When one moves overseas, whether it's moving your home like us, or it's a semester-long study abroad or such, there's a honeymoon period. For us, this period lasted about 6 months. Now, the honeymoon is over and we're in the "this is the real world" phase of living here. Not necessarily bad, but a definite shift in the vibe.

Jason and Tracy continue their discussion of 5 things they wish they knew before they moved to Portugal, and 5 things they have discovered they are glad for. In this episode: Things they wish they knew: --Don't be naive about language --It can be oddly hard to find certain things such as green onions and jalepenos, and delivery drivers have a bizarrely hard time finding you Things we are glad for: --Services available --Time, people's relationship to time and working to live ---------- Recap Things we wish we knew: 1. Driving is total chaos; also, you need to know how to drive a manual transmission 2. Red tape and bureaucracy 3. The cost of living is not necessarily lower here 4. Don't be naive about language 5. It can be oddly hard to find certain things, and delivery drivers have an oddly hard time finding you Things we have discovered we love: 1. Work-life balance and people's attitude towards life 2. The people are wonderful 3. The flip side of not necessarily saving money on purchases: quality seems to be better 4. Services available 5. People's relationship to time, "work to live rather than live to work" -- related to #1 but something vital to us

In this podcast, we start talking about the 5 things we wish we knew about Portugal before moving, and 5 things we have discovered we love. In this episode, we cover the first 3 things, and next week we will cover the final 2 items. 3 Things We Wish We Knew: --Driving in Portugal is utter and complete chaos --Red tape, bureaucracy --The cost of day-to-day living is not necessarily lower than in the U.S. -- do not move to "save money" because it might not work out that way 3 Things We Have Discovered We love --Work-life balance and people's attitudes toward life --The people are wonderful --The flip side of costs not necessarily being lower -- things seem to be higher quality

Jason and Tracy discuss having U.S. jobs in Portugal, and how Tracy is joining Jason on the dark side and becoming a tax preparer.

School starts soon (September 15th). Last week the boys talked briefly about their thoughts on school starting, and how the summer went. This week, Jason and Tracy talk more about school starting.

In this short podcast, we talk to the kids for as long as we could (**8 minutes!) about getting ready to start school next week.

Jason and Tracy cover a lot of ground on language learning. Jason talks about his philosophy when he was in school -- get B's because people leave you alone, getting A's is a lot of work with no real tradeoff, but getting C's means people hassle you. Plus does Duolingo work? And Jason tells the story about the first time his dad "took them outside the U.S." on vacation. DETAILS: 0:32-1:55 Jason on his philosophy towards school — get Bs; getting As is a lot of work without a lot of great payoff; getting Cs means people hassle you, so get Bs because then people leave you alone. 3:31-4:07 Jason on how useful Duolingo is (or isn’t) in learning a foreign language 5:08-5:43 Tracy on how Jason and Tyler had the same instructor, who is an excellent teacher. 5:50-7:13 Jason (and Tracy) on the Portuguese classes they have taken. 7:13-7:31 Tracy (former language instructor) on adults learning a second language 8:12-8:51 Jason on Tracy leaving him alone at the checkout counter at FNAC (store in Portugal somewhat like Best Buy) and how he had to muddle through the checkout by himself in Portuguese 8:58-9:44 language levels, A1-B2 and how it works with getting residency 9:58-12:25 Jason on his only experience outside of the U.S. when he was a kid (he thinks this story is humorous) 12:25-12:48 Jason on his grandfather’s philosophy of wanting a “bucket of Shelby County dirt under his feet.” 12:48-16:35 General language discussion 16:35-17:25 Jason on how his accent is changing, how the kids’ language skills are changing 17:25-18:00 Jason and Tracy on if Midwesterners have an accent or not 18:40-end When does school start?

Our journey of recovering from severe professional (and personal) burnout continues. We talked about this subject a few episodes ago, but our views on burnout continue to evolve -- and we have a lot to say about this topic -- so here is another episode! Tracy also talks about pottery, and how working with clay has helped her mental state.

August is vacation month for a lot of folks in Portugal, and our little town has lots of visitors. We also talk about driving and how it is (to an American) absolute chaos on the roads (always, even when vacationers aren't around).

We've had a lot of help from people here in Portugal, and we seem to get what we need, when we need it.