movingtoportugal

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.

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As a regular reader of the blog pointed out, my last post was “uncharacteristically negative,” so I’m pleased to report that last week was a better one! We heard from our Portuguese bank that our paperwork was finally back from London and were invited in to apply for our car finance. We have yet to hear back as to whether or not we can go car shopping, but fingers are firmly crossed. If we are successful, we can go shopping for something with a service history and a warranty, rather than having to take a €5000 gamble!

Just as suddenly as it had arrived, our homesickness vanished, helped by some fine weather and a conscious effort not to allow the slow-turning wheels of bureaucracy to phase us.

I’ve said this before, but I think it bears repeating: moving to a warm, sunny country does NOT make you immune to life’s crap. Sure, I don’t have to start every Monday on the London underground, wedged cosily against a strangers armpit, but living in Portugal, when you have a living to earn and tax to pay, does not mean 365 days a year of “summer time, and the living is easy.”

Portugal Spring Flowers

However settled we feel here most of the time, decades of conditioning as to how things work in a different culture, and one where you speak the language, don’t just get shaken off after 18 months. I feel I have a duty to people considering a similar move to be completely honest about this. Things that were previously simple—such as making an enquiry to the tax office or seeing a doctor, become vastly complicated.

I sent two very simple questions by email, in perfect Portuguese (translated with the help of a Portuguese friend), to Portugal’s Financas several weeks ago and have received no response.

What would I have done in England? Well, I would have picked up the phone and used my extensive vocabulary to bitch and moan until I got the answers I required. Now here, that’s not an option. Despite my best efforts, my Portuguese vocabulary doesn’t yet stretch to complaining over the phone. Sure, I now know the difference between a dourada and a robalo, but proudly showing off my knowledge of fish is unlikely to get me anywhere with the tax office. It’s an unsettling feeling.

It’s my duty then to warn prospective expats of something the estate agents selling a new life in the sun are unlikely to mention: The language barrier has the potential to turn previously intelligent, articulate people into blathering fools. Stumbling your way through a two week holiday with nothing but “sim” and “obrigado” is one thing, negotiating the realities of life is quite another!

Shellfish on a Trip to Spain

Anyway, as you can probably tell, I’ve now managed to be a lot more philosophical about all this, freeing up my brain to enjoy some of the good things we moved here for. Last week we found time to enjoy the beach, watch sea trout sizzle on our barbecue and venture into Spain for a feast of shellfish at the weekend. Our equilibrium has been restored.

Key to restoring my spirits last week was the arrival of a book called “The Moon, Come to Earth,” by Philip Graham, a series of dispatches from an American author who spent a year living in Lisbon.

I’m always keen to read tales of people integrating into other cultures, and the adventures of Philip and his family have so many parallels to our own experiences that I found the book truly compelling.

Graham has a fantastic gift for analogies. I particularly loved the observation that “making complex financial arrangements in a language one barely understands feels like riding white-water rapids using a teaspoon for an oar.” That sentence alone went a long way to shaking me out of my dark mood last week!

My wife can always judge how much I’m enjoying a book by how often I want to read a section out loud to her. I read her so much of “The Moon, Come to Earth,” that I hardly think it will be worth her reading it herself!

The author skillfully blends his Portuguese discoveries with his personal thoughts and feelings as he watches his daughter’s integration into Portuguese life and schooling, and her poignant last days of childhood as adolescence begins. This book is absolutely essential reading for anyone considering moving abroad with children.

“The Moon, Come to Earth” helped me in another way too. Graham spends a lot of his time in Lisbon sitting and observing – taking it all in. As our work and red-tape stress has increased, we have unconsciously stopped doing this, ending up back on a bit of a hamster wheel, albeit a sunnier hamster wheel with cleaner air. The wonderful observations in the book jolted me back to remembering why we moved here, and the need to slow down, soak up the culture and open our minds to understanding the different way of life. For that, I am very grateful to the author, and heartily recommend the book to anyone with an interest in life in Portugal.

You can find the book here:

The Moon, Come to Earth: Dispatches from Lisbon

With all that said, however much I remember why we moved here, manage to slow down and soak up the culture and adapt to that different way of life, I have a feeling that the tax office failing to respond to my queries is still going to piss me off.

Have a good week

Exploring Portugal - Castro Marim from the Castle

Technorati Tags: books about portugal, living abroad, moving to portugal

To conclude my retrospective look at our first exciting year in Portugal, here, as promised in my last posts are our high points and respective low points of our first year in the Algarve.

THE HIGHS

1. Sharing our new home with friends and family - some of our happiest times here to date have been those we have shared with our visitors. A big thank you, in no particular order, to Richard, Pam, Kat, Rob, Rick, Bill, Mike, Tom, Amy, Hannah, Ben, Dionne, Jacob, Emma, Steve and Nat, and all the other people coming to see us soon.

2. Enjoying all the scenery the Algarve has to offer – and soaking in water from the cold (lake under the waterfall at Pego Do Inferno,) to the warm (Montegordo in August.)

Portugal - eating out in the Algarve

3. Eating and cooking – from fish feasts at the cheap and wonderful Vela 2 in Tavira, to barbecues on the terrace, and tapas over the border in Seville. The gastronomic wonders of this part of the world have lived up to all of our expectations.

4. Meeting people - Portugal has made us very welcome. Various people spring to mind: friendly neighbours in Tavira who put up with our slow Portuguese, a certain bar owner who offered us advice and encouragement during the wobbliest of our early days (you know who you are,) and all the lovely people who provide advice on the forums and here on this blog. There are some very good people in this part of the world. I must also give a special mention to the surly young shop assistant in our local mini mercado, who now greets us with a smile and saves her visible disdain for the tourists

5. Small victories: Finally getting our residency, finally getting our broadband and cable TV, successfully building on our limited Portuguese, and finally getting a smile from the girl in the shop (see above.)

THE LOWS

1. Winter 2009. Finding out first hand, by enduring the wettest winter since 1870, that Portugal is a cold country with hot sun, and NOT a tropical paradise. Our first four months in the mouldy disaster that was our house in Tavira are not a period of my life I would be keen to repeat.

2. High Summer. Realising that the Algarve just gets TOO busy in July and August.

Mouldy memories - Portugal 2009

3. Trips to England. A means to an end, but it would be great to have less of them – they really mess with your routine.

4. Red Tape. Although when you finally get the piece of paper you need it feels like a triumph, getting there can be hellish – and you do end up having a sense of foreboding with regard to your next encounter with officialdom.

5. Meeting people. Figured I would put this in both sections. Most people we have encountered in this past year have been great, but as ever there have been a few exceptions. Cliquey, gossipy types, jobsworths, people who push you out the way in Easyjet’s speedy boarding queue and people from HM Revenue and Customs who can’t read forms properly have all made my shit list over the past twelve months!

So what advice would we offer to those considering chasing their own dream to Portugal or another sunny location?

Do your research, make sure you are sure, then save some money and do it – and when you are going through the hugely stressful last six months before the big move, always remember to soak up every minute of the adventure – you may come to miss the non-stop raw, emotional, scary excitement of changing your life. I’d certainly do it all again

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It is now just over a year since we waved goodbye to Old London Town, and got on the plane to Portugal, leaving our old life behind.

Needless to say, the year has been one of the most eventful of our lives, and I’m finding it surprisingly difficult to work out how to summarise our first year in a blog post.

When you move abroad, especially to somewhere you have fallen in love with on holidays, it is surprising when, after a few months, you realise that you haven’t at any point felt that

Boats at Olhao - Moving to Portugal

undiluted happy holiday feeling.

If holidaying somewhere you adore could be likened to the electric, lustful feelings of the start of a relationship, going to live there is rather more akin to the deep rooted contentment gained through a happy marriage.

This is no bad thing, and there have been plenty of wonderful moments along the way that have lived up our initial hopes.

One day a couple of weeks ago, my wife and I were both frantically busy with work and within seconds of closing our laptops were both leaning over the kitchen sink – I was shelling prawns while she scaled sardines, ready for some guests coming over for a midweek dinner. We were both stressed. It wasn’t until I remembered we were preparing cheap and fresh seafood within seconds of finishing work, rather than fighting through the crowds on the way to a tube station, that it occurred to me that we were in fact living the dream we waited for.

This does go some way to illustrating my point. When you go to live somewhere, real life moves there with you. When you are on holiday, real life is put into a state of suspended animation until you get home and pick up the big pile of bills on the doormat. We ARE living our dream, but those bills still arrive on a daily basis, and wherever you live you can have weeks that suck and leave you thinking you need a HOLIDAY – even if the beach is ten minutes away.

Our one year Portugal anniversary has caused us to look back at the last year, and we do feel we have made substantial progress in integrating here, even if sometimes this progress happens so slowly you don’t notice it at the time.

Speaking Portuguese is an example of this. Now when we go into shops, restaurants, garages, we speak Portuguese without it occurring to us that we ARE speaking Portuguese. We didn’t actually realise this until some relatives pointed it out after observing us in a supermarket, and it was a very rewarding feeling. Even more pleasing was when I picked up a Portuguese cooking magazine the other day and realised that there were entire paragraphs I could understand. Compared to my wife I thought I had been decidedly slack when it came to learning the language, so I am encouraged by how much does seem to go in without you noticing.

Sunset over the Algarve near Barrill Beach

Another pleasing change which started to occur after about six months was that we stopped having those wobbly days or weeks when we questioned our decision to move. These are now few and far between and affirm our decision.

I figured the best way to look retrospectively over our first year would be to list five of the year’s high points, and five corresponding lows…stay tuned for my review of the first year, coming on Friday.

Technorati Tags: a year in portugal, algarve, learning Portuguese, moving to portugal

The sure-fire way to get short shrift as a new member of any of the expat forums is to make your first post read something like this:

“Hi, I’ve been to Albufaira couple of times and think I want to move to Portugal. Can ne1 tell me how to find work in Portugal. I am a secretary and my hubbie is a plasterer. We dnt speak any Portugese but are happy to lern.” (sic.)

You see this kind of post a lot, and the people posting them do tend to get savaged a little bit! The fact is, the employment situation is the main reason why expats who fancy a life in the sunshine can’t just pack their things and get on the next Easyjet flight.

In this, the second of my series of articles about the costs and realities of moving to Portugal, I explore the situation with regards to finding employment in Portugal……

Work in Portugal

If you only spoke Portuguese, Russian or Mandarin, would you expect to be able to arrive in England or the USA and quickly find a job in your chosen field? Of course not! So let’s start off there.

If you cannot speak Portuguese, your employment prospects are not exactly zero, but they ARE crap. Let’s be honest about that. Although I’m not looking for a job, I have done a lot of

Working in Portugal - the commute for some Lisbon residents

research in terms of the kind of jobs I COULD do and all I have really seen in a year in Portugal is very low paid seasonal bar and restaurant work and jobs selling property which are invariably commission only.

So, if you happen to be 18 years old, with a free room in your parents villa, fancying a summer of sand, sangria and Sagres, you might find what you are looking for. Fancy a permanent move? Not so much.

When I say “very low paid,” I do MEAN very, especially by British or American standards. Legal minimum wage here is 450 euros per month BEFORE tax and social security, and a lot of workers are on this wage. Note that I said “legal” minimum wage. If you don’t speak Portuguese and are after casual catering work, being offered €12 plus tips for a 6/7 hour cash-in-hand shift is quite possible – I’ve spoken to youngsters getting this much.

If you can speak good Portuguese, obviously you have more options and the combination of fluency in Portuguese and English is quite desirable. The wages are still scarily low compared to “back home” though. 8500 euros is the average annual Portuguese wage. Obviously people do earn a lot more than this, but it depends on the field you are in—and consider as well the fact that the highly paid jobs are not down here in the sunny Algarve, but more likely in the main cities of Lisbon and Porto.

Before I descend too far into doom and gloom though, all is not necessarily lost. If you are of an entrepreneurial persuasion there’s no real reason why a good business idea cannot succeed in Portugal, although the language barrier could affect both the ease of setting up and your ability to attract local customers as well as fellow expats. The tax and social security implications are also very important here, and beyond the scope of this article.

Starting a business is an option though, and you are likely to find SOME of the start-up costs lower than back home, especially if you are thinking of renting a cafe or bar.

Finally, be sure to remember that in the case of ANY service business, you will be competing with local companies and therefore have to pitch your pricing realistically. Also, some trade qualifications won’t be valid here, so don’t assume you can come here and be an electrician or plumber, without retaking your exams…..in Portuguese.

So, there’s the slightly off-silver lining in what seems to be a sizeable cloud. There are however a couple of other options open to you that could rescue your Portuguese dream:

Working Remotely from Abroad

Depending on what you do for a living, your existing employer may be convinced to let you become a remote worker. You will need a progressive, modern-thinking boss for this to be an option, but there are benefits to your company as well as to you. Remote access technologies, Skype and cheap broadband mean that other than our physical presence, there is little you can’t do sitting in your living room in Portugal that you can do in the office.

Try to sell your boss on a higher level of productivity, less interruptions, higher morale, more time for actual work, less time commuting and a reduction in office costs. If you currently work in the UK there isn’t even a time difference to worry about.

Old-school bosses, jealous fellow employees and having a job which requires your physical presence can all serve to prevent this from being an option, but it’s worth considering. The Internet has made a “global workforce,” a reality, and if you are a valued employee working for a forward thinking employer, they may be more open to suggestions than you would expect.

If you are interested in this option and for some tips to help convince your employer, have a read of “The Four Hour Work Week,” by Tim Ferriss.

Working Online

Whatever you do, don’t just open Google and type “make money online.” 99% of the things that come up will be scams. There are, however, some online work options that are a reality, as long as you accept that nothing is instant and all require you to put in hard graft.

If you can write and have experience you can sign up to online content providers such as Brighthub and Demand Media. Using the latter, you can genuinely make a full time income, if your writing skills are up-to-par and you have sufficient knowledge of some of the topics.

Online work providers such as Elance and ODesk are possibilities too. These marketplaces allow you to bid for contracts to provide a huge range of services: secretarial work, virtual assistance, proof reading, customer service – the list is endless.

Sounds good doesn’t it? If you have the relevant skills, it can be – but there is a “but,” as there always is. You are competing for these jobs with providers in India and the Philippines who are bidding to work for $2 per hour. There are however, people out there happy to pay fairly for your skills, you just have to put a lot of time into finding them, and accept you may have to do some low paid tasks to build up strong feedback to allow you to get a look in with the decent employers.

If you can do IT work and / or web design, you should be able to find work to do remotely, especially if you already have clients from “back home.” IT brings me tidily onto IT skills in general, which are essential for any online working opportunity – if you can’t get quickly and proficiently around a computer, online working is probably not for you!

Working in Portugal - the trade off

Well, there you have it. A summing up of your work options if you wish to pursue the dream of a life in Portugal. How realistic it is really depends on your skills and how far you are willing to take a risk. Working for yourself brings with it no sick pay, holiday pay , pension, free training or any of the other trappings of “working for the man” – so it’s not for everyone. Similarly, working remotely can bring with it a feeling of isolation and being out of the loop.

Nothing’s perfect or simple, but one or a combination of these options may bring you sufficient income to live in the sun. We left behind a lot of security and ready cash in order to live here – and no amount of money would drag us back.

If you missed the previous part of this series, you can find it here: Cost of living in Portugal.

Image credits: JSome1 and Tourshelp

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It’s hard to believe that in just ten days time we will have been living in Portugal for a year. The time has flown past in a wonderful whirlwind of barbecues, wine and seemingly endless Easyjet flights to and from the UK for work trips.

A year on, I can genuinely say we have no regrets about making the move. It certainly hasn’t all been plain sailing, and although we have now experienced first-hand all the different seasons, we still have plenty of “firsts” to come…..our first tax returns and our first Portuguese car purchase being just two that make me shudder a little bit.

Recently though, we have started to realise how far we have come. Arriving back from working in London last week was the first time I didn’t experience a few unsettled days on our return to Portugal. Here is undoubtedly home now, and the homesick “what have we done?” moments that used to be quite frequent seem to be a thing of the past.

Salad on Altura beach in late October

Some more family members have completed their move over here in the last couple of weeks as well, and knowing the answers to some of their questions as new arrivals makes us realise we have actually learned rather a lot, even though along the way it hasn’t always felt like we were learning that much!

The same applies to our Portuguese. We have been far more slack than we intended, but can now catch the jist of the odd news story on the radio and understand a tiny bit of conversations—again, progress we have made without really noticing we were making it.

So, all in all we have little to complain about at the moment. The weather has been perfect since our return from the UK. When summer finishes in the Algarve, what you get next is far more like another spring than an autumn, which makes this seasonally-affected blogger a very happy man

Readers of Food and Wine Portugal will know that we decided last week to have a go at Weightwatchers, and I am proud to say that I have managed to lose 4 pounds of the weight gained by excessive consumption of clams, wine and custard tarts over the summer. A very positive result, although I have to confess that the sight of someone slurping a plate of fresh cockles, swimming in olive oil and butter, was almost heart breaking as we headed to the sands of Altura on Saturday with our packed lunch of salad (with a carefully calorie-counted portion of croutons.)

Even so, we intend to stick with it for a little while, if only to leave some room for some planned overindulgence as we approach our first big family Christmas in the Algarve. Rest assured though, that I didn’t move to the Algarve in order to ABSTAIN from eating cockles and clams!

That’s about it for now. Stay tuned over the next few days for the second in my series of articles exploring the costs of living here in Portugal-this time focussing on the work situation. Have a great week.

Technorati Tags: algarve beaches, altura, clams, cockles, dieting, living in portugal, moving to portugal, settling into a new country, weightwatchers

Does absence truly make the heart grow fonder?

On my first few visits back to the UK from Portugal I couldn’t find a single thing to be happy about – I just sulkily longed to be back in the Algarve. Now the visits have become more routine, I am finding a few (just a few!) reasons to not completely hate the time I spend back here. (The usual disclaimer with regard to it being great to catch up with friends and family applies!)

This time round, our works brings us to Southampton, somewhere I have never been before. It was quite exciting to put the TV on in the hotel yesterday just at the point when the

The new Cunard Queen Elizabeth cruise ship

queen smashed the bottle on the new Cunard Queen Elizabeth cruise ship, down the road.

Other that the obvious satisfaction in knowing that the queen herself made an appearance during our very own maiden voyage to Southampton, I have actually found this city to be quite agreeable, with a relaxed student vibe.

As with most places in the UK nowadays, Southampton does also seem to have its share of “got a spare fag mate?” chavs and troops of young single mums with hoop earrings sufficiently large for dolphins to use them for tricks, but the trendy students seem to dilute them down to the level of minor irritation rather than major annoyance.

Once again, being back in England is making me notice new differences—both comparisons between here and Portugal and differences in how I am, now I live such a vastly different life.

I walk a lot slower nowadays. I have already got used to London seeming faster on previous visits, but if Southampton feels like a fast-lane to me now, I must have really slowed down to a Portuguese pace!

A lot seems unnecessarily complicated and illogical around these parts too. How on earth a tourist is supposed to select the correct train ticket from the vast array of choices at the Gatwick ticket machines is beyond me—and I lived here nearly all my life.

A few more days and we’ll be back in Portugal again, until then, time to do some work at UK pace and enjoy a few things we have been looking forward to – Thai food and fish and chips being the priorities.

So, I’ll be back when I am back in the hopefully sunny Algarve, by which time I am sure to have found some reasons to moan about England again!

Have a good week.

Technorati Tags: cunard, moving to portugal, portugal, queen elizabeth cruise ship, southampton

Last weekend here in the Algarve was a good one. It was lovely to have a car again after feeling rather isolated at times in our little town.

On Saturday we ventured out and headed west to Praia da Gale, just past the tourist mecca of Albufeira. We were pleased that even here, the crowds had subsided and it did just feel

Praia da Gale

like a busy Saturday.

Praia da Gale is a west-facing beach with the signature orange cliffs, typical of this end of the Algarve, with just a few beach restaurants. One of these, actually just called Praia De Gale, we enjoyed on our last visit. We had exactly the same light lunch – bread, olives, clams and white wine. Simple and delicious and some of the best clams we have had this summer.

The only difference to our last (off-season) visit to Gale was that the sands were almost completely covered in sunbeds and sunshades for hire. Although this detracted from the natural beauty of the beach it gives us more reasons to come back to these places when the weather is not so good later in the year.

One “benefit” of the touristy stuff being there still was a small watersports hire company down one end of the beach. While we swam, we noticed a young couple climbing onto a long yellow banana boat. Riding one of these things, which is pulled along ridiculously fast by a boat in front, has been one of those things we have always intended to do, so completely on the spur of the moment we ran to the hut and asked if we could take a couple of the spare seats.

Five minutes later, we are bouncing along the open sea, in my particular case hanging on for dear life. Maybe I am getting old but I have to say it was just a little bit too much! Perhaps because there were only adults on the banana, the people driving the boat made no concessions for fear – particularly when they manoeuvred the boat in such a way as to deliberately send us all flying off the boat and into the deep water.

Banana Boat - Terrifying

My wife thoroughly enjoyed the experience, despite having to be helped back onto the boat after we were all thrown into the sea, so I was a little embarrassed to admit I was counting down the seconds until we got back to the shore. It would be wrong to say I didn’t enjoy it at all, because it was certainly an experience, but my favourite part was when we were near enough to the beach that I could dive off the thing and swim back to solid ground.

I held on so tight to the boat that it was a couple of hours before my arms stopped shaking and the vibrations of the boat seem to have pulled every muscle I have. I am still, two days on unable to straighten my arms, or open the terrace doors without wincing!

After Praia Da Gale we headed to the Apolonia supermarket. Expats tend to have very strong opinions on Apolonia as there is really nothing remotely Portuguese about this upscale establishment that exists to sell expensive imported products to wealthy tourists. However, we make no excuses, we were celebrating our eleven year anniversary on Saturday and fancied a treat – and for that purpose, this cross between Waitrose and Harvey Nichols food halls is the perfect place. I will be posting a report on Apolonia over at Food and Wine Portugal, later in the week.

On Sunday we headed over to the new property that has been purchased by our relatives, who are, as I type, driving down to the Algarve through Spain, having just arrived on the Santander ferry.

We were greeted by the old owners – truly lovely people who reminded us of one of the biggest reasons we wanted to move to Portugal in the first place. They had left the place beautifully for when our family arrive and I am so excited for them to be starting their own Portuguese adventure in a few hours.

On the way home we had a quick beer overlooking the fishing boats on the sparkling sea in the village of Santa Luzia.

On return home I must confess to reading an English Sunday paper, something I promised myself I wouldn’t do once I moved here, that has now returned to being part of my Sunday

Roast leg of lamb

routine!

We finished a really special anniversary weekend with a leg of lamb we procured from Apolonia. It was very good indeed, especially after experiences of a lot of rather tasteless lamb we have come across since we have been here. My wife has already said this is what she wants to eat again on her birthday. Luckily, given the prices in Apolonia, that isn’t for a few months!

Have a good week!

Images credits: Jun Acallador, Filipe Rocha, dps

Technorati Tags: algarve beach, apolonia, banana boat ride, moving to portugal, portugal supermarket, praia da gale, roast lamb

There are some exciting days ahead for us in the coming days here in still very sunny Portugal. Some relatives of ours have purchased a property and will be joining us just ten miles down the road next week.

It will be wonderful to have family so close to us and I look forward to hosting lots of barbecues and showing everyone around our favourite beaches and restaurants!

This week has been a lot more settled than of late and it is great that the area has calmed down a bit after the hectic Algarve summer. Before the summer began, a couple of expat friends had said to us that the excitement of the summer rush would be fun for a few weeks and then become a little tiresome. It is fair to say they were spot on and we are glad that once again we can get near the pool and not have to queue for ages at supermarkets and roundabouts on the N125 road!

Cars - expensive in Portugal

Another benefit of the change is seasons is that the shortage (or complete absence) of available hire cars has now ended and we are excited about having access to a car again to resume our exploration of the area. We intend to buy a car at some point soon but, as you may know, cars in Portugal are ridiculously expensive and we are still building up to handing over a large chunk of money for something that would have cost us half as much in the UK!

Tonight we are off for a fish feast at one of our favourite restaurants, Vela 2 in Tavira – see review here for more details. After a busy week of work I look forward to my fresh fish binge and some beach time this weekend.

Tomorrow my wife and I have been together for eleven wonderful years so we have much to celebrate in the next couple of days while we look forward to the arrival of some of our family, at the start of their own moving to Portugal adventure.

That’s about it by way of an update – have a great weekend!

Technorati Tags: algarve restaurant, busy summer, cars in portugal, moving to portugal, vela 2 tavira

Time really does fly.

Easyjet

Each time we land back in Portugal after a quick work-related trip back to the UK, we always count how many weeks it is until the next time we have to join the Easyjet “speedy boarding scrum.”

However many weeks it is, it always seems to only be five minutes before once again we have that sinking, melancholy feeling that always hits us around ten days before we have a trip back to the UK booked.

Once we get there it is fine – a whirlwind tour usually involving several different clients, a few friends, a corresponding quantity of city-sized hangovers and a couple of nice family visits.

Then, before we know it we have landed back in Faro again, ready to endure the first couple of days back in Portugal which always seem strangely unsettling while we get back into the flow of life in our new home.

In an ideal world we would pop back for work with less frequency than we have to now, but it is part of the deal, and having to spend just five weeks out of 52 in the UK is a lot better than the other way around! Being there and getting on with it is actually the easy part – the nasty bit is the few days before we go, when we suddenly start to appreciate everything about our life in Portugal all the more – rather like the sad end of a holiday.

Anyway, each trip back presents us more contrasts between our old and new lives and serves as a bit of an appraisal as to how well our move to Portugal is going.

This time the main thing I noticed was how miserable the average stranger looks in the UK – all the time I spent pounding the London pavements between clients, the words of Dizzee

Dizzee Rascal - accurate about London

Rascal kept playing through my mind: “take you down to London city, where the attitude’s bad and the weather is shitty…” accurate and slightly depressing!

Dwelling on the negative for just a moment longer, something about the UK we just cannot get our heads around now is the opening hours of shops. At shopping centres in Portugal, shops opening daily until 11pm is commonplace, yet in a city of 8 million people the doors are closing at 5.30pm.

Surely someone is missing a trick if the shops open at the precise times when most people are at work and close as soon as they would get a chance to visit them? One night per week of “late night shopping” until 8pm is a bit of a token gesture and surely in the peak of the summer, 8pm would mean, at best, “early evening shopping.” Next time the UK enters recession, opening shops when people are free to visit them could be a good way to boost the economy!

Before those reading from the UK tire of my whining, I must point out that this time round there were several aspects of our quick visit back we did enjoy immensely: a roast beef dinner, Thai food and shopping in big, well stocked supermarkets.

Most importantly though, we enjoyed a good helping of English banter. Conversations we have in Portugal can be quite repetitive – with expats they tend to be of the “how long have you been here? How do you make a living?” variety, and those with our Portuguese friends are restricted by our limited grasp of the language. It was a real pleasure to chat with people close to us in our native language – we do miss the quick, cutting English wit.

Home sweet home

One wonderful surprise in these conversations with friends and family, is that we now consistently refer to Portugal as “home,” without thinking, rather than England. I see it as an important part of the process that our subconscious minds believe here to be home…

So, the trip complete, we are back HOME in Portugal. As I said earlier in the post, there is generally a couple of unsettled days of “re-entry,” not helped this time by the fact we were not quite prepared for HOW busy the Algarve gets in August, even “up the quiet end” like we are.

As predicted by a couple of expat friends earlier in the year, we have now had our fill of tourists and are ready for them to disperse and give us back our roads, beaches and supermarkets.

Other than that it is lovely to be home, somewhere where the sun is shining and we have time to eat healthy food at a slow enough pace to avoid heartburn. After nine months we are starting to see the good and bad in our past and present lives, but we really do prefer this one

Photo credits: Autodance1234, Chaerani, Arpingstone

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