Language, locals and hookers.

I can't believe I've been here a month. It's a milestone that I'll be celebrating tonight with local, hand-crafted goodies (wine, bread, cheese, fig jam). I have plans to do a day trip this weekend but haven't had much of a chance to plan. So, I might just hop on a train and see where I end up. The weather is going to be a bit too cool for the beach which is a motivating circumstance to get out of town.

I have been attending a Portuguese language course at the University, but I jumped in with 2/3 if not more of the semester already over. I'm picking up a bit, but you can imagine there is certainly a lot lost in, er, translation. I have a learning and development budget so I am grateful to be able to take some private, one-on-one language lessons and this afternoon was my first. Odete is my teacher and she speaks very little English (bonus for my learning pace, really), excellent Portuguese and French. My inquiries during class rely upon my knowledge of French (surprisingly it pops back to mind pretty well), random insertions of English (followed by overly aggressive hand waving) and very little, poorly pronounced Portuguese. I'm going to do 2 lessons per week for the next 5 weeks and then see about next steps.

I stumbled upon several new delightful spots this afternoon in town including two gourmet wine and food shops (1 with all local products) and a bakery just down the street from my house. Getting to know Aveiro is like making a new friend; the more we hang out, the more I learn about her. (Yes, I'll refer to Aveiro as female. There's a long, strong legacy of fisherwomen here. Seems suitable.) I left the first gourmet shop having learned more about the regions of wine, sea salt and tasting the famous Portuguese sweet, ovos moles. Turns out there's an aviation air show near my house on (Rua de Pega) tomorrow afternoon, and the unexpected bonus lesson of the day: Pega is also slang for hooker. And yes, for those of you keeping track that means I live next to a prison just down the way from Hooker Street.

Another hip young designer, Raquel, just back from London and her sister run the other shop. I'll be back for drinks, food recommendations and chatter soon.