Culture Shock! - First year living in the Algarve, Portugal

so I've been living in the our governor for just over a year and these are the things that I still can't get used to today so when I first arrived in Portugal I found it really strange and unnerving how quiet it could be at times especially in the off season and the winter Town centers could be completely quiet you know no one around but felt really sort of quite apocalyptic in some ways and yeah it's very strange bad roads the Elgar can be pretty mixed in terms of how well the roads are maintained with many of the smaller roads and some of the bigger ones including the toll Motorway having areas with potholes or bad surface rest of the beaches can often be dirt tracks and only suitable if you really don't care about your car in towns it can be pretty narrow and sometimes cobbled as well and you have to watch out for pedestrians on the road and sometimes even on the Pavements in narrow streets and I've been in some pretty interesting situations driving down some of these narrow roads cold water so when I first arrived here in the Algarve I assumed that the seed would be quite warm and it really isn't in the middle of the summer it can be okay but certainly not what you would call warm and nothing like the Mediterranean or the Caribbean or anything like that so even though the water can look really beautiful and really inviting it's quite often pretty cold and there's a reason why you don't tend to see that many people in the water unless it's a super hot day now I really like swimming and my way around this was to get a decent neoprene top which really helps keep the cold away and imagine spend just that little bit longer in the water and I can't recommend it enough and if you're in the Algarve coming to the Algarve on holiday I am yeah I definitely recommend getting at least a one and a half millimeter neoprene top or even a shorty wetsuit and you'll just enjoy your time in the water so much more if you arrive without one you can just pick them up in decathlon same wetsuits pretty cheaply and yeah definitely a worthwhile recommendation small beers so in the UK we're pretty much used to drinking pints in pubs and you kind of get frowned on if you order anything else however typically here in Portugal most Portuguese people would order the Imperial which is about 200 milliliters and yeah what we would call a small beer now it does actually make quite good sense and you might be thinking so what's the point but actually on a hot day if you keep ordering these small beers they stay cold and fresh and you don't end up with that horrible beer at the end of a pint where it's all warm and horrible um so yeah I there they actually do make a lot of sense and they tend to the Portuguese tend to not be weird with the pricing so like small beers kind of half the price of a large beer and you're not paying a premium which you tend to pay for in the UK typically you pick up a Saturday or a super bulk for one to two Euros depending where you buy from and as we're talking about beer it's also worth mentioning it can be cheaper than water quite often especially in the supermarkets which kind of makes no sense slippy and dangerous Pavements so you want to make sure you've got some decent grip on your shoes or you'll probably quickly find out if you don't most towns have these smooth Mosaic Pavements which are often uneven and can be very slippy in both the dry and the wet I've slipped over many times just wearing my normal trainers and you really have to be careful about when walking around whilst on the subjects of Pavements there are lots of roaming cats and dogs and you really need to look where you're walking abandoned and run down housing so you'll probably notice when you come over to the Algarve there there's quite a lot of shabby our abandoned buildings and even the odd Hotel rearing or half built apartment complex this is largely down to the complex inheritance laws and that most people most of the young people in Portugal tend to live abroad some of these buildings are pretty horrible and make isos in some lovely places but some are actually really nice I've been got some good graffiti on them sometimes and actually made quite interesting photography subjects so it's not all bad the price of cars so the price of cars in Portugal is actually some of the highest in Europe and in fact if you're looking to buy second-hand cars something small like a Fiat 500 which you'd probably pick up in the UK for a couple of thousand pounds that could easily go here for three or four times that amount it's not uncommon to see old cars selling for thousands and thousands of euras and something you probably wouldn't even want to be driving in if you're coming to live out in Portugal just be aware that you might not be able to get the same standard of car that you're used to driving in the UK and it's going to cost you a lot more especially for bigger cars bigger cars here and especially SUVs 4x4s tend to go for an even more premium price so yeah you need to be very careful about thinking about buying a car here slow pace of life so things over here tend to happen quite a lot more slowly than in the UK and it can take a bit of getting used to for example It's Not Unusual to wait quite a while for service in a restaurant although you do tend to get asked straight away if you want a drink and quite often before you've even seen a menu which can be quite confusing to us British people you'll often find people chatting in random places and this can be the driving in the middle of the street a queue in the supermarket and there's little sense of urgency in getting things done but again this is just Portuguese way of life and you just need to relax and get used to it this also applies to pretty much any form of bureaucracy or anything that requires filling in a form or sending to the government from visas to buying houses the process just takes a long time [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: Mr Williams Travels

Views: 4,894

Keywords: Living In Portugal, Culture Shock, Moving to Portugal, Culture Shock in Portugal, D7 Visa Portugal, Remote Work Visa Portugal, Dave in Portugal, Algarve, Alentejo, Nazare, Golden Visa Portugal, American in Portugal, moving to algarve, algarve portugal, algarve culture shock, living in the algarve portugal, living in the algarve, british in the algarve, expat algarve

Id: eCRKbabxLeo

Length: 7min 3sec (423 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 26 2023