I would like to mention before I proceed that it is always easy to accomplish anything if one has money and connections. I have neither. I am in the bottom 5% of humanity financially. I also have no contacts to help me with anything. I am completely and utterly on my own. That said, the very fact that you have a 'professor' as a friend puts you in a social strata I do not have access to. You also appear to have money.
1. I obtained the apartment through Idealista. I’m glad you were lucky, and I’m glad you found your apartment through a professor friend of yours. That’s exactly it. You might not have been so lucky if you didn’t have a professor friend of yours.
2. Like I said, you had a professor help you. The Portuguese have a culture of ‘who you know’ makes a difference. We eventually got a ‘CRUE’ certificate through someone we found on an expat site. He found two of his Portuguese friends (voters). We couldn’t have done it without assistance.
3. You may well see ‘construction’ cranes all over. I’ve seen one or two. What has that to do with the fact that Portugal is currently a country with ruined homes and buildings all over the place?
4. I don’t think I spoke about registering a business so I don’t see the relevance. Nobody has the right to stay in Portugal as long as they want to without Portuguese nationality. You either get residency through immigration, or you have to be a European citizen and get a CRUE certificate. Without it, you cannot get a TAX number, and you cannot open a bank account without TAX number, and if you have done that, then you need to know it was achieved through some sort of corruption. I’ve provided the link from the Portuguese government site to prove that.
5. I have no idea why your daughter had no problems speaking to Portuguese authorities but she doesn’t speak Portuguese, but I’m damned sure that there were some other factors involved. All the other expats can’t be wrong.
6. I find the taste of the dourada disgusting. There’s are endless shelves of fish, cheese, processed meats, and breads/cakes. I don't eat processed food, i.e. cheese, processed meat, or grains. I cannot stand the taste of the dourada. I landed up sticking to salmon. Finding a restaurant with a good steak and nicely done greens and veggies was impossible. Finding a properly made fresh salad was impossible. For the record, the Portuguese diet is very, very unhealthy. Link below.
7. While I certainly used the Mercadona food chain when I was living in Spain, not a single person I asked about supermarkets mentioned it. They all mentioned Continente, Auchan, and Pingo Doce. In fact, the Spanish chain is not mentioned at all in the link below.
8. You bought travel insurance for three months for 74 euros. WTF? I am a 70 year old woman who needed to buy permanent health insurance in Portugal. They do NOT insure people over 65, and you have to be a member of the Portuguese health service in those circumstances. Of course, I could get travel insurance for three months. That is NOT what this was about. Nor was I talking about vaccinations I got elsewhere. I wasn’t vaccinated. I tried to get vaccinated in Portugal. Without being a member of the health service, I couldn’t. I went through four months of stress to get it done. In addition, the certificate was rejected by the EU Digital Covid Certificate because it didn’t have a number registered with the health service. I’m really glad you were able to get boosters in New Jersey or Latvia. Unfortunately, I couldn’t fly back to South Africa to get one. I am neither an American citizen, nor do I have the kind of income that permits that.
Your situation is very different to mine. A lot of people arrive in Portugal with limited funds. The reason they go there is because it’s cheap. As my total income was $220 per month, and the rest I hopefully earned from writing, I was not in a position to live where I wanted to. I am effectively a refugee from South Africa for reasons I won’t go into. The only reason I am able to go to Ireland now is because one of my patrons has been very generous, and with a bit of luck, I will get out a series of books that will earn me sufficient income to live.
https://www.portugalist.com/portugal-downsides/
https://algarvedailynews.com/news/15354-portugal-is-40-years-behind-in-healthy-eating
