Lunching out on Catching Up

in #lunch4 years ago

I had such a nice chilled out day today.

I started off by finishing off unpacking my car, which was much easier at 7.00 a.m. than it was doing it last night - I was able to find a parking space reasonably close to my Air B and B and once the car was emptied of anything really valuable I felt much better.

So I went out for a still early morning walk around Covilha, it's really very hilly, and I quite liked this very modernist attempt to help pedestrians navigate said hills:

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I'm not sure the ridiculous elevator system is open, I didn't see anyone going remotely near it, but then again there was hardly anyone about at 8.15 a.m. when I was out and about. Late starts here!

Besides the outstanding modernism Covilha centre (the bit the tourist board wants you to see) is mainly narrow cobbled streets, LOTS of cafes, and pretty relaxed for what is really quite a large city. No doubt there's the usual suburbs and some industry further afield which will be just like any other part of any other town in Europe but I doubt I'll be checking those areas out.

I even saw a runner, skinny like me, about my age, dressed in running gear so at least running's a thing around here! I won't feel like a total loon when I head out tomorrow - although I think just choosing to be out before 8.00 might put you in that category automatically anyway.

I also found a handy local supermarket which pretty much has everything I need in it for reasonable prices, and actual proper fruit and veg which seems to have been grown locally rather than packaged, Great tomatoes especially.

I had planned to get back to work today since I've effectively had a week off: proper writing and a bit of marking, but somehow I seem to have spent the day just dicking about on the internet, playing Splinterlands, sleeping, eating, generally just lunching the day out, and checking the LEO/ my share of the uniswap pool way too often.

It's been fucking great!

I also learned some very useful Portuguese thanks to Duolingo....

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I'm sure that'll come in handy.

I did try to get some programmes on Netflix (yes the apartment has Netflix) playing in Portuguese but it seems all of them are in English with Portuguese subtitles - but it's the wrong way round, I want to have the language on in the background so I can hear it and then look at the subtitles to check the meaning.

I think I may have made an error by trying this out with Star Trek Discovery as I've accidentally ended up rewatching 3 episodes of that today, even though I can't really follow the Klingon scenes as they're in Klingon, with Portuguese subtitles.

Anyway shit it's 20.30 already, the day's almost over, I think I needed a nice restive one, been a stressful few days driving, can't quite face starting the whole land search mission just yet, but I did have some good news on that front - I got chatting with someone on AirBandB in the area and their neighbour hooks up land sellers and buyers, and there's plenty for sale in that region, a bit west of Penamacor.

It's good to have options!

I really must get my head down to work, there's a few things I need to get sorted before I kick start my land-search proper in October, I'm sure that's going to take a lot of time and mental energy, and I'd rather be spending my October evenings learning the language, dicking about on Hive or otherwise socially engaged rather than scrabbling about marking and writing sociology teaching resources!

It's just a matter of being ahead of the game, so that's got to be the name of the game this weekend methinks!

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Hahahaha, the cat has a key!
As silly as that may sound, you'll need it for saying:
"the cat doesn't have a key"
"does the cat have a key?"
"not all cats have keys, but my cat used to have one."
and so on. And yeah, you'll want to be able to exchange the variables of verbs and nouns as you need it. And the more ridiculous the example, the better you can remember it.
"Should all cats have their own keys?" you may be closer this than you think.

Okay, so much for my cheerleading as a language teacher. Besides, you're a teacher yourself, and a runner, so you know about building knowledge and practicing for mastery.

!ENGAGE 25

I will never forget my German aunt in Munich shouting loudly at me SCHLUSSEL! .. I had no idea what she was on about but it eventually made me cry. Knowing 'the cat has the key' in German would have been useful.

I didn't.. she did.

Hahaha, Die Katze hat den Schlüssel.
No doubt, the word for key is the hardest one here.

Thank you for your engagement on this post, you have recieved ENGAGE tokens.

Yes all fair points, the other thing was to not make the 'test' too easy I guess,

and thanks for the ego boost!

!ENGAGE 30

No worries. Thanks for the Engagement tokens! I just realized how it was you who sent them to me. They are kinda like beer tokens, right? I don't have enough to pass them out, but I can invite you for a !BEER

Hey cheers!

You need 1000 ENGAGE to give them out, have some more:

!ENGAGE 20

Thank you! Hey, your !BEER never made it! Wonder what's up with that...

Sorry, you don't have enough staked BEER in your account. You need 24 BEER in your virtual fridge to give some of your BEER to others. To view or trade BEER go to hive-engine.com

Thank you for your engagement on this post, you have recieved ENGAGE tokens.

Sorry, you don't have enough staked BEER in your account. You need 24 BEER in your virtual fridge to give some of your BEER to others. To view or trade BEER go to hive-engine.com

You never know perhaps one day you need a key and if a cat is near...

Well it's not entirely impossible!

The Young Portuguese are good at speaking English usually, try going to a pub ;-)

Ah now that doesn't surprise me! Although I'm not here to drink so much, haven't had a beer for a week, but maybe I should change that....?!

Enjoy absorbing the culture. I expect there is a different pace of life there. Are they like Spain where they eat really late in the evening? I think it's partly due to it being too warm earlier. Keep working on the language as the locals will appreciate you trying.

I think there is a different pace of life, yes, and that will take some adjusting too, unless they have siestas, that's something I can easily adopt!

Language is a priority for sure. I don't think it's too difficult a language to pick up. I'm going to experiment with various different apps too, not really keen on paying for Duolingo, it's cute but also kind of annoying at the same time.

It may be worth paying for a course or even personal lessons to make faster progress. When I went to live in Germany I did not really speak the language even though I did it at school. My dad had a set of Berlitz tapes and I used those to make progress. Luckily a lot of people I worked with spoke excellent English, but not my landlady.

I'm not against paying. I just think I can probably to better than duolingo!

I think we had some kind of German language lessons - with record and hardback books all in a large leather brown case - from when I was a kid.

How times have changed!

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I had a play with Duolingo to practice my German a bit, but it seems more of a game than a teacher to me. I didn't pay for it. My kids have used it too. They have become the default for language learning these days.

I'm off busking again this weekend and doing a virtual 10k race tomorrow. Have you run there yet?

I loved the fresh fruit and veg in Spain after the dismal plastic wrapped crap in the UK. Glad to see you there and enjoying yourself so far.

the dismal plastic wrapped crap in the UK.

It's appalling, isn't it! One thing I wont's miss for sure!