Rainy day here in Lisboa. We are in for a stretch of about 4 ½ rainy days. I have been slow this morning. Did little things like emptying the dishwasher, making coffee and eating my oatmeal. Took some time to read through e-mail. Haven’t got to Facebook yet. Will do that next.
Spent some amount of time yesterday with a banker. Trying to pick up our debit card. We were told it would be in Thursday, but like many things here it is late or delayed. While talking to the banker we found out that Monday is a national holiday, All Saints Day, and the banks are closed. It is also the anniversary of the destruction of Lisboa in 1755.
Halloween is not celebrated here really, not with candy and costumes. Apparently, such festivities happen in some expat communities but that is about it. There are references to a tradition where children demanded bread. According to the blog All Things Algarve it goes by, “different names such as ‘Dia do Bolinho’, ‘santorinho’, ‘bolinho’, or ‘fiéis de Deus’. As well as sweets, children can expect to receive cakes, chestnuts and fruit biscuits. “The most clearly Halloween things I have seen are flyers for two EDM concerts with Halloween themes.
All Saints’ Day is a different matter. Quoting from the same blog,
“All Saints Day and Halloween are celebrated on entirely different scales, simply because All Saint’s Day is an opportunity to clean relatives’ cemetery graves and plots. It’s an extremely important day in the Portuguese calendar where cemeteries will be filled with local residents who aim to make their relatives’ resting places look squeaky clean. They use bleach in order to make the resting places spotless and the smell can be noticed from quite a distance away.
During the cleanup, it’s popular to find flower vendors selling flower heads for anyone looking to refresh the plants for the graves. They also offer traditional Portuguese snacks for the volunteers who are present at the cemetery. This is all happening whilst some services are taking place around the graveyards.”
Like most things in the modern world there is no clear agreement on such facts. Some articles say that Halloween as celebrated in North America is being fully embraced here. I don’t see the evidence of that being true. There was one store in a mall with an inordinate amount of candy corn and plastic spiders. There was another with cheesy costumes but mostly for adults. It is not everywhere. In actuality there are more Christmas decorations up than Halloween decorations. But the cemeteries are already being cleaned and fresh flowers are everywhere around the graves.
To make the most of today we are going off to an art museum. The facility has a triptych by Bosch. Doesn’t get more Halloween scary than that does it? Also plan to hit another mall which claims to be the “largest on the Iberian Peninsula”. Trust I am sure we will work some other things in.
Sure sounds like you’re making the very best of your journeys. As are we….thanks to you all.
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