 |
| A pretty walkway into a municipal building area in Ribeira Brava in Madeira, Portugal, in 2014. See the link here. |
Note: To all of our readers visiting our site via a smartphone, please click the “View web version” tab under the word “Home” at the bottom of the page to access the web version enabling you to access all of our archives on the right side of the page. We’ll be updating our site in a few months, making these extra steps unnecessary. Thank you.
No more old videos will be posted at this time, although past photos will continue until we have new photos to post.
Today’s photos are from June 1, 2014, while living in Madeira, Portugal. See the link here for more photos.
The start of a new month surprises us during the lockdown in India. The months are flying by more quickly than we expected. This morning I took the lift down to the lobby to pay our bill for the last 11 days in May, including meals for a total of INR 116947.49, US $1552.98.
Our daily living expenses based on this most recent bill are INR 10631.59, US $141.18 per day, just about the exact daily cost for us to live in South Africa in a beautiful bush home, buying groceries, pellets, and supplies, dining out, and having a rental car in our possession.
 |
| These tall muffins are popular on the island. |
The big difference here is we don’t have access to anything other than what this standard-sized hotel room offers; a small bathroom, two comfy chairs, a bed, an again-working TV, and coffee/tea supplies, all of which we greatly appreciate. It could be a lot worse.
As of this morning, when I went to the reception desk to pay the bill, I asked how many rooms of this 334 room hotel, are actually occupied by hotel guests. A total of 5 rooms. The answer shocked me…
 |
| Doughy things. |
All the staff members we see in the corridor, cleaning the rooms (where the staff is also living), are here for five occupied guest rooms with a maximum of 10 guests. They continue to stay open baffles us, but we are very grateful they have done so for this small group.
Besides us, all other guests are Indian citizens,s for which the government pays their hotel bills during the lockdown, thus making the hotel required to stay open, which ultimately has served us well.
 |
| Locally made merchandise is for sale in the shops along the boulevard. |
We don’t see the other guests since we’re confined to our room, other than to visit the front desk for handling the bill and for my walking the corridors each hour. We no longer go downstairs to order meals. Instead, we make a phone call to the front desk, who transfers us to the restaurant to place our order each morning and each evening.
 |
| Then, of course, there are widespread and familiar items offered everywhere. |
Sometimes, my two half chicken breasts are tiny and other times normal-sized. Sometimes my vegetables include corn when I don’t eat corn, and I have explained this several times. Sometimes our food is at room temperature. Other times it’s hot. Tom’s portion size of chicken pasta each night can vary from 20-25% less some nights. Oh well. So it goes.
 |
| Many little shops were to be found on the side streets as well. |
She and her husband are also world travels, and they happened to be living in a holiday home in Portugal when the lockdown began. They could extend their rental until next April to ensure it would be safe to travel again.
This morning, I asked Tom, “Could this be us? Staying here until next March or April?”
“Yes,” he said, “it could be us.” We looked at each other in resignation, trying to brace ourselves for this potential reality.
There’s no word about international flights starting up in India any time soon. Countries worldwide can open their borders, but it does us no good if we can’t fly out of Mumbai.
 |
| Embroidery is a centuries-old tradition in Portugal. |
Many have written and suggested we fly to other states in India to try to get out of the country. But, even if other states open their borders to international flights before “hotspot” Mumbai, it makes no sense to fly any more than is necessary and be exposed to more people at busy airports.
We’ve been able to shorten our days a little by trying to sleep until 8:00 am, have breakfast at 9:00 am, and six hours later, after I’ve finished the daily post and miscellaneous business projects, we begin streaming shows from 3:00 pm until 6:00 pm when we call and order dinner.
 |
| Some of the narrow streets weren’t populated with shops and tourists. |
The time from 3:00 pm passes quickly as we become engrossed in excellent BBC shows we’re streaming at this time both during the afternoon and evenings.
By 11:00 pm, we try to fall asleep, both often awakening several times during the night. But, this routine seems to help the day pass more quickly. I still take time, once an hour, up until 6:00 pm, to walk the corridors.
 |
| Beautiful flowers grow freely everywhere. |
Stay practical, everyone, stay safe, strive to stay healthy, and make it through until this ends or changes, one day at a time.
Cows…they are cute.
Photo from one year ago today, June 1, 2019:
 |
| For more photos, please click here. . |