I might live to regret posting this commitment 🫠, but today I started using Duolingo to learn Portuguese. I realize that Duolingo’s Portuguese is Brazilian and those in the know tell me that there are differences, but I would like to use Duolingo to get me going. As a backup, I have another app that has European Portuguese, it just does not have an ongoing program.
About a year ago @jean shared some resources with me which definitely helped, Portuguese went from being a series of sounds to indentifiable words starting to shine through. However, I feel that I need a lower level commitment. A challenge, yes, but I need to change the pace of that challenge.
I’ll see where Duolingo can take me. Day one completed.
Wind and rain this morning. Not as bad as the Big Island which is taking the brunt of the weather, but Tropical Storm, now Category 1 Hurricane, Hone has arrived in the islands.
It looks as though Hawai’i is in the direct firing line of these two Tropical Storms. The eye of closer storm, Tropical Storm Hone, is due to be close to the Southern Point of the Big Island of Hawai’i Saturday night into Sunday morning. Then according to The National Weather Service,
…Hone will then strengthen to a Hurricane late Sunday as it passes south of Oʻahu and Molokaʻi.
I received this electronic sticker by email today. My first vote in a US Presidential Election since becoming a US citizen in 2022. The Hawaii Primaries.
Young puppy, Mochi, my step-daughter’s little French Bulldog getting curious about the sheep next door. What is not shown is the other sheep and cow looking on. How wet it was that afternoon. How I had to push my way through a hedge to get to Mochi, and go back through it once I had Mochi. How Mochi was in no hurry to be picked up, and by the time that I did get to him, he was covered in mud…and then ran straight back down to the animals once I had cleaned him off.
Oh the mischievousness of youth…whatever the breed.
This jigsaw puzzle was very satisfying to do, and the collage of images looks better in the completed puzzle than the image on the box. Some fun, whimsical pieces in there as well. 🧩
I’m in the middle of doing this jigsaw puzzle showing a collage of various traditional British pub exteriors and signage. A puzzle that my mother gave to me. I love doing puzzles. The process relaxes me. Doing this one I’m finding is also making me homesick. There is nothing like a British pub and I am no longer around them. I miss them.
I’ve been playing around with Tinrocket’s relatively new app Cinemin. While admiring what they can do, I do not normally choose to use apps that give photographs a artistic look, this one I am enjoying though. The images that Cinemin produces is,
Inspired by traditional animation art and films
Here are a couple of my first dabbles with the app, conjoined by Tinrocket’s collage app, Photo Tape.
The weather cleared this morning and the fire burning on the side of Haleakala is clearly visible. The good news is that forward progress of the fire has been halted, it is 50% contained, the size of the fire has been downgraded to 355 acres, and there have been no evacuation orders.
The Bullring in Alcácer do Sal. I believe that there are very few bullfights there, maybe two or three a year. One was due to take place just after we left Alcácer mid-June.
Bullring, Alcácer do Sal
I find myself disagreeing with the idea of a bullfight. I don’t know what the majority feeling is in Portugal and specifically in Alcácer, though I have heard that one of the best bullfighters in the country comes from/came from the town? We were told by a friend in Alcácer that the bull is not killed in bullfighting in Portugal, though I don’t know when a fight is deemed to be over?
My wife and I discussed whether we would have attended if we had still been in Alcácer when the fight took place. I went from not at all to only if I could sit on a seat near to an exit should I choose to leave early. I started to feel that if I lived in Alcácer I had to understand the people and the culture better before offering my opinion.
My repulsion towards bullfighting comes from my sense that it is simply cruel to bulls and in this day and age does not have a place. I have a similar feeling towards fox hunting in the UK which is now outlawed. However, while I come from the UK and use to have fox hunts pass where I lived in South Wales and so had some experiential sense of that activity, I hesitate to call it a ‘sport’, I have not seen a bullfight. Could I critique that which I have not seen - yes, no, maybe? I felt better that I see it. That time will have to wait though.
