Last week Marty and I started taking Portuguese lessons with the Português Língua de Acolhimento, or PLA. These are free government language classes for immigrants. So far, so good, but it is a little intense. Three hours twice a week, and my smartphone-addled brain is not used to concentrating on one thing for that long…
This is the sixth post of a series of 12, where I show the changing look of the Jardim de Santa Barbara over a year. I’m back in Braga this month, meaning I can resume the series in the manner I started. However, I might have picked the wrong day … I haven’t seen the…
More and more I’m getting asked where is a good place to get traditional Portuguese food in Braga. It’s a challenge, because there are MANY places that just do “food,” meaning it’s a lot of Portuguese options but also other popular things. For example, Portugal does dessert extremely well, so there is often tiramisu on…
This is the fifth post of a series of 12, where I show the changing look of the Jardim de Santa Barbara over a year. This is the day where I would normally post my Santa Barbara Garden photo. However, I can’t take that photo today because I’m in Canada. So instead, I took a…
Today is the one-year anniversary of our moving to Braga. It has been an eventful year! There is so much I could talk about, but an anniversary is typically a place to look back and see where you are and how far you’ve come, so I will do that in order to focus. In the…
This is the fourth post of a series of 12, where I show the changing look of the Jardim de Santa Barbara over a year. Last month I mentioned that the garden had exploded with colour. This month the garden said “Hold my beer.” It is somehow even MORE colorful, likely due the several strains…
There is a store in Braga’s city center that is a mystery to me, and I’m determined to solve it. Here’s a picture from across the street: When you’re in a new place, the strangeness of EVERYTHING blurs together at first. Every building is equally new and inexplicable. Then as you walk around and get…
We just ended our third heat wave, if I’m counting correctly. Europe’s been hit hard this year. Actually, it seems like we say that every year: “Europe has hit new heat records.” Braga is fortunate in many ways, it doesn’t seem to get as hot as in many other places. When Paris was hitting an…
This is the third post of a series of 12, where I show the changing look of the Jardim de Santa Barbara over a year. I’m a day late with this picture because yesterday afternoon, when I would normally go to take it, was 36C/97F and I Just. Could. Not. Leave the apartment. So I…
It is time for yet another party in Braga! The Festa de São João is the city’s biggest and oldest annual street party. For a week leading up to St. John’s Day (June 24th), the historical city center is subject to a brilliant array of fun that blends Catholic traditions with pre-Christian midsummer customs like…