Brilliant. My first field trip to highlands of Kenya and Uganda and I was definitely not prepared for the cold and spent evenings sitting next to the fire.
The only reason I was ready for the cold during my first trip to Ethiopia was that I traveled there during European winter, so I had some warm clothes on for the trip there...I now regularly travel with a hot water bottle, good for a bad back on the airplane but also in case the accommodation doesn't provide heating or a warm blanket. I can always get someone to boil some water for me.
Really enjoyed reading this post, with all the nuances of climates as experienced on the ground in different countries. I adore those blankets you have collected. I can actually relate very well to the issue of poor insulation in "warm" countries. I've lived in Hong Kong half my life and the winters there feel very much the same as the Portuguese winters that you described. I've only seen central heating and hot water from the faucet in an apartment of a very rich person. Everyone else has to "deal with it" with space heaters and woollies. I remember one particularly cold winter when the temperature dropped to about 0 degree. I had to sit in the kitchen and cook broth the whole day so I wouldn't freeze to death! When I was in Sweden, I lived in a funkis apartment built in the 20s and insulation was poor. The snow would seep into the cracks under the balcony door, and we were freezing a lot.
Thank you for reading, Lily. I had no idea Hong Kong could get that cold. I wonder if the really wealthy people in Lisbon (and there are many) have fancy heating and better insulation. I will probably never know.
Well, 0 degree was an extreme. It seldom gets that cold. But still, around 15 degrees C on average... and you can imagine how it feels indoors without central heating.
You mentioned the many wealthy people in Lisbon. I wonder if there's a really big wealth gap there, and in the country as a whole.
There are very wealthy people in Portugal, and people who can barely make ends meet. I guess it’s like that everywhere. I live in one of the traditionally wealthy neighborhoods of Lisbon, where some people are extremely wealthy, and others are in their 50s and 60s, having rented all their lives and unable to afford to buy property. I also have immigrant neighbors, probably six people living in a tiny place. I like to complain about my high rent for my small, poorly insulated apartment, but I know I’m actually lucky that I can afford it.
And then there are the super-wealthy people who own large plots of land, vineyards, and lots of horses in rural Portugal—the kind where the younger generation doesn’t need to work a day in their lives and lives to party and do drugs. I guess there’s everything here, and more—the “more” being the wealthy people from the US, Canada, the UK, etc., who move here with their offshore money and hike up the real estate prices.
Another Northern European here (UK rather than proper North like you). The coldest house I ever lived in was in Sanlucar de Barrameda in Andalucía. No heating, no insulation. When the outside temperature got down to 4 or 5°, it was 10° inside. When we moved to Galicia and renovated an old house, we put in central heating. Bliss.
I think most places renovated by foreigners in Southern Europe have heating/a/c. My experience of three months in late winter/early spring in Barcelona was more cosy, as there was central heating in the flat! And traveling through Spain in winter, all hotels had central heating, which is never the case in Portugal, where, if you’re lucky there will be ‘a split- a/c/heater)
But then again, while in graduate school in Scotland I experienced terrible cold, poor insulation, single glazed windows and a medieval contraption called a storage heater 😆
Great piece Liza. I also hve a great textile and blanket collection.
Dubai is the only place I have lived I have never felt cold. And here I spend half the year feeling far too hot.
When my parents came to Myanmar I told them they needed layers for the mountains but they didn’t believe me. I remember one morning it was frosty and they couldn’t believe it. I was like I told you aits the mountains. 😂 When we come from a cold country its easy to believe everywhere else is kind of hot and sunny.
Portuguese homes are not energy efficient, safe for very new ones (I am thinking the new neighborhood built by Renzo Piano in Marvila) or pre-earthquake or peri-earthquake building (gigantic walls, thick wooden insulation panels inside the “pladur” walls - like my Lisbon’s place.
I saw 66 apartments before settling into mine, and the first thing I did was changing all the windows for energy efficient Finstral windows from South Tyrol (that are also sound and sunproof), and change the door for an iron insulated one. And I also put floating parquet everywhere, adding to the coziness of a wooden touch.
I use my airco maybe two weeks per sear in summer when it gets very hot, and my heat pump for a couple of hours per day for less than four weeks throughout winter (mainly on long periods of rains, to suck out all moisture).
Home is a cocoon, and I can avoid layering beyond what’s normal for wintertime. However my place is a bit of a unicorn - my friends who live in other neighborhoods with newer but not super recent houses (like Telheiras) have homes that are just fine, not plain cozy.
This said, I like to flee the rain season (mid Jan- mid March) and come back to Lisbon when the weather is…better!
All sounds very wise (and cozy), but I am afraid I don't own my place, hence the Portuguese standard (which is what perplexes me, the fact that people are willing to put up with such discomfort).
I feel you! It’s unbelievable to me that landlords are not willing to give better standards for their rentals (especially for the absurd prices they’re charging), but many of them live equally in homes that are humid and cold in winter and scorching hot in summer. It always blows my mind.
1 I lived in Nigeria for a while, and part of my job was arranging for students to study in the UK. My students didn't own any cold weather clothing and no matter how much I told them to be prepared for the winter, most of them never listened. They couldn't imagine after a lifetime in Nigeria. A few raised a fair point too - in the Niger Delta, there wasn't really anywhere to buy winter clothing! One or two of them had relatives in the UK already to meet them when they arrived, but I'll never forget the flood of emails I received from them after they all arrived complaining about how cold it was as soon as they stepped off the plane!
2 A British woman came to Kyiv in June to do some accreditation of our school. She'd packed lots of warm clothing and was stunned that it was hot and humid in the summer in Ukraine. 'I thought it was cold all the time here?'
Not that this should make a difference, but it also turns out that she'd studied at Oxford.
I'll never fail to be surprised by things like this.
We humans make lots of strange assumptions about places we've never been to. Having studied (or was it having read?!) at Oxford doesn't seem to make a difference.
It’s equally relevant to Andalusia. In March and April my nights in bed in Almunecar were glacial, yet it is known for its hot climate.
A great example! Hot water bottle has been my useful travel companion in many such places.
Brilliant. My first field trip to highlands of Kenya and Uganda and I was definitely not prepared for the cold and spent evenings sitting next to the fire.
The only reason I was ready for the cold during my first trip to Ethiopia was that I traveled there during European winter, so I had some warm clothes on for the trip there...I now regularly travel with a hot water bottle, good for a bad back on the airplane but also in case the accommodation doesn't provide heating or a warm blanket. I can always get someone to boil some water for me.
Really enjoyed reading this post, with all the nuances of climates as experienced on the ground in different countries. I adore those blankets you have collected. I can actually relate very well to the issue of poor insulation in "warm" countries. I've lived in Hong Kong half my life and the winters there feel very much the same as the Portuguese winters that you described. I've only seen central heating and hot water from the faucet in an apartment of a very rich person. Everyone else has to "deal with it" with space heaters and woollies. I remember one particularly cold winter when the temperature dropped to about 0 degree. I had to sit in the kitchen and cook broth the whole day so I wouldn't freeze to death! When I was in Sweden, I lived in a funkis apartment built in the 20s and insulation was poor. The snow would seep into the cracks under the balcony door, and we were freezing a lot.
Thank you for reading, Lily. I had no idea Hong Kong could get that cold. I wonder if the really wealthy people in Lisbon (and there are many) have fancy heating and better insulation. I will probably never know.
Well, 0 degree was an extreme. It seldom gets that cold. But still, around 15 degrees C on average... and you can imagine how it feels indoors without central heating.
You mentioned the many wealthy people in Lisbon. I wonder if there's a really big wealth gap there, and in the country as a whole.
There are very wealthy people in Portugal, and people who can barely make ends meet. I guess it’s like that everywhere. I live in one of the traditionally wealthy neighborhoods of Lisbon, where some people are extremely wealthy, and others are in their 50s and 60s, having rented all their lives and unable to afford to buy property. I also have immigrant neighbors, probably six people living in a tiny place. I like to complain about my high rent for my small, poorly insulated apartment, but I know I’m actually lucky that I can afford it.
And then there are the super-wealthy people who own large plots of land, vineyards, and lots of horses in rural Portugal—the kind where the younger generation doesn’t need to work a day in their lives and lives to party and do drugs. I guess there’s everything here, and more—the “more” being the wealthy people from the US, Canada, the UK, etc., who move here with their offshore money and hike up the real estate prices.
Another Northern European here (UK rather than proper North like you). The coldest house I ever lived in was in Sanlucar de Barrameda in Andalucía. No heating, no insulation. When the outside temperature got down to 4 or 5°, it was 10° inside. When we moved to Galicia and renovated an old house, we put in central heating. Bliss.
I think most places renovated by foreigners in Southern Europe have heating/a/c. My experience of three months in late winter/early spring in Barcelona was more cosy, as there was central heating in the flat! And traveling through Spain in winter, all hotels had central heating, which is never the case in Portugal, where, if you’re lucky there will be ‘a split- a/c/heater)
But then again, while in graduate school in Scotland I experienced terrible cold, poor insulation, single glazed windows and a medieval contraption called a storage heater 😆
Great piece Liza. I also hve a great textile and blanket collection.
Dubai is the only place I have lived I have never felt cold. And here I spend half the year feeling far too hot.
When my parents came to Myanmar I told them they needed layers for the mountains but they didn’t believe me. I remember one morning it was frosty and they couldn’t believe it. I was like I told you aits the mountains. 😂 When we come from a cold country its easy to believe everywhere else is kind of hot and sunny.
Thank you Catriona. How do you handle the extreme A/C vs outdoors temperature shifts in Dubai? I find I always catch a cold in such places.
I just wrote about my own misconceptions about wintertime in Portugal. I did not bring enough wool socks when I moved here. 😆
I am so grateful for my merino wool long johns.
Portuguese homes are not energy efficient, safe for very new ones (I am thinking the new neighborhood built by Renzo Piano in Marvila) or pre-earthquake or peri-earthquake building (gigantic walls, thick wooden insulation panels inside the “pladur” walls - like my Lisbon’s place.
I saw 66 apartments before settling into mine, and the first thing I did was changing all the windows for energy efficient Finstral windows from South Tyrol (that are also sound and sunproof), and change the door for an iron insulated one. And I also put floating parquet everywhere, adding to the coziness of a wooden touch.
I use my airco maybe two weeks per sear in summer when it gets very hot, and my heat pump for a couple of hours per day for less than four weeks throughout winter (mainly on long periods of rains, to suck out all moisture).
Home is a cocoon, and I can avoid layering beyond what’s normal for wintertime. However my place is a bit of a unicorn - my friends who live in other neighborhoods with newer but not super recent houses (like Telheiras) have homes that are just fine, not plain cozy.
This said, I like to flee the rain season (mid Jan- mid March) and come back to Lisbon when the weather is…better!
All sounds very wise (and cozy), but I am afraid I don't own my place, hence the Portuguese standard (which is what perplexes me, the fact that people are willing to put up with such discomfort).
I feel you! It’s unbelievable to me that landlords are not willing to give better standards for their rentals (especially for the absurd prices they’re charging), but many of them live equally in homes that are humid and cold in winter and scorching hot in summer. It always blows my mind.
I have 2 funny tales to share:
1 I lived in Nigeria for a while, and part of my job was arranging for students to study in the UK. My students didn't own any cold weather clothing and no matter how much I told them to be prepared for the winter, most of them never listened. They couldn't imagine after a lifetime in Nigeria. A few raised a fair point too - in the Niger Delta, there wasn't really anywhere to buy winter clothing! One or two of them had relatives in the UK already to meet them when they arrived, but I'll never forget the flood of emails I received from them after they all arrived complaining about how cold it was as soon as they stepped off the plane!
2 A British woman came to Kyiv in June to do some accreditation of our school. She'd packed lots of warm clothing and was stunned that it was hot and humid in the summer in Ukraine. 'I thought it was cold all the time here?'
Not that this should make a difference, but it also turns out that she'd studied at Oxford.
I'll never fail to be surprised by things like this.
We humans make lots of strange assumptions about places we've never been to. Having studied (or was it having read?!) at Oxford doesn't seem to make a difference.
I'm so glad you told me about how cold Addis could be before I moved there. The electric blanket I bought in Switzerland saved me!
I am glad that my sharing that info was helpful too you!