The rhythm of the days

7

The rhythm of the days here is a new experience for us. As we've mentioned already, restaurants serve dinner later than we're used to and we're staying up way past our former St. Louis bedtimes. 

So let's take a step back and look at the bigger picture. There are a couple of interesting things we've noticed that speak to the culture of Portugal. 

First, the days of the week. Like the U.S. and most European countries, the week starts on Sunday, which here is called Domingo (same as Spanish). The week ends on Saturday, called Sábado here (also the same as Spanish). It's the days in between that are fascinating. In Portugal, they are: 

• segunda-feira

• terça-feira

• quarta-feira

• quinta-feira

• sexta-feira

This literally translates to:

• second-day

• third-day

• fourth-day

• fifth-day

• sixth-day

No reason to name those pesky non-weekend days 😄. Also interesting: the weekdays are feminine while the weekend days are masculine. I don't know the history of why Portugal is out of step with most of the rest of the Western world on this but I love it!

Also, how many times have you heard in the U.S. that "breakfast is the most important meal of the day"? In Portugal, breakfast is called pequeno-almoço, which translates literally to "small-lunch" - it doesn’t even get its own word! Guess which meal gets more emphasis here 😄. 

These two nomenclature features shed some light on how society functions. We live on the edge of a busy street. Our apartment overlooks an outdoor seating area of an upscale restaurant. It starts serving dinner at 19h30 and is open until midnight every night except Sunday, when it closes at 23. One night (morning?) I was walking Josie at 01h00 and the streets were not empty (it was the night I retrieved our luggage; I got home around midnight and wasn't even a little bit tired). When I go out with her around 07h00, by contrast, it can be dead, especially on weekends. And the few people who are out then are moving with a different energy - more of a "shuffle off to work" vibe - than the late-night crowd.

People have asked us if the siesta is a thing here. My sense is that it's a fading tradition - in Lisbon, at least. Most retail establishments in our area - grocery stores, clothing boutiques, farmácias, and the like - do not close during the day. One-person shops, though, will. Our local hardware store, for example, shuts down from 13h - 15h each afternoon (I have forgotten this more than once - fortunately, it's literally just around the corner). So does our vet. Which makes sense on one hand as people need to eat lunch. A two-hour lunch every day? That's not something we're used to the U.S. And when I was working in a high school, I'd usually be done with lunch by Noon-ish. 

I have read that in smaller towns there's a much greater tendency for everything to close mid-day. It's not something we've seen yet, but we'll keep our eyes open for it as we explore the country. 

While we're adjusting our sleep schedule some, our eating schedule is slower to adapt. A few days ago around 17h we were talking about what to do for dinner. Getting food out involved waiting for at least two hours, which wasn't going to work for us. So we ate what we had at home. If we're really going to dive into the dining scene full-bore, we're going to need to make some changes. 

That’s all for now. Let us know what you think about the new look/format and tell us if there’s anything you’d like us to write about in the future.

Love from Lisbon!

Scott & Amy