After work, we went to this place called Tipo Tradicional. I counted nineteen people showed up so it was a big gathering. Joao said one of his band friend told him about this place five years ago.

We had some sausages and huge steaks. Joao said his father once told him eating without wine were unhealthy to your body. We had a lot of wine. At the Fulbright dinner at the Independent Palace in Lisboa, Doug said wine just made the food taste better.

Although I am not a devoted wine taster, but even I could tell Portuguese wine taste better than any other wine. And they are very affordable. Five euros will get you a bottle in a restaurant. The University restaurant even have them half price on top of that, just as their subsidized food menu. For a while, I have been wondering how could my colleagues keep sober at work.

While the group were chatting in Portuguese, I entertained myself by trying to pick up a couple of words that I knew. If I couldn’t pick up even one word, I would ask them just to get an idea on why. One such incident happened when two students were discussing a problem with a cable modem.

I learned there would be huge Halloween party that we would miss. It is called Note das bruxas. Fortunately, it is held whenever Friday the thirteen, which is not that rare, as we learned by practicing programming with Emma. The next one would be on December 13, 2019.

On my way home, I saw gatherings of people at many bars and restaurants around the city center at midnight time. I was told Spanish people would start their night even later, which was echoed by my experience in Vigo.

I had lunch with Rui, my Fulbright host, at the University restaurant. We discussed plans to leverage our collaborations with TACC for current and future projects.

With some cursory research, it seems the climbing suicide rate in Portugal is an even worse crisis than that in the US. I am puzzled on why it hasn’t caught national attention. Perhaps it is a taboo in a Catholic country?

At the weekly Zoom call, I discussed geospatial project with Jake and Jonathan, my students and XSEDE EMPOWER interns.