Curt: Last week, we told you about the importance of vacations. This week, we take you into the heart of one of Europe's most enchanting countries. My pal Joe has just returned from the sun drenched shores of Portugal. From the historic streets of Lisbon to the stunning cliffs of El Garvey, we'll hear firsthand about the adventures, the people, and the culture that make Portugal a traveler's delight. So sit back, relax, and let your mind wander, and let's embark on this portuguese voyage together. I'm Curtis, my relaxed and smiling pal. Right over there is Joe. And we are dudes in progress. Hey, Joe.
Joe: Hello, Kurt. What's shaking, dude?
Curt: How's your week going?
Joe: Returning from work and back at it after a nice, relaxing, busy, intriguing, beautiful couple weeks.
Curt: Yeah, two weeks in Portugal, and I'm getting right into this, Joe. I know we're recording Friday morning, which we really enjoy. I really enjoy doing this time, but Joe's got to get to work. Everyone's after Joe now. He's been away for two weeks, and that's funny. Why Portugal, Joe?
Joe: Why did that way? We are getting right into it. Awesome.
Curt: I'm not messing around. I got a lot of questions.
Joe: Portugal wife has portuguese in her heritage. Her great grandfather is from Portugal. And it's clear when you see pictures of him, it's clear that he has that heritage and he's from that area. And we thought about where we want to go for our anniversary trip, which is, I think, two years late. And she decided on Portugal because of that. She has Portuguese in her heritage. She's been taking Portuguese on her language learning app, Duolingo. And recently I've just heard a lot about how amazing Portugal is. I have I know a couple of people that moved to Portugal, visited Portugal for about a month, and then about six months later, I think it was just decided to pick up his family and move there. Sold his house here. He see, and he just fell in love with it. Cost of living is low. The place is beautiful. The people are amazing. So we decided to check it out, and we wanted to go on an adventure. We've been to a lot of places here in the United States, and we wanted to go on to an adventure. And so we chose Portugal.
Curt: Im really interested in getting into your trip because you know a little bit about all the other european countries for some reason. I dont know why, ive never really heard a lot about Portugal, which is surprising. It was such a huge dominant force in times when the european countries were out all over the world. I remember just recently watching Shogun, which was an excellent Netflix. Was it flex or. I can get that wrong. I think it was on a different channel. Hulu, maybe Hulu was on, but the part of that story was how this english guy who showed up and the English. I think the English were at war with Portugal at the time, and Portugal was dominant in Japan. It's got a great history, interesting history that I don't know much about. But before we get into that, I want to know. You were telling me last Saturday we got a chance to talk a little bit, and you had an interesting story about your flight to Portugal.
Joe: Oh, yeah, the flight to Portugal. So the plan was to fly delta. We booked our flights with delta, and the plan was to fly from Cincinnati airport, CVG to Paris, the Charles de Gaulle airport, and we had a bit of a layover there in Paris, and then fly from Paris to Lisbon, the Lisbon airport, while we're sitting there waiting for a flight, and they call our name, Joe and Karen Taylor, please come to the attendance desk or whatever it is. You know what I mean? And that's never a good thing, right? I feel like there's no way, man. I paid for this. I paid for this flight months and months ago. We're not getting bumped. And they talk. He said, hey, listen, our flight's full, and my blood pressure starts to go up when I hear that. He said, we'd like to put you on another flight that will get you into Lisbon about four or 5 hours earlier. And I said, okay, that's interesting. And we're going to put you on an airline called tap airline. I had no idea what tap airline was. It was. It ended up being the portuguese airline. And I'm like, yeah, man. I don't know, man. We want to make sure we sit together. We want to make sure that we. We experienced this flight. My wife had never flown this long over to Europe, so we wanted it. We wanted it to be a good experience. I knew Delta would give us a good experience. I fly Delta all the time, but I know nothing about this tap airline. This guy was very motivated to get us to move our flight, because when they overbook and everybody shows up, suddenly they start giving stuff away. Right, right. Free tickets, whatever it might be. He was very motivated to get us to move, and we were interested. So he had us on the hook, and he sat there and he typed for, I know, ten minutes, man. Clicking the keyboard, clicking. His fingers were smoking, trying to figure this out. I said, we got to sit together. If you can get us to sit together, and it's a nice flight. We'll do this. That's no problem. And as long as you promise me that tap airline is a good airline. He said, it's great airline. We said, okay. And he's tapping away, and he said, okay, here's what we have. We have you in business class going from CVG to Newark, New Jersey airport. And then he said, we. I'm not sure you can sit together on that. But on the flight to. On the flight to Portugal, we upgraded you to first class. Like, okay. And we're sitting together. Yep. You're sitting together. It ended up that we were sitting together on the business class flight from Cincinnati to Newark. Let me tell you about this first class upgrade. And they didn't call it first class. They called it business class on tap airline. But it was the best first class seat I've seen. You talk about being attentive to your needs. They started serving drinks right away, snacks, food, made sure you were comfortable. They gave us blankets and socks and the eye mask thing and. But I want to talk about the seats. The seats had this console between it. Now, there's a. That's an interesting little side story, too, Kurt, and I'll wrap this up in a second. But the seats were designated one a and one c. And I'm thinking, okay, there's a b between these seats. And they told us we were sitting together.
Curt: I know you're upset about that. You were telling me you were steaming. Didn't you have a delay and you had enough time to marinate in that?
Joe: Yeah, there was a delay a bit, and there was enough time for me to just. My emotions run wild.
Curt: He screwed us.
Joe: Yeah, that's what I thought. I thought he did. But what end? What it ended up being is the ac. You have an ac. And then that b spot is a, is a console with plugs and trays and everything you could possibly. Amenities, everything you could possibly want in this console. And then you have the Cc. So once we got there, we were, like, in the front row. First class. The best, they call it again. They call it a business class, but it's the best first class seats I've seen. And the seats reclined completely horizontal and converted into a bed. And you could sleep right there. Horizontal on the flight.
Curt: It's a long flight, right? How long is that?
Joe: Flight was about 7 hours.
Curt: But it was right into lisbon, too. Right? So that was. Yep.
Joe: Flew right into Lisbon. So it was just what it. What an amazing flight it was. Start. Fantastic.
Curt: I love that.
Joe: A great start. I mean, very, very nice. So, yeah, you're right. I mean, in the beginning, I was pretty mad because he made some promises that didn't look like they were coming through. You look at the seat and you think, these aren't together. You look at the, you're not sure about the airline. I couldn't find much online about what the plane looked like, but we had already committed and we had to rush to the gate because our flight to Newark, our new flight to Newark, was leaving in like 15 minutes and they were holding the plane for us. So as it turns out.
Curt: Did you get in early?
Joe: Yeah, we got in about four or 5 hours early. I'm glad we did because navigating through the Lisbon airport and picking up the rental car took a bit longer than we thought. And we got to our apartment about 02:00 in the afternoon on Saturday.
Curt: Let's talk about where you left for.
Joe: The two weeks we stayed in. We spent eight days in, in, in the Algarve area in a town called Carvero. I think you spell it. It's c a r v o e I r o. Carvero. I'm sure I'm mispronouncing it. We found an apartment on verbo that was really nice. And it was right in the center of that area. It was a short walk to the city center and a short walk to the beach. Uh, so we spent most of our time there in the Algarve area and then four days in the city of Lisbon proper at a hotel there in Lisbon, a holiday inn of all places. Now, I'm not a fan of Holiday Inn. I can't believe my wife booked Holiday Inn because she knows that I'm a huge fan of the Hilton brand. But I think she found it on some, one of those book it.com or Expedia or something like that. And it was a really good deal. So I wasn't going to fight with it. So we spent four days in Lisbon and about eight days in Cavero. Eight, nine days. And there's, of course, some travel time. There was some travel time there as well.
Curt: Algarve. Is that how you say it?
Joe: Yeah, that's how I say it.
Curt: That's the area you were in.
Joe: Yeah. But the city, that's where we spent most run. It's these, it's the southern part of Portugal.
Curt: Yeah. On the coast.
Joe: Beautiful beaches, caves. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Yeah. Southeast.
Curt: The apartment.
Joe: Southwest.
Curt: A vrbo.
Joe: Yeah. Verbo. A v o apartment.
Curt: How was that? And that.
Joe: The owner was really cool. The apartment was enough for her. And I enough for us. And we. It was interesting because when we got there, there was an upcharge for air conditioning. And I'm like, what? No. No place there has air conditioning by default, right? No place there does. And we're like, there's an upcharge. And she said. And I'm like, yeah, I'm paying for air conditioning. I don't care. And it was a modest up charge, like $30 or something like that. And she goes, before you pay for it, just stay the night here without it. Open up your windows, let the breeze come in, and put these two fans on. They had fans there, and we didn't get air conditioning the whole time. It was just. The weather was beautiful. The breeze coming through was more than enough to keep the apartment very comfortable. And you just got a feel for the. You weren't stuck in a closed apartment, right. That the windows were open and breeze was coming through, and you could hear the culture and things happening around you. So I'm so glad we didn't get the air conditioner.
Curt: Great tip from the owner. You said that was, right?
Joe: Yeah, the caretaker, the property manager. The owner came later, but, yeah.
Curt: Awesome. Well, one of my favorite things on vacation is to try the local food. Did you guys. I know you guys like to go out to dinner. Did you have a favorite meal or two that you could tell us about?
Joe: I did. I had a few favorite meals. We ate. We picked up groceries and ate most of our meals at the apartment. Okay, breakfast. And we probably ate out six times, maybe seven times. Not a lot. But my favorite dish was this chicken. It's called peri peri chicken. Really spicy. First of all, they serve, at least the places we went, they served french fries with everything, even steak. French fries with steak. Right. And I'm not talking about big beef steak fries, but your standard french fries, but they serve french fries with everything. Just about, uh, we had a dish that was portuguese. I had a dish called. That was called. That was portuguese steak. And it was really interesting. They have these. It was steak in, like, a thin sauce with really crisp potato chips set around it. And the potato chips would get soggy, so they'd almost turn into an au gratin kind of dish without the cheese, these soft potatoes. And that was really good, the chicken. Peri peri, I think, is how you say it. Peri peri was really good. Spicy, but just a really unique taste. It was. They served it as a half a chicken, but it was all cut up, and the sauce was fantastic. But they have these little custard tarts called. I'll just say pastry donata, I think, is how you say it. That's. There's a different pronunciation, but I'm from Cincinnati, Ohio, so pastry donatas really is the best I got. It's a custard tart that is a favorite there in Portuguese. That is really. It's not overly sweet, but there's a smooth, sugary texture to it that just melts in your mouth, and it's. Is fantastic. We brought a bunch of them home with us. These custard torts. They're just fantastic.
Curt: How would you describe portuguese food, then, overall, from your experience?
Joe: I don't. That's a good question, because there's such a wide variety. It's like saying, how would you describe american food? Some Americans like spicy food or some like fried food, and so it's. That's hard to say. I think that. I think it leans towards spicy. A lot of fish. I didn't talk about the fish. We had a. I can't remember what even what the fish was now. Maybe a sea bass or something like that. That was just flaky and tender and tasty. So I had fish too, but I think it leans towards my experience, it leans towards spicy and slow cooked. Right. Really a lot of attention given to the dish itself.
Curt: Excellent. I was in New York City with my daughter this past week. On Wednesday, we took the day off. We had tickets to a show. We were sitting in Times Square, and there is this portuguese sardine shop in the middle of Times Square. I took a picture for you and.
Joe: Sent it look like a carnival.
Curt: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: So, yeah, I saw a couple of those in Portugal. Oh, really, really neat.
Curt: I'm sure my wife loves sardines, so we bought her a can from Portugal, which, you gotta believe, fish is a big dish in Portugal.
Joe: It is now, the sardines that we had, we went on a six hour cruise while we were there, and they stopped at a beach. At a beach and had a big cookout for us. And they served sausage and sardines and kebabs. And the sardines were big. They were at least six to nine inches long and a lot of bones. But once you got through the bones, very, very tasty. So I think sardines might be a. I'm not sure they mean the same thing here as they do there, but very, very tasty.
Curt: Sardines were in the shop. They had a bunch of different kinds of fish. It was more like fish in a can, right? Lots of different varieties, yeah.
Joe: And the food was just really good. We didn't have a bad meal at all.
Curt: Moving right along. What a variety of questions I have for you, Joe. What was the most unexpected part of your trip to Portugal?
Joe: The most unexpected part, I would say how friendly and welcoming the locals were. Everywhere we went, people were eager to share, help us navigate. It really made the trip special, because without a doubt, I can't think of one negative interaction that I had with everybody from the hospitality industry to the locals that were off the beaten path on some of the little towns that we drove to. Everybody to a t, without exception, extremely kind and extremely friendly and extremely helpful. And everybody. Some people knew English really, really well, and some people knew English enough to move the interaction along. But everybody knew some kind of English, right. Even if it meant trying to figure it out a little bit. But everybody knew some kind of English, but the people were just warm and friendly and beautiful, kind human beings that. They were just fantastic. That really surprised me because I thought, here's an american coming to visit our country. Let's make it hard. And there are countries that are like that, hello, France. That don't treat Americans or tourists very well. Now, if you've been to France and had a different experience, I'm sorry, but I didn't. They make it difficult. France made it when I was in France, just made it difficult to communicate. But anyway, talking about Portugal, the people are amazing. That's what I found surprising.
Curt: Can you point to one particular interaction with a local that stood out for you?
Joe: Yeah. Now, I might contradict myself on this one. One of the small towns that we visited, we went on a hop on, hop off tour, which is basically a tour bus that takes you all through Lisbon and you can get on and off as much as you want. So we took this hop on, hop off tour, and one of the places we stopped was a really small town with a really old church there built in like the eleven hundreds upgrade it. They were proud of their upgrade from 1778 or something like that. And just this old church, it was beautiful. In that little town that we were walking around, there was a guitar player kind of in an alleyway, off the beaten path in an alleyway, clearly there to entertain the people that were visiting. Right. He wasn't just there playing his guitar. He had his guitar out and was accepting tips and so forth. But he. I went to take a picture of him and he waved me off. Don't take my picture, all right. And I was a little confused by it, and I want to take. And he, like, he. He very dramatically waved me off. And so I walked up and I threw a couple euros in his guitar case. And he was just then he was like. He was completely available to me, let me take pictures. And he performed and was played louder and all that other stuff. That's his gig, right? He. No pictures for free. But I understand the interaction. He wasn't. It was almost. I find. I found it unique and interesting. So there's that. There was that interaction. One of the restaurants we went to when they found out that we were visiting, because this was off the beaten path, you had to go down a dirt road. And this was recommended to us by a local for some authentic portuguese food. Food. Once he found out that we. We were american, he came out and talked to us and had a really good, interesting conversation about his restaurant. And he brought out a sample of portuguese sausages for us to try, no charge, because we wanted some authentic portuguese food. And so that interaction was really cool. And then we met a guy, a portuguese native on the sunset cruise named Jesse that spoke extremely clear, articulate English. You would just, when he got into his english flow, you would not know that he didn't have an accent, he didn't have any kind of dialect issue, sounded middle America American. And he was extremely helpful. He took my phone and typed a list of places for me to go. And he didn't have to do any of this. He was just a crewmate on the cruise. But we got to talking to him and he was just extremely. We got a picture together with him. Just extremely friendly and extremely kind and helpful. And that's not the exception. That was almost every interaction, but these are the ones that kind of came out can come top of mind.
Curt: Fantastic description. We were talking about this, I think, when we were did our episode about vacations, those expectations you have before a trip. Now, you had little knowledge of Portugal and you've already talked about the great reality of the people. But is there anything else that there was a difference between your expectations and the reality of what is Portugal?
Joe: Here's the great thing about this trip. I had no expectations because I didn't know what to expect or what not to expect. There was a thought that, okay, am I going to, is Portugal going to be, like, not necessarily a third world country, but it's going to be hard to navigate and hard to move around and where there was some anxiety there. I had no idea how good the people were other than what I've heard. And I've heard all positive things about Portugal, but I didn't really have any expectations. So when I. When we got there, it was like a blank slate. And that was my intention. That was our intention, to go there and just explore, go on an adventure. I love the saying that a friend of mine has safe doesn't make good stories. So we made sure we went off the beaten path and just tried to figure out Portugal.
Curt: Yeah, I'd be anxious driving there. And we're so glad you got the insurance for the car you rented, right?
Joe: Yeah. So we rented a car, and that's. If there's a tip that I would give when visiting Portugal is rent a car, rent a car, get the insurance, so there's no anxiety about driving, about navigating your way through. If you get a bump or a scratch or anything like that, buy all the insurance, rent a car, and go explore. And that's what we did. We went exploring. It's so funny, Kurt, because the highway system there is really good. It's as good as the highway system here. Once you figure out what the signs mean and what they're trying to communicate and all of that. Why don't you figure that out? It's just like driving here. But when you go into these small towns, they clearly were not built for cars. You're driving down the street and you have six inches on each side of you. Not six inches to the curb, not six inches to the sidewalk. There's a building, a vertical building on each side of you that you're just trying to make your way through this cobblestone street, or what is equivalent to cobblestone, and down these steep hills and up these steep hills and around these bends. But I'm so glad we did that, man, because that way you get to see the real Portugal, the real Lisbon, these little towns that are smattered across. Across the areas that we were. Rent a car, man. I would really highly recommend that. I don't know where we are on your list here, but if you're going to ask about a tip on going there, I would say rent a car and get the insurance.
Curt: Well, you told me your wife was practicing her Portuguese, and I'm wondering if that came in helpful. Did you pick up any portuguese phrases that were useful?
Joe: I love my wife, Kurt.
Curt: I know you do, Joe.
Joe: We had a blast. It was a good time. But she's been taking Portuguese on Duolingo for years, and I'm not sure it did any good whatsoever. I'm like, that was part of my thing. Okay, we're going to go there, and she's going to know the language and it just. The first of all, the Portuguese that she learned was Brazilian Portuguese in these apps that you go as slow as you need to go when you're driving down the expressway or the highway there, and you say, what does that sign say? I don't know what that sign says. Something about a river.
Curt: Or.
Joe: What did they just say? Man, they're just talking too fast. So, in reality, it. That didn't really come in terribly handy, but it didn't matter, because everything. There was an English. Even in the restaurants that were off the beaten path, there were english translations on all the menus and most of the signs. And once you understand, once you see the word, you think, okay, you see a man and a woman sign, you're probably talking about toilets, right? And you see these common indicators, these common. This common signage, and it's pretty easy to figure out your way.
Curt: So no phrases that you can remember?
Joe: Oh, yeah, you talked about phrases, probably. Bumdia, good morning.
Curt: All right, bum dear.
Joe: Good morning. Yeah, I can. I learned to cuss in Portuguese, but. I learned to cuss in portuguese years and years ago, but I won't do it here. The but. Bom dia. Bom dia. Good morning, it seems like.
Curt: Good morning. It seems like. Well, bum dia, I should say, seems like you got around quite a bit in Portugal with the renting of a car. Which place in Portugal left the biggest impression on you, or what about it.
Joe: Stood out, I would say the Benigel caves. There's several caves in Portugal. Many of them, the Benigel caves, are world famous. They were breathtaking. Just the natural beauty of the caves, the rock formations, the crystal clear waters that go in, flow in and out of the caves. It was, I would call it, almost mesmerizing. It felt like stepping into another world. Kurt. We stopped at a beach on one of our cruises where they had a barbecue for us. But over through, off to the left, there was a jetty, kind of a rock formation that was sticking out, and on the other side of that rock formation was this cave. And you could get over to that cave if you had a boat or a paddleboard or something like that. And I got ahold of a paddleboard, and I made my way around the jetty into this cave, and I was blown away by it. It was gorgeous, beautiful, breathtaking. Like I said before, mesmerizing. It just was so cool. But I didn't have my phone with me, and I didn't have a camera with me, and so I'm like, how did I not bring this? Bring my phone with me and on our phones, we had those plastic pouches with the lanyard around the neck that you. That protects it from the water and all that other stuff. And I think my phone is waterproof, but I didn't want to trust that. So I paddled back around to grit to get my phone, and I was going to go back. There was. There were a limited number of paddle, of paddleboards, and by the time I got my phone, somebody else had taken that paddle board. But I'm going over to this cave again. So I swam around the jetty and made my way onto the top side of the jetty. And at that point, the waves were pretty interesting. So I grabbed ahold of the side of the rocks and just pulled myself around to the other side of the jetty and then stepped back into the cave and took a video and pictures and all that other stuff. But the caves were really cool. There was one cave that wasn't available until the tide was low, until low tide. So I got up early in the morning during low tide and walked into this cave near the place that we were staying. So it's the caves, but the beaches are beautiful. Lisbon itself is an old country, and the way the buildings are built and the way the. With the tile and it's just. It's a beautiful. It was a beautiful place, but those caves were stunning.
Curt: I was going to compare the tourist hotspots to these off the beaten path kind of places, but did you have in your plans and did you pull off some tourist hotspots that were your favorites?
Joe: Yeah, that the whole area that we stayed in is a tourist coveiro. That that's a. That's heavily populated by tourists. And we were in the still in the slow season, believe it or not. And it was pretty busy, so we stayed in touristy area. And I'm glad we did. It made it that much easier to navigate around. Now, when we go back, and we will go back, uh, we're going to probably stay at some. Someplace off the beaten path a little more and explore a little more. You have the tourist hot spots and you have off the beaten path, uh, locations. And we did a mix. We drove around and we visit, like I said, the. This little city called Silvez, which has a castle in it. Some quieter places like Foragudo. That is a. Like a small fishing town, which has a neat feel to it, some real character to it. The boardwalk there that take that took us down to Algarve Seco. I think it's how you say it, or it's not Algarve Seco. It's something like that. Argo seco or something like that. But it's a. It's another kind of rock formation, long boardwalk that you can really take in the beauty of the. The coastal area there.
Curt: Is it a local vacation spot because of the ocean and the beaches?
Joe: I think it might be, but there were a lot of. There were a lot of british people in this particular area that we stayed. And it's not difficult to get to Portugal from Britain as it is, so it's. It definitely is a tourist spot. I don't know how much of a tourist spot it is for locals, but a lot of british people there.
Curt: Did you feel for the culture of the people and the traditions of Portugal?
Joe: Yeah, I did, actually. This happened during souvenir shopping, and we noticed a chicken on everything. And there's a whole story behind the chicken. And I'll let you look up the portuguese chicken story, but it's like a good luck chicken. It's very similar to. I think it's either japanese or Chinese. The cat with the waving arm, you know, there's a story behind it, and it's a really interesting story. I'll leave it up to the listeners to look up the story behind the portuguese chicken. But that was cool. Just how laid back and how. Just helpful everybody was. Culture, you know, the music there. What is the name of that? Fado. I think the name of the music is fado. Seemed to be playing everywhere you went, and it's just a very melodic guitar, really soothing sound. That was cool. Yeah. There's lots of interesting aspects of the traditions and the culture. There's. But it's also very, like, very much like the United States, depending on the area that you go. Lisbon was a little more fast paced. The major city there in Portugal, while we're there visiting, there's people going to work and getting on the bus and walking to work and trying to navigate their way through the city on a Tuesday morning as we're just moseying along.
Curt: It's a big city.
Joe: It is a big city. It's not highly populated. I found out that there's probably only four or 500,000 people in Lisbon, but it's really spread out widespread.
Curt: What was your favorite part? Lisbon. Visiting it. Did you do see anything really interesting there?
Joe: Yeah, we walked this. It's very walkable city, for one thing. I mean, there's lots of places you can. Wherever you are, you're not far from something interesting. So we found this neat little park there. That was probably a ten minute walk, and I think it was connected to a museum, but there was a lot of people. It goes from this big city atmosphere to this very quiet little park, and that was cool. We took the hop on, hop off tour bus in Lisbon. That kind of took us all to the places that you would want to go see. And we got off on a couple places there and saw the small towns. I talked about a church that we saw an old church and went in there and took pictures, and there's a relic from the church, from the eleven hundreds that they have behind a display case. So, yeah, it was. Did that answer your question, bud?
Curt: Yeah. And I'm thinking of the rich history, like we talked about, the colonialism. Did you get a sense from the deep history of Portugal?
Joe: You get a sense from it, Kurt, but I didn't. We didn't explore that a little bit, other than we visited some of the castles there, which are cool, and you learn about a little bit of the history of who owned that castle and why they owned it and so forth. But it was when you go to Portugal, you are diving into old world culture and you can feel it as soon as you're there.
Curt: Yeah, I would expect that from us, who only have a 200 plus year culture.
Joe: It always amazes me about Europe in general, and Lisbon and Portugal was like this, too. If there's a 30 zero year old house or building in Portugal, somebody probably lives in it, right? Somebody lives in it. That's their home here. If there's a 300 year old building or house, we put a chain around it and call it a national monument. It's just. It's different. It's old world culture.
Curt: Reflecting back. We really have a 400 year culture because people landed here from Europe in the 16 hundreds. My family did. Connecticut has. That's funny. They built these stone houses in Guilford and where my family landed, and it's a national treasure. Us federal.
Joe: That's funny.
Curt: Yeah. Park, let's finish up with a couple here. Joe, you gave us some tips a little bit already with your renting of a car, but do you have any tips you would give someone who's going to Portugal for the first time?
Joe: Yes. I'm not sure we planned as much as we could have, but sometimes you don't know what you don't know. Definitely. Rent a car. Rent a car. Buy the insurance, take all that anxiety out of it, because you're going to go through some pretty precarious situations with your car, and you're going to. You're going to be a little nervous driving if you indeed go into some of these small towns and some of the areas of Lisbon that were not built for cars. We had a Renault Clio, I think it was Renault Clio, and it was small car. Luckily it was a small car, but it was a stick shift, and I hadn't driven a stick shift in probably ten or 15 years. So it came back to me pretty quickly. But there was a little bit of a learning to remember how to do it. And plus, the reverse was in a different place than I'm used to, so I had a little bit of that. But definitely rent a car. Start early, start early. Start your day early. Plan your day and get at it. Sprinkle in the nice, relaxing part, because that's part of the vacation too, right? You. The problem is you're at this new place, so you think, wow, we just flew 8 hours or 7 hours or however long it was and 3000 miles to come here. Why are we sitting next to the pool? Or why are we, why is it 1130 and we're still in the. We're still in the apartment? Part of vacation is just that relaxing and slowing your pace and taking some time to read and just crash a little bit. But also, you got to build in the interesting stuff, go see the culture and all of that. So really plan, do the best you can to plan in advance. I would definitely rent a car. I would stay probably in, in cavero again or someplace close to that, because there's a lot to do. And when you go, if you were to go to Portugal, investigate the hop on, hop off and buy a few days of the hop on, hop off, and really take your time to go to all the spots that they drop you off, and you can hop on to the. When you want to, and you can hop off at the stops when you went to really take your time that hop on, hop off. I wish I'd have known about that earlier because we just had one day of that and I wish we would have done a couple days of that hop on, hop off, because it's a nice, safe, easy way to get around the, the city of Lisbon and see all the things that you would want to see as part of the portuguese culture, especially the smaller, older parts of Lisbon.
Curt: I know you've been talking very fondly of this trip. You're even talking about going back. Is there anything you're going to do differently that you didn't do on this past trip?
Joe: Probably start the day earlier. Quite honestly, we were a little tired from the travel, and I'm an early riser as it is, but probably start the day earlier and really plan out the day better. We would definitely use the hop on, hop off more often in Lisbon and we would rent a car again and go off into some of those other more remote places that we just didn't get to.
Curt: Don't you think having a little experience is really helpful? I'm getting from you the balance of how do you balance getting enough rest but also exploring as much and getting as much of the touristy things in as you can?
Joe: Yeah. And I may have talked about this previously, and I think I did. Is there, is that balance, Kurt, you're there for vacation, so part of it is the downtime that you want to get and the relaxation. Uh, we spent a couple days poolside, that it could have been a pool in Cincinnati, Ohio, or Panama City Beach, Florida, or Las Vegas, Nevada, or anywhere. We spent a couple days there and you can't let that nag at you because there was a part of me that was like, my gosh, we just traveled on this plane 3000 miles away and we're in this different country. Why are we doing sitting next to the pool or why are we still in the apartment at 1130 and. But part of that is vacation. You're just relaxing. So you do have to have that balance.
Curt: Like it a lot. All right, my last question is reflecting back on this entire trip. Joe, can you look back on any particular memory that's going to stand out for you as you reflect back on this trip?
Joe: So this is interesting because it has little to do with Portugal. We right in the middle of vacation, my wife and I realized that we had never done a two week vacation before together, just us. I'm not sure we've done a week long vacation together, just us. I think we did one back in 1993, but I will never not do a two week vacation again. It just. It's important to have that critical downtime. This is a little personal for me, Kurt. The one memory, if I were to reflect back on it has just has. It's just me. It's my exploration of the caves. It's the explorer of walking around this area and navigating these rocks and navigating these caves and waiting for the low tide so I can go back into some of the caves and really that letting myself be in awe and take the time and explore this area. And that's probably my biggest takeaway. That's probably the most memorable experience that I have. My wife and I spent cool time on the beach together, that was very memorable. I loved spending this isolated time just with her, and that was very memorable. But quite honestly, we can do that anywhere intentionally. But Portugal itself. Wow, those caves were awesome. The caves that were in the water and the beaches were just beautiful.
Curt: I love hearing about your trip, Joe. I like to travel, and I would never have even thought of Portugal, but you make it sound just amazing. So thanks for sharing all your experiences.
Joe: In every sense, it's a beautiful place. The people are beautiful, and I'm not talking about how they look as human beings. They're beautiful human beings. The culture is. The pace is beautiful. The scenery, the landscaping, the texture, the geographic formations where you are, the weather. I don't remember seeing a cloud in the sky while I was there. Not one. Not a. Not barely a wisp. It was just beautiful. I would highly recommend figuring out a.
Curt: Way to go is typical for the climate there to be like that.
Joe: I don't know. It's. It was perfect. The weather was perfect.
Curt: I love it. I'm inspired. Thank you, Joe. And I'm wondering what your win for the week was.
Joe: Well, there we go. We just spent. We just spent, whatever, 45 minutes talking about my win for the week. It is the trip to Portugal and what an amazing experience it was and getting to spend this isolated time with my wife and her and I, to really engage with each other in a way that we don't often get to engage with each other and plan stuff together and talk to each other and feel. Feel as a couple and explore and have an experience as a couple and share that experience together. Yeah.
Curt: I like your idea of two weeks or something. About two weeks. I was thinking about you during that trip. Oh, my gosh. He's already been there a week. He's got another week to go.
Joe: And that's a really good feeling about a two week vacation, because when you take a one week vacation Tuesday or Wednesday, you start to realize that gone. It's halfway over.
Curt: Right?
Joe: You know?
Curt: Yes. So true.
Joe: And. But with a two week vacation, Tuesday or Wednesday comes, you're like, wow, I've got ten days to go.
Curt: Or it's a great feeling.
Joe: It is a great feeling, but still, that can go fast as well. And one thing that I've learned about vacationing, and especially in this vacation, is go slow, even when you're. Even when you want to rush to get someplace. And there was a couple places that we rushed to get to, but go slow and let yourself become a part of the experience.
Curt: Marinated.
Joe: So my win for the week is my trip to Portugal. Of course.
Curt: Awesome. I visited my grandson on Sunday. He's over three weeks old now. I just keep teasing my son, my daughter in law, and my wife. I want to play with him, but he sleeps all the time.
Joe: Grand Pauling's the best, dude. It's the best.
Curt: We had a good day. I'm looking forward to more adventures going up in a couple weeks. Again. It's gonna be Father's day this weekend. I'll be able to wish my son a happy Father's day. Interesting to see.
Joe: That's a very cool. Awesome.
Curt: When my daughter, Lindsey, she got some free tickets because of all the time and tickets she's bought for Broadway, I don't know if she got them all 100% free, but she picked out a Wednesday to go see Hadestown again. And we wanted to see it because there's an actress there that I have a connection through my podcast. Annie DeFranco was playing Persephone on Broadway. She finishes up at the end of this month. Talked to my friend Bubba, said, I'm going to see your boss, and we're excited to see. She did a great job. The whole cast was new from previous shows we've seen, and it. It always. It's my favorite show on Broadway. So we got to see Hadestown on Wednesday. Took the day off.
Joe: Awesome. Sounds like a blast.
Curt: It was. Congratulations, grandpa, and good times with my daughter Lindsey. What's your resource, Joe?
Joe: Now, this is not a resource that's readily available to everybody, and I understand that it's not necessarily readily available to me, but if you get the chance to fly tap airlines to Portugal, fly tap airlines. It really is a great airline and kind, friendly people, comfortable seats. Even though we had a. An amazing first class to first class experience, I had a chance to walk back to the. Whatever, the main cabin, and those seats looked amazing as well. So it's just a great airline. It's not affiliated with Delta, and I'm a Delta guy, but if I get the chance to go back to Portugal, we may very well intentionally fly tap airline. Great. I can't say enough about it.
Curt: And you found out this by accident, which was a nice surprise. To relate this to all of us, I wonder, maybe it's a good tip to fly the airline of the country you're visiting, as a rule.
Joe: That's a good idea. At least you might even be able to start that cultural experience as soon as you get on the plane. That's a good idea. That's a good idea.
Curt: Get right into it right off the airport. My resource, totally different direction. I've been doing a course on how to grow a YouTube channel. And being a software geeky kind of guy, I was really surprised that I didn't know about this tool called notion.
Joe: I don't know.
Curt: Have you ever heard of it, Joe?
Joe: I have not. I think I remember something tells me that one of the podcasters that I listen to, maybe Cliff Ravenscraft, uses notion. I'm not sure.
Curt: It's so funny because Cliff has a knack of on his podcast and he's podcasting more regularly now to talk about something I'm dealing with right now or mention something that I'm working with. And I had never heard him say this before, but the woman that I'm taking the training from, Meredith Marsh, her name is, she has templates that she built and it was really nice to simply give us a URL. When you clicked on it, it brought you into your, you have to build a notion account or it prompted me to build my notion accounts from the template she had. A couple of them there immediately are imported into my projects. But you may have heard me talking about my disappointment with Evernote that went to a paid program that I used for years and years. And this does the note taking. It's like spreadsheet, like it's got task management, wikis, database capabilities. There's lots of bells and whistles in there that I have no idea how to use. I'm just following her lead in some of these things, but I'm using it now for my note taking on a regular basis. And I'm loving notion. So if you're interested, it's all. And the free program will get you everywhere you need. And Cliff talked about doing his sales, what do you call it, like a salesforce kind of system he built in there, templates and. Yeah, yeah. So notion. Go check it out if you're interested in those kind of productivity tools.
Joe: Yeah, I will. I'll definitely check it out. It sounds like a great tool, the direction you're headed, the planning and note taking and so forth. I'm always looking for a good notes tool. I use the, I can't remember what the Google, the free Google one is, but I'll definitely check out notion.
Curt: Oh, you'll. Yeah, this is, it's got tons of bells and whistles of organizing your stuff and everything all in one place. I am. I'm gonna keep digging into it. It's something I'm really enjoying right now. All right, Joe, down to the quote for the week.
Joe: So I'm going to try to do this in Portuguese. And if you speak fluent Portuguese or any Portuguese, I'm going to apologize in advance. Okay, so here's the quote in Portuguese, and I'll tell you what it is in English. Also, quando nasia para todos. Also, quando nasia quadra para todos. It means the sun when it rises is for everyone. Isn't that beautiful?
Curt: It is.
Joe: And the sun when it rises is for everyone, or the sunrise is for everyone.
Curt: Can you relate that to the culture of Portugal?
Joe: Yes. Very inclusive, very, very poetic and almost. I don't want to say philosophical, but it just has that feel to it. Right. And welcoming. And when I hear this phrase, the sun when it rises is for everyone, I get it, especially being the Portugal. And understand it's a portuguese proverb, because there are things that are for everybody, Kurt, that the wealthiest don't get to experience it any better or any worse. And from the poorest people, everybody can go see a sunrise wherever they are. They can see that. They can see that if. Whether it's over buildings or land or over their backyard. The sun's coming up. The sun's coming up, dude. And when it comes up, it's for everybody. The sun when it rises is for everyone.
Curt: I get a sense of gratitude from that proverb.
Joe: Yeah, absolutely.
Curt: There are things we take for granted, but just bask in that sun. I'm so glad you had a sunny vacation near the ocean. I'm jealous. It's something I'm thinking of doing this summer. We'll talk about that maybe tomorrow when we have our Saturday morning chat. Love a beautiful sunrise. Sunsets, too. Yeah, pretty gorgeous, depending where you get to see them.
Joe: Really? The sun when it rises is for everyone. Everybody gets a new day, right?
Curt: Yeah.
Joe: If you wake up, you get a new day. Everybody does.
Curt: Start over.
Joe: Yep.
Curt: Love it, Joe. I had to look into something that was travel related. Mine comes from St. Augustine. The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.
Joe: Oh, I do like that.
Curt: Joe likes to get out there and explore and see different new things, and.
Joe: I do have an adventurous nature within certain guidelines. Right. I say rent a car so you can explore all things about Portugal. But when you rent a car, by gosh, get the insurance, dude. So you're not worried about it, but get out there, man. When you're reading that book, if you just read the first page or one page, you're not experiencing that book. I do like this from St. Augustine. The world is a book. And those who do not travel read only one page. You're not getting the breadth of life. You're not getting the experience that you can get. Figure out a way to do it. Sell some stuff right. Figure out a way to do it. Decrease your lifestyle or minimize your lifestyle somehow. And figure out a way to go somewhere else and experience a different culture.
Curt: I've heard you say experiences are better than stuff.
Joe: Memories are better than stuff. That'll preach right there. Yep.
Curt: Take us out, Joe.
Joe: Well, our website is dudesinprogress.com. dudesinprogress.com. And of course our email address is dudes in progress.com dot. If you need to reach us, that's the best way to do it. At some level. We're offering, we're still offering coaching services. So if you want to talk to us about that, we're happy to. But dudes at dudes in progress.com and our website is dudes in progress.com. and remember, no matter what you're doing, if you're going on vacation, if you're planning a vacation, it doesn't have to be perfect, right? Just make progress. Just move forward. Because progress is better than perfection. Just keep moving forward, guys.
Curt: Joe, you're inspired me to go out and explore. I can't wait to do this in the coming weeks.
Joe: Yeah, we got to figure out a way to explore together, man. Maybe do a dual trip somehow. That'd be cool.
Curt: I agree 100%. Have a great weekend, Joe. Happy Father's day.
Joe: Happy Father's day, pal. Talk to you soon.