Retirement brings your foot up off the pedal. No more external pressure to do anything you’d rather not be bothered with. Which day of the week it may be is so galactically less important than what you have planned.
While Cookie and I had a great place in southern California, looking at the same (admittedly beautiful) surroundings every day filled me with dread. Now, each day I raise the shades on the breathtaking sight of the Rio Douro winding it’s way through Porto and beyond to the wine country. I literally do catch my breath. My heart skips a beat, still, after 14 months.
Language
Learning Portuguese is coming along, s-l-o-w-l-y. I tell people we have a teriffic language teacher who, unfortunately has terrible students. There’s that retired thing again. I don’t get many believers when I tell them learning Chinese was easier.
At a recent gathering of expats from all over, I met a young woman from Taiwan. I was foolishly pleased with myself when my Mandarin flowed almost as readily as it did when I taught in China a few years ago!
ATMs: the seamy side
A current con the banks here are running pops up when you use your debit card to withdraw local currency from your bank in America. It nails anyone without knowledge of the exchange rate between the US dollars and Euros or British Pounds. (For convenience, picture a euro as a dollar bill with a dime sitting on it. The pound would be that same dollar with 3 dimes sitting on it.)
The atm shows a window offering a choice between an unguaranteed exchange rate and a guaranteed fixed rate, pictured under a US flag. Trouble is, the fixed rate is guaranteed to screw you out of double the going exchange rate. And, if you reject the fixed rate a later window requires you to reject it yet a 2nd time to avoid the scam.
Long overdue visit
This spring will be 2 years since Cookie and I began our grand tour. Time with family and friends will be very welcome. We’ll arrive in May to spend for a few weeks of seeing everybody we can. We all will have changed a little. I’ll confess to feeling more interested in hearing stories than telling them. Four or five all-too-brief weeks, then back to Europe in June. More of the adventure. How long will we keep this up? As Cookie reminds me, “You’re not 70 anymore!”