Paddling

So I feel a little like I've just hit the ground running. And the ground didn't even slow down with the impact. 10 hours in school on Monday for 2.5 hours of teaching, 11 hours on Tuesday, and I still ended up taking work home with me to plan for my classes on Wednesday. Friday was technically my day off - and that "technically" is placed there strategically so that you may know that "day off" is a theoretical term.

I have some lovely classes - two tiny 5-year-olds who babble at me in Portuguese about everything except the flashcard I'm holding up for them; three 8-year-olds who taught me how to say "maça" because I made it very clear that I didn't know what an apple was really called; a class of retired men who lived through the colonial wars (and the Portuguese colonial wars were devastating) and a revolution, but still listen politely to my thoughts on living in their country, and invite me out for coffee.

There's been a lot of coffee in my life. I need it. Really. There's a great, very simple cafe around the corner from the school where the waiter doesn't patiently listen to my painful Portuguese and then reply in English, but patiently listens to my Portuguese and then pretends he knows what I ordered. Usually he gets it right, but I think he's just got my favourites memorised.


I'm settling into my new place, which is a little flat (in the picture below it's in the middle of the big block, second from top, with an open balcony) just north of the city centre.


I share with Maria, who's a little younger than me but is doing very grown-up things that involve research labs and medical degrees and white coats, and Luisa, who is crazy. In her words. She's pretty awesome, lived in Angola before independence, came home, divorced her husband in Catholic Portugal, and lived to tell the tale sitting beside her well-adjusted daughter in a lounge littered with African statues and paintings. I also share the flat with Nala, who's crazier than Luisa, but can't natter away about it while chain-smoking, because she's a cat.


Once I get the hang of not spending 5 hours planning for an 80-minute class, I promise to tell you stories about Cascais. Just you wait till I get me a life...

Persevering

Well, I got the social security number. It near about killed me. I got talking to a guy from Angola while sitting outside waiting for my turn (I got there an hour before it opened, and was 48th in the third queue...) and he was very kind; him being the number before me, we went into the office together and he helped to translate when my "Slowly please!" didn't work on the official. It took another two trips to Finanças and one to my new Portuguese bank, but by 4pm I was through. I'm now the proud owner of 8 official pieces of paper which state my right to work here, which amazes me, as every EU citizen has the right to work in any EU nation anyway. But.

At least while waiting for my number to be called, I had time to wander around the area. It's quite amazing. Cascais itself is a popular seaside holiday for tourists from all over Europe; down by the seafront, the shops all sell postcards and green-and-red teatowels, and if you speak to someone in Portuguese, they answer in English. But here, just two (steep) blocks from the centre, it's quiet and traditional, and the voices in the streets are all clearly swallowing their words. Properly Lusophone.

The next day I started a three-day induction at my new school. All the teachers are undertaking some workshops run by the British Council, which is great, and very interesting. The other teachers (1 new, 3 veteran) are very friendly, and, astoundingly, all have British and Irish accents - I'm the only colonial there. The school is in a prime position near the fishermen's marina and in the very centre of town. It's the white building on the right:


Inside, there are 7 brightly-painted classrooms off a central reception.


I start actual classes on Monday with a group of 5 year olds - as terrifying as they are cute, believe me. I've never taught kids as young, but my director is great and will be walking me through it on Monday morning. I gather from the lesson plans that should you be wandering down the road that afternoon, and happen to pause by my open window, you will be able to hear me doing something I never do in front of any sane adult: singing!

Arriving

Having newly arrived in Portugal, I spent my first night at a celebrated hostel in Lisboa - one of the best in the world, according to certain sources. Amazingly spacious and beautifully done up, and clearly having cost a great deal of money right in the centre of Lisboa, I have to say I felt more at home in my sister's sweet hostel in London, where the staff's personality is there to see on every wall and in every room. The next day I was off on the railway line down the coast to São Pedro do Estoril, a small village just 20 minutes from Lisboa. I'd found a room there online, but, regardless of the enormous pool in the garden, the steep walk to the train station, from where I needed to catch a train to Cascais where I'll be working, was enough to convince me on the first day that unless I wanted to scare small children in the streets with my scarlet complexion and wheezing, I needed to find somewhere to stay in Cascais itself. Unfortunately, Cascais being as popular with wealthy Lisboans as it is with retired Europeans, rent costs twice as much in the centre as anywhere else in the area.

Sometimes life astounds me with its inventive coincidences. On Tuesday I went into Cascais to get some paperwork done. First stop was the Town Hall to get my Certificate of Residency, which I needed to apply for my Social Security Number. Unfortunately, you can't pay for the Certificate without the SS number - a rather strange governmental catch-22. Luckily, the lovely lady behind the computer, while quite underwhelmed by my attempts at Portuguese and urging me to take classes soon, offered to use her own Number for the receipt. First hurdle cleared. Town Hall having taken less time than expected, I decided to go to the Finanças office and walked all the way there up a steep hill, only to remember, at the door, that I didn't have my employment contract, which I'd been told I would need. So back into town I went, searching for an internet cafe in the cobbled streets of the old town, but not a single one was to be found. There's another Finanças office in another nearby town which I'd heard could be faster than the larger Cascais one, so I was about to give up for the day in Cascais when, outside the train station, I noticed a big official looking building advertising its Internet Space. I went inside to find a completely free governmental initiative where I could print my contract. Gotta love Europe. On my way out, I paused to look at an advert for yoga classes on the community noticeboard, and right next to it was a handwritten note offering a room to rent. Not being entirely happy in my current place, I took down the phone number. Back at Finanças, I glanced down the street to see an internet cafe almost next door... The dire warnings of two-hour waits evaporated in the face of a wait barely long enough for me to catch my breath. And guess what? They never even asked for my contract. Typical. That evening, my telephone skills utterly deserting me in my time of need, I texted the woman with the flat and set up an appointment to see it the next day. It's ideal. Cheap, close to town and the school, near a gym and a park, in a spotless apartment with a Portuguese woman, her fascinating English-professor mum and a tiny cat. Where would I be if my Finanças information had been right?!

I'm settled into the room now, and have been to see the director of my school; I have a bank account, a tax contribution number, a certificate of residency, a written income confirmation and a local resident card. Feeling proud. Still to get: my social security number, and a health card, which relies on getting the former. I anticipate the social security application with trepidation - I need to be there by 7am to get into the queue to get a number to get into a queue to see an officer, and then I don't know if he'll see me without having the forms, which are unobtainable without seeing the officer... Portuguese bureaucracy nearly rivals Zimbabwe's! But the sun shines, the sea beckons, and the cafe round the corner from Social Security serves amazing pasteis de nata; I'm already thinking of signing up for another year!