Embarrassing Language Mistakes and Helpful Information
Embarrassing Language Mistakes and Helpful Information
I accidentally asked for a dick at a cafe...
I was in a Portuguese café, eager to practice my Portuguese whenever I can… (Note: at the time this happened I was only in Portugal for one month).
Once at the front of the line I say, “queria dois pão, se faz favor.”
What I thought I was saying is, “I’d like two pieces of bread please.” Some bread here are like dinner rolls or small baguettes and I use them to make delicious sammies.
The correct way to say it, I learned later is, “queria dois pães.”
The word for a single roll is pão. But more than one is pães, which is an honest mistake for a non-Portuguese speaker to make. However, the reaction that followed was not normal in the least. The server started laughing but not just small titters, oh no, he fell straight into deep, belly laughing guffaws.
Here it’s important to tell you, the reader, that I don’t care about being laughed at. It may be because I’m too old (that’s probably it) or too jaded (that too) or too unfazed (that three) or a combination of all. So instead of letting his reaction deter me, I tried again, repeating the word for bread. But the more I said “pão”, the harder he laughed, which was, in itself, quite a feat. Soon the woman behind me in line was laughing. And so was the man behind her. And as I kept repeating “pão” loudly, over and over again, as the rest of the cafe dissolved into laughter.
Finally one of the English speaking servers came over and I asked, “what am I saying wrong?”
He pantomimed hitting someone in the arm and said, “you’re saying pau, which means to hit someone with a stick.”
The rest of the patrons then pantomimed hitting each other with sticks as they all laughed again.
I tried unsuccessfully to say pão instead of pau several more times while everyone laughed heartily and shook their heads no. The tilde in Portuguese denotes a nasal sound so pão is a sound we don’t have in English. I knew this and apparently I need more practice.
Once they told me what I was saying I had a good laugh too.
EXCEPT: the next day I learned that pau is slang for dick and that’s WHY they were all laughing at me!!!!
After the bread situation was sorted, I asked the same server who speaks no English where the bathroom was in Portuguese. He started laughing at me again. This confounded me because it’s really the only sentence I know how to say correctly.
The English speaker was still standing there. and I looked at him and asked, “why is he laughing again?”
And he responded, “because your accent is perfect.”
I call that an ideal exchange (including the laughter at my mistake) and it totally made my day. For many years I’ve said, “I don’t care if someone is laughing with me or at me, as long as they’re laughing.”
Moving Somewhere Sight Unseen
I arrived in Portugal the second week of September 2022 and at the time of this writing, had only been here for a little over five weeks. When I arrived, I had no idea what to expect. Why? Because I’d never been to Portugal before.
This is where most people ask, “you moved to a country you’ve never visited before? Yes, I did, and you know what? I’ve met countless others who have done the same thing. Some have moved here, others moved elsewhere.
Did people call me crazy and project their litany of fears and opinions on me before I left? Of course, they did. Did I listen? Do I ever? I’m here, aren’t I?
Getting to Portugal with a Sick Pup
The plane ride itself and getting here was a nightmare. While I didn’t think I packed too much, I did. Two large suitcases, a backpack and my dog. Altogether I was lugging over 150 lbs. If I’d had an apartment here before coming over, which is what you’re supposed to have for the D7 visa, all of it would have been doable. But as you may have gathered by now, I’m an unconventional person who goes about matters in a different way. I didn’t have an apartment first, and I still don’t.
My poor dog is quite old, some vets say he’s 12, others say he’s 15. I think he’s the latter. He can barely see or hear and has trouble walking. His hind legs shake and oftentimes his whole body shakes uncontrollably for hours. He has high anxiety. If he could be sewed permanently to my stomach, he’d be in absolute heaven.
While I did crate train him, slowly over a year, he never really liked it. He’d never flown before. And though he’s small enough that I was able to bring him on the plane and have him under my seat, he was terrified. He screamed for the first four hours. No joke. I flew a red-eye on Air France where, under no circumstances, are dogs allowed out of their crates during flight. But four hours in, the flight attendant begged me to take him out of the crate and put him in my lap. I thought he’d be fine, he’s always been fine in my lap in the past. But nope, not this time. He kept crying and… kept trying to jump down.
After another thirty minutes of this, a nice German couple behind me, who had two perfectly well-behaved dogs under their seats, offered me an anti-anxiety homeopathic remedy. I was at wits end and would have tried anything. It worked and ten minutes later he was asleep in his crate, happily snoring away. And he was fine for the rest of the flight and the next one as well.
My best friend doesn’t believe in homeopathy but since I’ve been a licensed acupuncturist for fifteen years, I do. This is neither here nor there and I have no interest in convincing someone otherwise. But I will point out that placebos don’t work on animals.
Once Jake, my dog, and I landed in Paris for our connecting flight we were both exhausted. I had to walk four and a half miles through the airport (my phone and watch kept track) carrying a fifty-pound backpack, a dog and a crate. We went through customs, took a tram, and then stood in a tiny area at the gate, packed in like sardines in an overstuffed tight tin can. And then the plane was delayed for five hours.
I don’t know if you’ve ever arrived in a new country alone, where you don’t speak the language but I have many times and personally I find it exhilarating. But not at 1am after flying and being awake for more than twenty four hours. I had to collect my huge suitcases and then walk them through the airport to the veterinarian on staff. This is what must occur anytime you travel with a pet to a new country. I had to show the vet all his paperwork, which took several months prior to gather and included other vet visits, vaccines, a new chip, and a particularly stressful exchange with the USDA.
However, the veterinarian at the airport was amazing and we talked for a while. He drew me a map of Portugal and told me his favorite places. It was perfect. Update: Jake died in my arms at the beginning of 2023.
What wasn’t perfect was the fact that I had zero cell or internet service and could not contact my Airbnb host or call and uber. I was told this would happen but being faced with it was a different story…
When Plans Fall Through at the Last Minute
I will digress here for a moment because it’s an important caveat to my story. About eight or nine months before I found myself standing, alone and confused in an airport in Lisbon at 1am I had hired someone to help me complete my process of moving. For a year I had a podcast where I interviewed full time travelers (aka: nomads), expats and other people who were following their dreams.
At one point, someone contacted me and asked me if I would consider interviewing a particular person. I’ll call him Austin. Austin was starting a new business where he was helping people get their D7 visa. We had a zoom call and completely “hit it off”. I got his quirky sense of humor, and he had a similar “get it done” energy to myself. He was already living in Portugal and had gone through the process himself. Since his business was new, he offered me a very generously priced package and I agreed.
Over the next six months Austin and I spoke regularly, and he began promising me he would do certain things. I believed him, I had no reason not to. After-all, he had delivered other important items he had promised.
About four months before my move, he told me about the internet/cell issues and promised to meet me at the airport when I arrived with a SIM card.
He also said he would rent me one of his apartments for two months for a specific amount of money. I agreed.
But a few months (a month before my departure date) later he doubled the price.
When I asked him about it, he said, “if you can find the original text where I said you could have it for XYZ, I will honor that.”
It took a quick keyword search to locate the original text and I sent to him. But along with it I said, “look, if things have changed and you can no longer give me that price, let’s talk about it. The last thing I want to do is ruin our relationship. I don’t want you to become resentful or offer something you can no longer afford.”
He responded, “no, I’m a man of my word, I offered you that price, so I’ll give you that price. However, you can only have the apartment for one month and you can no longer have it in the city I said, you’ll have to be in a different city.”
By this time, I already had my plane ticket, and he knew it.
The specifics of what happened next aren’t worth going into because all that matters is the bottom line. He became passive aggressive, unprofessional and repeatedly lashed out at me. In the end he reneged on his promises, leaving me high and dry a few weeks before I was moving to a new country.
Was I pissed? Of course. Was I surprised? Unfortunately, no. I could tell it was going to happen before it did. I called it. I even begged him to charge me more money for the apartment so it wouldn’t happen. But you can’t stop a boulder from rolling down a steep and slippery hill covered in frost.
Figuring it Out Because there is No Other Choice
So I did what I always do, I dusted myself off and got to work. I reached out to everyone I knew, asking if anyone had contacts in Lisbon. I found a friend of a friend who let me rent her apartment for a reasonable price while she was away. I got an Airbnb for my first couple of nights. I got Airbnb’s in other cities. I moved forward. Was it difficult? Oh hell yes but it wasn’t impossible and there was no way I was going to let one angry, passive aggressive man, stand between me and my dreams.
About two weeks before I left a friend suggested I use the app Airalo to bridge my wifi/cell issue at the airports.
“Even though the airports have wifi,” she said, “you can’t count on it.”
She was right. But unfortunately, even though I did purchase a Portuguese eSim plan from Airalo, it didn’t work because I had no cell plan when I landed and the airport wifi didn’t work.
In a moment of what turned out to be fruitful panic, I had purchased an external wifi hotspot. It was about $100 and while several friends told me I didn’t need it and I was wasting my money, I told them that spending $100 for peace of mind was worth it. And it was. That was the only way I was able to contact my airbnb host which was paramount since I was arriving in the middle of the night and couldn’t enter his apartment without him. And I was able to call an uber to get there. The twenty-four-hour data plan was negligible and loaded right up at the airport.
Expect the best! But still plan for “just in case”.
And here is a wonderful article about “how it’s easy to ask for a dick in Portugal” LMAO
https://www.portugalist.com/funny-mistakes-portuguese/
For short, how-to, personal tidbits and informational vids on living in Portugal you can find me on TikTok.
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My old/er podcast (live your dream and how to travel full time) is on my website.
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