# Portugal what things really bug you??????



## PETERFC

Hi All

In the Lounge there is a post called " What really bugs you " well we now have our own.

Just reply with what thing really Bugs you. It's really simple whatever bugs you get it of your chest and you will feel better.

Now if you would like to have a look at what it's all about click the link below.

Peter

http://www.expatforum.com/expats/expat-forum-lounge/53455-things-really-bug-you.html


----------



## PETERFC

*Reply*

The planning system because it takes so long.


----------



## jojo

I'm sure you get the dreaded mozzies in Portugal!! They are bugging me big time this eveningI've been bitten to death!!!

Jo xxx


----------



## notlongnow

1. Buying meat in supermarkets that turns out to be off when I get it home despite having days of date left.

2. Red tape and officials singing from different hymn sheets.

....that's all I can think of, I can think of a lot more that I like 

B


----------



## Benny Dorm

Inane postings by a certain forum member


----------



## Camerashy

peterfc said:


> hi all
> 
> in the lounge there is a post called " what really bugs you " well we now have our own.
> 
> Just reply with what thing really bugs you. It's really simple whatever bugs you get it of your chest and you will feel better.
> 
> Now if you would like to have a look at what it's all about click the link below.
> 
> Peter
> 
> http://www.expatforum.com/expats/expat-forum-lounge/53455-things-really-bug-you.html


moaning expats!!!


----------



## jojo

Camerashy said:


> moaning expats!!!



But thats what we do best!! It goes with the territory 

Jo xxx


----------



## PETERFC

*Reply*

When a customer comes in after reading the price of an item on display and then asks how much is


----------



## jojo

PETERFC said:


> When a customer comes in after reading the price of an item on display and then asks how much is



Yes, I think that one could annoy me very soon. I've just got a job as a waitress in a cafe! 

Jo xxx


----------



## PETERFC

*reply*



jojo said:


> Yes, I think that one could annoy me very soon. I've just got a job as a waitress in a cafe!
> 
> Jo xxx


Good luck Jo

I remember the day a lady asked how much is the £9.99 Bells. 

Peter


----------



## jojo

PETERFC said:


> Good luck Jo
> 
> I remember the day a lady asked how much is the £9.99 Bells.
> 
> Peter


 "er......20€ madam!!" lol!!!!

Jo xxxx


----------



## siobhanwf

PETERFC said:


> Good luck Jo
> 
> I remember the day a lady asked how much is the £9.99 Bells.
> 
> Peter


Maybe she just had a senior moment and a blonde moment at the same time


----------



## PETERFC

*Reply*

When a customer claims to have been short changed. But when the CCTV is played back and it shows the correct change was given not even a I am sorry was given just a mumble.


----------



## thepilotswife

Parking and signs, er, the lack of signs.


----------



## mayotom

People who leave their home where they have complained about life for years and want to move here for the better life, but just continue to ***** and moan about petty stuff, 
people who come for the slower pace of life and complain when things take longer to get done,
people who always start a conversation with " back in england we do it this way or that way"

to those people I say PACK YOUR BAGS AND GO BACK TO THE LIFE THAT YOU MISS SO MUCH


----------



## Mr.Blueskies

People who say: I don't like it here because it's not like I expected ?


----------



## Margot

What bugs me? What doesn't bug me actually..... (sigh)

Seriously - how they treat animals. Dogs and cats especially.


----------



## siobhanwf

mayotom said:


> People who leave their home where they have complained about life for years and want to move here for the better life, but just continue to ***** and moan about petty stuff,
> people who come for the slower pace of life and complain when things take longer to get done,
> people who always start a conversation with " back in england we do it this way or that way"
> 
> to those people I say PACK YOUR BAGS AND GO BACK TO THE LIFE THAT YOU MISS SO MUCH



Professional moaners ....OH YES 

Will they EVER be happy ANYWHERE ???


----------



## xabiaxica

siobhanwf said:


> Professional moaners ....OH YES
> 
> Will they EVER be happy ANYWHERE ???


actually I think that you can love living somewhere & be happy there despite knowing & more to the point admitting - that it's not perfect

and a little moan never hurt anyone


----------



## siobhanwf

xabiachica said:


> actually I think that you can love living somewhere & be happy there despite knowing & more to the point admitting - that it's not perfect
> 
> and a little moan never hurt anyone



No place is perfect would be a strange life if that was the case.
But thre are people who amaze me sometimes and I wonder why they ever move away from their own country where according to them "everything was done properly" the type of person you cannot have a conversation with without "nothing being right here" and there are a few of those about..Thank God not to many. But one lives just down the road from us


----------



## Mr.Blueskies

xabiachica said:


> actually I think that you can love living somewhere & be happy there despite knowing & more to the point admitting - that it's not perfect
> 
> and a little moan never hurt anyone





The thing is, nothing is ever perfect no matter what you personal life situation is or where in the world you may be. A perfect life situation simply does not exist for anyone. This is because by nature humans are insatiable creatures who Always want more. This ensures that they all remain miserable and dissatisfied until the day that they die. lol

This is the natural human condition.


----------



## MattM

PETERFC said:


> Good luck Jo
> 
> I remember the day a lady asked how much is the £9.99 Bells.
> 
> Peter


Beaurocracy...trying to get hold of any official documentation...


----------



## Mr.Blueskies

Two more things that annoy me most about portugal are the constant power cuts and public school buses. The power cuts happen frequently and without warning and usually in winter when power is most needed. Friends of ours who have a restaurant have terrible trouble and constantly, when the power goes.

Imagine having to tell paying customers that you cannot cook their meal because the bloody power has gone AGAIN and god only knows when it will be back on ?  Also lots of stuff in their fridges next gets ruined and has to be thrown out. This is outrageous. Recently the whole street was off and when an enquiry was made the EDP said that they had done it because some restaurant owner in the street had NOT paid his bill ?  So everyone got clobbered.
Also you cannot watch the T.V. when the power goes or else it is raining and you cannot next get the signal. 


The public school bus situation is also rubbish. Because kids only have to pay €1.80 a year which is a token fee for a bus pass the thinking seems to be
that any old rubbish service is good enough. In most countries the kids are brought to school at starting time and picked up immediately after school is over. Not here !!! The kids are usually at the school which remains closed for up to an hour BEFORE opening time. There is no supervision and in bad weather they are expected to just hang about and get soaked through. After school the same thing AGAIN happens and they again have to hang about unsupervised for up to 90 minutes in some cases again getting soaked until the bus FINALLY comes. Next they are packed on like sardines with many standing in the aisle. You now have a manic driving an overloaded school bus like a bat out of hell.


Rant over !!!


----------



## MRW

*Poor Mozzies*



jojo said:


> I'm sure you get the dreaded mozzies in Portugal!! They are bugging me big time this eveningI've been bitten to death!!!
> 
> Jo xxx


Surely you cannot blame the mozzies JoJo?

Many men would say lucky mozzies and if you sqat them I am sure they will feel it was worth dying for!

MRW


----------



## miradouro

I quite like Portugal, but could never love it... as people have been polite so far, here's a quick moan-list.

*Dysfunction * Government, doing business, catching a taxi -- everything can be made more _complicado_ than it needs to be in Portugal. It's a talent!
*Dependency* On EU handouts, on pie-eyed government-led mega-schemes, on foreign-led entrepreneurship (from port wine to tourism). 
*Dishonesty * The idea that it's fine to rob the stupid _estrangeiro_ out of a few euros. Go on, rip them off! They're all rich anyway!
*Disregard for detailing* Lack of pride taken in work, inability to compete a project (yet, curiously, enormous pride in Por-tu-gal). Don't look too hard at any just-constructed building!
*Diaspora* The Portuguese who work hard and have some get-up-and-go are all in France and Luxembourg. They got up and went.
*Dregs* The leftover after the diaspora. Personified by that lazy, rubberstamping grunt spending weeks over a little piece of paper at your local Camara. 
*Dead President* Has anyone else noticed the cadaverousness of Cavaco Silva? If the corpse of Cary Grant were disinterred today, he'd probably look just like the Presidente da Republica. Is Cavaco Silva alive? I'm sure I hear a little servo sound when his mouth moves.
*Distribution of wealth* Biggest top and bottom quintile variation in Euroland. A snobbish urban elite on one side, a dirt-poor yet noble peasantry, on the other. 
*Do-nothingess* Renovate Lisbon's waterfront? Pah! Build a fast train to Madrid? Pah! paint over this graffiti on my house? Pah!
*Diarrhea* A little too common if you eat out regularly in Portugal. Most likely due to occasional power-cuts warming up restaurant freezers, and multiplying pathogens. 
*Dire TV* Football, fat hobbit-like blokes, orange bimbos, _tertulia _ format news shows where experts discuss - for hours - the latest political corruption scandal (am I missing something?)

-------------
Apart from the Ds... 

Stodgy Portuguese food, esp. _couve_, boiled potatoes and _bacalhau _(why eat something that looks and smells like it's been scraped off a tart's gusset?)

North of the Algarve, the winter climate October to March (leaky roofs, no central heating, mildew -- far better to live on the Mediterranean in the winter)

Lisboetas, esp. _tias _and _betinhos_. This city has enormous potential, so fix up your city, goddamit.


----------



## Emmis

miradouro said:


> I quite like Portugal, but could never love it... as people have been polite so far, here's a quick moan-list.
> 
> *Dysfunction * Government, doing business, catching a taxi -- everything can be made more _complicado_ than it needs to be in Portugal. It's a talent!
> *Dependency* On EU handouts, on pie-eyed government-led mega-schemes, on foreign-led entrepreneurship (from port wine to tourism).
> *Dishonesty * The idea that it's fine to rob the stupid _estrangeiro_ out of a few euros. Go on, rip them off! They're all rich anyway!
> *Disregard for detailing* Lack of pride taken in work, inability to compete a project (yet, curiously, enormous pride in Por-tu-gal). Don't look too hard at any just-constructed
> building!
> *Diaspora* The Portuguese who work hard and have some get-up-and-go are all in France and Luxembourg. They got up and went.
> *Dregs* The leftover after the diaspora. Personified by that lazy, rubberstamping grunt spending weeks over a little piece of paper at your local Camara.
> *Dead President* Has anyone else noticed the cadaverousness of Cavaco Silva? If the corpse of Cary Grant were disinterred today, he'd probably look just like the Presidente da Republica. Is Cavaco Silva alive? I'm sure I hear a little servo sound when his mouth moves.
> *Distribution of wealth* Biggest top and bottom quintile variation in Euroland. A snobbish urban elite on one side, a dirt-poor yet noble peasantry, on the other.
> *Do-nothingess* Renovate Lisbon's waterfront? Pah! Build a fast train to Madrid? Pah! paint over this graffiti on my house? Pah!
> *Diarrhea* A little too common if you eat out regularly in Portugal. Most likely due to occasional power-cuts warming up restaurant freezers, and multiplying pathogens.
> *Dire TV* Football, fat hobbit-like blokes, orange bimbos, _tertulia _ format news shows where experts discuss - for hours - the latest political corruption scandal (am I missing something?)
> 
> -------------
> Apart from the Ds...
> 
> Stodgy Portuguese food, esp. _couve_, boiled potatoes and _bacalhau _(why eat something that looks and smells like it's been scraped off a tart's gusset?)
> 
> North of the Algarve, the winter climate October to March (leaky roofs, no central heating, mildew -- far better to live on the Mediterranean in the winter)
> 
> Lisboetas, esp. _tias _and _betinhos_. This city has enormous potential, so fix up your city, goddamit.




Wow... and I was quite looking forward to our move over there! 

Just a couple questions - is it that bad and if so, are we crazy and are you forced to stay?!!


----------



## miradouro

Emmis said:


> Wow... and I was quite looking forward to our move over there!
> 
> Just a couple questions - is it that bad and if so, are we crazy and are you forced to stay?!!


No, Portugal's not terrible. This thread asked for byitching, and was looking strangely empty, so I delivered some. 

Like everywhere Portugal has its faults. It's certainly the least rewarding country I've lived in from a cultural, professional and business/financial perspective. There are great things here though too: the climate from Easter until October, the Alentejo, the wine, the empty tree-lined Roman roads, the Moorish castle-villages, the faded glamour of the main cities, the charm of Portugal's overall backwardness, the country's proximity to beautiful parts of Spain (Andalusia, Extremadura, Castile and Galicia). Just don't expect an easy ride among friendly, welcoming autochtones. My only tips are: don't burn bridges elsewhere, and ringfence any business/financial interests so any exposure to the Portuguese economy is hedged.


----------



## Mr.Blueskies

It's wonderful here once you forget about goals, targets, timescales,
punctuality, and have zero expectations. The trick is to clear your mind of all of these pointless thoughts and next to just calmly accept everything and live one day at a time. You do begin to realise after a period that this is the only sensible way to be here, because this is how the portuguese all are and until you get like this yourself, everything and everyone will frustrate the hell out of you.

Well this is how it is in the rural areas. Lisboa may be different ?


----------



## mayotom

its great here, once you forget all the moaning expats, who want all the comforts of their life at home and come here after a couple of holidays and expect life to be just like those holidays of the past... Dream on


.


----------



## miradouro

Mr Blueskies has a point (although I can assure you, Lisbon is no different) Perhaps Catholicism helps - a strong belief in an afterlife means you can bypass productivity during this earthly one 

mayotom - Strangely, I actually find the expats here to be generally fun-loving, upbeat and cosmopolitan -- it's one of the great things about Portugal (especially rural Portugal)... there are fascinating people to meet, who have done interesting things with their lives, and who can all mix a demon caipirinha. If anything, the moaners tend to be the locals (especially those who have not been abroad): the government, the _crise_, the dictatorship, the rich _estrangeiros_, the lost colonies... they're about as happy-go-lucky as Gordon Brown.


----------



## Emmis

miradouro said:


> No, Portugal's not terrible. This thread asked for byitching, and was looking strangely empty, so I delivered some.
> 
> Like everywhere Portugal has its faults. It's certainly the least rewarding country I've lived in from a cultural, professional and business/financial perspective. There are great things here though too: the climate from Easter until October, the Alentejo, the wine, the empty tree-lined Roman roads, the Moorish castle-villages, the faded glamour of the main cities, the charm of Portugal's overall backwardness, the country's proximity to beautiful parts of Spain (Andalusia, Extremadura, Castile and Galicia). Just don't expect an easy ride among friendly, welcoming autochtones. My only tips are: don't burn bridges elsewhere, and ringfence any business/financial interests so any exposure to the Portuguese economy is hedged.



Thanks for the great piece of advice.

We've lived in many a city across the world and we are regularly tempted back to Southern Europe. We've lived in Spain and in Italy, and now Portugal is tempting us with work opportunities. 

I've actually never even been on holiday to Portugal, so it's going to be all new to me. The one thing that I find the most attractive sounding is the warmth of the people, the "autochtones" as you call them! Moving around with 2 young children in tow, you realise as you travel how the kindness of people becomes quite a high priority.

However, I'm surprised by your comment regarding it being less than rewarding culturally, as I was under the impression Lisbon, and even the underdeveloped countryside areas, offered quite a lot from a cultural perspective. Saying that, I do sometimes wonder whether our perception of culture is actually subjective. I once met an Englishman in Italy who claimed that Italian culture was dead, a thing of the past and that Australia by contrast was far more "cultural". I'd be curious to know what you think makes a country culturally rich - I suppose it also begs the question, "What is culture?"!!

Anyway, I feel that I am waffling on far too much here! 

Once again, thank you for the advice and despite the slight shock I had reading your comment, to be honest, I'd prefer to go in with my eyes wide open than wide shut!


----------



## miradouro

@Emmis -- there are of course warm Portuguese: my own experience is that those from the north and the countryside are more warm and welcoming than the Lisboetas and those on the touristy coasts (they're warm to tourists on the coasts!). In Lisbon, there's certainly a snobby elite (the _tias _and _betinhos_) who consider expats as being parvenus, or _novos ricos_, rather than hard-working meritocrats (which is generally the case with working expats - we all work a little too hard perhaps). 

If you're working alongside Portuguese, you'll also experience _inveja_: literally, 'envy', but like translating _saudade _as 'longing' or 'homesickness', the concept is a little wider, embracing feelings of disenfranchisement, 'us-versus-them', xenophobia, class-conflict, inferiority complex etc. Some Portuguese will feel entitled to your job/house/lifestyle/car, irrespective of whether they are clearly underqualified, little travelled, not as risk-taking etc. or simply plain lazy. I've seen this in other countries I've worked in, but it's acute here. It's perhaps because in Portugal, the locals are less exposed to expats as entrepreneurs, go-getters, wealth creators, employment-creators etc. and more exposed to expats as sun-seeking tourists, retirees or hippy-ish downshifters. They're also a little frustrated by the _cunha _culture here -- if you're not born into the right family, it's tough to be socially mobile.

On the cultural front, the comment that 'perception of culture is actually subjective' sounds like an essay title: I'll leave that one for Baudrillard, Barthes, Habermas and Alain de Botton to chew over  There's plenty to keep you interested for a couple of years: learning the language, the permanent museum collections, the monuments, fado, azulejos etc. My problem is perhaps that I 'exhausted' many of these in my first 18 months -- my advice is to take your time. One of the problems in Portugal is distance: hungry young bands don't tour beyond Madrid (except for tired, short, festival sets), touring international exhibitions rarely make the long hop to Portugal, many historic sites receive so few visitors they have little budget for upkeep/maintenance etc. (on top of a national tendency simply to sit by lazily and watch things fall apart!). In Lisbon, I'm not heavily into the stuff the Gulbenkian - the most dynamic cultural institution here - organises: there's a tendency towards classical concerts, small scale exhibitions, luso-introversion not internationalism. After a while, you strongly appreciate the 'culture fix' possibilities offered by EasyJet and Ryanair. It's also good to take long weekends into Spain a lot (Seville, Salamanca, Madrid).


----------



## Mr.Blueskies

miradouro said:


> Mr Blueskies has a point (although I can assure you, Lisbon is no different) Perhaps Catholicism helps - a strong belief in an afterlife means you can bypass productivity during this earthly one
> 
> mayotom - Strangely, I actually find the expats here to be generally fun-loving, upbeat and cosmopolitan -- it's one of the great things about Portugal (especially rural Portugal)... there are fascinating people to meet, who have done interesting things with their lives, and who can all mix a demon caipirinha. If anything, the moaners tend to be the locals (especially those who have not been abroad): the government, the _crise_, the dictatorship, the rich _estrangeiros_, the lost colonies... they're about as happy-go-lucky as Gordon Brown.



[ Don't expect any reward in this life my child, you shall have it in the next.]

Fr. Lonigan.


----------



## mayotom

miradouro said:


> ... they're about as happy-go-lucky as Gordon Brown.


but gordon is a very happy fun loving guy, like all politicians....


ja ja ja ja


----------



## Emmie-

when you try to speak portuguese and they reply in english ahhh


----------



## notlongnow

Nothing to add BUT must say....best thread I have read on any Portugal expat forum in a long time


----------



## Mr.Blueskies

The estate agents are probably tearing their hair out by the handful.


----------

