Still time to be adventurous though! Yesterday we took the plunge and had lunch in one of those little restaurants in a side street, away from the main drag, as it were. This one was called Búzio. No English to fall back on here but plenty of locals eating. Always a good sign. On the table behind ours four gentlemen were lunching together. One of them was clearly more opinionated than the rest; he rarely stopped talking enough to take a mouthful. The others barely got a word in edgewise. Another said nothing at all but, boy, he could eat! This probably explains his girth!
Anyway, the food was good wholesome stuff. Sopa de naboços to start with, another version of the "caldo gallego" we know and like. "Nabos" are turnips so it's possible that "naboços" are turnip tops, what the Spanish call "grelos". Our second course was "azélias fritas com arroz de tomato". Having established that "azélias" were some kind of fish, we turned down our waitress's suggestion that she should show us the fish prior to ordering. We had already understood that they were small "lenguado" or sole. Very good they were too; we had four small fried fish each, about five or six inches long, and a mountain of rice.
Whenever we have a dish like that I wonder if we are eating fish that are really too small to be caught legally. We eat them anyway so I should stop thinking about it. I am pretty sure they serve fish we have never heard of or that the British don't deign to eat. But it's all good tasty stuff.
The continental Europeans also use English words we have never heard of: "el footing" for jogging (Spanish), "relooker" meaning to renovate or to give a new look (French) and many more. English is everywhere in names of shops and bars, in adverts and especially in business and IT terminology. It amuses me. What doesn't amuse me is the transfer of mistakes such as the rogue apostrophe, sometimes called the "grocer's apostrophe". Here's an example from a seafront bar in Figueira da Foz.
Well, I just don't know! I have heard people say that some foreigners speak better English that the English but obviously they are no better at punctuation!
The barman across the road from the casino where the chess event is taking place told me that the Portuguese are better at learning languages than the Spanish, largely because of watching films in the original version with subtitles, rather than dubbed into the local language. (In Spain there are professional "dubbers"; dubbing-actors specialise in certain foreign actors. It happens in Italy too. An Italian friend of mine was astounded when she first heard George Clooney speak in his own voice!!!) We have conversations in a mix of Portuguese and Spanish, with a bit of English thrown in. I go in at least once in the evening to order a "garoto" Portuguese for the Spanish "cortado", "para levar" - to take out. I then carry a plastic cup of coffee across the road to the casino to give the chess player a boost.
As often happens, I am impressed by the level of conversation I have with barmen here and in Spain; they are always well informed. This one argues that Columbus is Italian - no way can he be Galician as our Pontevedra friends maintain! - but that he learned his sailing and navigational skills in Portugal. The barman went on the give me a mini history lesson about the kings and queens of Europe in the time of Columbus and how they were all related. Do English barmen know stuff like this? Or is there something superior in the continental European education system?
We've taken to popping in there as well for a post-chess game beer - hence the lengthy conversations about stuff - and the barman is now taking an interest in the chess player's progress.
Last night? A five hour marathon, needing TWO coffee boosts, which resulted in a draw! Phew! We thought it was never going to finish! It's a good job there are no more morning games until Sunday!
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