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No, those arches are not from a McDonald’s prototype in Portugal. I am standing behind the stone arches looking at the Mafra palace. The palace was built by King João V for his mistress during the early 18^th century.

I know what you’re thinking. How did he hide it from his wife? Well, there was no Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or TMZ. So that would have definitely helped hide the King’s scandals. Or maybe she knew but didn’t care. After all, she had her own palace in Lisbon. And now she would have more free time to herself. Or maybe she knew and did care but he didn’t care. Remember, this was way before the #metoo movement.

Another thing that I thought about while roaming the many hallways, did the mistress have any input during construction? Could a relationship have endured that? “Honey, I know I said that I wanted the library over there but now I’m thinking that maybe it should go on the end of the west wing instead of the end of the east wing. The sunset would be magnificent from the library. Just remove that one wall of books for a better view.”

1717 to 1755

The palace construction took thirty-eight years to complete. Still shorter than Moses wandering in the desert. Were the King and his consort still even an item at the end?

We did not take the tour. If we had, maybe all of our questions would have been answered. I’m sure I am skipping over some important details regarding construction, the history of the era and of their relationship. I will surely return to take the tour and fill you in with all the sordid details.

I do know one thing for certain, I would be afraid to joke about any King in Thailand, past or present. That is a criminal offense there. When I spent time in Thailand for my import business, criticizing the King was the main infraction foreigners were warned against.

Portugal is another story altogether. The people here are so easy going. Joking around, even self-deprecating humor, seems to be part of their culture. The Portuguese people are extremely nice.

We are Very Nice People, but the Paperwork…

This is the picture of the library, which contains over 36,000 leather-bound books with dates starting at the end of the 15th century. Practically before people could read! About a dozen resident bats police the library in the evenings to eat the worms that would otherwise devour the books. It has its downside, though. The bat poop needs to be cleaned up daily. I am not making this up!

Dealing with paperwork in Portugal is a problem. And I am not talking about bat poop. I am referring to the amount of paperwork it takes to get things done in Portugal. Not quite the volume as in the palace library, but close enough.

The other day I had to get some papers notarized. My realtor friend had his incredibly efficient secretary go with me. She had to leave the notary office three times to bring back another document or proof of whatever. When we finally left the notary office, she said, “We are very nice people, but the paperwork…”.

Yes, everyone complains about the paperwork. I am not sure how it evolved to this but I am more than willing to put up with the paperwork in order to enjoy all of the many positives about Portugal, which far outweigh the negatives. Besides, one of the things that makes Portugal special is the slow pace of things. Meals aren’t rushed. And neither are business meetings..

Business Meetings in Portugal

I haven’t been here long enough to know if this is a typical meeting in Portugal but I think it is. We recently met at the real estate office concerning our future home in Ericeira. The builder was there as well as the real estate agent and the investors. After the meeting, nobody left. We all hung around, joking, drinking espressos and sharing stories. It was fun. But my concern was, if our builder is here, who is building? This could end up being a very long project. And we’re not getting any younger!

They tell us that building here takes a long time because of the paperwork. Each step needs to be approved by the planning department, there aren’t many people in the department and it requires a lot of paperwork!

We do enjoy sight-seeing, eating the local food and frolicking at the seashore. However, there are still mundane chores such as doing the laundry using small washing machines and showering in small showers. Most everything is small here. Also it is somewhat stressful getting used to the endless roundabouts while driving.

So, I don’t want to sound like a travel brochure and give the misconception that living as an expat in Portugal is all fun and games. And to prove that point, we went to a place called…

IKEA – Just Say No!

Yes. we went to Ikea the other day. You know, that place where couples go to rekindle their relationship?

“Last thing I remember, I was running for the door. I had to find the passage back to the place I was before. Relax, said the night man, we are programmed to receive. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!”

The Eagles wrote that right after a trip to Ikea to pick up a stage in a box. Or it might have been written while they were still roaming the aisles. I think that was right before they broke up. They could handle the booze and the drugs but Ikea was just too much for them to survive as a band.

Women tend to enjoy Ikea more than men. Men want a straight line from A to Z whereas women like to stop at every letter in between along the meandering way. And while men like to build things, Ikea’s construction projects, no matter how small, are more complicated than building a house. Even the pictures are in a foreign language.

Our Big Purchases

We bought a TV stand and a pillow. And it only took three hours of following the arrows on the floor to find the exit. Of course, it took another four hours to build the TV stand (don’t ask). Plus two hours to go out and find a screwdriver because I thought I had packed one but I guess not. It only took me an hour and a half to put the pillow together, though.

The reason I bought a pillow was because the pillow I’m using in our apartment is more like a pillow case stuffed inside a pillow case. I don’t require much but I do insist on a pillow that is thicker than a handkerchief.

The TV stand was needed because we just bought a TV and wanted to make sure that we had the perfect viewing experience. And that is the segue to our next topic…

Watching TV Outside the USA

This may only be relevant to you if you are planning on extended stays outside the United States. I know that some of you have thought about it. I hope when you do think of possibly becoming an expat in a far-off land, you don’t look at it as some crazy-ass notion.

Depending on your wish list in life, living as an expat could actually be a very practical choice. And it’s not like sailing for the New World in the 17^th century or taking a covered wagon along the Oregon Trail in the early 19^th century.

I will admit that one of our guilty pleasures is watching TV in the evenings. Portuguese TV is not to our liking, mainly because we don’t speak the language. Not yet, anyway. We’ve only been here two weeks!

Now, to get Hulu, Amazon Prime TV or Netflix, you need a VPN service. That stands for Virtual Private Network. It hides your location by linking you up to a server in the USA or anywhere else in the world.

Sometimes it works like the Cone of Silence in Get Smart. New technology can be frustrating to set up. This may not be considered new technology to many folks but it is definitely new to us. Getting it to work properly has been a challenge but fortunately, we’ve got no place we need to be in a hurry.

ExpressVPN vs NordVPN

ExpressVPN and NordVPN are the two most popular VPN services. We started with NordVPN but it took them forty minutes of chatting online before they told me that our new Samsung TV can’t hook up directly. So we switched to ExpressVPN after they told us they could make all our dreams come true. They took us through many, many steps. About the same number of steps as trying to get out of Ikea.

Finally, after our ten thousand steps, they told us we can’t hook up to our Samsung TV directly. We either need to hook up our laptop to the TV, which we had been doing already, or buy a special router designed for VPN.

One of those special routers is the Netgear Nighthawk R7000, which I just happened to sell at my last garage sale for $10. Yes, $10! It was at a weak moment at the very end of two garage sales. I had it listed for $90 and someone said, I’ll give you $10. I said, Take it! In retrospect, I should have smashed it with a hammer in front of him and then said, Take it! Or I should have just packed it but that would have taken too much foresight and taken us over the weight limit.

Anyway, I decided on the Linksys WRT3200ACM and it should be here from Amazon in Germany in two days! I don’t know what kind of plug will be on the end of it, though. Every country seems to have its own electrical outlet.

Politics and Power to the People

There are a couple of topics I would like to chat with you about in the future after I learn a bit more regarding the issues. One is homelessness. Yes, there is poverty in Portugal. Wages are low and housing is getting more expensive due to the influx of foreigners such as ourselves. But I have yet to see any homeless people on the streets. I want to know why that is. In the meantime, please Google “Seattle is Dying” to watch a fascinating hour-long documentary on homelessness in America.

The other topic is healthcare. Nobody goes bankrupt here due to medical costs. And nobody goes without medical care. In Portugal, people’s needs are put before corporate profits. National elections were held earlier this month and the socialist parties had no problem getting reelected due to the fact that they work for the people.

I am of the opinion that the form of government really isn’t as important as the degree of corruption allowed. Venezuela isn’t in a shambles due to socialism. It is a wreck because of rampant corruption. There are many democratic socialist countries in the world that are doing just fine, thank you, like Portugal.

Is there graft and corruption here? Every government has its entitled politicians and Portugal is no exception. I spoke with my Portuguese friend about that and he said the Portuguese acknowledge there is skimming and even avert their eyes to it to some degree. They will allow it as long as the greed doesn’t interfere with the needs of the people. One politician was jailed because he got too piggish. Sometimes pigs get a bad rap when being compared to politicians.

Is the USA too Big to Succeed?

Oftentimes, I have thought that the USA is just too big to be managed properly. Portugal is about the same size and population as Pennsylvania, which seems more manageable. Although Portugal is part of the European Union, the EU doesn’t have as much sway with its European members as Washington DC does over its fifty states.

The culture within our fifty states is quite diverse, although maybe not so much as the twenty-eight countries that make up the EU (soon to be twenty-seven after Brexit). The English language is the USA’s common denominator.

I can get very wound up over politics. While I still follow American politics, my blood pressure is a little lower over here because I am slightly less attached. I could go on and on over this subject but I try to curb my cynicism a bit as I hope to keep these blogs, as well as my life, as positive and upbeat as possible!

Tchau for now! Until next time, whenever the inspiration moves me…