movingtoportugal

It’s trivia time this week on Moving to Portugal. We’ve just come to the end of a long run of different guests staying with us, and this morning I was reflecting on some of the little bits of information about life in Portugal that sometimes come out in conversation, and are a surprise to those who haven’t been here before. So, here we have a light-hearted list of ten things not everybody knows about life in Portugal.

1. There is a reason why people often spend what seems like an unusually long time at the cash machine. The Portuguese Multibanco system is highly sophisticated, and allows you do to all kinds of things. Want to go fishing? Buy your license at the ATM. Need to pay your tax bill? Use the reference number on the bill, and pay it directly from your account using your cash machine (a quite scary task when thousands of euros disappear instantly from your account…. you will definitely want to double check that reference number). Want to book a seat on the train to Lisbon? Yep, you do it with Multibanco. With this in mind, try not to get impatient in the queue for the cash machine!

Portugal Multibanco Machine

2. There is a nominal fee made in Portugal for a TV license. It is charged automatically on your electricity bill.

3. Petrol is even more expensive in Portugal than it is the UK.

4. So are cars. Due to the ways cars are taxed here, they are a LOT more expensive. On the bright side, the climate down here in the Algarve means they are less likely to rust.

5. When, after a meal, you appear to have become invisible to the waiter as soon as you have been served your coffees, it doesn’t mean standards of service have suddenly dropped. Here in Portugal, people often sit for some time after finishing a meal. On one occasion, I even saw someone place head on table and have a short nap before leaving. We don’t have a table-turning culture. Just ask for the bill as and when you are ready to leave.

6. Shopping centres here universally stay open until 11pm, even on a Sunday.

Fernando Pessoa

7. Portuguese people typically revere literary figures at least as highly as famous musicians and sports stars. In an increasingly dumbed-down, X-Factor loving world, this is a wonderful thing.

8. It is unclear why there is a nationwide shortage of all euro coins in Portugal, but there is. Prepare for wrath if you intend to pay for a 2.08€ grocery transaction with a note and you don’t have the 8 cents. Once you’re known in your local town you may be sent on your way with your goods and asked to come back tomorrow with the right change!

Portugal - Where are the Euro Coins?

9. When eating, it is customary to keep your napkin to the left of your plate, and not on your lap. I’m not sure why this is, but it is practical. Constantly reaching down for a napkin below the table results in sardiney fingers making clothing smell unpleasant.

10. It can get cold here in winter. Really bloody cold. Without central heating, it can feel colder than the UK. People never believe this, but those of us that live here don’t just say it for a laugh. People who have actually visited us during the winter know this to be true, but, for some strange reason, May and September always seem to be “the popular months” for most!

So, I’ve thought of the first ten. Can any Portuguese residents think of more? If so, please comment below.

PS. Anyone wishing to become familiar with Portugal’s literary output would do well to begin here:

The Book of Disquiet (Penguin Modern Classics)

Image credits: anabananasplit starrynight1 FreeFoto

Technorati Tags: facts about portugal, life in portugal, living in portugal

Those readers who follow the Expats Portugal blog will have probably seen a long recent thread about the opening of an Iceland store, down here in the Algarve.

I’m sure when the original poster typed his short message to share the news of the opening; he never expected it to generate 21 forum pages of comment, opinion, and, at times, vitriol. I myself voiced some strong opinions, but these were more in disagreement about the discussion’s descent into something akin to a class war, than about the opening of a British discount store and freezer centre.

The whole debacle raised an interesting question though, which is just how much us expats / immigrants should integrate or do integrate into our new home countries?

Various aspects of the culture of Portugal were strong factors in our decision to move here; strong family values, a relaxed pace of life, and a cultural existence that compels citizens to revere famous authors more highly than X Factor “stars” being just three examples. Simple, high quality cuisine was another reason we were likely to highlight when asked the “so why Portugal?” question.

Portugal Weather - Another Deciding Factor!

We have been here around two years now, and have worked very hard to integrate. Our stuttering Portuguese has enabled us to make friends with our Portuguese neighbours, we don’t huff and puff when held up during shopping or driving because those in front of us have decided to have a chat, and we are familiar with the works of Saramago and Pessoa. If you were to walk into our home at around 9.30pm (because that is now when we usually eat dinner) you would be as likely to see us tucking into bacalhau a bras as beef stew and dumplings.

However, none of this means that we don’t get excited when we spot a jar of mint jelly, a frozen Yorkshire pudding, or (as joyfully happened last week) the opening of an English style butchers. I was perhaps initially surprised just how much you do come to miss things from “back home” once you have lived abroad for a while.

If you think about it, there’s nothing unusual about this. If you go for a wander around Stockwell in south London, you will find plenty of Portuguese shops and restaurants. The culinary variety that can be found in London is made all the more rich by the immigrant populations. Everybody wins, because the restaurant and food stores that provide comfort and familiar products to those populations also provide variety and new flavours to all.

Sometimes Expats in Portugal Miss British Food

Now, I know that Iceland is hardly a home of epicurean delights, but I’m not going to complain about increasing availability and value of products that add variety to our daily meals. After all, when we lived in London, we didn’t “eat English” every night, any more than we “eat Portuguese” every night here. Chinese, Indian and Italian all make at least a weekly appearance.

Integrating, to me, is about showing respect for our new home, contributing to the community, ensuring we operate our fiscal affairs according to the laws of Portugal, and respecting the cultural differences of our new country. I don’t think we’re really going to offend anyone by buying the occasional packet of smoked mackerel from Iceland (something I am greatly looking forward to, as it happens).

I do take the point that large stores make it more difficult for independent local businesses, but that situation is far too advanced for one more chain to make any difference. In fact, despite the recession, small businesses continue to pop up everywhere in our area, with low overheads that still, in my opinion, make it easier for entrepreneurial types to try something out here than back in the UK.

Are signs with no Portuguese respectful?

I’m quick to moan when I find myself in touristy areas such as the Albufeira strip, and see wall-to-wall English breakfasts, menus with no sign of any Portuguese, and sunburned Brits shouting “two large beers” without attempting so much as a “bom dia.” That does display a frustrating lack of integration. But I refuse to be judged for being pleased that I will soon be able to buy inexpensive Branston Pickle. And, who knows, some Portuguese people may even get a bit of a taste for frozen “double stuffed takeaway style pizzas with a sweet chilli layer.” Sometimes, after a hard day, crappy junk-food in front of the TV is just what the doctor ordered…..

Image credit: higgot

Technorati Tags: iceland, integrating abroad, living in portugal

It rained at the weekend. Now, for those of you who don’t live in the Algarve, that won’t seem particularly interesting, but for August in these parts, it’s actually quite unusual.

Given that a lot of people move to Portugal for the climate (and it certainly played a large part in our own decision), it is strange how much your attitude to the weather changes once you get used to it.

After a couple of years, I have finally managed to get out of my system the urgent need to get outside as soon as I see the sun is shining. It is important to do this if you live here, otherwise it’s impossible to get anything productive done between June and October!

When I was in the UK recently, a friend said to me “what’s the weather supposed to be like when you get back?” My reply? “Hot, I imagine.” The fact is, once summer starts, I don’t really even check the weather any more.

I´m reluctant to say that I now take the weather for granted, but I have got used to this different climate.

Which is why rain in August came as such a surprise, and, it has to be said, a wonderful surprise too. It was fun to have to grab our BBQ food and run for shelter when the storm blew through. A day of rain turned out to be an unexpected treat, like a day of hot sunshine would in March in the UK. See how back-to-front our lives have become?

Algarve Portugal Weather - Back to Normal

The following day, the rain had removed most of the humidity from the air, resulting in a cooler day (though perhaps the word “cooler” should be kept in perspective, given that we now call anything under 25C “cool.”) The bigger treat was a cool evening last night, which meant we could step IN from the balcony to a warm apartment, rather than in from a HOT balcony to a cool, air conditioned apartment. I can think of no better proof of our acclimatization than the fact that that in itself felt unusual.

So, what’s it like outside today? It’s back to normal: hot and sunny, with no change predicted for the next couple of weeks, which is fine by us. It was, however, wonderful to get a sneak preview of the change in seasons, and enjoy a cosy Sunday indoors, complete with newspapers, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

In conclusion, we had a splendid weekend, BECAUSE it rained. Strange.

Technorati Tags: algarve rain, algarve weather, portugal weather

Living in Portugal is great, and I’d be the first person to support and encourage anyone thinking of making the move themselves. Having said that, a dose of realism is required. Every week, someone new pops up on the expat forums stating their intentions to move here, and you can detect a level of naivety and lack of research that is only going to end in tears.

So, for this week´s post, the time has come to dispel some myths about life in the sunshine.

First off, living somewhere is NOTHING LIKE being on holiday there. Being on holiday in London is nothing like working in London, and it’s no different in Portugal.

Tourists enjoy the beach in Portugal while we work indoors

For a start, unless you have retired, you actually have to work, and trying to be productive when it’s 32C outside is vastly different to reading a book on the beach when it’s 32C outside. Just because it’s hot and sunny every day, it doesn’t mean you have time to sit out in it and get a tan. By the time our work is done for the day, the sun has lost much of its strength, and it can be rather frustrating finding yourself half way through the summer with less of a tan that a tourist who has only been here five days! Looking over the top of a laptop at people swimming in the pool all day sucks too.

We have also been a little bit surprised that we still frequently find ourselves desperately short of time at some points. Once the working week is out of the way, the house tends to need cleaning, and shopping and other errands need to be sorted out-in the blazing heat. So, that’s Saturday gone. Then it’s Sunday, and then, shit, it’s Monday again. Much like real life in any other place!

Driving back to Portugal from Spain

And don’t expect anyone “back home” to believe you or offer any sympathy. Whatever you say, they will assume that you spend at least half of every day drinking pina coladas whilst floating in the pool. There is nothing you can say to convince them otherwise.

Next up, finding work. We spent three years designing a way to earn money remotely. So when the forum newbies say “what kind of work will I get, I can’t speak any Portuguese yet?” What do they really expect the answer to be? Why not ask a different question: “I’m Portuguese and moving to England, I can’t speak any English yet, what kind of work will I get?” Does that help to answer the original question?

Portugal is going through hard times economically. There’s a fair bit about it on the news. The ground-level reality of the situation bears no resemblance to the situation in England. The UK has a fair minimum wage, and there IS still work for those willing to do it. There are people in this country working very hard for a level of income that a UK benefits claimant would turn their nose up at…and the cost of living isn’t THAT much different.

For those of us lucky enough to have income, we have just been told there is a new extraordinary tax for 2011, meaning we have to give the government an extra 3.5% of what we earn. It IS hot, it IS sunny, but it’s not always easy.

Portugal - cost of living is fairly high, but sunsets are free

Now, I know all of that sounds like a rant, which is why I preceded it all with “living in Portugal is great.” It truly is. But you have to work and research to make it that way. Which is why, when people come to the forums expecting to be able to have a life which is like their summer holiday, and arrive here and walk into an English-speaking job, they need to realize that life isn’t like that.

Youngsters in their teens and twenties CAN just get on a plane, find seasonal work in bars and restaurants, and have a damn good time in the sun until the work dries up, and I admire their guts for doing it. But, it is different for people with families, and the thought of people coming out here without doing their research when it involves taking children away from their schools and friends frightens me a bit.

For those with serious intentions of moving, there is a wealth of existing information to help, on the forums and on blogs like this one. The people who dedicate days, weeks and months of their lives getting familiar with it develop realistic and achievable dreams, and they end up being the people we walk past looking happy at local beaches and markets. The others are the ones who have their dreams dashed by the time they’ve read the first three replies to their first post on a forum.

I highly recommend this book to anyone seriously considering a move, it contains lots of interesting information and case studies from people already living here, including (shameless plug) a bit that I wrote!

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

Technorati Tags: living abroad realities, Moving abroad, portugal economy

It was when I was in London a couple of weeks back that I got to thinking about the ways in which we were becoming “more Portuguese.” I had just bowled into my hotel, smiled, said “Ola, bom dia” loudly to the receptionist, then gone very red when I realised I had spoken in Portuguese instead of English.

It wasn’t the only time I did it during that trip to the UK. In fact, after that initial embarrassing experience, I started to over-think it, and found myself saying “good afternoon” before beginning a checkout transaction in Tesco Express, because I was translating the Portuguese “boa tarde” INTO English in my head before saying it. Saying good afternoon in a London Tesco may be polite, but I was looked at as if I was trying to parody a city gent from the 1930s.

Now, I know people say “when you start thinking in the language that’s when you are fluent.” Well, I am still very very far from fluent. But, in these day-to-day interactions, it has obviously become instinctive, and to such an extent that it feels more natural in some situations speaking Portuguese than speaking English. This realisation made me think about the other ways we are now “being Portuguese.” It must be time for another list post:

Being Portuguese

1. 10pm now seems to be a perfectly sensible time to do the weekly grocery shop. Midnight seems like a perfectly sensible time to light the barbecue.

2. If we are due somewhere at 2pm and have still not left the house at 5 past, I don’t really see that as being late, as such. (Although to be honest, my timekeeping has never been particularly good, I just now live somewhere where a lack of punctuality is more ingrained!)

3. If a person dawdles in front of me in a shop queue, I don’t feel an instant blood-pressure rise and begin seething and silently blaming that person for all the problems in my life. I just wait.

4. The same applies when the car in front stops for several minutes to chat to someone they’ve just spotted walking along the road.

5. The other day I saw a sardine recipe which called for the sardines to be gutted, and my horrified reaction was: “WHY would you gut them? How silly.”

Sardines are not usually gutted in Portugal

6. Still on a fishy theme, I actually find myself craving bacalhau at least once per week.

7. I now know which days of the week the butcher has lamb, so I don’t end up sulking because I can’t find any on a Tuesday.

8. 27 degrees Celsius is no longer defined as a “hot day.” In fact it is more likely to cause us to remark that “I’m sure it was warmer last year.”

9. I no longer check the weather online every single day. It’s summer, and therefore it will be sunny.

10. Carpets feel weird (that one was my wife´s contribution).

Just another Sunday in Portugal

Settling in another country is like getting older. When you are about 25, you look back at your 21 year old self and think “I can’t believe how little I knew.” Then you get to 30 and think the same about your 25 year old self. After 20 months of “being Portuguese,” I look back at posts I wrote after just six months in the country and can’t believe I thought I was already settled. It’s all a learning curve, and I feel that even after this long we still have a long way to go. It´s a good job that a fair proportion of it is jolly good fun.

Image credit (Portuguese flag): tiseb

Technorati Tags: becoming portuguese, being portuguese, going native

As I type this I am 30-odd thousand feet above Portugal or Spain on my journey back to the Algarve, after a quick week working and socialising in London.

We are very much looking forward to re-establishing a routine after our recent residency nightmares, which were exacerbated by three weeks of toothache, which thankfully has abated since a trip to the dentist in London.

Heading home to Portugal

All in all, June was probably our most unsettled month since moving to Portugal, so I am relishing the thought of something approaching normality, or as least as close to normality as we can get as the real holiday season beings in the Algarve. This means strategic planning is required when visiting shops, beaches and restaurants, to avoid the worst of the hordes.

Montegordo Beach - in quieter times

Tomorrow should be a rather exciting day, as we are finally picking up our own car after 18 months of supporting the local car hire companies. Car hire has proved so affordable throughout the winter that if we could get those rates year round, we would be tempted to just keep renting ad infinitum. The trouble is that in the summer, we can end up paying the same to hire a car for a week as we usually pay per month off-season…..and that is if one is available.

Shortly after finally getting our residency, we were approved for car finance on something nearly new–quite a feat when our income all comes from the UK. I apologise to the environment for the trees that must have been felled to produce all the paperwork that was required! If anyone wants information on what we did and what was required, let me know, but I won´t bore everyone reading the blog with the details here.

I don´t have a lot more to say, having been away from Portugal for a week. Once we arrive back, I look forward to embracing life in the sun, which I have been unable to do fully with residency stress as well as toothache!

All is good right now, but I imagine within a week or two I´ll be complaining about the tourists….there are certainly plenty of them on this plane

QUICK UPDATE: After typing this on Friday on the plane, I didn’t get round to posting it until Tuesday. We are now back, the sun is shining….and…….we have our car! It was a quick and easy process, but at some point soon we really ought to attempt to translate all the bits of paper we mindlessly signed when we collected it. Oh, and my wife is already complaining about traffic and “dawdling tourists.” All much as predicted then really!

Image Credits: Deanster1983 Bert Kaufmann

Technorati Tags: flying to portugal, holidays in portugal, summer in portugal

It’s been a while since I posted. Long enough that people may have wondered if I had done a disappearing act and left Portugal, never to return.

Well, strangely enough, it came pretty close. We had so much difficulty renewing our Portuguese residency that, for a time, we thought we may have to leave to return to the UK, or have another go at life in the sun over the border in Spain.

Well, I’m pleased to report that all is good again now, but I can’t overstate how tricky the past few weeks have been.

Portuguese EU Residency Document

We knew before we moved that the bureaucracy here in Portugal was going to be difficult. Nothing, however, prepares you for just how difficult, frustrating, illogical and inconsistent it really is.

As an EU citizen, you have freedom to live and work wherever you like in the EU. “Getting residency” is really only a simple question of registering in the country where you have settled – it is in fact called a “Certificado de registo de cidadao da uniao Europeia.” According to both the EU’s own website and the SEF (Portuguese immigration authority) websites, all you should need to do is take your passport to the SEF office and be prepared to sign to say that you either have a job, are studying, or have funds to support yourself. You should then be given a five year document which can be exchanged for permanent residency after that time.

Sounds like a five minute job doesn’t it? This is what we had to do:

1. Visited the SEF within 3 months of settling here as instructed. Were told that the camara (town hall) now handles residency.

2. Went to the camara with necessary documents, they also insisted on our rental contract and fiscal numbers (neither was a problem). However, they also required us to go to our village hall and get an “atestado” to prove we lived where we said we did (even though we had a tenancy agreement).

3. Went to the junta (village hall) to get the atestado. Told we need two local residents registered as voters in our local village to sign to vouch for us–an interesting challenge when you have just moved somewhere and don’t know anyone.

4. Awkwardly asked a local bar owner and the lady in the corner shop to vouch for us on our atestado.

5. After a wait of a few days managed to get a signed atestado from the junta.

6. Went back to the camara who now seemed like they were willing to give us a residency. Paid 15€ and were told to return in a couple of days.

7. Returned a couple of days later and were told to come back again after the weekend.

8. Returned to the camara after the weekend and joyfully collected our residency. Strangely though, it was only for one year and not the stated five years. Decide to worry about it again in a year.

Residency Celebration Feast

9. Visited our bank to get our accounts changed to residents accounts. Big fail. It turns out the camara have put the wrong addresses on our precious new one year residency documents.

10. Go back to the camara, told to return in two days to collect our new residency papers.

11. A year on, our one year residency is near to expiry, so we need to renew it. Confident, as we now feel like very legitimate Portuguese residents, having done a full and honest tax return involving us contributing a significant sum of money to the faltering Portuguese economy, we return to the camara with our heads held high.

12. The camara insist on copies of our work contracts. This proves difficult as my wife works for a UK company and they won’t accept her contract, saying it must be translated into Portuguese. I am self-employed and don’t have one. The tax return document we proudly proffer is shuffled back towards us with a sneer. They also want a “declaracao da segranca social com os descontos efectuados,” which is proof we don’t owe any social security here. This is also tricky, as there is no mechanism for my wife to pay it here–my wife is not employed by a Portuguese company or self-employed here. I have recently become self-employed here, but I am not liable for any for the first 13 months. We return home downhearted.

13. Turn to the expat forums for advice – a lot of which amounts to people saying it is near impossible to do everything legally the way Portugal works and that we should have “stayed under the radar.” A lot of people did offer helpful suggestions and offers of assistance, for which I am very grateful.

14. We contact our accountant for help but she refers us to a document agency in Almancil. We’re not up for this as we tried one of them last year and they wanted more paperwork from us than the town hall did. Exasperated, we decide to involve a lawyer.

15. We visit the lawyer. He suggests that as our family members applied in Olhao and were given their residency in 5 minutes that we should pretend we have moved there instead. Not the kind of legal advice we expect from a lawyer! He then suggests we bypass the town hall and go to the SEF instead.

16. We go to the SEF. We show them a print out from their own website stating the residency requirements. The printout is dated May 2011. They tell us the law changed–in 2007. They send us away empty handed, and with a bit of a smirk.

17. We go back to the lawyer. He says we should come back in a few days and that he will come with us back to the town hall to try again.

18. We go to the lawyers office. He has passed our case onto a new trainee. She knows none of the details. We spend an hour taking her through what we have done so far. We decide to first visit the social security office to see if they can give us the document the camara want. We arrange to meet her at the social security office later that week.

19. Arrive at the the social security office. Trainee lawyer is 30 minutes late. Needless to say social security office cannot provide the document. They do at least confirm that we are correct that there is no mechanism in place for my wife to pay social security in Portugal and that she should continue to pay National Insurance in the UK under the EU reciprocal agreement.

20. We sign a form so the lawyer can go back to the camara and discuss the case on our behalf. The lawyer contacts us to say that they have dropped the requirement for the social security declaration and instead want three months of bank statements and a translated work contract. This sounds a bit better. Unfortunately they also say we can’t renew it until the day after our old 1 year document expires. This means we are in a position where we have to wait, and not know if our staying in the country is authorised until we are already “technically” illegal.

21. We go back to the camara on the appointed day. The lady there this time is not remotely interested in our newly translated (at a cost) work contract. They do, however, have a good look at our bank statements. They then request photographs and proof of our private medical insurance. Given that this is the first mention of this, it is a happy coincidence that we happen to have it, and carry the cards around with us at all times.

22. The lady in the camara goes and photocopies everything. We start to get excited. Have we done it?

23. Camara lady returns and tells us to return in a week for the answer. Yes, another week. We are now onto week 4 of sleepless nights. They stamp our form so we are legal in the country while we await the paperwork.

24. One working day before we are due to return, which happens to be my birthday, my wife secretly arranges for the lawyer to go back and ask about our documents. We now, finally, have residency for another four years, to add to the one year we were originally granted.

Blue Skies in Portugal - Red Tape Trade-off

So there you have it. The 24 step process required for an EU citizen to be permitted to live in the EU. We are legal, legit taxpayers, and once again we can go in the pool or to the beach without worrying that it will be the last time we have the chance. Normal posts about beaches, sardines and wine can now resume.

As this post proves, if you plan to move to Portugal, it’s impossible to do TOO much research. I highly recommend this book:

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

Technorati Tags: EU residency, portugal residency, residencia

A big first today for Moving to Portugal – my first interview!

A few weeks back I posted here on the blog about “The Moon, Come to Earth – Dispatches from Lisbon,” a wonderful book from author Philip Graham detailing his adventures when he spent a year living in Lisbon with his family.

Thanks to the wonders of Skype, I was able to catch up with Philip last week and interview him about the book and the time he spent in Portugal. You can tell from his words that his love affair with this wonderful country is far from over!

M2P: What do you miss most about Portugal?

PG: Ah, a tough one. It’s hard to describe . . . there’s an indefinable sense of Portugal-ness that I feel deeply sometimes.  It’s like a feeling, a powerful one. I find myself imaginatively on a street in Lisbon.  I wish I were actually there.  I miss the feel of cobblestones under my feet.

M2P: Is it saudade?!

PG: Well, yes, that.  It deepens with the passing of time.  Also, I feel a real affinity with the Portuguese model of personality, at least as it’s commonly culturally expressed.  Real manners (I love to watch Portuguese politely cringe when loud tourists get on a bus), but real passion, too, and not always suppressed.

The Portuguese care about things I care about–they’re quite serious about literature, love their food and drink, are spiritual and can be crabby.  They are my kind of folks–prideful, but also modest about their pride. Oh, and I miss the music! I love it all, fado and everything else!

Philip wrote an article about Portuguese music a while ago that features videos and mp3s and is available here.

I also miss Portuguese politics.  Which I never, ever really understood, but that’s why I enjoyed it so much–lots of red-faced blather on issues I didn’t know about.  Made it all seem rather funny, in a way.

M2P: What don’t you miss?

PG: The maniacal driving. Sometimes, being a pedestrian in Portugal is a form of playing dodge ball. I also don’t miss struggling with the Portuguese language from day to day! I love the language, truly, but I prefer reading Destak, Diario de Noticias, i, Publico online, to keep up my chops (such as they are), without having to see the fleeting grimace on the face of some Portuguese person trying to be polite while deciphering my accent and grammar.

Lisbon Commuting

M2P: Are there any aspects of the Portuguese lifestyle and culture which you took back to America with you?

PG: Well, I’m no longer ashamed to relax.  I had worked much, much too hard before our year in Lisbon, and the pace of Portuguese life was the needed tonic.  I’m sure you know something about this too!

The Portuguese, I’ve found, are very attentive to certain aspects of life–the sharing of food, the enjoyment of the arts, the pleasures of nature, and music, and the quiet celebration of this shouldn’t be crimped by too much hurry.

I’ve also become the family cook since we’ve returned home.  Something of the Portuguese seriousness about that pleasure dug in.  I like making daily offerings to my family.

Also, we designed our kitchen Portuguese style.  Azulejos, large Mediterranean floor tiles, the bright colors of white, yellow and blue.  I am a dreamer.

M2P: Do you have any plans to return to Portugal?

PG: Well, my daughter always wants to return, she has a very good friend there.  And Alma and I too have so many friends.  My book has been translated into Portuguese, and will be published in September by Editorial Presença, as “A Lua, Vindo à Terra,” and there has been some talk of my going to Lisbon for the launch.  We’ll see.  If it happens, Hannah won’t let me go alone!

M2P: The book talks a lot about your daughter Hannah and the problems she went through, how is Hannah now? Is she still taking lots of photographs?

PG: She is fine, a healthy, feisty teenager, just turned 16.  She received a Sony digital SLR camera for her birthday, which she is having great fun with.  She’s also a terrific writer, and will be the junior editor of her school’s newspaper next year. This summer she’s going to India.  Seems she has been very impressed by a unit on India in her history class.  So online I found a program that specializes in taking high school students to foreign countries to do service work.  She’ll be in India for three weeks.

M2P: How’s your Portuguese? Are you still studying it?

PG: I still study, still consult my portable Portuguese-English dictionary, which is so disappointed in me. I really can’t speak worth a damn, at least in real time.  But I’m great to respond five minutes after the beat. I also suffer from “brain freeze” in certain situations.  I keep reading Portuguese newspapers online, sussing out new words and constructions.

Lisbon, Portugal

M2P: What tips and advice would you give to anyone considering a move to Portugal?

PG: Patience!  As you well know!  I think that the bureaucracy in Portugal didn’t affect us that much, because we were used to much, much worse in Ivory Coast.  I did notice, though, that using the language, being respectful and patient moved things faster for us.  If a clerk or functionary realized I was a lusophile, and I went on a bit about my enthusiasm, then mountains would be moved for me.  The Portuguese are always pleased to find admirers of their culture.

If anyone is moving with children, be very, very, very careful about what school you choose.  We made a terrible mistake with the first Portuguese school Hannah entered, and the experience affected her in serious ways.  The second school was a dream.  But what I’ve come to see is that children at home are tied to us and to the world by so many invisible strings, and we don’t really notice them.  But when first moving abroad, most of a child’s strings are severed, except for those connecting them to their parents.

They have to rebuild those strings in a new and very unfamiliar place, and it is a very delicate time for them, they need all the support and attention that can be mustered.  Portuguese school bureaucracy can be quite stolid, especially when it comes to communicating to a teacher (though we didn’t find this to be the case with Hannah’s second school).

Also, and we didn’t realize this until we were in the country, the Portuguese are the most family oriented of all European countries. Most of the playing with friends is done at school, not after school, not over the weekends–those times are reserved for family.

M2P: Is there anything else you’d like to share with readers of “Moving to Portugal”?

PG: To allow themselves to be persuaded by you and your wife to move to Portugal or at the very least, to visit.  Keep up the good cause!

Philip Graham’s book “The Moon, Come to Earth – Dispatches from Lisbon” is available from Amazon (link below). Philip also has a new book coming out next year, the second volume of memoirs from his family’s time spent living in small villages in Ivory Coast.

Image credits: Pedrosimoes7, szeke

Technorati Tags: dispatches from lisbon, moon come to earth, philip graham

I have happy news to report today on Moving to Portugal. We have FINALLY sorted out our taxes. It took 18 months, 3 Portuguese accountants, 1 English accountant, and literally hundreds of hours of research time to work through the complexities of living in one country and earning in others, but thanks to the wonderful new Portuguese accountant we met last week, we now know what we are doing.

It was perhaps strange to walk out of an office so elated last week when we’d just been told we have to pay a scary five-figure sum in tax in September, but it had been weighing on our minds for so long, it was a relief to finally know.

Our previous experience of accountants in Portugal had been pretty disastrous. Out first attempt was with a well-known “expat specialist,” who shall remain nameless, who charged us a large amount of money to basically tell us we should do our best to “stay under the radar,” when we made very clear that we are people who prefer to pay our dues and go by the book. The second guy simply didn’t understand the way things work in both countries and shrugged a lot. He also suffered from a total inability to respond to emails, and gave us “factual” information that could be discredited with five easy minutes of web research.

The lady we met last week was incredible. In fact I think we actually love her a little bit! Super-sharp and fully versed on the intricacies of the tax and social security laws both here and in the UK. The kind of person who says “just sign here, here and here,” and takes all the stress away. Not cheap, but worth every penny. Anyone living in Portugal who wants to be put in touch with her, send me a message.

I cannot overstate how much having this sorted out has enhanced our lives. It has taken up so much of our time that, once it was sorted, it felt rather like the few weeks after our wedding, when we couldn’t remember what we used to do with our free time before it was consumed with wedding planning. Obviously I wish we could have found the right accountant months ago, instead of racing down expensive blind alleys, but having it all done now is good enough for us.

Sunday on the Beach in Lagos

Our celebratory mood was enhanced further by our wedding anniversary on Saturday and some beautiful sunny weather. On Sunday we took a drive over to Lagos, in the western Algarve, and had two enjoyable meals in restaurants we hadn’t tried before (see Food and Wine Portugal for details!) We also had our first sea-swim of the year. It took some serious motivation to get in the water, which is even chillier up that end of the Algarve than up our end, but it was worth it, and wonderful to be bobbing up and down in the waves once more. We now have no excuse not to get in the water every time we hit the beach until early November. In fact, I can already feel the warmer water of Montegordo tempting me for when I finish work today!

All is pretty good then, in summary. We have two back-to-back rounds of guests visiting starting at the end of the week as well, so there’s plenty to smile about.
Have a good week, and stay tuned, as later in the week I will be posting Moving to Portugal’s first interview! Last week I caught up with Philip Graham, author of “The Moon, Come to Earth – Dispatches from Lisbon,” who provided me with lots of insights from his time in Portugal. Time, permitting, it will be here by the end of the week.

Technorati Tags: red tape in Portugal, social security in Portugal, tax in Portugal

Apologies for my brief absence, which was caused by a busy couple of working weeks in the UK. I won’t go over old ground on this occasion by comparing life there with life in Portugal—I’m sure no one needs to hear the same thing six times per year. Suffice to say, on this occasion it was actually rather enjoyable, helped by some spring-like weather and lots of socializing.

London by Night, returning from dinner with friends

When we arrived back in Portugal on Friday night, it felt a little disorientating , as it usually does.  I can never quite get my head around those days when 8am sees me rushing, slightly hungover, through London on the way to see a client, and 8pm sees us back in the Algarve picking up grilled chicken for dinner on our way home.

There is no real period of “re-entry” any more. Portugal definitely feels like home as soon as we arrive. Much of the weekend was spent pottering around the house, making everything clean and tidy ready for the weeks ahead, where we have a bit longer than normal to enjoy being at home before our next short work trip.

As per usual, our trip to England coincided with the best weather of the year so far in the Algarve. Seriously, if you want to find out which six weeks of the year will boast the best weather here, just ask us when we have to go to England – it happens every time!

Although we missed out on some sun, the “garden” on our terrace certainly didn’t. In just two weeks it had turned into a jungle! We were delighted to be able to pick an entire salad from our own plants on Saturday, complete with radishes and spring onions, which are like gold-dust here as they are so hard to find.

Portugal Peach Blossom

Out home-grown salad accompanied some barbecued fish from the market – tiny sardines and juicy skate wings.  This coupled with a bottle of sub-2 euro dry white wine got us right back into the pace of Algarve life!

Looking forward, the splendid run of UK bank holidays which is just round the corner marks some proper time off for both of us, and we will be exploring some more of Portugal and Spain in the next couple of weeks. After that important regrouping time we have to start playing the bureaucracy game again, with our tax return to submit and a car to buy. After excitedly completing our car finance application over three weeks ago, we have experienced total radio-silence from our bank, and in the interim there has been the small matter of the whole country going bust. So, needless to say, I am not hugely hopeful they are going to help us! For now though, we intend to enjoy the sunshine and use our time off to boost our resolve, ready for the red-tape fun and games that I am sure awaits us.

Have a good week.

Technorati Tags: fish, garden, portugal