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Road Trip Europe II 23/11/06-23/11/10 — My First Portuguese Family and ANOTHER Phone Disaster

Prior post: http://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2023/11/17/road-trip-europe-ii-23-11-05-23-11-06-i-lose-my-phone/

It’s Monday evening when I arrive in Maia, Portugal, a suburb of Porto, to visit with Servas host Rita Gama and family. There’s no free parking on her block, so I find a spot on the street she recommended and hoof it about half a mile, under load. I’m warmly welcomed into the big apartment.

The family consists of Rita, a lively, “take on any challenge” Portuguese woman whose family is based in Lamego, to the east, for generations; her Slovak husband Martin who works in accounting support for a large German company; her cousin Angelo who boards with them and works in cybersecurity for a different firm; and an old cocker spaniel whose main joys in life are getting petted and providing face care with doggy tongue.

It doesn’t take long to establish rapport. The only language the four of us have in common is English, so my attempts to use Portuguese quickly fade into irrelevance. As Rita says, she and Angelo often “forget” they’re Portuguese and converse in English. Everyone is blisteringly sarcastic, so I fit right in. They’re all sharply intelligent so the conversation is wide ranging and constant whenever we sit around the table. Laughter is loud and frequent.

This first evening, Rita’s parents come over for dinner. Her father works in AI and we talk about that for quite a while. He opens a bottle of wine and I jokingly remark that I assumed the standard drink in Porto would be port wine. He informs me that because of its sweetness and strength, 19% alcohol vs wine’s 12½%, it’s only imbibed on special occasions.

Rita asks me to peel some fruit for dinner and I recognize it as quince. Raw, it’s like a hard, tasteless apple, but cooked it develops an excellent flavor. In the US it’s rarely commercialized but in Latin countries it’s quite common. I know it by its Spanish name, membrillo, but in Portuguese it’s called marmelo. Thus, Portuguese quince preserves are the origin of our word “marmalade”.

Of special note about Rita’s building is the elevator. It’s an extraordinarily economic design — 3 sided. Yes, there’s no inside door. As it moves you’re staring at the elevator shaft wall. Definitely want to keep fingers, hair, and anything else away from it. Invisible, but still shocking, is that the elevator is simply suspended from a moving cable. No guide rails, no brakes. Just passengers in a 3-sided box suspended over certain death. Children have to be sternly warned to stand quietly in the car to minimize the chance of disaster. And if there’s a child’s birthday party in the building — take care, use the stair!!

Imagine this in the US.

Tuesday morning, Angelo walks me to the tram stop to help me get a fare card. When I ask how old the buildings are, he tells me they’re all quite recent. Only 30 years ago, the area was mostly farms. Looking around at the many residential apartment buildings, I would never have guessed that.

I take the tram into Porto with a walking itinerary supplied by Rita. Portugal’s second largest city is a very busy place. Even in November, the streets are quite full of tourists. Everything is under construction, including a new subway line. I spend several minutes watching a semi-truck trying to maneuver itself into a tiny loading ramp from a one lane road with traffic backed up for blocks. The stalled drivers are very patient. A few blocks away I see an enormous dump truck ascending to street level, in the lowest possible gear, an incredibly steep and narrow ramp from the subway excavation. I would have trouble walking up that grade.

About 1:30 I decide to get lunch, so I step into the side street Cafe Belana, crowded with workers and tradespeople. At this time of day, it’s sit down, order, eat, pay, vacate your chair for the next customer. At the counter, I read the handwritten list of pratos del dia (lunch specials). Most of them sound rather pedestrian but one item says “_oela” in broth. I can’t translate it because I can’t decipher the capital, cursive, initial letter but for $7, what the hell.

Cafe Belana, Porto
Cafe Belana, Porto

My plate arrives promptly and I dig in to a bowl of small white pieces of animal with some beans and broth. It tastes fine but the texture is a little odd. Later in the evening, with Rita’s help, I conclude the word was probably “moela” — gizzard. Definitely a new culinary experience.

My walking tour is going well when disaster strikes. Unlocking my Android phone with the finger swipe pattern, which I do dozens of times every day, suddenly fails. I try over and over without success. I even try other patterns, thinking maybe I’ve had a brain lapse and am putting in the wrong one. Perhaps it’s connected to the fact I logged in to someone else’s phone a few days ago but the pattern from that phone doesn’t work, either. No, Google thinks the pattern has been changed, which is impossible to do accidentally. It’s brain damage. I’m confident I can use an alternate method of logging in with my Google account but I don’t see that option. Suddenly mapless and incommunicado, I decide to abort the excursion a couple of hours early. Recalling my walk to this point, I head back toward the tram stop where I arrived this morning. By asking directions a couple of times, I zero in on it pretty quickly.

Back in the apartment I research the issue. To my surprise, there is no alternative login as was the case some years ago. For incomprehensible reasons, if the phone won’t recognize biometrics, the only advice offered is a factory reset, This wipes out everything on the phone and is definitely not my desired approach. I have literally never seen any other security algorithm that doesn’t offer at least one means of recovery. Hours of further reading fail to find anything so, reluctantly, I go for the erasure. It’s not a disaster because all my phone data is backed up in my Google account. But — I encounter another idiotic problem. Android will not let me restart the phone, required for a factory reset, without entering the swipe pattern — the same one that it refuses to recognize! For a company reputed to hire only the smartest people, this trap is an epic fail on their part.

Luckily, from my laptop I can request a factory reset of my phone, which I do, but nothing happens. I may just have to let the battery run completely down to shut off the phone. Then, belatedly, I discover another solution to the problem. A Samsung utility offers the option to remotely reset the security on the phone. Perhaps I can avoid the full erasure, but while Google lets me order that, I can’t cancel it. More negligence. I can’t believe the security reset is this simple, but when I send the command, it works.

Unfortunately, as soon as it’s unlocked the phone begins erasing everything. Oh well, I have my backups. Now I start setting it up again from scratch. Soon, I’m asked if I want to restore the prior state of the phone. I say yes but what is the credential Google demands to decrypt my backup? The same damn non-functional swipe pattern! I am hopping mad, but still a hapless victim. I understand that the perverse effect of security is to make it harder to do the legitimate tasks, but it’s not supposed to be IMPOSSIBLE!

Fortunately, I am able to access my separate WhatsApp backup. Losing years worth of text messages with contacts around the world would be a serious blow. My Google data is all stored on their servers, so that’s ok. My T-Mobile texts and call history are gone but that’s fine because almost none of my communicating is through those, Google Voice, and WhatsApp anyway. The greatest loss is about six days of phone photos that weren’t yet uploaded. I also have to reinstall dozens of apps I use frequently and restore and re-verify their login credentials. It’s all a major pain in the ass, and so stupidly unnecessary. Google services have been an enormous aid to me over many years but this kind of neutralizes all that,

Wednesday morning, I make sourdough pancakes for everyone and I’m gratified to see them devoured by hearty eaters. There’s even maple syrup in the refrigerator. Rita’s friend, Sandy, is here but she doesn’t join us, spending every minute on her computer and phone. She’s a self-employed lawyer and being successful at it appears to be taking a toll. I never see her loosen up at all and get the feeling she’s stressed to the breaking point. It’s definitely upsetting to observe. The weather today is snotty, so I stay home to work and write. Angelo and Martin are in their rooms on their jobs and Rita is on the phone looking for her next employer. She has a lot of experience in customer service and translating and doesn’t anticipate any problems.

In the afternoon a new guest arrives. Dina, Rita’s close friend from Kazakhstan but who lives in Czechia, is here for an extended visit. She’s also fluent in English, so we can talk extensively. Dinner is at the typically Portuguese late hour and the rollicking jokes, teasing, and conversation don’t stop for hours more. This is my kind of crowd. The topics range widely and rapidly between the economy, wing nut voters, the Portuguese health care system, expatriates, Dina’s childhood sojourn in Ohio, her move to Czechia, Martin’s routine of informing executives in his company that they have to resubmit their travel reimbursements, and much more.

Martin, Rita, Dina, Angelo. I asked everyone to look intelligent for the picture. Sadly, this is the best they could do.
Martin, Rita, Dina, Angelo. I asked everyone to look intelligent for the picture. Sadly, this is the best they could do.

Even after the others finally retire, Dina and I continue to talk until 4 AM. She has a call to make at 8:30 so I agree to make sure she’s awake.

Dina’s unique signal of affirmation or approval.

I get a few hours sleep and when I get up I see Dina has beat me to it. The weather is still wet and unpleasant so I occupy myself at home again. Rita, Angelo, Sandy, and I go out for lunch as Martin continues to work. For the entire time I visit, he always wearing his preferred work from home outfit — his bathrobe. Sandy is again on her computer for a lot of the lunch. She relates that her worst case is a long, contested divorce that is a giant, low paid headache for her. She maintains a very glamorous appearance which I, perhaps unjustly, suspect is coerced as a requirement for female business success.

In the evening, Rita, Dina, I, and the dog take a half hour walk to a distant supermarket to get supplies. Although pets are ubiquitous in European stores and restaurants at this one a security lady runs up to us as we’re entering and informs Rita that only service animals are allowed and she needs to see the dog’s certification. Since face lickers aren’t considered official service dogs, it’s decided I’ll mind him in the mall’s hallway while the other two shop.

After another late night of discussion, I get ready to move on in the morning. I’m concerned about Dina. She’s facing some challenges and there’s little I can offer in the way of assistance. I do tell her that if she needs to get back to Brno, Czechia to handle a certain problem in person, I’ll delay my progress toward Morocco to give her a ride north. It turns out that’s not necessary so I wish her the best and drive off. My destination is only 140 miles south, Marinha Grande, a small town north of Lisbon. On the way out, I drive along the coast at the entrance to Porto’s harbor. Once again, the Atlantic surf is pounding furiously against the shore. It’s not a good day to forsake calm waters for the roiling ocean.

Next post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2023/11/20/road-trip-europe-ii-23-10-10-23-10-12-i-become-a-servas-guinea-pig/

Road Trip Europe II 23/11/03-23/11/05 — I Add Spain’s “Land’s End” to my collection of Alaska’s and South America’s versions

Prior post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2023/11/16/road-trip-europe-ii-23-11-02-23-11-03-i-go-underground/

On arrival at the Albergue San Pedro, I find it’s a small, modern hostel whose owner lives upstairs in a private home. It’s clean and pleasant but has no “atmosphere”. The only common area is the kitchen and there’s no lounge or comfortable seating. The dorm room is empty as I put down my stuff but one other bed is occupied by someone currently absent.

I set up the computer at the kitchen table and immediately discover this hostel’s unanticipated omission – the kitchen is sans stove. There’s no way to cook. I’m hungry, so I drive a few miles to the nearby beach town of Sardiñeiro de Abaixo. This is probably a hopping place in summer but it’s quiet and closed up now. I locate one bar that’s seems to be open although I have to go inside to be sure. The clientele is two locals drinking beers desultorily. It’s pretty shabby but I order food and get an adequate meal.

Back at the hostel, I meet my dormmate, a Chinese woman who’s walking the Camino de Santiago. We spend some time talking about our differing goals and experiences. She’s walking alone while her husband has stayed home in Hong Kong. At some point, I ask how he feels about her extended, solo trip. Her answer is a crisp, ”It doesn’t matter what he thinks.”

Breakfast is included here and the owner brings down a tray with each person’s meal for tomorrow morning. Late at night, while working away, there’s a tap at the window and I look up to see a bedraggled figure staring in at me. It’s been raining since afternoon and he’s quite wet. I open the door and he explains he’s a bicyclist looking for shelter. I ring the owner’s bell, she comes down, and with a little translating help from me, he says he cannot afford a room but can he sleep under her exterior roof? She strikes me as very businesslike so I’m somewhat surprised when she immediately says “Yes.”

There’s a long tradition on the Camino of offering assistance to pilgrims. There used to be many free hostels, or “donativos”, where walkers pay whatever they can afford for a bed and meal. There are still some of those, but most accommodations are now commercial and charge money although there are many beds available for only about $15. The tradition of assistance survives, though, and I guess I’m seeing an example of it. Although I have no right to do it, I tell the cyclist I’ll let him in to use the bathroom. He gratefully takes me up on the offer later tonight and once in the morning.

Eventually, I crawl into my bunk and get a good night’s sleep. In the morning, I eat my tray breakfast and leave. The major attraction in this area is Fisterra, literally Land’s End. This is a headland facing the open ocean, which prior to Columbus’ return from the West Indies was mare incognitum. I drive out there arriving amid a substantial off-season crowd. There are a couple of tour buses disgorging old people and a lot of walkers and drivers.

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Fisterra (Land's End), Galicia (not my photo)
Fisterra (Land’s End), Galicia (not my photo)

It’s an exposed point and the wind is blowing fiercely and continuously. There’s a lighthouse at the end, now converted to a restaurant and gift shop. The wind is strong enough to pose a danger of being blown off my feet by a particularly strong gust, so I’m bracing myself against it as I walk.

At one point I see someone’s windbreaker high in the air turbulently heading westward. It’s not hard to imagine 15th century inhabitants standing here and thinking they really were at the literal end of the world.

The surf is crashing furiously into the cape. It’s certainly one of the most violent seas I’ve ever seen.

I see a large flock of sparrows clustering defensively near a somewhat sheltered rock. They’re all staying close to the ground to avoid being blown out to sea.

Sparrows laying low in the wind

It’s with some relief I get back into the shelter of the car. There are a number of steep tracks, not gated off, on the cape so I explore some of those until I get to a point that looks too dicey to proceed, so I work my way back to the paved road.

Fisterra from above
Fisterra from above

An hour or so later I drive down a dead end beach road at Praia do Porto das Botes to take a short nap while the furious surf tries its best to erode away the rocky coast.

I’m in Galicia, Spain’s westernmost province. Like many others, it prides itself on having its own language, one of many areas in Spain that do so. It seems to be a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese (Portugal is immediately to the south). Spain appears to have the most decentralized government I’ve seen. Many areas harbor secessionist sentiments to various degrees — some Galicians would like to be part of Portugal — and where we have states, Spain is mostly comprised of “autonomous communities”. Political and legal power is unevenly distributed across various levels of government but federal power is definitely diluted. Even the Catalonian separatists who were pursued by the national government for daring to declare independence in 2017 have just been pardoned by the newly re-elected prime minister. This has led to large protests by right wing voters. There are still a lot of Franco-supporters, fascists, and neo-fascists in Spain, 50 years after the dictator’s death. More than most countries, the modern nation appears to still be an agglomeration of different cultures and languages.

Even as I drive, I don’t really know where I’m going so I book a night in another albergue further south toward Portugal where I’ll plot my next few days. This place is right in the town of Caldas de Reis (The King’s Hot Springs). The Iberian Peninsula was a major part of the Roman Empire, so there are many Roman relics and place names. This hostel is, again, clean, nice, and cheap but not particularly intriguing. The only common area, the kitchen is locked up at night. In the morning, I become aware of the unusually early checkout time of 10 AM. I finally get this when the owner is making up my bed before I’ve left the room, and I get a scolding “Tsk, tsk” when she realizes I haven’t read the fine print on the bedroom door.

I’ve decided to head for one of Portugal’s ten national and natural parks, so off I go.

Next post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2023/11/17/road-trip-europe-ii-23-11-05-23-11-06-i-lose-my-phone/

Sienna van getting new tires

Road Trip – 21/06/09 Sallying forth on new tires

Prior post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2021/06/17/road-trip-21-06-08-driving-through-flyover-country/

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As I wake up in a parking lot in South Bend, Indiana, it incongruously occurs to me that my father, had he been relatively immortal, would have been 108 years old yesterday. He loved travel at least as much as I do, although he was very constrained in the early years by finances and family, not that I wasn’t. Nonetheless, he and my mother went to enormous effort taking our family of 4 on long, low budget road trips every summer through the US and Canada. Never a restaurant or motel. Tent or trailer every night, 3 meals a day on the Coleman stove. I wish I’d comprehended their dedication more rather than taking it all for granted, unappreciative brat that I was. I did try to make it up to them later in life.

Dad & Mom circa 1977
Dad & Mom circa 1977

Some years ago, impressed by its selection, competitive prices, and prompt delivery, I ordered high quality snow tires mounted and balanced on rims from tirerack.com. My Toyota van takes “run flat” tires, designed with a stiff sidewall so that even after they go flat, you can still drive on them for about 50 miles or so at moderate speed. I don’t like the idea overall, because it means you’re totally depending on that run flat feature. And because it’s equipped with run flat tires, there’s no place under or outside the van to store a spare, even if you want one.

I got 26,000 miles out of the ones that came with the Sienna and they were already used. I’m definitely not going to Alaska on those, so it’s time for a new set. I shopped Tire Rack a month or so ago and saw they stock the appropriate size Bridgestone run flats. But, to my surprise, I found something I’d never heard of before: they had the regular tires, at the typical $200+ each price, and they also had what they called 2018 production tires — the same model for about half the price which, for run flats, is almost a giveaway. I did some research and found that tires expire after 10 years, You’re supposed to retire (get it?) ones that were produced in 2018 by 2028 no matter how much tread they may still have. That’s not an issue for me. I’m gonna use up these tires way sooner than 2028, maybe even this year. So I ordered a set of those. As I was checking out online, I noticed they had an option for pickup in person where they discount the $40 they don’t charge for shipping. Just for the fun of it, I looked up their distribution centers and one of them was in South Bend, Indiana, which is exactly along my path out west. Checking further, their South Bend location is the only one where they do installations. That decided me. By getting them in South Bend, I would basically have them installed for free, between the pickup discount and their modest installation charge.

So here I am in their parking lot. Online, tirerack.com could be any size company. You probably know, the old New Yorker cartoon captioned, “On the internet. Nobody knows you’re a dog.” in the sense that you can look a lot bigger than you really are based on having a good website and a good support. So I get here to Tire Rack in South Bend and to my surprise it’s an enormous complex.

Tire Rack customer building
Tire Rack customer building

There are several buildings on a green campus. There’s a cavernous shop and a retail store. I had no clue.

Tire Rack installation shop
Tire Rack installation shop
Sienna van getting new tires
Sienna van getting new tires

Eight AM rolls around, the doors open. I go into the store, and they have my appointment set up. Within 20 minutes they call me in, I drive into one of the bays and step into the waiting room. Less than an hour later, I have four brand new tires on the van and I’m ready to roll.

So off I go. Heading west on on US 20. I’m following my usual quirk of staying off toll roads as much as possible. I haven’t paid a toll yet on this trip. I’m not in a hurry so why does it matter? It’s interesting when I compare the toll vs non-toll routes on Google Maps, the difference in time over a longer trip is often less than an hour, sometimes just 10 or 20 minutes. And usually the toll route distance is several miles longer.

As I travel west, I’m planning on getting a COVID test in North Dakota to satisfy the Canadian requirement of having it done less than 72 hours prior to arrival at the border. I had talked to the to the testing agency in Minot a couple of weeks ago and they indicated there’s no problem. They’ll test non-residents, no charge, no problem. Just for redundancy, I pull over for a minute and call again to ask what the turnaround time is for results. In my many previous tests, results have arrived by email in 16-48 hours. The Minot answer, though, is 3-4 days because they have to send the samples to the state capital first. That’s a major issue because of Canada’s 72 hour time limit. Of necessity, I rethink the plan. I’ve had a lot of experience with with Google Baseline project testing, which I’ve done six times since the pandemic started, but that test is only available in certain states. Heading west from New York, the last one is Michigan. Fortunately Michigan is almost in my rear view mirror at the moment. I find an immediate appointment in Bridgman, spin the van around, backtrack 40 minutes to the RiteAid, and get my test — no fuss, no muss. Then I turn back around and head down through Gary Indiana around the bottom of Lake Michigan, and up through Chicago toward towards the Wisconsin border.

It’s around 90 F out with fierce sun to boot. That kind of glare just makes my eyes want to close. Mid-afternoon, I check the map for a spot of green, turn off the highway and end up in a school parking lot under a shade tree in Kenosha. Two hours sleeping in the driver’s seat with the windows open resets my eyeballs and I proceed northwest through Wisconsin, heading as directly as possible to the border crossing at Portal, North Dakota. I figure my test results are likely to arrive about the same time I do, in perhaps 24 hours. It’s 16 hours of solid driving and I have do it all myself. So I continue on this straight rather uninteresting flat route, planning on arriving in the right time frame.

As darkness approaches, I need another nap so I turn off I-94 in Milton, Wisconsin, following a sign for Black River State Forest. In a few miles I find a picturesque lakeside campground, but since I’m only going to be sleeping for a few hours, there’s no point in paying fees. I go up a little further and find a number of grassy tracks going off to the side that are obviously rarely traveled. I pull into one of these, go a quarter mile off the road, U-turn the van, crawl onto the comfortable bed, and sack out in minutes. It’s a nice cool evening and I leave the sliding door open through the night — not necessarily a smart move — and sleep very well.

Next post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2021/06/27/road-trip-21-06-10-another-long-driving-day-but-featuring-a-solar-eclipse-and-getting-into-canada/

Sunset over Sandusky OH

Road Trip – 21/06/08 Driving through flyover country

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Well, it’s my first day of a road trip to what I hope will be Alaska, Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) willing. Canada is still closed to Americans, with a few narrow exemptions. For reasons not relevant here, Susan has decided not to accompany me, so she’s back at home. I drive from Livingston Manor to South Bend, Indiana in one grueling 11 hour day with barely a break — over 700 miles!

Sunset over Sandusky OH
Sunset over Sandusky OH
Twilight thunderstorm near Toledo OH
Twilight thunderstorm near Toledo OH

At 1 AM, I arrive at the Tire Rack facility where I’ll sleep, doubtless under the watchful eye of security cameras, until my 8 AM appointment. I’m going to get 4 new tires mounted and after that I’ll move forward. So I’m where I need to be, but an uninteresting day and a lot of time on the road with nothing but gas stops. And here I am in Indiana, my favorite place in the world. Riiight.

Next post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2021/06/18/road-trip-21-06-09-sallying-forth-on-new-tires/