⁣3 Things I Love About Portugal… (and 3 things I’m struggling with).

It’s been almost 3 months since we moved to the other side of the world. Another amazing rollercoaster with its ups and downs.

Love:

-The food. Wow, amazing seafood, awesome trendy and local restaurants, the food is just ah-ma-zing everywhere you go 😍

-The weather. It’s December and in Europe you’re supposed to be rugged up to the 9s because it’s Winter. Here in Portugal it’s not that cold, and at least the sun is out.

-Quality of life. We moved from Singapore, which is completely different in terms of city life and that feeling of big brother always watching you. Here it is a lot more chilled. You can go to the beach with your dogs without social distancing officers, nature is in abundance, people smile more… we love it!

Struggles:

-Admin is slowww. Documents, visas, deliveries etc, don’t expect things to move fast here 😅

-Missing my family and friends. It’s been more than 2 years since I’ve been back to Australia and now I have moved even further away. I get homesick a lot, but I can’t wait for a big reunion in February!

-The language. We took some Portuguese lessons, but need to commit to this more. We moved to Portugal… and guess what they mostly speak? Portuguese! English is spoken by some people, but you really need to be able to speak basic Portuguese to interact on a casual day to day basis.

Other random things:

-As an expat, if you want to live here it’s more favourable if your income is from outside of Portugal. Domestic salaries are quite conservative.

-Fashion. Something personal, I just REALLY miss Australian fashion and can’t find any similar stores. These days Zara is my best friend.

-If you’re not an EU citizen and married to one, it will take a while to get a spousal visa. As in monthsssss. You also can’t legally work in Portugal and open up a bank account.

Ok that was a brain dump of the first 3 months here! It’s been wild but looking forward to our next chapter xx