A couple of days ago, Scott and I went to the MEO store at the mall as I was STILL having some issues with the phone I had to buy for myself there. After waiting for around 45 minutes, I was able to speak to the one guy there that day that spoke English. He fixed the issue pretty quickly. I told him I need to get a case and he said they didn’t have any that were the right fit, but suggested a Samsung store (my phone is a Samsung) in the mall.
I went there and there was one guy sitting at a checkout desk. As I approached, he seemed to ignore me but as I reached about half way to him, he said bom dia. He seemed not too enthused. In Portuguese I asked if he spoke English, which he did. I told him what I was looking for. He said he didn’t think he had any, but he went to the back and came out with 5 or 6 cases. He said he hadn’t known they were there and proceeded to tell me about each one. I asked a couple of questions and then picked one. At that point he said, “since you have been nice, I will open these (referring to 2 different shades of purple) for you so you can compare”. I thanked him but said I wanted the darker one and no need to open the other. Then he said that only about 1 in 10 people who came in there are nice. We chatted a little more about my moving there from the US, I purchased the case and left. All in all, it felt like we both had restored the others’ faith in humanity.
Last night we went to the meet-up in Olhao. It was well attended and we probably talked with 5 or so people in the 90 minutes we were there. Near the end of the time, the guy that organizes the gatherings was sitting next to Scott and explained why he had a tennis racquet with him. As I have really no interest in tennis racquets, after all we sold the 2 we had before we left, I was a bit tuned out and thinking of Mexican food at this point. Next thing I know there’s an eruption of cheering and Scott is holding up the tennis racquet. What’s going on? It seems that someone who was not there was wanting to give the tennis racquet, along with it cover and maybe 10 new tennis balls away. The racquet has never been used. Uh, look, baby, you can’t play pickleball with a tennis racquet. It seems he’s been wanting to hit a tennis ball against the wall at the back of the terrace. OK, yes, dear, we’ll see how long this lasts. Teehee. He gave a short trial today, but forgot to make sure the dogs stayed inside. Bitsy stole his ball almost immediately. <snicker>.
Speaking of Mexican food, last night after the Meetup, we decided to go across the street and eat at this place that several people in the meetup said was good {please forgive me, I can’t seem to be consistent about writing meet-up or meetup and whether or not to capitalize.} So one guy seated us after I pretended to speak Portuguese. Well, not pretended. I was trying, I’m just very limited. I did seem to have him fooled for ½ a second. Nice guy. He left menus, came back, gave us the English version and took our drink order (bottle of red wine). Then told us we were to order food from his colleague. Before our food order was taken, he brought some tortilla chips and 2 tiny bowls of salsa (?)
We had been told they make their own chips there. In my experience that usually means the chips are really good. I keep forgetting about the salt thing! Not one crumb of salt on the
chips and the “salsa” didn’t have much taste. I asked the first guy for salt. Oh, yes, of course. Do you want pepper, too? No, just salt is fine. He came back, brought our wine. No salt. See, I’ve been waiting for the salt to make the chips edible. But no salt. Then he brings a salt shaker, one that’s like a pepper mill, but it has a little piece of paper that says Sal. In case you don’t speak Portuguese, that means Salt. 😉There was nothing in it. No salt, no pepper, nothing. I had to laugh (on the outside).
EVENTUALLY the colleague came and took our food order. He was really nice and seemed to have a bit of a sense of humor. I asked him for salt and kinda threw myself on my sword, claiming to just really, really like salt. He smirked. Then the first guy came back with a small glass shaker with a small amount of salt in in. I’m getting close to a giggle attack now, but manage to control myself. What do you know? The chips were WAY better with some salt. My black bean quesadillas were also much improved with the addition of salt.
I had seen that the menu said they had churros with chocolate sauce and caramel sauce. The British chicks at the table beside us ate one order of the churros and then ordered more. So we got some. I thought they were terrific. When he brought them to us, our guy asked me if I wanted salt. FUNNY MAN! I do love encounters like that. He ended up chatting with us for a few minutes.
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