Spring has Sprung in Portimao

 

There are now more sunny days than not in Portimão and I’m grateful for them.  The signs of spring are everywhere, both the good

And the bad.

I’ve extended my stay in the apartment for the remainder of my time in Schengen.  It’s still not the pink palace or even the last place I stayed in, but I’ve settled in and don’t feel like moving.  The hyper kid who lived upstairs was apparently just a renter.  There are now a bunch of dudes who party late and come in talking all loud and scraping the chairs across the floor.

Not ideal but still better than that freaking kid.

Monday 4/28/25 rolled around, sunny and bright.  It was hair wash day, so I’d planned to spend a good chunk of time indoors.  The morning was going well, and I was in the process of washing out the last of the conditioner when the power went out.  This was around 11 a.m.

I checked the breaker box to make sure it wasn’t me.  I’d had this problem in the last apartment in Portimão when I tried cooking dinner using three burners while the oven was on.  But the only thing I had on this time was my computer and the light in the bathroom.  It couldn’t be me.

I finished up my hair and decided to go out.  Seeing the emergency lights on in the hallway confirmed that the whole building was indeed out of power.  No worries.  I’d walk to the beach, which was about a mile away, confident that the power would be on there.

I took my usual route to the water, taking extra time to watch the waves.  The wind was kicking up something fierce.  It meant there were few people on the beach but there were some folks who were wind and kite surfing.

I love watching kite surfers.  Anytime someone catches some wicked air it puts a huge grin on my face.

Sighing, as it’s always hard for me to turn my back on the water, I headed back to the boardwalk on the hunt for some lunch.  I passed by a bunch of people lining up for one ATM and thought it odd.  There were several other ATMs around and I’d never seen such a long line for a single one.

It didn’t occur to me that something bigger was wrong.

I saw a couple of restaurants, including the one I wanted to go to, appear to be open … but not really.  Either there were chairs across the entrances or the staff were just milling around.  The few restaurants that were open were insanely crowded.

Still didn’t occur to me that something bigger was wrong.  A lot of restaurants in this area are closed on Mondays after being open all weekend.

Once one of the restaurants cleared out a bit, I went in and sat down.  When I placed my order, the guy kept saying no because the power’s out.  He then explained that this was a COUNTRY-WIDE issue and not just in Portugal.  He mentioned Spain and France were out as well.

What.  The.  Hell?

Spain and Portugal hit by major power outage

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

I got by relatively easy.  I had cash on me.  I was on foot and not reliant on a car when there are no traffic lights or a train/bus that runs on electricity.  But since I’ve never heard of a country-wide outage, I had no idea how others are coping with this … bizarreness.

I take that back.  At least on Praia da Rocha (Rock Beach), people were playing games and getting snockered as per usual.  No panicked people crying in the streets and rending their clothes.  This is Portugal. Chill is the name of the game here which is why it took me so long to catch on to this unique event.

I’m still not sure how the restaurant continued to function, but I was happy to have my steak and rice meal.  I figured it would be the last meal I’d have for the day as nothing I had in the apartment can be eaten cold.  As I ate, I noticed a bunch of people trying to get into their nearby hotel.  But since the door was electric … yeah.  I had the same issue in Türkiye and it is a serious problem.  The world is far too reliant on one system to get everything done.

Fortunately, that was not an issue for me this time.  The host had provided keys to the front gate and the door to the building, but I didn’t even need those.  The gates had both been propped open.  Then I just had to climb up 8 flights of stairs (fun!) only to discover that the water was out as well.  That’s new.  Never had that issue during a blackout in the states.  A few hours later, the Wi-Fi went down.  I was surprised that it stayed up as long as it did.

I read my book until I lost the light and then called it a night.  I had a feeling this would last a while so best to just buckle down.

The power came back on at 11:30 p.m.  How did I know the exact time even though I’d gone to sleep hours before?  A mighty cheer went up around the city that woke me up.  Lots of hollering and clapping.  These are probably the same people who’ve been drinking beer all day so they were well lubricated for the celebration.

I smiled in relief, got up to turn off the bathroom light, and went back to bed. 

I’ve mentioned multiple times that this journey has had a lot of weirdness in it.  The last few months have been pretty normal, relatively speaking.  I didn’t think I’d have anything else happen that would trip my weird meter.

I think this one takes the cake.