How to Slow Down Time

That’s where Yulia and I found ourselves most recently, up in the northern Portuguese mountain ranges known as Serra da Peneda and Serra do Gerês.

This is nothing like the Portugal most American travelers know. I mean, imagine an unknowing Frenchman defining America by having skipped New York City to instead explore northwestern Montana and the Northern Rockies.

Easy for me to say that northern Portugal is the most beautiful and picturesque part of the country, because, well, I love mountains and forests and the rain that is commonplace here. Others will disagree because they thrive in the sun and sand of the Algarve along Portugal’s bottom side.

As you might know, Yulia and I decamped from Lisbon last summer to build a new life in the much smaller town of Braga (pop.: about 200,000) just north of Porto, Portugal’s San Francisco.

Our days haven’t changed in practical terms: Still drive the kid to school every morning, still work from my home office.

But the drive to school and back is five minutes, tops, instead of nearly an hour in rotten Lisbon traffic. My home office is a large, L-shaped room with two walls of massive sliding glass doors overlooking a sunken garden of bamboo and a red Japanese maple… not the cramped, rat’s warren that passed for an office back in Lisbon.

The real difference is our weekends up here in the Great Wet North. (January saw rain on 21 of its 31 days).

In Lisbon, we occasionally ventured forth on the weekends, sometimes to the truly gorgeous Guincho Beach near the coastal community of Cascais. Sometimes we popped down to the Setubal Peninsula to grab a seafood lunch along the shore.

But traffic was often a hassle and, well, we grew a bit tired of the same ol’, same ol’.

Up north, however, the landscapes are awe-inspiring.

As we’re driving around, I regularly tell Yulia, “this is like northern California had a love child with Colorado… or the Great Smoky Mountains married rural Maine.”

It’s L.L. Bean country.

This time of year, you bundle up against the rain and cold. For me, that’s a waxed-cotton rain jacket with a fleece-lined hood and interior, paired with some Helley Hansen hiking boots because the Norwegians know how to make winter gear right.

And you get out there and explore places you’ve never seen before.

Last weekend, high on a mountain pass, a herd of goats slowed our progress. On the way back down, we passed one waterfall after another as the winter rains and melting snow raced toward the valley. (Very frigid water!)

The point of all this is simply to exhibit the newfound joys that tickle the aging brain when you move overseas.

One of the reasons time seems to fly by when we’re older is that the brain is no longer creating as many new memories. When we’re young, the brain is in hyperdrive, cataloging everything because everything is new. Every experience is something to file away for future reference.

Time seems to move more slowly.

But by the time the third chapter of life arrives, the brain has no need to catalog the same drive to the same coffee shop to order the same ol’ cup o’ Joe you’ve bought pretty much every day for the last umpteen years.

Time speeds up.

But here in northern Portugal, I’m forcing that sucker to slow down a bit.

I’m getting out there and exploring a new country, honking my horn at slow-footed goats, and dipping a hand into numbingly cold waterfalls. I’m tasting new foods like the fabulously tasty cabrito assado that’s popular up in the small, mountain restaurants we’ve found. (That’s roasted baby goat, which might explain why those roadway goats were taking their own sweet time).

I’m stopping to take pictures and staying a while in picturesque spots, just to soak in the ambiance and the quietude of sprinkles plinking on eucalyptus leaves in an otherwise dead-silent mountain forest.

It’s certainly not the story travel writers and the mainstream press will tell you about living abroad.

But it’s one of the absolute best benefits of doing so.