So, people sometimes ask me wild stuff about my time in Portugal, especially when they hear certain… uh… ‘keywords’ about the place. Let me set the record straight on what my ‘practice’ over there really involved. It wasn’t some seedy adventure, believe me. My big plan? I was trying to open a small, legit business. A little craft shop, you know? Seemed like a dream – sunshine, chill vibes, being my own boss. Man, was I naive.
The Grind of Getting Started
First off, the paperwork. Piles and piles of it. All in Portuguese, and not the friendly kind you learn for ordering coffee. This was hardcore legal-speak. I thought I had a decent handle on the language, but I was swimming in documents I barely understood. Getting permits, licenses… it felt like they were designed to make you give up before you even started.
Then, finding a spot. You’d think it’d be easy, right? Nope. Anything affordable was a dump. Anything decent cost a king’s ransom. I remember looking at this one place, the agent was all smiles, talking about ‘potential’. Potential for what? To fall down? And the questions some of these landlords asked, it was like I was the sketchy one, not their crumbling buildings. It was a real eye-opener.
- Everything was ‘amanhã, amanhã’ – tomorrow, tomorrow. My tomorrow was turning into next bloody year.
- Trying to get straight answers was like pulling teeth. Lots of shrugs and ‘it’s complicated’.
That One Night in Alfama… Or Somewhere
I wasn’t just battling bureaucracy. One evening, I was trying to find this supposed artisan market a local told me about. Sounded great. The directions were… vague. ‘Go past the funny tree, turn left where the cat usually sits.’ Seriously. So, I got properly lost. Ended up in some super narrow, dark alleyway. Cobblestones, flickering gas lamp (okay, maybe it was electric, but it felt like a gas lamp), shadows everywhere. My heart started thumping. You hear stories, right? Your imagination runs wild. I thought, ‘This is it. This is how I end up on a milk carton.’
I was proper spooked for a good ten minutes. Turned out, it was just a really old, quiet residential street, and the ‘scary noises’ were probably just someone’s TV and a few stray cats having a disagreement. But in that moment, when you’re tired, frustrated with everything else, and in a place you don’t know? Yeah, your mind can play some serious tricks on you. I high-tailed it out of there and stuck to main roads for a week.
What I Actually ‘Practiced’
So, that shop? Never quite happened. I poured a ton of energy, a bit of money, and a whole lot of hope into it, but eventually, I had to call it. Portugal was beautiful, the food was great, most people were lovely. But doing business there, for me, as an outsider trying to figure it all out? It was a tough nut to crack.
My ‘practice’ in Portugal wasn’t about exploring the underbelly or anything like that. It was a crash course in resilience, in dealing with endless frustration, and learning that sometimes, even with the best intentions, things just don’t work out the way you plan. And that’s okay. You pick yourself up, you learn your lessons, and you move on. That’s the real experience, not the sensational stuff some folks might be curious about.
