Our Life as New Expats in Portugal

Describe a typical day in the life of a new expat to Portugal. People have been asking for pictures and stories of typical life as an expat. I will give you our typical, as new expats.

About Us

 First a little about us, because we may not be typical. Some expats fill shipping containers with their cars and home furnishings, and everythings else. We did not. We have been traveling for 4 years carrying everything we own in 2 big suitcases (plus 2 carry-ons and 2 personal items as the airlines allow). So we arrived with nothing but clothes. 

Second, we rented a furnished apartment. Furnished ugly, but furnished. So we have not had to buy too much other than sheets and towels and some silverware. Eventually we will move on to an unfurnished place and have to again own beds and furniture, pots and pans and a toaster. Oh, I did not mention, we did buy a coffee machine. We actually have coffee three ways: coffee press, american style and a portuguese rendition of Nespresso. 

Our Portuguese Town

Our town, Vilamoura, is an expat town. It is in the Algarve which is the southern coast of Portugal and a favorite for expats. Algarve is the Moorish word for “West”, funny, since it is south. Mainly English and Irish live here in their second homes. They come and go, so it has a real transient feel. I made a couple friends, and then they went back to the UK for a few months. Other people are arriving at their holiday homes now. We had our apartment complex pool to ourselves until this week, now it is in constant use. 

Transportation

Currently, we do not have a car. This status won’t last. I would be much happier with a car, but we wanted to at least try to live without one. We are getting familiar with Portugal’s public transportation system. Unfortunately the town where we are living is not on the easiest intercity public transportation route. Nor does it have a robust village bus system. A couple routes, but not extensive. A tidbit of information we did not have when we moved here.

So I have a 30 minute walk to my gym, and 30 back. The big supermarkets are 40 minutes. Once a week we walk to the supermarket, load up with groceries and household items and Uber home. Supermarkets here are like Target with more groceries. You can buy an above-ground pool there (don’t know how you get it home). For any other groceries we have a couple closer options and a fantastic weekly farmers market. The weekly market is a good thirty minute walk and a necessary uber home to save the fruit. Services like doctor, banks, pharmacy, are 20 to 30 minutes away by foot.

It has been fine for us. There is a small market about 2 minutes away. It stocks a little bit of everything including a wine I like. It is brilliant to walk down there in the morning and get warm croissants. Along the way is a restaurant and a bar we frequent. And we have several other restaurant options within a ten minute walk. 

However, it is about 32 celsius (about 90 F.) on a cool day and at least half the time is over 42 (107.5F),  and will not get any cooler until late September. Then it will get cold and occasionally rain. Sooo, I would like to see a car in the future. 

Just like in the USA, there are cities where a car is not necessary, and others where they are. In Lisbon a car would be nothing but a liability. Vilamoura is not easy without one.

The Daily Chores

Portuguese, and all Europeans really, live a much simpler life than Americans are used to. One of the first and most shocking differences for Americans is that no one has a clothes dryer. Electricity is too expensive for them. We have become adept at getting the clothes dry on small racks or on outside lines. Neighbors get to know each other by returning clothing items that fall into neighbors gardens or balconies.

Drying clothes in a home is a real no-no because all that wetness ends up in the home, about 2-3 liters or more. Often we wake up to so much water on the inside of the windows we have to squeegee it. This is just from us breathing! There is a power tool called a window vacuum; it is like a power squeegee. It is a real conundrum I do not understand. Heat and A/C leak out as fast as the A/C pumps, but moisture sticks around and creates problems.

Cooling and Heating

Since electricity is so expensive, and houses so inefficient, people use other methods to cool and ventilate. It is a lost art in America to only cool (or heat) the rooms you are using. When we want to use the a/c, all doors to unused areas are closed off. The most efficient cooling is by opening windows and doors to encourage a breeze. This is super effective in our apartment, we are lucky to have windows on opposing sides and always a breeze on the 5th floor. Thirty seconds exchanges all the air in the place. In many homes, shutters are used to keep the sun from warming up the home during the day. So far, with these measures, we are keeping cool enough.

Fun fact, window screens are rare. We do not have them. On the fifth floor we are safe from mosquitos, but we do see the occasional fly. We now own a flyswatter (ok, so we own sheets, towels, coffee machine and a fly swatter). And a funnier fact, sliding doors in Portugal do not have a way of opening them from the outside. Considered a security benefit. However, they still have locks – go figure. Countless people have been locked out on their balconies. It is only a matter of time for one of us. 

Food

One of the major reasons why we decided to move to Europe was the food. Food and shopping are handled differently here. This is the main reason why the UK and the USA cannot get a trade agreement done. They object to the way America processes food. Like chlorinating chicken. “Chlorinated chicken” is a term we hear on the UK news often in reference to America’s food all the time. Chickens here are smaller, no help from hormones. Free range, actually means ranging. Most meat is more flavorful and more tender. Genetically modified grains are illegal. Many people with gluten problems in the USA, will not have any here. And the fresh fruit and vegetables, taste like they are supposed to. Because fruit is allowed to ripen further and is usually transported shorter distance. 

All this means you cannot go to the store and stock up for a week like we do in the USA. The fruits and veg only have a few days before they expire. Bread is bought daily; without preservatives, it is not edible on the second. It is standard practice in Europe to get your food from multiple sources: your favorite butcher, fish market, produce market and bakery. 

Restaurants

In Portugal it is almost cheaper to eat at a restaurant than at home. It would be cheaper for sure if you did not drink anything. I mean anything: getting tap water at a restaurant is unheard of; it would be rude to ask. Restaurants make most of their margin on those bottles of water. Portuguese wine and beer is inexpensive. Even in our touristy town a half liter of beer, roughly a pint, is about €2.50. 

So Portuguese go out several times a week, us expats too. Restaurant food is protein heavy, just like anywhere, focused around meat or fish. In Vilamoura, octopus is big. And ocean fish served whole; completely whole, not even gutted. Sardines are a Portuguese obsession. Not the little ones in cans, although they have those to a gourmet degree. The ones I’m talking about are about 6 inches or bigger, grilled and served with a piece of bread. You pick at the fish with your fingers while it is laying on this bread you hold in your other hand. After the 14th sardine or so, when the bread is soaked with the fish juices, you eat that. I admit, I haven’t even tried them. 

A staple in Portugal is Bacalhau. Salted, dried cod. It is said there are 365 ways to cook bacalhau, one for each day of the year. We have eaten it plenty of times in restaurants, but have not ventured to try buying, preparing and cooking it yet. There are many different cuts and considerations when purchasing, depending on how you are going to prepare it. It needs to be rehydrated and de-salted. Then, supposedly it is just like any other fish and you bake, fry or make it into soups.

Portuguese food demands its own post, I will write one eventually. Suffice it to say, the food is good.

Bureaucracy. 

The biggest part of our expat lives is still squaring away details about earning residency. Good thing we are retired, everything in Portugal takes so long and is made so much more complicated than it could be. For example, opening a bank account takes about a half inch of paperwork. We finally got our ATM cards, and a couple weeks later credit cards. This entailed lots of phone calls to our banker, several visits to our branch in town to see if the cards, and separately some codes had arrived, and then a visit in person to our banker in Lisbon (and another half inch of paper for the credit card).

Numero de Utente

One week we decided to tackle the Numero de Utente. This is a health system number. Even though we are not partaking in the national health system, (because we have insurance for private healthcare), we were advised that it would be good to have. For one thing, it will enable us to convert our USA vaccine cards (which were converted from our New Zealand cards), to the EU recognized record. We were directed where to go, and that we would need proof of residence (we are bringing our lease), our tax id number, of course passport and residency visas; we have that, so good to go.  

So we walked 20 minutes to the bus, rode it for 20 minutes, arrived at the public health center. After a short 20 minute wait, we were told of a different list of things we needed to get this number. First on the list is Atestado de morada (certificate of address). The helpful (luckily) administrator told us where to go to get this.

Atestado de Morada

We walked another 20 minutes to the administrative offices of our township. Waited a lot longer than 20 minutes in a full waiting room of other people trying to do other administrative details that could easily be done by mail. We were lucky to get another helpful, English speaking person assisting us. Unfortunately, our lease will not do the trick to establish that we live here. Instead we need to find two witnesses who must be registered voters in our township. They must give us copies of their citizenship cards along with their signatures. Well, as I mentioned, this is a transient town. We have met friends, but none of them are full time, voter registered citizens. We have one hope and that is our property management company. First they will have to be willing (they have not been the most helpful up until now with property management stuff, so I am not holding my breath). And they would have to be residents here, not in a neighboring town. So wish us luck.

We tried one more time by going, with our same collecting of proof of address to the city capital of our district. People suggested the rules may be different there. But they weren’t. So we are giving up for now.

Does all this talk of our woes getting things done bore you? It does me too, but you asked for our typical existence, this is it.

Residency Hearings

Next week is Mark’s Residency meeting. Just his. These meetings were assigned when we got our residency visas. They are supposed to be within 4 months of the visa date, and therefore the visa is only good for 4 months. Mark’s is just about exactly 4 months and was assigned almost as far away from where we live as it could be and still in Portugal. More than a day’s drive away. Mine is not until September. The government changes the meetings often and without notice, so one of our tasks is to check every week or so to see if my meeting has changed time or place. Having separate residency dates, is going to cause problems through our entire stay in this country. It may mean separate tax filing obligations. This is typical Portugal, make something as complicated as humanly possible. Further, my visa will be expired long before my meeting, so I cannot risk leaving the country or I may not get back.

We will try to get my residency taken care of in Mark’s appointment. In order to increase our chances we have hired an immigration attorney, Portuguese speaking to help us. We will meet her at the meeting. It will be more than worth it if I get my residency card with Mark. 

Since this appointment is in Northern Portugal, we are making a vacation out of it. A few days in Porto, few on the Douro river and another touristy town, besides the town where the meeting is, where we are anticipating something to celebrate and have booked a fancy spa hotel.

Update: Mark got his residency visa. It is good for two years. They would not take me at the same time. So this chapter is only half over. Stay tuned.