Home » Portugal » Well - it's Portugal

I have some strange feeling whenever I go to Portugal of being lost to the rest of the world. It seems that Portugal is in a category quite of its own. And the Portugese are not disatisfied with this. You often here a sentence ending with; "well this is Portugal"and then a smile or laugh indirectly asking you if you can handle it. But let me give an example or two of what Portugal then is.

Well - it's Portugal

Anna Sofie Andersen
2006-08-21 17:44:56

Displayed times (last time: )

I have some strange feeling whenever I go to Portugal of being lost to the rest of the world. It seems that Portugal is in a category quite of its own. And the Portugese are not disatisfied with this. You often here a sentence ending with; "well this is Portugal"and then a smile or laugh indirectly asking you if you can handle it. But let me give an example or two of what Portugal then is.
I have been visiting some very good friends in Lisabon for the last week and are now in Porto trying to find my way back to Spain. The day I arrived to Lisabon my friend had to go to his hometown of Evora, one hours drive from Lisabon to witness in a trial. He went all the way on a day of his exam just to witness and return, hopefully in time for the exam. But the trial had been cancelled. - Well it's Portugal was his comment to that. Monday he went to university to see if he had passed his exams having plans with me later in the afternoon, but when he showed up it was five hours past our meeting time and he excused himself that he had had a re-exam which he didn't know untill he arrived. I wondered if they didn't have e-mail service on Lisboa University and what would have happened if he hadn't found out in time. His answer was - well... it's Portugal.Whenever someone is driving far beyond the Autobahn speedlimit in center of Lisabon and I shiver from the terror of what could go wrong, my friends looks at me and laugh, saying darling it's Portugal.
But maybe it just is Portugal and maybe that is why a Danish girl always gets so bloody stressed in Portugal, because nothing ever goes by plan. So my advice to people arriving in Portugal is to have nothing arranged but the time and place of arrival and departure and then a guidebook in the bag. The rest will come and in this way you might feel very lost, but you will soon discover to relaxe and shake of the stress and start living the Portugese way.

The Portugese way also includes a lot ...