Xynthia came storming through Europe and made a huge mess of Central Portugal before wreaking havoc in France.   We lost electricity early Friday morning and were plunged into life without power for five challenging days.  While Papersurfer Jr anxiously waited to skateboard on the X-Box I fretted about our food-filled freezer. After two days of jigsaw puzzles, Lego and Scrabble the novelty wore off and we spent the next few days stacking firewood in the barn, clearing trees from our track and alternately cursing EDP (Energias de Portugal).

By the grace of the hockey gods, generous friends let us borrow their generator just in time for the final Canada-US game. It was 7:40 into overtime and we sat on the edge of our seats, fingers crossed that the generator wouldn’t run out of petrol. When Sidney Crosby scored one of the biggest goals in Canadian hockey history I thought I would burst with pride. Gold medal celebrations kept powerless spirits up in Cabril while I packed my suitcase by candlelight.

EDP finally showed up a few days later and our power was restored but telephone and internet remained out of reach. I reluctantly left Portugal and a mere 23 hours later I arrived in Calgary, the land of ice and snow. This city keeps growing and new buildings appear every time I visit but it’s still the same urban sophistication and warm western hospitality that I remember from my childhood.

True Patriot Love by Brendan Lynch

But something has happened here in my home and native land. The air may be frosty but the hearts of Canadians are glowing. The 2010 Winter Olympics changed something. No longer shy or reluctant about feeling patriotic, I finally see the Canadian flag waving with incredible pride.  As a nation I think we have always been proud to be Canadian, but somehow it’s more than that. It’s louder without being obnoxious. It’s more visible without being in-your-face.

I may no longer call this country my home but I will always carry its true patriot love.*

After all … I. am. CANADIAN.

* For the record, I am totally okay with the rest of the lyrics and have never been offended or felt excluded by all thy sons command.  I suspect Parliament probably has more pressing issues than exploring gender-neutral wording …

.

PS: Thank you and merci to Daddy P, Penfold, Emma, Web-Betty, and daisyfae for their comments on Papersurfer: Now in Print! And a special thanks to everyone who bought a copy of Penfold’s book!

PPS: And obrigada to Esta, who reads this blog faithfully even though he never leaves a comment …

Papersurfer: Diary of a middle aged surfer – age 38 and a half is written and illustrated entirely by Penfold. If you’ve ever spent an afternoon with this surfer stuck in the moutains of Portugal you’ll know he’s really very funny. I think the book captures his sense of humour brilliantly.

Some surfers are real men. They put their lives on the line every day in search of the ultimate wave. Jaws, Mavericks, Teahupoo – these are the waves that take names. Heaving tons of water pushed by storm and moon to create a thundering wall that only the true hero can ride.

You are not this man.

A portion of proceeds from the book will be going to Sri Lanka with Paddle4relief to help forgotten victims of the 2004 Tsunami. We met Tim Tanton, founder of P4R, on our trip to A-Bay in 2008, and continue to be amazed by his creative dedication and motivation to help.

If you want to help Tim make a difference in Sri Lanka and if you want to make Penfold’s day (and yours), please buy the book. If you really want to make everyone’s day, read the book and review it on your blog. It’s available here in print or electronic copy from Lulu.com.

Thanks for your support and happy reading!

.

PS: Muito obrigada to daisyfae, Daddy P, SCWInk, Stinkypaw, KPX, and surftwin for their comments on Tango Bravo’s Day Off. And special thanks to everyone who voted for AtomicdogmA.com on bab.la’s Top 100 International Exchange and Experience Blogs 2010. I limped in at a respectable rank of 47 …

O fadista by Punk Jazz on Flickr

Eating our tostas mistas and sipping wine in the afternoon, we drank in the sights and sounds of my favourite café in the city. Not a coffee bar where people line up for ages to order non-fat skinny foamless mochaccinos in paper cups and breakfast sandwiches à la McMuffin. This place is so much more than that. It’s a place where students philosophize, where waiters wear red vests and walk carefully to avoid china crashing onto the marble floor, where men earnestly wear chunky-framed glasses and black turtlenecks, a place where they sing Fado in the February evening. Café Santa Cruz is a slow trip back in time, a glimpse into the historical Portugal I adore.

Obrigadinha Penfold, for a perfect day.

.

PS: And muito obrigada to Alice, Daddy P, daisyfae, Stinkypaw, Penfold and surftwin for their comments on Penfold & Tango: Um Ano em Cabril.

When Penfold asked me to live with him in the hills of Central Portugal and I agreed, most everyone I knew thought I was crazy. And most everyone was worried and concerned but quietly excited for what a ridiculous adventure this could be.

So far the adventure has been amazing in wonderful and unexpected ways. At the risk of being smooshy, we decided to put together a collection of photographs to remember our first year in Cabril.

Um Ano em Cabril

It’s called Um Ano em Cabril (A Year in Cabril) and it’s available as a series of blank cards at tangoNovemberbravo.com. Let us know what you think!

I do hope djbeat will be happy to see a smattering of beige …

.

PS: Muito obrigada to Daddy P and daisyfae for their votes and comments on Vote for Tango.

We’ve been looking for the top 100 blogs that presents us with the joys, difficulties and adventures of living abroad. What it is like to spend a year, a semester or any time at all studying or working in a foreign country? What are the pros and cons? Is it worth trying?

Well if you’ve been following this blog at all, you’ll know that living abroad comes with completely random joys, difficulties and adventures. Some are worth writing about, some are not (some day I’ll know which is which).

Is it worth trying? Hell, yes!

Voting for IX10 goes from Feb 1st to Feb 14th and you can cast your vote here.  Judging from the tally results so far, I need as many votes as I can get!

Vote for Pedro Tango.

.

PS: Muito obrigada to Daddy P, daisyfae, Priscilla and Penfold for their comments on 1 Hour of Play.

Put aside his important philosophical dialogues, his studies of logic, mathematics and rhetoric. Never mind his intense musings with teacher Socrates or his stern lectures to student Aristotle. Plato knew something far more valuable.  He supplied us with a basic truth about humankind.

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”

But somewhere over the centuries we got confused. We began to analyze our illogical behaviours, our irrational desires for chick flicks and chocolate. We went to great lengths to find good research, sometimes going as far as Mars or Venus. We developed complicated online surveys to quantify and locate our perfect soulmates. We invented speed dating, blind dating, pub dating and lunch dating. Essentially we took all the fun out of what should be the most spontaneous wonder; we made finding human connection the ultimate goal.

uma hora do jogo ~ one hour of play

This week’s chick<8000clicks>chick is all about capturing that one hour of play. I’m grooving to the tunes of DJ Penfold in Disco@Cabril on the left while djbeat is in Vancouver listening to sweet tones of ‘The Big Hungry Bear’ on the right.

Plato knew that play dates aren’t just for kids.

.

PS: Obrigadinha to Daddy P, djbeat, 70steen, daisyfae, Penfold, Sue, St Jude, KPX, Emma and Priscilla for their comments on It’s Not Quite a Jaguar.

Then I moved to Portugal. Sem rodas. And I’ve been without my own form of transportation ever since. I’ve learned to live without the convenience of my own wheels, to rely on others for rides, to experience immobilization and to genuinely appreciate the freedom I no longer had.

Citroën Love

After months of research I learned about the outrageously slow rate of depreciation and unfairly sky-high import duty for automobiles in Portugal. I made spreadsheets and charts and finally, after excruciating analysis and indecision, I did it. Earlier this week I brought home my new (to me) car. It is tiny, unglamorous, overpriced and even a little bit ugly.

I’ve never loved a car quite so much.

.

PS: Muito obrigada to Penfold, daisyfae, Alice, Jen, djbeat, and KPX for their comments on Blue Monday 2010.

where W = weather, d = debt, T = time since Christmas, Q = time since failing our new year’s resolutions, M = low motivational levels and N_a = the feeling of a need to take action (D is not defined).

Factors contributing to segunda-feira azul in Cabril are as follows:

• my fingers are like bratwurst sausages from rheumatoid arthritis brought on by too much knitting (once considered impossible since I have not progressed beyond the maturity of a 20-year-old);
• we still have no telephone line after three weeks;
• the sky is still grey;
• the ground is still mucky; and
• Penfold’s sinus cavities are still mucky.

But enough is enough! We are breaking our state of hibernation!

Penfold has just begun to tackle the barn roof, making way for a rush of productivity and progress. It’s time to get back to work, to achieve a few goals, to finally get this year started!

Goodbye gloomy days of winter, this may be Blue Monday but I see nothing but blue skies ahead …

.

PS: Obrigada to DaddyP, daisyfae, Sue, Stinkypaw, St Jude, surftwin, Penfold and KPX for their comments on Hibernation.

Yesterday morning it snowed (I use the term “snow” lightly) and by afternoon the blowing sleet was horizontal. For the second time this year we’ve lost our telephone and ADSL connection. As Dancing on Ice disappoints and our satellite signal wavers there is only one thing left to do.

Hibernate until spring.

hibernação ~ hibernation

This week’s theme for chick<8000clicks>chick couldn’t be more appropriate. Penfold just put another log on the fire and we’re making our way through Christmas presents on the left while djbeat is nursing her Vancouver hibernation hangover on the right.

.

PS: Muito obrigada to Alice, Sue, daisyfae, surftwin, Stinkypaw, Shannon, Emma and Somnambulist for their warm and encouraging comments on Marmite Socks.

The sky is grey and the ground is sopping wet. The Christmas decorations have come down and the holiday festivities have come to a screeching halt.  A momentous decade ended and we slipped into 2010 with a small but slushy thud.

This is winter in Central Portugal and even though I know that the season is mercifully short here, the cold and wet blanket that has covered Cabril makes it difficult to get motivated. But sales are growing (woohoo!) and so I continue to knit. And knit.

And knit.

A post-Christmas custom order rush is keeping me unusually busy and I’m grateful for each and every beige, chestnut, grey and taupe order. But I needed some colour, some vibrancy, a break from winter’s earthy tones and the grey skies.

So I made these.

People will either love them or hate them. Kind of like Marmite.

.

PS: Obrigada to daisyfae, Stinkypaw, DaddyP, surf-starved Penfold, and KPX for their comments on Ano Novo!