movingtoportugal

This week I am continuing the personal A to Z of Portugal that I began last week. Today, I present you with letters D to F:

D is for Dona Barca:

Dona Barca in Portimao is one of our favourite Algarve restaurants. We found it thanks to a guidebook whilst on holiday, long before moving here. The place has changed a fair bit since we first visited. It’s fame and popularity amongst tourists and locals alike has led it to expand into a larger area in the pretty square of Largo de Barca, and corporate touches like postcards and logoed uniforms have crept in.

Dona Barca Restaurant Portimao

It’s still the same place though, offering wonderful fresh fish (especially sardines), great house wine in generous carafes, and low prices. For more details, you will find a review of Dona Barca on my Food and Wine Portugal blog.

E is for Espanha:

Now I realise that Espanha may seem a strange choice for a Portugal A to Z, but it feels right to include it amongst my personal choices.

When we first moved here, I used to find it tremendously exciting to see “Espanha” on the road signs. After living in the UK, being somewhere where you can just set off in the car and keep driving until you are in a whole different country gives you a wonderful sense of freedom (and I know that we could have always driven to Wales or Scotland – it just doesn’t feel the same, somehow).

Seville - Just Down the Road from the Algarve

We often head to Spain for weekend breaks, when we would previously have headed for Cornwall or Norfolk. We have enjoyed cheap weekends in Seville, Marbella and Cadiz already, and are soon off to see what Jerez is all about. Espanha, being only 20 minutes away, is also our go-to destination for taco shells and Iberico ham (Carrefour), tealights and furniture (Ikea), and langoustines by the sea (Punta d’Umbria).

F is for Farturas:

The arrival of a van selling farturas and churros in Portugal usually signifies that some kind of local event or festival is about to happen. Farturas and churros are the southern European interpretation of donuts. Churros are essentially the same as a UK seaside donut, but they are squeezed into the hot oil with a piping bag and served as straight sticks, rather than rings.

Farturas and Churros in Portugal

Farturas are similar, but stuffed with a filling, usually a nutella-style chocolate sauce or something fruity. Visitors to Portugal should make a point of trying one of these sweet treats – but try to get them while they’re hot – a cold fartura left sitting on the counter for a while is not especially pleasant!

This time last year I was complaining in this post, about the chill in the Algarve air – which is interesting as I was doing just that when I spoke to my mother on the phone this morning. The headline temperatures do not tell the full story when you live in accommodation with only reverse-cycle air-conditioning to remove the chill from the air. Also back in January 2011 I had just discovered Brisa do Rio – probably still our favourite restaurant in the town of Tavira. It’s hard to believe it was only a year ago, given the amount of times we have eaten in there since!

Image Credits: Visit Portugal, Renata F. Oliveira.

Technorati Tags: dona barca portimao, farturas, portugal a to z

This week, I am pleased to be joining in with a rather fun blogging project, started off by Julie Dawn Fox at her own Portugal blog.

The idea for this leads on from the personal A-Z that some of us created after being awarded the Awesome Blog Content award earlier this month. Julie suggested it might be fun to each do a personal “A to Z of Portugal.” Several bloggers have joined in from various countries, and I am pleased to be getting involved myself.

My Personal A to Z of Portugal

As I tend to post on a weekly basis, I am doing to do a few letters at a time, and intersperse them with my regular posts. So, as a starting point, this week, I present you with letters A to C of my personal A to Z of Portugal.

A is for Aguardente.

Every country seems to have its own firewater-style spirit – the bottle that gets brought out at the end of a big meal. Greece has ouzo, Italy has grappa, and Denmark has aquavit. Portugal has aguardente.

Although this is a personal A-Z, I have to admit I am not a fan of this beverage. One shot has the raw power to change the course of an evening; any more than that can write off the following day as well!

We purchased a bottle of aguardente when we moved here, the rationale behind it being nothing more than “when in Rome.” Well, over two years on, I can confirm that all we have used the bottle for is to flame cook chorizo (a common use for aguardente), and to attempt to draw ticks out of my mother-in-law’s dog.

Interestingly, you do sometimes see some very posh looking, expensive aguardente on the shelves around Christmas time, so perhaps there are versions that don’t look and smell like paint stripper. So far though, we have yet to try them….

B is for Barbecue

I was talking about looking forward to BBQs on the terrace as far back as my sixth ever post on this blog, long before I even moved here.

We adore BBQs, and put a lot of effort into them. We are no strangers to butterflying a leg of lamb, or spatch-cocking a chicken and basting it with beer as it sizzles.

BBQ in Portugal

Sadly our time in London was never barbecue-friendly. When we eventually moved to a house that had outside space, our snooty elderly neighbour complained about “cooking smells” and slammed her windows shut whenever she so much as caught a glimpse of the grill. In the end, we just didn’t bother.

In the days before we got here, thoughts of sunny barbecues got us through the 16 hour days and the moving stress….and even years on the novelty hasn’t worn off. We barbecue at least weekly, all year round. Home made sauces, woodchips, bastes, dressings, even chickens upended on beer cans. Portugal and BBQs, for us, go hand in hand. We’re even having one tonight!

C is for Coffee

I never really drank coffee before I moved to Portugal, but the lure of a tiny, super-strong bica (espresso) has proved too

Portuguese Bica Coffee

much to resist.

I probably only have two or three each week – after meals out, and always after our market shop on a Saturday morning. It’s a wonderful little ritual, and a super-cheap luxury, rarely costing more than about 60cents.

Insiders Tip: Portuguese bicas are also sufficiently strong to completely cancel out that final glass of wine that you never should have had during the meal!

IMAGE CREDIT: Ricardo Benardo

Technorati Tags: portugal a to z, portugal BBQ, portugal coffee

It’s always nice to start the year with an award and I am happy to announce that Moving to Portugal has been awarded with an ABC award from the Thought Palette site. ABC means “Awesome Blog Content!” I am always flattered when people enjoy the blog and it makes the hours dedicated to it seem worthwhile.

As part of the ABC theme, Alyson from Thought Palette suggests the winners create their own “ABC” post about themselves. The idea seemed rather fun to me, so here’s mine!

Apple Mac

Beach

Contradictionary

Distracted

Evolving

Floating

Generosity

Happy

Impatient

Jager

Kitchen

Laid-back

Milkshake

Nervy

Open

Paradise Garage

Quasi-religious

Rocha

Sunshine

Thankful

Unfit

Variable

Wine

eXpectant

Young at heart

Zantac

So there you have it – I may have revealed a few things you didn’t know about me!

That’s it for this week, but if you want to read more I am continuing my theme of “at this time in…..” At this time in 2011 I looked back over the time since I moved here and provided links back to some vintage posts about the time before we moved to Portugal and our initial arrival. It’s a great starting point for those who haven’t been reading the blog for long. You can find the “Living in Portugal – a recap” post here.

Technorati Tags: abc award, blog award, moving to portugal

Bom Dia and Bom Ano Novo (Good morning, and happy new year)!

Apologies for my absence over the Christmas period. I took a bit of a blogging break, but am now back refreshed and reinspired.

After a week or so working in London and delivering presents to friends and relatives, we had a fantastic, if slightly hectic, Christmas back in the Algarve. The festive season was full of wonderful moments, so I have decided to list a few of the highlights:

1. Taking my mother and mother-in-law to Praia de Tres Castelos beach on the 22nd December, where our car’s thermometer read the temperature as 23 degrees Celsius. The weather was beautiful enough for us to eat lunch at a beach café, paddle in the sea whilst watching some amazing light bounce of the water (see photo), and even for us to get slightly sunburned! Returning home to make mince pies and wrap gifts after a day like this was surreal, to say the least.

Sparking Water at Praia de Tres Castelos

2. Meeting our new, seven week old great-niece while we were back in England. I must, however, admit that the term “great uncle” makes me feel very old indeed.

3. Having time to cook so many things at a relaxed pace, including some foodie gifts for relatives such as spiced nuts, gingerbread and Christmas dressing. Sadly, even slow-paced Portuguese life manages to frequently leave us short of time during a working week so having plenty of kitchen time was a real pleasure. Our Christmas cooking included bright pink beetroot hummus, a sinful banoffee pie, and the pictured garlic flatbreads!

Homemade Garlic Flatbreads

4. Our neighbours coming round just before Christmas with smiles and Christmas gifts for us. This was an extremely kind and touching gesture that we will never forget—it made us feel so welcome in our new country.

5. Having two barbecues during the course of the Christmas period. There’s something wonderfully decadent about BBQing in December.

Finally, though it’s not a Christmas highlight, as such, I feel I have to point out that whilst driving near Maragota the other day we drove past something you don’t see every day in the Eastern Algarve – a camel!

Algarve Christmas Camel!

Now the festive season is out the way, it’s time to look to 2012, a year that everyone is telling us is going to be a tough one.

Algarve 2012 Weather

There are already some visible signs of the truth of this, and a good example is the Gran Plaza shopping centre in Tavira. Stores both large and small have been dropping like flies in the past month. The shopping centre will be half empty if retail businesses continue to fail at this pace. On the bright side, the smaller stores in our area seem to be hanging in there and we have seen several new businesses start up recently. As I am a “glass-half-full” kind of person most of the time I am going to try to focus on this fact instead.

My wife and I don’t “do” New Year’s resolutions. Grand undertakings in times where it’s depressing to be back at work and the apartment is still full of leftover booze and chocolate can only be doomed to failure. Regardless, we are conscious that times are hard, so intend to buckle down to a year focused on working hard, spending minimally, and enjoying all the inexpensive outdoor pursuits the Algarve has to offer. Given that the next fortnight promises relentless sun and temperatures around 20C, that shouldn’t be too difficult. Happy New Year!

THIS TIME IN 2010:

Continuing the theme of keeping old posts alive, at this time in 2010, things weren’t going quite so well! We were in the middle of the Algarve’s wettest winter since 1870 and feeling rather unsettled. Read the post here!

Moving to Portugal with ExpatFinder.com

Technorati Tags: christmas in portugal, living in portugal, new year in portugal

Budget air travel is a necessary evil for expats like us who have to make frequent trips between old “home” and new “home.” After a while you get these things down to a fine art. My wife and I are the polar opposite of those who hold up security queues due to bottles of water, and board planes with irritatingly large “carry on” cases.

In fact, we are the ones at Faro airport shaking our heads in the direction of those people, perhaps doing less than we should to disguise our contempt!

Anyone who has travelled on Easyjet will know that it brings out the worst in people. (We won’t even talk about what happens to people travelling Ryan Air!)

Those, like us, who opt for the “Speedy Boarding” option, will know the Speedy Boarding queue is the VERY best place to spot the kind of selfish behavior I speak of. My wife and I always try to give off an air of cool nonchalance as we reach this special queue, as if we really don’t care where we end up sitting. However, I am going to let you into a secret: it’s all a well-rehearsed act.

Portugal - Where are the Best Easyjet Seats?!

In truth we have EVERYTHING planned with well-rehearsed military precision, and we are actually just as bothered about where we sit as everyone else. We just find it rather undignified to be one of those people saying “Speedy Boarding” as loudly as possible as they rubberneck everyone else’s boarding cards to check they are in the correct queue. Come on people, you’ve paid around 16€ to get on the plane first – you ain’t flying first class.

We are reaching the Christmas season. So as a special gift to my blog readers, I’m going to share our secrets. Here is the Speedy Boarding Blueprint to Success, especially useful for couples flying between the UK and Portugal!!

1. Obviously, you’re going to need to book Speedy Boarding for this guide to apply to you. Save time by doing it when you book online, rather than at the airport.

2. Swallow the cost and book as much hold luggage as you need. That way you can get on the plane like a pro with just the stuff you require for the flight. As well as making things less stressful for you, this stops you looking like a selfish prick when you bang your big carry-on case into everybody’s knees.

3. As you have booked Speedy Boarding you can use the dedicated check-in queue at the airport. Check in online too and print your boarding pass at home, then you can join the Speedy Boarding OR Bag Drop queue, depending on which is shorter.

The Easyjet "Fast Lane"

4. If your check-in assistant seems nice, it can sometimes be worth asking which gate the flight is likely to leave from – often they know this long before it appears on the board. If you know the secret, you can get to the front of that special queue before the masses know which gate to go to, ensuring you one of the best seats.

5. Even if you can’t find this information out, if you know your airport and route well, you can often hazard a decent guess as to the gate–they seem to be the same a lot of the time. I can guess gates at Gatwick and Faro now to a reasonable degree of accuracy. Am I going to mention the specifics? Of course not, I’m not sharing my biggest secrets!

If you can’t find out the gate in advance, you’re gonna have to be watching those screens when the time comes. When it does…..do not pass Dixons, do not collect a panini, and head straight for the gate. If you miss the gate announcement by two minutes, there will be 15 people in the Speedy Boarding queue in front of you. I PROMISE.

6. Once you’re at the gate, shit gets serious. Now is the time to ascertain whether you are boarding the plane via air-bridge or coach. If it is the latter, well, sadly, bets are largely off.

Having to board a coach mixes up the queue and it is no longer first in the queue, first on the plane. The only strategy is to end up nearest the doors, so you are first off the coach and onto the steps BUT…..you don’t know which side’s doors will open. The truly shameless actually ask the driver – seriously, I have seen it happen – but I have a tiny bit too much dignity for that. Remember, what we are aiming for here is cool nonchalance.

If you have an air-bridge at your gate, then it’s all down to your queue position. First 6 people, and you are pretty much guaranteed the front row, my personal preference. First 18, and even if the front row has gone there are 12 exit row seats near the middle. Run, rabbit, run!

Have a Good Flight to Portugal!

7.  Be the model of politeness with all the cabin crew when you board. If you get on the plane as part of the very first group, they will know you are no amateur, and you will catch them in a good mood before 150 people run over their feet with the wheels of their big cases and zap their customer service skills. It’s nice to be nice in any case.

This politeness may pay dividends. On more than one occasion we have had cabin crew standing protectively by our seat row, seemingly trying to maximize our chances of the third seat in our row staying empty to give us more space.

8. If you don’t end up with a friendly crew-member helping maximize your space and comfort, there is another option. Now, it’s perhaps a little unorthodox, and I’m not prepared to admit whether I have used this tactic but….OK, here it is:

Watch the aisle like a hawk. Take note of anyone who appears to be eyeing the spare seat in your row. As they approach, produce the most contagious sounding, unpleasant cough you can muster. There’s a good chance they will walk on by. Keep this up until boarding is complete, and you can then luxuriate into your third seat.

I hope these tips prove useful, tongue-in-cheek though they are. Try not to use them too much though between Gatwick and Faro…I wouldn’t want anyone giving us too much competition for those front row seats!

Have a good flight.

PS. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I am typing this on a plane. This message goes out to the person in his 20s sitting in front of me: Young man, turning round every two minutes to shout to your friend three rows back is really bloody irritating for others. Parents tell toddlers off for that. Please stop it.

Technorati Tags: algarve travel, easyjet, portugal travel

I’m always in two minds as to whether to post on Moving to Portugal when I’m in a bad mood, but it’s good to drive home the point that life “in the sun” isn’t always perfect. So, here follows a cathartic, self-indulgent, and possibly slightly controversial rant.

First off, I’m going to talk a bit about austerity. The media has been very quiet about Portugal recently. The main reason for this is that the country has, so far, met all its agreed bail-out conditions and targets.

Portugal has done so by implementing some serious spending cuts and tax increases. Largely, the population has accepted this quietly and stoically, as is the Portuguese way.

How has the austerity affected us? Well, being told half way through the year that you are going to have to pay an extra 3.5% tax on nearly all of your income, while utility bills have in some cases nearly doubled, stings quite badly. After all, our tax liability was already significantly more than it was in the UK, as was our petrol bill.

We’ve accepted it quietly though, in the same way as every Portuguese employee has had to accept their Christmas pay packet being taxed at a rate of 50%.

With this in mind, I am finding it very hard to reconcile my status as both a British citizen and a Portuguese resident, when a media-driven trend seems to be leading some members of the UK population towards casual xenophobia and Europe-bashing.

Since when did it become acceptable for moderated forums to allow comments about “work-shy southern Europeans,” and “lazy salt cod munchers?”

How many people in Britain really have the first idea of what life in these countries is like for normal people? Not for the political elite, the business leaders, the civil servants with good salaries and retirement packages – the normal people. Perhaps, to coin a phrase, “the 99%” (or more realistically in some countries, the 90%!) The fact is, the knowledge people have of these places, in the main, comes from one place: the media. Is the media known to work with honesty, integrity and no political bias?

People whose entire opinion is formed by what they have read in one country’s media will be ill-informed at best. From my position here in Portugal, I can see plenty of non work-shy people grafting very hard for very little money, in a country with no way to print cash, devalue currency, and pull themselves out of trouble.

Let’s not forget that the ability to do this is the main reason that Britain isn’t on the same list as Portugal, Greece, Italy and Spain. In fact, if you look at the raw figures, Britain is actually a good deal more screwed than some of the aforementioned. Right now, the media and markets are concentrating on (and profiting from) Southern Europe—but no one should be naïve enough to think they won’t head north once they are done with their current feeding frenzy.

The popular arguments about why the “PIIGS” countries need bailing out only wash to a certain point. If it is due to a select few creaming off the bulk of the money for themselves, along with an over privileged public sector….well that’s the same in Britain too isn’t it? Ah, no, it’s because big swathes of people don’t pay the tax they should in these southern European countries. Ah, OK, just like big corporations shirk most of their tax in the UK.

The “Euro crisis” term has provided Britain with a wonderful scapegoat. Unfortunately the media perpetuation of this is leading the less intelligent to think that Britain is going through hard times and that it is entirely Europe’s fault. This then leads to the xenophobic and slightly tragic little-Englander mentality all over the forums. It is easy to throw stones around a glass house with a good minimum wage, generous tax allowances and a benefit system that will always keep the most work-shy of all in beer, fags and fried chicken.

As an example from today, the Daily Mail speaks of “Plans to funnel British taxpayers’ cash to Italy’s stricken economy.” This really refers to a global IMF fund to which Britain is only being asked to contribute 4.5% This is the same IMF that Britain itself was bailed out by in 1976, and may well need to borrow from again in the near future.

I’m no rabid Europhile, but, the way I see it, a broad sense of unity between countries is always better than the alternative. Stirring up hatred and discontentment sells newspapers, and too many people are being taken in by the UK media’s current brand of bullshit.

The simple fact is that all the countries have spent beyond their means for many years, and the bankers and politicians have watched it happen whilst building up a sizeable rainy-day fund for themselves. As a result, we are all screwed. It is surely more grown-up and sensible to accept this and pull together than to fall out amongst ourselves. Pride comes before a fall, and I fear it is only a matter of time before fate conspires to make this xenophobic breed of little-Englanders realise just how little they really are.

Technorati Tags: euro politics, portugal economy, portugal euro crisis, portugal politic

A bit of fun this week. Alyson, the author of another expat blog, www.algarveblog.net , approached me to do a short interview about the Moving to Portugal blog and my life here in the Algarve. You will find my interview by visiting this link. I enjoyed answering the questions so much that I suggested we do it as a joint feature, so she agreed to answer the questions herself too, so read on for her interview!

1 Why did you start to write your blog?

I was inspired by Ben’s Moving to Portugal blog as I found this such a useful resource as we planned our own move to live here in the Algarve – it was great to find someone who had already ‘been there and done it’ and it inspired me to start my own blog. It was also a great way to keep in touch with friends, and to answer the same question we kept being asked ‘How’s it going?’ (We’re still asked that one now – and also ‘How’s the weather out there?’)

Alyson's Algarve Blog

2 Why did you choose Portugal to live?

We fell in love with the sleepy fishing village of Ferragudo about eight years ago after a last-minute unplanned holiday to the area; and five years ago we managed to finalise our plans to sell up in the UK and buy our house out here. It then took another 4  1/2 years of planning and plotting to actually move out here.

3 What do you love most about where you live?

I love the people, our neighbours are all Portuguese and so friendly, helpful and gentle. The weather, obviously, but also the peace, slower pace of life, fantastic light for photography and painting, and the great simple food.

4 Is there anything you miss about the UK?

We have friends and family there and we obviously miss them – although the diary is filling up with visitors! Sometimes I miss the range of shops we had, how easy it was to get just about anything you might need, and some food items are hard to find here. But there’s a MUCH longer list of things I don’t miss!

5 Quick choice:

Mac or PC? - PC – I love the sleek design of a Mac but have not been tempted yet!

Starter or dessert? - Dessert every time!

Early morning or late night? - Erm, neither! I’m so not a morning person, but I also like going to bed and reading too!

Air con or log fire? - We don’t have either here – but a log fire would win for me – crackling and welcoming

XFactor or Strictly Come Dancing? - Strictly every time! I love Brucie!

6 What book(s) are you reading now?

Oh I’m a very shallow reader sometimes – I love soppy romantic fiction, so my Danielle Steel books are all being devoured again having been in the loft for so long. Also loving ‘The War of Art’ by Steven Pressfield.

7 Do you have a role model or someone who has inspired you?

As a teenager growing up it was Cliff Richard! I have just started a new blog and I have posted about the artists that have inspired me - The People Who Encouraged me to Paint

8 What blogs and web-sites do you read regularly?

Jeff Goins – Mr Inspiring!

Tamara Out Loud – love her quirky take on life.

Robert Brault –  love his quotes!

9 For people new to your blog, where should they start?

Just dive in there and see what catches your eye – and maybe check out the About Us page too!

10 What is your favourite meal to order in a restaurant?

I’d have to travel for this one, I’d have Salada do Polvo (octopus salad) for a starter from the little restaurant near the beach in Burgau; rabbit stew from a little restaurant we love in Odeceixe, and then mousse de caramel from Toc Toc’s in Ferragudo.. with a nice red wine (Monte Velho is good!)

The Beach at Ferragudo

11 What were your best subjects at school, and do they relate to your work now?

P.E. English and Art – So I took a degree in sport, a teaching qualification PGCE in PE and English, and then joined the Police, working my way out and into senior education roles! Finally I am now able to concentrate on my painting and art, and I am loving every minute.

12 Do you have any advice for anyone thinking about starting their own blog?

Go for it – but have a ‘theme’ and a purpose – and consider something like Wordpress as an easy way of hosting and designing a site.

13 Where else can we find you on the web or in print – any books, articles, Facebook or Twitter account?

Just started a new blog, thethoughtpalette, as I wanted somewhere that I could write more generally – I would often hear or see something and think ‘oh I want to blog about that’ but I didn’t fit the Algarve Blog theme. You can see our art and photography on our web-site A3 Art.

14 Can you share one thing about yourself that we would never know about you from reading your blog?

I’m a huge fan of John Barrowman!

15 For people considering a move to live abroad, what would you recommend they do first?

Visit the place lots of times first – at different times of the year, not just during the ‘holiday times’ – i.e. see what it’s like in Winter! Ask lots of people lots of questions, and maybe plan to rent first, if you can, to see if you like it enough to want to live there.

16 Can you name three favourite places you would recommend people visit if they are on holiday here in the Algarve?

Ferragudo, Silves and the West Coast.

Silves, Algarve, Portugal

17 Do you have any tips or tricks for anyone who has just arrived to live here in Portugal? And is there anything you wish you had found out or discovered sooner about living out here?

Learn to slow down! Eat where the locals eat and shop where they shop. Take time to settle and don’t rush things.

And I wish I had realised how slowly the wheels of organisations can actually turn – we are still trying to get our address at the bank updated and sort out our on-line banking!

18 How’s your Portuguese and  what would you recommend for people wanting to learn the language?

Oh I wish it was better! We are not frightened to ‘have a go’ now and we have found the Portuguese are very friendly and will always try to help you – usually by speaking English which doesn’t help us learn the language! We have found the Michel Thomas CDs very good as a starting point.

19 What is your favourite:

Film? - ’What dreams may come’ – a little known Robin Williams film

Book? - ’Wind in the Willows’ – Kenneth Grahame

Album/Music? - Sugarland, John Mayer, Tricia Yearwood – there’s a long list!

Gadget? - Before I left my last job I was a real gadget girl with all the latest toys, but now I would have to say it is my camera.

20 And finally, where do you think you will be in five years’ time, and what will you be doing?

Hopefully still living here in the Algarve; I would love to be known as a professional artist, with regular exhibitions shared jointly with Dave and his photographs, and maybe to have finally written that book that is lurking inside!

Don’t forget to check out my own interview over at the Algarve Blog.

Readers interested in the Portuguese language course recommended by Alyson can find it at the link below:

Total Portuguese with the Michel Thomas Method (Michel Thomas Series)

Image Credits: joaoa, timo_w2s

Technorati Tags: algarve blog, algarve interview, living in the algarve

For someone who has spent much of his working life in the computer industry, I can be strangely indifferent towards technology. When I am back in London, the extent to which people live their lives plugged into smartphones worries me somewhat. I think life was better when people used to talk to each other.

Staying in touch with family and friends becomes very important when you live in another country, and telephone conversations with your nearest and dearest come to replace what used to be lunches, coffees, and evenings in the local.

While Facebook, Twitter and email keep you constantly aware of what people are up to, these methods of communication are quite impersonal, so for affordable communication with the UK, Skype has been a bit of a lifeline.

Skype: A Lifeline for Expats

Skype has allowed us to have long and inexpensive conversations with family and friends, and the extra services we subscribe to allow us to call UK landlines very cheaply. We even have London phone numbers so that people in the UK can call us at no extra cost-highly beneficial for business as well as personal use.

On a few occasions, we have even had social gatherings with people using webcams, clinking glasses against the cameras and staying online for hours. In the (slightly adapted) words of S Club 7, “there ain’t no party like a Skype party.”

With all this in mind, it is annoying that we still manage to run up at least 40 euros worth of landline calls to the UK on our phone bill every month.

Why is that? Well, using voice-over-IP like Skype isn’t perfect. Quite often, people at the other end say we sound echoey, and when you are talking to anyone with less than perfect hearing this is far from ideal. In addition, using Skype means we are tied to the computer (I know Skype phones exist, but my experience of them hasn’t been great). Now it’s OK to wander around with my laptop, but not ideal, and if I have cause to wander somewhere where my wireless signal is poor, I lose the call.

Due to these reasons, I have got into the bad habit of picking up the landline at certain times and when calling certain people. I then curse myself when the bill arrives.

Now, as an ex-London resident, I am very familiar with the shops all over the city that sell a wide range of pre-paid telephone calling cards. The option of using one of these myself never really occurred to me, but, when I was approached to try one out, it seemed like it could be the answer to my problems.

Using a proper telephone from abroad has benefits

The huge advantage of using one of these cards, over a service like Skype, is that you can use any landline phone to make calls, doing away with the disadvantages of Skype. The card I trialed was from NobelCom, who are currently offering a free calling card. The card arrives by email. All you have to do is call a freephone access number, then dial in a pin code, followed by the number you wish to call.

The card I used held US$20 credit, which at their quoted rates is enough for 250 minutes of calls to the UK, just 8 cents per minute. This is significantly less than our Portuguese landline, and around a fifth of the cost of using our Portuguese mobiles. The call quality was crisp and clear, and a test call to my mother revealed that she found me a lot easier to hear than when using Skype.

The only disadvantage, to me, was the large amount of numbers you need to know: the access number, the PIN, the country code, and the UK number. That’s a whole load of dialing. Luckily there is the facility to input speed-dial numbers. Unfortunately, the “PIN Free” dialing option only works in the US, but they do offer a PC-2-Phone application that allows you to dial the numbers automatically via a computer.

Regardless, the calling card is a great addition to our “staying in touch” toolbox, and I now have a piece of paper by the phone, listing the sequence of numbers I need. Now, when I am feeling lazy, don’t have the computer on, or want to call someone hard of hearing, it won’t result in a telling off from the wife when the phone bill arrives. For that reason alone, it is worth every penny.

Before I sign off I am launching a new blog feature this week. As I have now been posting here on Moving to Portugal for nearly three years, my older posts are getting buried behind the new, and this is hiding away information that may be useful or interesting to new readers. To make these posts easier to find I am introducing “At this time in…….” to the end of some of my posts…

So for starters….at this time in…..2009 – I was just nine days away from moving to Portugal, and ranting about the popularity of “X-Factor” on British TV – the post can be found here.

Have a good week.

This time in 2009....We were about to move to Portugal

Image credits: Doodlepress, Stereoit.

Technorati Tags: calling from portugal, phone from abroad, phoning from portugal

The Algarve is far from a sunshine paradise right now.

Summer ended with a humdinger of a wind and rainstorm on Sunday night. We were woken up throughout the night by beating rain and gales rattling the shutters. When we got up on Monday morning, the tops of some of our local palm trees had blown clean off, and when my wife stepped out onto the terrace to retrieve our soaking laundry, she ended up ankle-deep in water as debris had managed to block our drainage pipe.

Our home got off far more lightly than Faro airport, where some of the roof was damaged resulting in a number of injuries. Local news reports suggest it may be several months before the damage is fully repaired, but flights seem to now be returning to normal, after some were diverted to Lisbon and Seville earlier in the week.

Faro Airport - No longer looks quite like this

To complete the rather depressing moment when we had to pull our warm clothes from the back of the wardrobes, we both came down with coughs and colds – in my case the third round of bugs I have had in a couple of months. Frequent trips back to the UK along with visitors bringing UK germs here with them has resulted in a very irritating run of illness that I will be pleased to see the end of!

With all this in mind, I don’t have an awful lot to tell since my last post, as all we have really done is struggled through our working days, watched TV, eaten a lot of hot curries and breathed plentiful Olbas oil. So for anyone reading this and considering a life in the Algarve, be warned that sometimes it really doesn’t differ all that much from life in the UK!

Image credit: orudge

Technorati Tags: algarve summer, algarve weather, faro airport, portugal weather

As I write, I can see that it has been a full two weeks since I last posted here, and for that I apologize. It’s been a busy time. We spent the last week in the UK where we saw some friends and family, did some work, and, in my case, had a tooth extracted.

It was a bit of a whirlwind like every trip “back,” helped somewhat on this occasion by the fact we flew with British Airways. We choose our flights based primarily on lowest price and it just turned out that BA was cheaper on this occasion. Compared to our usual budget airline experience, which seems to bring out the worst in every passenger, it seemed so much more civilized. From the generous baggage allowance to the online check-in and seat allocation, the journey just seemed less of a chore than normal, and the floppy egg mayo sandwiches even sated my wife’s strange fondness for crappy airline food. Now their employees seem to have got their fondness for striking and worker militancy out of their systems, we will be sure to check their prices on each trip back.

A Civilised Flight to Portugal

Anyway, one of the reasons I have been absent from the blog for a couple of weeks is that I have been involved with a number of other writing assignments recently, which I am now going to proceed to plug shamelessly! All of these articles contain useful information about Portugal, so should hopefully be of interest and make up for my “content-free” fortnight!

First off, I have an article in this month’s (October) issue of “A Place in the Sun” magazine, exploring some of the more unspoiled areas of the East Algarve. You can get it in all good UK newsagents.

I have also produced an “Insiders Guide to Portugal” feature for Cheap Flights, a US company selling airline tickets, which you can find here.

Finally, I have taken on a weekly writing role for the Overseas Guides Company where I produce a regular newsletter about life in Portugal and issues related to buying a property here. The content of the newsletter is updated every Friday and can be found here.

Find me at OGC for Portugal

Now I’ve drawn your attention to lots more info about Portugal, I would like to quickly mention a situation that is developing over at the Expats Portugal forum. As many readers here probably know, Expats Portugal is a very popular site and a huge source of support and information both for prospective expats and those of us already living here.

Basically, the forum has ended up involved in legal action as the result of a post last year that contained a discussion about a property company. The company in question (who I won’t name here) took exception to the thread and it has all got unnecessarily unpleasant.

It is horrible to see something like this happen, as many people benefit from these forums, and as someone who knows websites personally, I can confirm that the financial rewards are rarely in proportion to the level of effort involved in maintaining such a site. If the forum has helped you, please take a look at this thread, and make a donation if you are able.

Expats Portugal - A Valuable Resource

That’s about it for today, as every time we return after a week in England, the house seems to have got dirty all by itself and there is never any food in the cupboards, so more next week. If you want more to read about Portugal in the meantime, I highly recommend this guide to Buying Property in Portugal. If you look carefully, you’ll find the bit that I wrote inside! Have a good week!

Buying Property in Portugal (second edition) – insider tips for buying, selling and renting

Image Credit: Deanster1983

Technorati Tags: a place in the sun, BA to Portugal, british airways, cheap flights, expats portugal, life in portugal, overseas guides company