Thomas journals

 The other day we chanced upon a Slavic grocery store.  We went inside, marveled at all the products from various eastern european countries, from Czechia to Poland to Yugoslavia to Russia to Kazakhstan.  I grabbed a chocolate bar... and now I realize that it's Russian, imported via Germany.  The ingredients list is written in Russian, Kyrgyz, and Uzbek; and a separate ingredients sticker pasted over it in German.  No Portuguese or Spanish or English.  Hmm. How did it get here?  And what sort of sanctions are imposed on Russian confectioners? The chocolate itself is just okay, nothing special.

 A few days ago I walked to the nearby Pasteleira Park, planning to visit the city museum at the Reservoir.  Walking through the park I noticed a large group of young people gathered in a circle, engaged in team-building activities.   My days in education attuned me to the spectacle and piqued my interest, so I sat on a nearby bench and watched as a succession of enthusiastic students ran to the center and started an activity, which all the others joined enthusiastically.  What sort of group would this be?  A typical high school class would include a portion of disinterested teens, and others only half-heartedly participating.  This crowd was unanimous in their excitement.   I also noted that the leaders were speaking in English, though the breeze muffled the words.  I walked around, found a couple of older participants on the side, with official-looking lanyards, and asked:  this was an activity of European Youth Parliament , similar to Model UN (which I started or chaperoned in four

March 25 late afternoon we both received an e-mail from the Portuguese consulate informing us that our visa application was approved and authorized.  Tomorrow morning I will take the train in to the city and hand-deliver our passports to the VFS office!  Typically it takes 4 working days to put the visa sticker in the passport.  We have learned to not count on the timing -- don't hold your breath.  After all, we applied for the visa last December 4th, and other later applicants already got their visas!  And I had purchased a cheaper round-trip ticket, expecting to return to Porto on the 24th of March.   When the visa notification still had not arrived by last Friday, I worried about changing the ticket: what date would I change it to?  We cannot be sure when the notification will arrive, and when we will get our passports back.  Fortunately, they can suspend the itinerary for successive five-day periods.  What a relief!  Now we truly will not schedule our flight back until we have