Last year around Christmastime, we put together a house-gift to ourselves. It’s not very fancy, in fact it starts with an empty pretzel container from Continente. Inside this container our numerous folded slips of paper. Written inside the fold is an activity in or around Braga – a place to visit, perhaps a lunch spot picked out (we’re much happier when we aren’t picking out a restaurant spur-of-the-moment). The sheets are taped shut (this isn’t a high tech operation), and on the outside of the paper there is general information: how long does it take, is it walking/bus ride/ride share, is there a meal involved, and does weather or season matter. We call this little plastic barrel our “Jar of Wonders”, and every once in awhile we draw until we get something that fits our day, and off we go! One of our earliest pulls was a few months ago, when we visited the Sé de Braga, a Roman Catholic Church that predates the founding of Portugal. From time to time, we are reminded of how very *old* the country we live in is

The civitas (roughly, city) Bracara Augusta was founded by the Romans in 16 BC and the Diocese of Braga dates from the 3rd century AD, being one of the oldest in the Iberian peninsula. In 1071 Bishop Pedro began building the cathedral (Sé) and it was consecrated while still unfinished in 1089. Building continued through he 13th century. The Kingdom of Portugal was officially recognized in 1179. And that’s enough history.

What makes the Sé so fascinating is that it is a gorgeous hodgepodge of architectural styles. The original 12th century-building was built in the Burgundian Romanesque style, but later construction added Gothic (chapels and entrance), Moorish, Manueline (main chapel) and Baroque (towers, chapels, and loads of interior decoration)elements.

Here is a collection of pictures we took as we wandered through, enjoying so many elements.

Throughout the interior are the remains of several important people, including D. Afonso, the son of King John I and what purports to be Saint Peter of Rates. (Modern science suggests that it’s actually the body of a child from the 9th century.)

There is an excellent museum upstairs, and most of the signage is in both English and Portuguese. There are a number of tours that include a visit to the Sé, and we highly recommend including this magnificent and beautiful historic site in your visit.

There are moments in life that get packaged into “A Tale” rather than just “a story”. You tell it practically the same way each time you share it, and you tend to share it a lot. Each new person you meet, they’re going to hear your Tales as part of the get-to-know-you process. Here is our tale of meeting our city for the first time.

We could roll back time reaaaaally far to get to the beginning of this thread; like all the way to our first inkling of moving. When we were kinda-sorta serious about moving to Portugal but no firm plans at all, one of the things we kept chewing on was when we were going to actually pull up stakes and go. A lot of that was “when can we afford it” and “when can we logistically manage it” and so on, but a thought began to percolate for me. We were moving to a new city, in a new country, knowing basically nothing about them. The culture would be different, the customs, the food, everything. So, how could we increase the chance that we’d like being there? And the answer I came up with was “go at Christmas time.” Not that Lisa and I are particular Christmas lovers, but you can’t ignore how the seasonal cheer ramps up. Downtown will be covered in lights. Music everywhere. People generally rolling friendliness saves with advantage. (Sorry, non-nerds.) Yeah, that seemed like the best way to stack the deck in our favor.

So a hundred dominoes falling later, we actually went to San Francisco for Thanksgiving in 2021 with portions of Lisa’s family, then caught our flight from SFO to Lisbon. We got to our first night airbnb, then into our apartment the next day. We were absolutely pooooped. Exhausted. But, we’d heard from the Braga American immigrants group that the municipal tree lighting festivity would be going on that night and the immigrants would grab a table at Café Vianna to catch the goings on. (To my fellow immigrants reading this in 2025 and beyond: yes, that’s right, the entire crowd of immigrants that night fit around a 10-top at Café Vianna. How times change, right?) It seemed like a good way to meet people and also just crack the ice on seeing what we’d got ourselves into. We left our apartment around 7 or so and made the 15-ish minute walk to downtown.

That’s how long it took me to fall in love with this place. 15 minutes.

Our old apartment was on Rua Dom Pedro V, which goes through a couple of quick name changes before becoming Avenida Central; don’t worry about the details if you don’t get this, all that matters is it was a straight line walk for us to end up at the fountain for the tree lighting. You hit the pedestrian area halfway there, and that’s when it started. Picturesque family scenes as the locals started gathering for the festivities. This was late 2021, remember, so things were juuuuust starting to loosen up in public spaces. They hadn’t even had the tree lighting the year prior, and attendance was relatively sparse but the people who were showing up seemed extra-excited to be reconnecting with their community. The air was crisp, the lights were on all up and down the pedestrian zone… it was, in a word, perfect. It was exactly what you’d want from the start of the holiday season. The gathering at the cafe was as warm a welcome as two new arrivals could hope for, and we’re friends with, I think, everybody we met that night.

The best part to me is that none of this is revisionist history. As we were walking back to our apartment at the end of the night we talked about what a great night it was, how much we loved the experience and the people that we met. Looking back, even knowing that we basically psyched ourselves out (picking the best possible time to “meet” our new home, going to festive occasions etc…) we still feel like it was a perfect first impression. And it seems to have worked, because here we are.

There are moments in life that get packaged into “A Tale” rather than just “a story”. You tell it practically the same way each time you share it, and you tend to share it a lot. Each new person you meet, they’re going to hear your Tales as part of the get-to-know-you process. Here is our Tale of how we ended up living where we do.

Our first apartment was rented as a way to get through the visa process. (We literally signed the lease the Friday before our Monday VFS appointment.) But a mere four months into our time there we knew we had to move as soon as possible. Fortunately, Portugal’s renter laws are reasonable, and usually once you’ve fulfilled a third of your lease, you are free to move out. We took advantage of this, gave our notice, contacted our original realtor, and started to look around. Our realtor showed us a few places that were ok, but not great. It occurred to us that we might do better if we had a local realtor as well/ instead, so we found one, and he showed us a few places that were closer to what we wanted, but still not quite right.

One of the things we agreed on was that we wanted a place on the cobblestones. You see, the center of town is old, and it’s all cobblestones wherever people walk. So this was our shorthand for “in the heart of things.” (Have you caught on to our habit of foreshadowing yet?)

Then the day came when our realtor showed us a place that ticked a lot of boxes for us. It was literally up the block from a major city point, and just 2 blocks down from the central plaza, right in the heart of the pedestrian-only area. Across the street was a charming grocery that always had fresh fruit and flowers for sale, we would hear the church bells all through the day, and were steps from a vast variety of restaurants and cafes. The apartment was on two levels, both with huge terraces. There was a modern kitchen, movie screen setup, professional sound system, and lovely furnishings all throughout. We would be able to entertain like mad. However, it was four flights up with no elevator, had no AC, and lacked a separate area for a second office. We left, talking ourselves into it. It was just so ideally located.

Then our phone rang. Our local realtor had a place to show us, could we come by? We shrugged, thinking we’d be polite, and walked through town, up a (gentle) hill, and into a neighborhood that was all apartment buildings and schools. Compared to downtown, the vibe was quiet, sleepy even. Like an in-town suburbia.

The apartment was in a modern-ish building with an elevator that took us up to the 4th floor, which only had one other tenant. Our realtor opened the door and invited us in . . . to an open space of hardwood and marble floors covered with tasteful rugs and good furniture. Everything felt welcoming, right out onto a small terrace connecting the living room with the kitchen, which was huge. Down a hall were two good sized rooms for us each to have an office, and then a large main bedroom ensuite. There was tons of closet space, and a two car garage for any overflow. The landlords were a youngish couple who spoke excellent English and were charming as all get out. We found ourselves wandering around, making eyes at each other like, “This is perfect, right?”

We stepped out on the terrace for a quick confab and confirmed that yes, we both felt right at home. No, it wasn’t in the center of the city, but it was otherwise just what we wanted. Together we went in an started talking about leases and when we could move in. An hour later we had a new apartment.

Heading to our soon to be old place, we stood on the sidewalk for a moment, then looked down. It was paved in cobblestones.

The one thing we did manage to keep on the calendar was a dinner with some friends at La Porta, an Italian restaurant so named because it is near one of the city’s most well-known monuments, the Arco da Porta Nova. The arch has a history that goes back to the early 1500s, but has been more or less in its present state since the late 1800s. La Porta probably isn’t any of ours favorite restaurant, but it’s “fine” and we mostly chose it as a launching pad for a “festive tour of the holiday decorations downtown.” Which wouldn’t need to be in quotes if it hadn’t been quite so cold and rainy.

Nevertheless, we persisted. Wandering up the central core of the historical district, we poked around the (cold… wet… deserted…) streets and took in the light show.

Even if some of us *cough* initially made grumbly noises about staying out in some filthy weather, we still couldn’t help but have a good time; a convivial meal and a stroll with friends, pointing out little oddities we’d catch or telling stories we were reminded of by poking around. Just another reminder that we’re living a very different, very rewarding life here in Braga.

I’ve had an idea burbling in the back of my mind for awhile now, and since attending language classes has kept us a little more pinned down than usual this seemed like a suitable time to indulge. There are certain moments in life that eventually get packaged into “A Tale” rather than just “a story”. You tell it practically the same way each time you share it, and you tend to share it a lot. Each new person you meet, they’re going to hear your Tales as part of the get-to-know-you process. The important bits of the story have long since been chosen, and the fluff has either been trimmed, or at least marked in your memory as things that can be cut if time is short. So, for those of you who haven’t already heard the Tale, here’s us arriving in Braga.

We arrive in Lisbon with our four duffel bags and four medium-ish boxes and meet out pre-arranged transfer driver. His name escapes me; what I do remember is that over the course of the roughly four hour drive he slowly breaks cover and reveals his Chega! political leanings. Was it weird that our driver espoused anti-immigration views while simultaneously shepherding brand new immigrants to their new home? Why yes, it was! In any case, I sort of changed the subject by asking him how to properly pronounce our address (“Rua Don Pedro Quinto”) and practicing with him for what felt like forever.

First impressions are… well hell, we’ve all heard the aphorisms. My first impression of Braga was, I’m embarassed to say, not great. Keep in mind, we had never been to Portugal, never mind this city; photos can only do so much work. It was very late, like maybe 10 PM minus a bit. Our first stop in town was to Mercadona, a grocery store, because we’d discussed wanting to wake up with some basic provisions. Nothing like a grocery store on a new continent to make you feel alienated, lemme tell you. From there we went to our Airbnb that was situated just around the corner from our soon-to-be home, an arrangement we’d settled on when it was pointed out we wouldn’t have power or gas until getting the utilities turned on the next day.

The street that our Airbnb was/is on, Rua do Taxa, is about 50 feet from where we now live, and we walk it all the time. It’s fine. But on that first night, tired and probably a little apprehensive (in the “what have I gotten myself into” vein) it does not make a great impression. It is not quaint, or charming, or picturesque. There’s no interesting architecture on it, no landmarks. (None of this is true, actually, except for the stretch of it we were on that night.) Both sides of the street are concrete 3-5 story tall mixed used buildings, businesses at ground level and apartments above. Everything about it is a little scruffy. I genuinely begin to sweat the fact that this whole move was, in the end, my idea. We meet our host, who was warm and gregarious but, as tired as we were, this just bounced off of us. We try to settle in and mostly succeed, after a brief kerfluffle where we nudged a dial on the gas stove, causing a miniscule gas seepage that had us scrambling for our host’s contact number.

We rise in the morning and ponder breakfast. Right across the street from us, on the corner of Rua do Taxa and Rua Don Pedro V, is a little cafe of the sort called a pastelaria here. I brace myself and head out the door, cross the street, and pop in. Now, there is much discussion in immigrant forums (and elsewhere) about the prevalence of English speakers in Portugal. Listen up – it may be ubiquitous in places like Lisbon or down in the Algarve, but you’re flipping a coin every time you encounter someone in Braga. This city doesn’t have an airport, it doesn’t have a seaport, and it’s the terminus of the trains. No English speakers accidentally show up in Braga, or go there because that’s where they landed. I tell you all that to now explain why it is not at all surprising that a couple of people who opened a pastry cafe in Braga probably did so comfortable in the fact that they wouldn’t need to speak any language other than Portuguese. And I tell you that to explain that everything else I relate to you, I will be translating from the charades that occurred that day.

So I pop in. I peruse the pastries of the (we now recognize) ubiquitous variety you find here. Crescent-shaped pastries that are definitely not croissants as you know them because they more closely resemble brioche. Cream filled not-quite-donuts. Pastéis de nata. Other things. Through a variety of pointing and questioning looks I sort out a tasty little selection of pastries and some bottles of juice (we had not yet learned the joy of constantly-available fresh-squeezed orange juice) The nice man helping to mind the counter (we later decided that this is a family business and he’s probably somebody’s father) rattles off a price which I absolutely do not understand. That’s no problem, I had grabbed the trusty credit card on the way out the door. But no no! he explains, they do not take cards in this shop. Whups.

I explain that I need to go to my abode across the street to get cash. (Remember: pointing and making faces.) He conveys that this is certainly no problem at all. I begin to hurry out, in a bit of a rush because my bride is waiting for breakfast. The man manages to stop me and, somewhat incredulously, asks me why I’m not taking the pastries? I point out that I haven’t paid yet, and he looks at me like I’m a particularly slow child. Ok, well that’s very kind of him. I gather things up and scoot back to the flat; I set things down on the table while grabbing up the collection of euros we had begun to accumulate, explaining to Lisa that the nice fellow had sent me out with our breakfast temporarily gratis. She agreed that I needed to get back and settle with him. I dart through traffic and hop the steps up into the shop, where I am met with an even more incredulous look than the first time. “Why,” he very clearly was asking me, “didn’t you eat your breakfast first?!”

And this was just our first lesson about the differences in culture between here and the United States.

John has actually been around Bom Jesus a number of times; back when he was building up endurance for a potential week-long hike in the north of England, he would walk himself up the hill to the Sanctuary every week or so. On those occassions, though, he’d just climb all the way to the top, pant and wheeze for a few minutes, and then make his way back down. This time we just took a car. We meant to start with the Sanctuary but got a little turned around with the road signs and so began our expedition at the other major religious site a couple of kilometers away, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Sameiro. (Us cool locals just call it “Sameiro.”) Funnily enough, some of us actually like Sameiro better – the building itself is more robust and the layout is easier to navigate, plus the view overlooking the valley is at least as nice.

Backtracking a bit, we made it to Bom Jesus and had a look around. The key feature of course, and the thing that can catch your eye down in the city if you ever tilt your head back a little, is the baroque, zigzagging staircase. It was begun in 1721 and had its last addition completed in the 1780s; multiple archbishops got their mitts on it, each wanting to (one presumes) glorify God and (it can be observed) themselves as well. The fountains (the dark gray things running up the center of the picture below) embody the 5 senses – at each one, spigots emit water from the ears, or the nose, or the eyes etc… of a large face. Thematically on-point, they are a little odd to look at.

It was the wrong time of year to really dawdle; there’s a park behind the Sanctuary with a duck pond and even paddle boats for you to tool around in, but it was cold and overcast and just not a day for lollygagging in a field. Given that none of the three of us are particularly religious, or at least Catholic, we took far more interest in the scenery than the chapels and such, but the two locations make for a fascinating afternoon that lets you look at our town from a literal and metaphorical fresh perspective.

Things are OLD around here, y’all.

If you come to visit, let me highly recommend Minho Free Walking Tours! Our guide, Jose, is a local with an engaging and VERY informative manner. We began, as one should, at the entrance to the old city which is ironically the last/youngest gate they ever built – the Arco da Porto Nova. We then spent a pleasant if slightly wet two hours wandering the environs, learning so much about the history of our old city.

The Cathedral of Braga was the first Portuguese cathedral. Building began at the end of the 11th century; it was consecrated and dedicated to the Virgin Mary on August 28, 1089. D. Henrique and D. Teresa, parents of the first king of Portugal, are buried in the Chapel of Kings. Also called the Santa Maria de Braga Cathedral, artistic relics of its more than nine centuries of history are preserved within. Its style is a combination of many period: Romanesque, Gothic, and (most obviously) Baroque. And bonus – the high heeled boots of a 4′ tall bishop of antiquity are on display. We’re sure that’s how he wanted to be remembered.

A truly fascinating piece is this Latin inscription honoring the Temple of Isis that was on this site before the Sé de Braga was built.

The environs of the Sé are just as interesting, with a highlight being the Chafariz do Castelo (Castle Fountain), dating back to the year 1723. Despite its name, the Fountain is not in, or part of a Castle. Instead, it gets its name from the unique design of its six spouts, each of which resembles a castle. (No, you can’t see that in the picture. It was dusk and many of the photos we took are blurry from a lack of light.) What you can see are the classic putti figures. Puttis are cherubs, here shown holding up the spouts.

The tour includes a look at the only easily found nod to the Moors, who briefly held the city in the mid-700s and definitively lost control in 1040. (Yes, 300 years is seen as brief in a city as old as this one.) This exterior facade allowed for the inhabitants to look out and yet not be seen and also cooled the interior without keeping it dark. (It is a reconstruction.) The Moors held large swaths of Portugal down through the years, but seeing their influence this far North is still unusual. We finished up at the central fountain that has figured in to so many of our Braga memories, starting from darn near the very beginning. As a small sign of how far we’ve come as residents, John parked our rental car right near this spot, correctly deducing that it was a likely ending place for the tour. Go go gadget natives!

All in all, we had an excellent look at our lovely, fascinating city and can now walk around with our heads less drooped in shame.

One of the things we did was enjoy a cooking demonstration and meal organized by Food & Wine Experiences. We did think it was going to be more “hands-on” than it turned out to be, but it was nonetheless a lot of fun. And delicious! (As a bonus, Lisa knew all but two of the 14 people around the table, so it became a social event as well as lunch.)

Alongside a choice of two wines from Adega de Vila Real (the Reserva DOC Douro Vinho in either Tinto [red] or Branco [white]), our menu was:

• Favas com Enchidos: Deliciously seasoned fava beans with traditional Portuguese sausages.
• Pá de Porco Assada em Forno de Lenha: Tender, wood-fired pork shoulder served with golden potatoes, carrot rice and fresh greens.
• Castanhas Assadas: Celebrate with roasted chestnuts, a São Martinho classic.

We arrived at 11 am and greeted our hosts, Jose and Camille then went down into the kitchen & dining area. Before any food was served, Lisa knew this was going to be good because Camille was going to make everything on the “wood-fire.”

We learned that the very common greens were actually kale, making both of us change our minds about this previously disliked green. (It’s great when served in restaurants, we’d presumed they were spinach, maybe chard.) Adding shredded carrots to the rice is dead simple, and elevates a plain dish. The secret to the potatoes was to roast them almost to done, add some of the juices from the roast pork, then put them back in to finish. Superb. The pork was marinated for several hours before cooking for several hours and was fall-apart tender with an excellent crust.

It was also the first time we’d tried that (US holiday) classic, roasted chestnuts. We agreed they were rich and delicious with somewhat sweet, almost buttery flavor. (Lisa is now looking for chestnut flour to try making a traditional cake.)

Oh! we missed it last week, but November 11th is Dia de São Martinho, a day honoring Martin of Tours and we spent much of our Portuguese language class learning his story. It seems that Martin, a 4th-century Roman soldier-knight, was riding his horse in a snowstorm and came upon a nearly naked beggar. Moved to charity (as all good knights are) but not having any money or food, Martin took his sword, cut his cloak in half, and gave the cloth to the beggar. The fabric covered the beggar and the clouds dispersed, the sun came out, and Jesus said to the angels, “Here is Martin, the Roman soldier who is not baptized; he has clothed me.” Thus, he became a Saint.

Over the centuries this day has become a celebration of the harvest, specifically the maturation of the year’s wine production. In many Portuguese communities a large party is held with a bonfire (a magusto). Recently-harvested castanhas (chestnuts) are roasted and the first wines of the season are tasted. There is a saying as well, É dia de São martinho. Comem-se castanhas; prova-se o vinho! , which translates to “It is St. Martin’s Day. We’ll eat chestnuts; we’ll taste the wine.”

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As an example: Before we arrived on Nov 30th, we’d been invited to the city’s Tree Lighting event by Cindy P. with the understanding that we might be too jet-lagged to cope. We managed to stagger out, had a great time watching the tree light up (complete with music and wide-eyed children in the crowd), enjoyed a nice meal, and met people who became good friends. That one invitation led to a holiday season full of meals and meeting new people. It was part of the reason we love being here.

Most of y’all didn’t know us in the States, but this level of social engagement is a gigantic difference from how we were. We had a solid circle of friends, but saw most of them maybe once a month. Having to work was part of it, but geography played a larger role, even with the couple who lived only a 10 minute drive away. Because it wasn’t so much as how close we lived, as our commutes ate into hours of our so-called “free” time. Now we live in a place where a 15-20 minute walk gets us to nearly every friends’ home or place we’re meeting. It’s probably the same distance, but its much more accessible. Moreover, John was the center point of the social circle; nearly every person came from a game he ran* in the early 00’s, either directly or brought in by one of those people. Lisa didn’t think she was particularly good at making friends, feeling more definitively introverted and socially awkward than John.

Before we left the States, Lisa (that’s me!) made a commitment to be more social. She knew she’d be unhappy if she let her feelings (aka, fear) keep her at home. Together, we decided to say “yes” as much as possible, and let events unfold as organically as possible. The opportunities rolled in and now we have to be careful to ration our social events or we get burned out, over-peopled as it were. We could spend nearly every day just seeing the people we consider good friends, which sounds great until you try it for a week or so. At least for us, it’s become a balancing act of wanting to see people but needing to reset and recharge.

We both feel a strong desire to give back, in part, the generosity we were met with on our arrival. It’s part of being good members of this community, creating strength and resilience through connections. One way we do this, almost since our first month here, is to host a monthly lunch at a local restaurant. We’ve negotiated a set menu and cost with the restaurant and invite anyone in the community to join us. We enjoy the meal with everyone and the restaurant gets a good crowd on an “off” day, as well as any extra monies collected. (We pay for ourselves of course.) Its a great place for newcomers, or scouters, to ask questions and enjoy a family-style meal. Breaking bread with someone as a way to get to know them on a deeper level is an ancient technique. We (mostly Lisa) also actively connect with scouters, people considering moving to Braga, to offer information, opinions, or meet for a drink to just talk. People she’s talked with have ended up moving here and know they have at least one person to say “Hi!” to when they see one another around town. This puts us in good company with other “locals” who do the same thing; something about this town seems to have attracted a welcoming sort of immigrant!

So many helped us, whether by answering a question, inviting us into their home for a meal, or sharing their own experiences. To be able to pass that along is how we help keep our community strong. It’s still a fairly new community, to be honest. We just had lunch with a couple who just celebrated being in Braga for five years, and when they first got here they say they could go weeks without hearing anyone speaking English without a Portuguese accent. They weren’t unique, but they were very rare and it seemed each person or couple was an island until themselves. Exactly what changed, and when, we’re a little unclear on, but taking a long view we’re still a ways from something you’d recognize as stable. Then again, that’s part of the fun! We didn’t mean for the monthly lunch to be a regular thing, but these days we get asked when the next one is. Our friend Cindy is the organizer of the “main” monthly meet-and-greet, and when the weather is good there will be 50+ people there; she’s done such a good job of making it a regular and important part of the community that it will probably be happening for… well, for forever. Who knows what other traditions have yet to be born?

* It was a role playing game and he was the gamemaster, the person making sure the players smoothly moved from event to event within a specifically defined environment. Specifically, it was based on Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time books.

Number One With a Bullet – Cross the Dang Street! The social contract in Braga regarding pedestrians crossing the street is pretty simple; the pedestrian has the right of way. No ifs, ands, or buts. They are so religious in their observation of this conduct that if you wait to see a car come to a stop you are actually being a little rude, because they were going to yield to you. All you did by waiting to see them stop was slow them down unnecessarily. Just go. I mean, yes for pete’s sake at least make eye contact, your life could be at risk. That said, most times you can’t even do the little wave to indicate that they should go ahead. “They’re in a car” you think to yourself, “they can get out of my way faster than I can get out of theirs.” Doesn’t matter. You will get into a waving contest while they stare at you wondering why you haven’t gone yet. Corollary to this advice: if you happen to rent a car, or you’ve been one over here, behave by this rule. Don’t get irritated that somebody blithely stepped out from the curb as you were approaching – they were just following a behavior that’s been ingrained in them since birth. Take a breath, you’ll get where you’re going.

Number Two – Release Your Expectations on Sidewalks. If you are the kind of person that gets irritated when people “can’t pick a side” to walk on, may I recommend the Waking Up meditation program? (That’s not an affiliate link.) That’s not a thing here. Many Americans presume that sidewalk patterns follow traffic patterns on the road – stick to the right, in other words. This usually works in other countries we’ve been to. In Braga, at least, no way no how. It’s not that it’s the opposite pattern. There’s no pattern. You’ll have five straight people cross your path on the left, then two on the right, then one, then seven, and so on. Now, not everyone will even care about this, but “know thyself” as they say. If you can be prone to irritation that people aren’t behaving in the orderly fashion you like to see, that’s a “you” thing not a “them” thing. You aren’t changing 100,000+ people. Learn to be at peace with this, or else learn to go through your days in a constant state of irritation.

Number Three – Don’t Expect Anyone to Speak English. We’ve written on this in more depth before, but since this post is trying put a lot of advice under one nicely-tied bow, let’s talk about it again. You cannot go through life tranquilly if your plan for navigating most conversations boils down to “ah, they’ll speak English.” It’s not even 50/50 that this will be true, anywhere. Bank tellers, doctors, government officials (e.g. getting your Utente or driver’s license), priests… none of them have a need for English, so it will be pure chance whether they speak it or not. We are only talking about life in Braga. I expect it’s very similar in other Northern Portuguese towns, but things are very different in Lisbon, Porto, and large swaths of the Algarve. In those places, they get a lot of tourists who either primarily speak English or, being from some other country that has its own tongue, learned English as their 2nd language instead of the much-less-useful Portuguese. Point is, because so much business in those places requires practical English language skills there are plenty of incentives for employees, officials, and business owners to be conversant. But in Braga? We don’t have an airport to make us an easy destination for tourists. We are very close to Spain, a country that apparently shuts all the way down on Sundays (at least on their southern end), so we get plenty of Spanish-speaking tourists.

Now, it’s still true that English is a globally-useful language and so there are more than a few English speakers. But, you just never know. At the hospital for example, figuring out who the General Practitioners are that have good command of English isn’t too bad, but once you need a specialist your choices are whoever the doctor is that does that thing or nobody at all. Then it’s down to a coin flip. If you don’t have any interest in picking up some Portuguese, we respectfully suggest that this isn’t the town for you. Speaking of which…

Number Four – You’ll Know What You Think of Braga Pretty Quickly. Of course this is not 100% universally true, but we have numerous example stories from our friends of people who visited Braga on their scouting trip or whatever and had a sensation of being home wash over them within an hour. There’s even a common variant of this story that goes something like “we had been in Portugal for four weeks and seen a lot of places. It was the end of our trip. We spent two days in Porto, and it was lovely. We had basically settled on <fill in the town>, but our agenda still had a day in Braga. One of us said ‘why don’t we skip it, we’re tired and we know we want to move to <town>’ but the other person said ‘well, it’s not that far away, we can just go for lunch and then leave.’ Except, when we got off the train in Braga we immediately felt something different. By the time we had walked downtown to the fountain (there’s more than one fountain in the city, but everyone knows which one is “the fountain”) we were in love.” This happens a lot. Don’t fight it. There’s a particular vibe here. We won’t call it a “good” or “bad” vibe, just a particular one. Counterpoint to this advice: if Braga hasn’t knocked your socks off in an afternoon, don’t wonder what you’re missing. You aren’t missing anything, it just isn’t the right place for you. That’s cool, it’s a big country and no one place is right for everyone. But if you like it here you’re probably going to love it here.

Number Five – Get Your Toaster from Antonio. Apologies, this is an unbearably-‘inside’ joke that at the same time just happens to be true. Confort Electrodomésticos is run by Antonio and his father. His hobby is repairing old sewing machines. While it is nearly universally true that the Portuguese are a kind and giving people, Antonio is just… well, absurdly generous with his time and expertise. Yes, he’s absolutely doing the smart business thing by treating his customers well, but between his passable English and his willingness to go the extra kilometer, but there are enumerable stories of him special ordering an appliance, delivering it, setting it up, and walking the purchasers through the operating procedures. You have to twist his arm or he won’t take payment until everything is finalized. He services appliances you bought elsewhere for practically nothing. Like, I’m sure there are many fine shopkeepers selling appliances in Braga, but his rep with the immigrant community is platinum plated for a reason.