Portugal: it looks like Spanish and sounds like nothing I knew — Page 1 of 3

I speak Spanish, so I assumed Portugal would be a soft landing. Reading menus, street signs and headlines, it was. I understood nearly everything.

Then somebody spoke to me and the language folded up. Portuguese swallows its vowels, pushes the stress somewhere unexpected and comes out with a shushing sound Spanish simply does not have.

For the first days I did the worst possible thing, which is answer in Spanish and hope. People are extremely gracious about this, and it still does not work.