Oct 08
9
I am currently on holiday in the south of Portugal, a region I have been visiting annually for 24 years. I stay in the town of Portimao in the province of Algarve which is famous for its many hours of sunshine, beautiful beaches and villages with old world charm jostling with modern resorts rampant with bars and nightclubs. The Algarve is often referred to in guidebooks as the Portuguese Riviera.
TWO FEMALE HORSES
Like most Canadians visiting a foreign country I try to speak the host language. But for short-term visitors to the Algarve I recommend that they stick to please (faz favor) and thank you (obrigado for a male, obrigada for a female).
Almost all people working in the service industry in the Algarve speak English and you will make life easier for them if you stick to English rather than try to speak Portuguese. That’s because they are more likely to understand your English than your poorly (inevitably) pronounced Portuguese.
The majority, if not all, of the restaurant menus in the Algarve are in Portuguese, English and German which means visitors can order a meal without too much difficulty. But travel off the beaten track, or take a trip to Lisbon or Porto. and you better have your book of translations with you. Even then, mind you, it won’t be easy.
I learned all this twenty-four years ago. Arriving by train from France in August 1984, I found a comfortable little hotel (Flamingo) in the center of Lisbon. After a much needed and much appreciated bath I went down for dinner. The restaurant menu was (naturally) in Portuguese and at the time my Portuguese vocabulary consisted entirely of ‘Uma cerveja faz favor’. My waiter, a look-a-like for Sgt. Schulz of Hogan’s Heroes fame, spoke no English.
I did spot one familiar word on the menu, Americano, so I ordered the Frango Americano believing that it would turn out to be something vaguely familiar. It was – fried chicken. I noticed that the Frango Americo came with ‘batatas fritas’, and as my chicken was accompanied with chips, I now new the Portuguese words for what we on the other side of the Atlantic, strangely enough, call French Fries.
The next morning I ordered ‘toast’ for breakfast and was served a toasted ham and cheese sandwich. This is how I learned what ‘tosta mista’ was.
I lived on tosta mistas until I reached Portimão, the town, which was destined to become my base in Europe. For my first meal I ordered ‘lulas com batatas fritas’. I hadn’t a clue what lulas might be but at least I knew I would get fries with whatever came. Lulas turned out be squid cooked in their own ink, quite tasty actually.
Ordering drinks in those early days was also a problem. Waiters in the Algarve at the time generally assumed that any tourist (estrangeiro) who sat down at a café would want a beer or a soft drink. So when I asked for “Duas aguas faz favor” the waiters would look all confused and respond “Beer?” “Coca Cola?” Inevitably I would break down and say in English, “Two waters please.” (The plastic bottles were much smaller back then).
When I expressed my consternation to a Portuguese friend who spoke perfect English, he burst out laughing and said, “You were ordering two female horses”.
As I grew tired of tosta mistas for breakfast I learned that the word for toast was ‘torradas’. I went to a café directly below the language school I was attending and requested in my finest Portuguese, “Uma torradas faz favor.” The poor young waitress looked at me as though I were some raving lunatic. I persisted in Portuguese but to no avail. The teenager went away and came back with the manager. I repeated my request in Portuguese. He shrugged and threw his hands in the air, so finally in frustration I said in English, “An order of toast please.” I settled down to yet another tosta mista.
Again I went to my English speaking Portuguese friend and explained my predicament of not being understood in the language of his country. He burst out laughing, “You were asking for a bullfight!”
A bullfight is spelled ‘tourada’
Like I said, it’s all in the pronunciation.
APPETIZERS – A bar-restaurant named Seattle Style recently opened in the nearby (to my Portuguese hometown of Portimao) fishing village of Alvor. I dropped in with friends last Sunday because the owners were doing a charity event to raise money towards the purchase of a mini-bus for the local orphanage. Several musicians performed for free and all of the food and drink proceeds went towards the charity. The first entertainer was a jazz singer named Annette and it turned out she was from Richmond, B.C. Annette told me that she had gone to the Algarve to work for one summer season and that was eight years ago…
I left Victoria on the day of the annual Strathcona Hotel Golf Tournament and so missed out on the fun. Tournament organizer Craig Olson kindly e-mailed me the results of the well-oiled day at Cedar Hill Golf Club – what he could remember of it: The low gross champion was Ben Griffin, a member of the B.C. Willingdon Cup team, at 59 and his team-mate Mitch Couch shot 61 off an eleven for a low net championship total of 50. Needless to say, their team, which included pro Ian Stone of Uplands and birthday boy Dave Tuttle won the team low gross. Tuttle also took home a new fridge for his KP on the 1st hole. The low net team consisted of the Strath’s own Brock Olson, David Atkinson, Dave Gros and Nat Thorpe. Low staff went to Brock with a 64.