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:
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....
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!