appointment. Then in early November, an announcement was made on the website of a no-longer-existent government agency: online residency renewals (which required no meeting and no paperwork) were now open. Should we believe this announcement or not? Eventually, we saw enough comments from people on Facebook that we decided to believe online renewal was indeed possible, so that's the route we took. We registered for renewal, paid the fee, and cancelled the meeting appointment. On January 19, Mark received his new residency card, good for three more years.
Debra's residency expired in Q1 2024. In January, it was announced once again that all renewals would be done in face-to-face appointments. This time, however, appointments were extremely difficult to get anywhere in the country. A friend of ours was able to secure an appointment in January, but she had to go all the way to Porto, about 350 miles away. We tried every few days, but never were able to get an appointment. We had a feeling that online renewals were once again going to be offered soon. Sure enough, in early March, we read on an obscure Facebook group that online renewals were again open on the same website of the no-longer-existent government agency. We registered Debra for renewal and paid the fee. We received her new residency card four weeks later on April 5th, and it's good for another three years. And what happened to our friends who went to face-to-face meetings in January and submitted lots of paperwork? They are still waiting for their cards over three months later! After much cajoling by our friends, we held our second Chinese New Year celebration, this time in our new (to us as of 2023) apartment. We hosted many people from last year with a few new additions. We lucked out with the weather which didn't rain, allowing us to use (at least for a while) our outside terrace. Like last year, one of the guests is a professional photographer, so we just let her do her thing, and she shot some wonderful photos. We all had a great time, even Ryder who for a time was put into a bedroom timeout for "excessive drooling." As you may recall, the builder of our apartment which is under construction posts regular video progress reports every 4-6 weeks. In the video posted in February, there are many seconds of video showing our unit. In the video below, our unit begins to be shown at about the 43 second mark and continues on until about 1:04. Our takeaways from this are: (1) the windows/sliding glass doors are installed; (2) the flooring is installed, and (3) the bathroom and kitchen tiling appears to be complete. We had noticed that the outside progress on the building (at least what you can see from the street) seemed to have slowed down, but it appears that the inside progress is moving along nicely. You'll see in video that the rooftop pools are mostly complete. Our ground floor unit has a pool, but it will be completed near the end of construction as it will be located where the crane currently is.
The building's official completion schedule is still for April, but that's seems highly unlikely. More possible is a summertime completion with a late summer/early fall move-in, depending upon when an occupancy permit can be obtained. Those can take up to 3 months. For Debra's birthday, we decided to visit the Spanish capital for a few days, since we'd never had a chance to spend time there in the past. Our journey consisted of a car drive to Seville and then a high-speed train ride (up to 160 mph) from there to Madrid. All in all, it took about four hours. We knew Madrid was not like Paris or London, with dozens of sites that could take a week or more to see. We focused our time on visiting the Prado Museum and the Spanish Royal Palace, neither of which allow almost any indoor photography. The Prado Museum is the main Spanish national art museum, and it houses one of the finest collections of European art in the world, including famous works by Spanish artists like Goya and Velázquez. The Spanish Royal Palace is the official residence of the Spanish royal family. It is Western Europe's largest royal palace, nearly double the size of Buckingham Palace in London or the Palace of Versailles in Paris. Three Kings DayAnd though we didn't know it at the time we booked, we were arriving near Three Kings Day, which is one of the most celebrated "Christmas" days in Spain. On this day, the Spanish celebrate the arrival of the Three Kings who come bearing gifts for the Baby Jesus. For this reason, Three Kings Day is the day when Spanish children open their Christmas presents. It is also a day of Christmas parades, with the biggest being in Madrid and Barcelona. DiverXOWe ate at several very nice restaurants in Madrid. Not surprisingly, the city offers a wide variety of cuisines, and we sampled dim sum, Mexican, and Asian/Latin fusion. But the highlight of the trip was our meal at DiverXO. DiverXO with its chef Dabiz Muñoz is one of the most celebrated restaurants in the world. It maintains three Michelin stars and is currently ranked as the #3 restaurant in the world, while Muñoz has been ranked as the best chef in the world for the past three years running. We will go into the meal in detail (so please excuse us!), but it was quite a unique experience. As you enter the restaurant, you immediately see a recurring theme of "pigs flying." This apparently refers to a statement attributed to the chef's father, who early in his career said his son would accomplish such lofty culinary achievements "when pigs fly." When we were seated, we found that all of the tables were separated (from each other and from the servers' areas) by sheer curtains. And each table had its own waving pig. At the sommelier's suggestion, we ordered a nice Spanish white wine from the Ribera del Duero wine region. As this river flows into Portugal, it is called the Douro River, an area where some of the finest Portuguese wines and ports are made. As the courses began, we received small written descriptions with each dish. (NOTE: click on the pictures for larger views) When we were served the fifth course, we received something new. The restaurant had decided to create an illustration that would give an idea of how Chef Muñoz had conceived of the dish and its ingredients. They did not have these illustrations for all courses yet, but they wanted to give us what they had completed. In truth, the illustrations were very helpful in understanding the dishes and their ingredients. They also gave us an inkling of the artistic and culinary creativity that is needed to be a chef at this level. (REMINDER: click on the pictures for larger views) The next dish was a little challenging. Elvers -- also known as glass eels -- are young Atlantic eels that are harvested when they are still small and transparent. Elvers are a delicacy in Spain, and due to their scarcity, their price has risen to over $2,000 per pound. For this dish, the elvers were cooked and put atop a crispy oxtail ravioli, which was then placed on top of a bull's horn which was filled with a Chinese hot-and-sour soup. We were told that after eating the elvers/ravioli to drink the soup directly from the bull's horn. At the end of the savory courses (12 of them), we took a little break and wandered around the entrance of the restaurant, before returning for the dessert courses. Our meal at DiverXO was an amazing experience. We aren't sure if it was our best meal ever, but it certainly was our most creative and interesting. There aren't many restaurants like this in the entire world, and we were pleased to celebrate Debra's birthday here! We truly enjoyed Madrid and look forward to returning one day.
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Debra & MarkUS Citizens, we have escaped to Southern Portugal to live the European lifestyle Categories |
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