I made it to Portugal: Day One + Two
My girl Stevie, using her best sad face to express her dismay over the luggage. Dogs are so smart. She knows exactly what this means.
Well, after a very long day of travel and 36 hours of awake time, I am happy to report I am sitting in Mariana’s studio and about to get to work, building damp boxes and throwing pots!
I left Portland at 7:00 AM Wednesday, had a 6 hour layover at JFK, where an old high school friend surprised me by driving two hours down from CT to see me and have a cocktail. We met at the recently refurbished TWA Hotel, and it was such a fun way to spend the layover. I am a huge fan of Mid-Century architecture and design, so it was perfect. Then it was back through security, and after an hour delayed departure time, we we in the air and on our way.
I arrived yesterday morning at 10:00 AM local time, and we went directly to the ceramic supply store from the airport. While there is a rich history and culture of ceramics here in Portugal (hello tiles! IFYYK), they mostly work in low fire glazes like majolica. My glazes fire to a higher temperature (cone 6 for the potters), and while I did bring and ship some to myself, I was hoping to find some local glazes to test out here as well. It was a bit more challenging than I expected, but after visiting two different stores, we found about 15 new glazes to test, and half of those are already on tiles and in the kiln!
Most of my first day we spent running around gathering supplies, and I was determined to stay awake until it was bedtime here, to try to beat the jetlag that comes with an 8 hour time difference. While I was a bit delirious half way through the day, I made it til 11:30 PM and fell asleep immediately, with the help of melatonin, and a couple glasses of wine.
The alarm went off at 7:30, and I was up and running again. Mariana is teaching all day today so she dropped me off at her studio at 8:30, and I made my way to breakfast and MORE coffee (of course). I managed to find a place that sells ventilator masks for mixing glazes (glaze has silica dust and ya don’t want to breathe that in), and plaster for damp boxes. While many people speak English here, in the smaller shops people either speak no english or very limited english so with my limited Portuguese trying to ask for a ventilator mask and latex gloves… well you have to get creative. I’ve found myself thinking a lot more about what I want to say in advance. So while I am walking to various places, I look up the translations on google, and then practice how to say it on my way. Today I practiced:
Posso ter a conta por favor?/ May I please have the check?
Voce tem uma mascara de ventilador?/ Do you have a ventilator mask?
And now it’s time to put that new mascara de ventilador to work!
