Transactions from a recent trip from Seattle to Lisbon.

Seattle -> Lisboa
4 sticks of American deodorant for my wife’s mother

Lisboa -> Seattle
5 sticks of European deodorant for my wife

Seattle -> Lisboa
1 bottle of Washington wine

Lisboa -> Seattle
4 bottles of Portuguese wine

Seattle -> Lisboa
2 t-shirts for friends, with English text

Lisboa -> Seattle
1 t-shirt for myself, with Portuguese text

We’ve reached that critical time where we’ve been home longer than the span of our vacation, where we should now be unaffected by the experiences we encountered and unhindered by the freedom that was several weeks of vacation. At least the equation goes something like that when enduring the effects of a break-up — hopefully it’s more lasting for the positive effects of vacation.

Now four weeks after the trip, the greatest impression left lingering was the great perspective of visiting well-preserved Roman and prehistoric ruins in Western Iberia. Specifically, the concrete evidence (pun intended) that empires go in cycles, and many Portuguese, as well as citizens from other countries that once ruled the world (i.e. Greece, Italy, England) all know that the clock is ticking for the current US empire. Of course you can think about this independently, but standing in front of acres of evidence — standing within the walls on tile floors where families ate and kids played 2200 years ago — is quite overwhelming. This notion of empires passing the torch is realized more in countries with longer histories and makes the American cultural invasion that much more palatable. This made me feel neither good nor bad.

But what did make me feel good was seeing my ever-radiant in-laws and Portuguese friends. It’s incomprehensible that we only get to see them for a few weeks each year (and I’m not the one who’s 4000 miles from home). For the last month I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out a way of straddling the Atlantic a bit more often while keeping gainfully employed. Simply moving to Europe would cause the same problem in reverse. Living for part of the year in each place, to keep friendships close (and reap the benefits of both cultures), is key.

It was a hot Portuguese September with temperatures approaching 40C (104F), and now Seattle is dark, damp and cold in comparison. The serveral weeks of silence on this page were the result of the inevitable post-vacation blues: the transition between weeks of constant simuli and spontaneity in all aspects of daily life, back to the holds of work and routine. Lots of northerly staring-out-of-windows-into-the-silence (think Edward Hopper) has ensued. This is character-building.

And now for some sweeping generalizations of Portugal:

• Portuguese are masters of language, and instead of not knowing the language when traveling — inconceivable! — they’ll insist on adding a fifth or sixth language to their personal repertoire to stay in-the-know when traveling to a new land.
• The nightlife. In Lisbon, hanging out with friends, you look at your watch sometime after dinner and think how did it get to be 5am already? because there are thousands of people on the street, more than an 9pm Friday night in downtown Seattle. Some bars are open only from midnight–6am, Thursday–Saturday nights. In Seattle, the streets are dead after midnight, and even though legal closing time is 2am (a lunatic idea when explaining the concept to Europeans and frankly a lunatic idea in its own right), there are only a handful of places that actually remain open until the very end.
• There are no non-smoking areas in public spaces or the majority of offices and workplaces.
• The national sport for old women in small non-tourist towns way out in the country is to stare blatantly and unabashedly at strange, tall, light-haired cityfolk who stop in these small non-tourist towns to take pictures of fountains, mills, and other artifacts unworthy of notice to these old women. Maria Amelia, look, now he’s taking a picture of the goats!
• The crazed driving culture is completely contrary to the pacific Portuguese way of life

Pictures, soon!

But, for the record, the headline reads, “Don’t feel like this…”

Aisle space in a Portuguese supermarket dedicated to the following items:

• Butter: 58 feet
• Yogurt: 144 feet
• Olive oil: 65 feet
• Wine: 280 feet (with three kinds of (bad) California wines to choose from)
• Peanut butter: .5 — two kinds, and 3 euros for a small jar of Skippy
• Portuguese beer, like making love in a canoe, is fucking close to water

1. Find housesitter
2. Find passport
3. Find leftover Euro monopoly money from last trip
4. Buy decent California wine for Portuguese friends to try (since it’s largely unavailble in wine-producing Europe)
5. …and some Makers Mark for my father-in-law
6. Magazines for 12 hours of travel
7. Buy President Bush greeting cards from Archie McPhees
8. Print invitations to anniversary party, Portuguese edition
9. Wax and shine cheeks for kissing
10. Leave instructions for plant watering
11. Find electrical power plug converters for camera & laptop
12. Find guidebooks
13. Review conjugations of ser, estar, comer, dormir
14. 3 weeks of CDs
15. Review State Department’s Travel Advisory for Portugal