Lock Down

Late last week, Portugal was put under lock down to try to control the latest COVID surge. We expect this to last until the end of February. The restrictions mainly apply to residents and those with cars. They are very strict about not traveling between councils (roughly equivalent to a county) except for work or medical reasons. Grocery stores and pharmacies are open but most other shops are closed. We are allowed to walk to exercise ourselves or the dog in our immediate neighborhood. They have also just closed the schools for two weeks. So they are quite serious about it. An important note: the pastry shops are still open. Seriously.

The only real impact this has on us is that we are stuck close to home. Our plans to continue to explore Lisbon or Sintra are on hold for now. Since we only know a very few people, we are not at any risk of attending large parties. It has been a little gray and rainy for the past week or so which also makes it easier to stay inside. In the mean time, we daydream about the places we'll go once the restrictions are lifted and it is safe to go out.

One other note is that Will went to the pharmacy earlier this week to get a prescription filled and the cost was about half of what he was paying in the US. So....there's that.