Is there a Doctor in the house?

Three visits to the doctor in 1 week...you'd think we're not eating enough apples!

Now, if only Jonty also had Apollo's power to heal the sick...
Using the bow&arrow he and daddy made out of bamboo from the woods.

Doctor Visits:

• Jonty's subcutaneous lesion got infected
• I needed a physical to get a Portuguese driver's license, and 
• Gabi was hit with a 7-day gastro-bug. 

On top of that, Catarina had pinworms and Mark caught a bit of Gabi's bug, but luckily, those did not require a doctor. Last week was a tough week...

Fortunately, it has been seamless enough adapting to the Portuguese nationally funded health care system.  As Portuguese citizens, the kids and I can access the public stream; there are private healthcare clinics and hospitals, but we are happy to use the free one!

Once we updated our Citizenship cards with our new address in Sesimbra, we were able to register at the local health clinic (a block closer than the school--gotta love a small town!). We were immediately assigned to a family doctor who is available by appointment (and saw us last week without one!), every weekday from 8am-2pm. No waiting list? Point Portugal! Adults pay ~$6 per visit, kids are free.
Outside of that, there is a walk-in clinic at the same place, everyday from 3pm-9pm. Just like back home, the wait is loooong!  Prescriptions are partially subsidized.

Our local health centre - 5 minute walk from home
(a good thing when Gabi needed to be carried!)

Musings of a mother:

1. Portugal's version of Telehealth acts like Triage as well as helping determine what care is needed. At the end of your call, if the nurse feels you should see a doctor at the clinic or go to hospital, they figure out the closest place for you, forward your case there, and get you "in line" before you arrive. Then you don't have to repeat all the details when you see the doctor, and your wait is shorter. Sweet.

2. E-health records work here!  All our medical information is on our citizenship cards.  When you arrive at any health facility, your card is inserted into an e-card reader and voila--everything is there.  Come on Canada, our turn! 

3. The public clinics seem under-funded compared to Canada.  Small things: old diagnostic equipment, run-down waiting areas and bathrooms, no hand sanitizer for the public, the doctor himself complaining about the bare-bones system...

4. The closest hospitals to us are 45 minutes away by car. We almost had to take Gabi in (and this week we had no car). I now have a tiny sense of the stress single parents of multiple kids, families without cars (who wants to take a puking child on transit/in a cab?), parents in rural communities, and low-income households endure with sick kids. Sincere PROPS. 

Gabi is 5lbs lighter, but on the mend. Jonty's pain is gone, Mark is fine, Catarina is worm-free, and I hope to get my new license tomorrow. Yay for modern medicine!

A great way to get some Vitamin C: 
a little paper cone filled with fruit displayed in an ice cream cone holder.

Celebrating the return of Gabi's appetite at her favorite pastry shop.

Day 5 of missing school: crank the carols and make Christmas cards while sitting on our sunny balcony watching the ocean! Christmas is going to be a little different this year...

Adding Spice with Extra-Curriculars

Just like back home, our family does best with scheduled activities to get us out of the house, be social outside our family nucleus, and try something new. The allure of a relaxing, calm weekend morning, just hanging out at home, seems eternally beyond us...sigh!

Thus far, we've landed on the following activities:

Roller Skating - every Saturday morning, we walk to a super retro 1950's roller rink, complete with arena seating. For an hour and a bit, we all roll around to the musical prowess of U2 (same CD every time). The kids LOVE it!

Our confident Roller Girl--
with pink Dora skates to boot!

Roller Hockey - Jonty is on a roller hockey team, with practices 2 evenings a week, and games twice a month on Sunday mornings between 10 and noon. This schedule is so civilized after our ice hockey experience in Peterborough with 7am games and practices... 

As you can imagine, stopping, turning, and sliding is super different on roller skates, but he's getting there.  After watching his game last week, Gabi was keen to try. So they are now going to practices together.  The club has been great--LENDING us all the equipment!  

Note: helmets are not worn.  This is really weird for us...

Go Sesimbra!

Rules are similar to ice hockey, minus icing and offside.
Oh, and you can't hit the ball with your skates. 

Giving it a try!

Community Theatre - Gabi is our diva; she loves to dance, sing, and dress up. So, she and I have joined a family Community Theatre where, once a week, we do different activities like improv, acting, stage movement, etc.  The goal is to create a play. Day 1, Gabi stood in front of the group and sang "A Whole New World" in English--no fear. She was made for this ;)

Portuguese Language Classes - Mark realized last week that he might not be able to understand Catarina much longer, as her Portuguese has exploded.  Where she would have once said "Mommy, I want more leite please", she now says "Mae, I quero mais leite se faz favor". So our super-daddy started school this week. 

Mark's First Day of Portuguese School.
They grow up so fast!

Badminton - Jonty trains badminton at the high school once a week.  He has his first tournament in two weeks.  It's a few towns over: family road trip! The school does organize transportation, but for his first tourney, we are going to take him.

Library & Movie/City Theatre - The library here has story hour every other weekend where kids enter a mini auditorium and listen to a story complete with puppets and sets. The alternating weeks have workshops: painting, arts&crafts, movement. The Theatre hosts "Family Sundays" with family friendly theatrical productions once a month, and cartoon movies twice a month. We go when we can. Yesterday we had tickets for the musical "Hakuna Matata".  Poor Mark--he couldn't even understand the storyline, let alone the dialogue...the kids translated.

Story Hour - the Portuguese version of "Stone Soup"

Getting cosy for a theatrical production about "Fear".
Jonty got called up on stage!

Tennis - I found a spot to play and learn tennis, and hope to sign up in January. Yay!

Another family past-time has become going for a walk along the beach on weekend evenings, and stopping for pastries and coffee. Family favorite: Farturas (anyone read Percy Jackson?!)--deep fried batter rolled in cinnamon sugar and served hot.  A piece of heaven!

Cruisin' the boardwalk

He got him a "Portuguese Soccer Star" haircut

Contemplating life, or her next dive... 

Farturas are DELICIOUS!

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...'tis the season!

What do you do on a rainy Sunday afternoon?
Pop into a cafe, eat yummy pastries and watch the soccer game on TV!

Visits from the Tooth Mouse!

My kids insist on keeping their fallen teeth!

Thanks to Gabi, our household has had 3 visits from the tooth mouse!  Although Portugal has both a tooth fairy and a tooth mouse, the mouse has jurisdiction in our town.  Gabi insists on keeping her teeth, so a note always has to accompany the tooth under the pillow.  The tooth mouth scuttles under the pillow and has left 1 Euro per tooth!  Poor Jonty wishes he could lose more teeth...

Such a toothless smile, while holding delicious Razor Clams!

Gabi was quick to hand her Euros over to the bank (mom and dad are the bank tellers), who inputs it as a deposit on her google sheet bank card.  An example of how "time" has helped us get to things like allowance and money management that just never got done before!

At story time at the library--her smile has changed to show her lack of teeth!

Weekend Wanderings

Portugal is almost 900 years old.  So yeah, castles, battlefields, legends, medieval villages, churches of every architectural era, and historical monuments are rampant.  Each village/town/region is known for something gastronomically unique: a liquor, a dessert, a main dish, a type of bread...

Mark and I want to experience, see and taste it all.  But alas, life with kids dictates differently (thank goodness for our weekly date day)! We are figuring out our weekends: balancing down time at home with taking advantage of the fact we live in Europe(!).

A picture is worth a thousand words:

Praia do Meco -- huge waves and optional nudism. When in Rome...will spare you that family photo!

The view of Sesimbra from the 900 year old castle on the hill

St. Justa's Elevator - Lisbon

Deciding what sea creature to have for lunch...

Riding a Tuk Tuk in downtown Lisbon - pretty sure we broke all "safety in vehicle" laws...

The entrance to my cousin's apartment building - tall doorways were an influence of the Moors from over 1000 years ago

On the ferry home from Troia - a beach village where we hung out with cousins

Making friends at a local festival

The festival was celebrating the harvest of the Camponesa apple - a variety found only in this region

In Setubal on "date day" - famous for fried cuttlefish (like this one!)

Cabo Espichel - a hike along the coast on "date day "

Palacio da Pena (caslte) in Sintra where royalty vacationed since the early 1800's

Same castle, our group of Princesses!

Bacalhoa winery in Azeitao, 10km from home--maker of Moscatel and many other delicious wines. 
For 3 euros, we tried lots...yes, it was "date day"; ie. no kids.

After some much needed lunch, in Azeitao.

In Obidos, a town built in the 1200s, within medieval castle walls. 
Meet our knight, our warrior princess, and our court jester!  

Trying Ginga from Obidos - sour cherry liqueur served in chocolate shot glasses

In Sao Pedro de Moel - I spent 4 summer holidays here with my aunt, uncle and cousins.
Thrilled to share with my kids!

In Aljubarrota - a battlefield where, in 1300s, 8,000 of the good guys beat 42,000 of the Castellanos (Spanish),
and Portugal secured independence from Spain

The Monastary in Batalha - the most visited monument in Portugal. It took almost 200 years to build...

In Nazare - home to the highest wave ever surfed...80 feet tall.  Worth googling the video!

The Ocean--Portugal's Anti-Anxiety Remedy?

Countless poems have been written about the ocean--I can see why it has captivated people since the beginning of time. The ocean is utterly mesmerizing.

My 5 senses have come to rely on the ocean's constant company:

• I wake up and hear the crashing of the waves--a soothing sound that grounds me before I even open my eyes.
• I walk into our kitchen/living room and two large windows frame an expanse of deep blue, speckled with fishing boats, a bright sky, and seagulls in flight. 

• Gabi and I step out our building en-route to school and are greeted with a fresh and livening breath of sea air - saltier on windy days. 

• On my walk home, my bare feet relish the cool water and smooth sand.  

• Taste: ok, I don't drink the salt water, but we do eat a lot of fish and seafood, so by association, I do ingest the ocean!

Days are not always sunshines and rainbows (yes, even on extended vacation!), so my remedy has been the ocean.  Early in the morning and late at night, I sit out on our balcony and just watch and listen.  The ocean has kept me calm and present.  And I've caught our kids doing it too!

The Portuguese people are calm. Things take longer here: waiting in line to pay at the grocery store or for your restaurant bill, taking out library books, getting government papers, working life around the 2 hour lunch closures at businesses, even waiting for people to cross the street...the Portuguese do not rush.  And yes, it has taken some getting used to!

But the truth is, I find the Portuguese always have a moment to talk, smile, drink a coffee sitting at a coffee shop (no drive thrus!), interact with the people around them--they make time for simple pleasures.  Every day I am struck by the number of locals that walk down to the water to stare out at the ocean. Retired locals, staff from the downtown shops and workplaces, kids from the middle school and high school, couples, families--so many take a daily dose of "ocean therapy", they make it a deliberate part of their day. Canadians might call this "mindfulness"--I think its just the way of life here.

Gotta get me an ocean in my backyard ;)