Non Portugal. Sci-fi place!

While my van was lost (allegedly it has been found and will shortly show up at the garage) I had a night at a smart hotel in Vilamoura. I am very glad we had somewhere nice to sleep but the place was a bit odd. I've usually travelled to friends and family or cheap hotels down in the city, even in Egypt, which can be a bit dangerous, we walked around rubbing elbows with the people there. 

Back to Portugal, this morning I left the hotel to get some food and found myself in this "old town" so manicured I kept asking myself if it was fake, or part of the hotel. Portuguese people swept and cut grass while in all the shops and cafes only English and German was spoken! Everyone who helped me/served me addressed me in English without trying their native tongue first. All signs were in English only! I felt like some sort of white oppressor! The manicured town reminded me of a sci-fi book I once read where everyone's parents turned out to be robots!!!

I had heard of the concept of traveling only for the climate change and avoiding local culture and indeed contact, it was freaky and tragic and rude! Bring back Portugal please, and all the attendant difficulties! Down with you heated pool, giant double beds and tree-surgeoned palm trees! 

I'm actually looking forward to camping in my van again!

Some things I like about Portugal so far:

It's cheap. First class train tickets for a trip half way down the country for us all were under €100! Really nice food is also cheap.

They bend over backwards to make kids welcome, including there mess, noise and fussy eating habits, grumpy screaming, sandy kids seem to be made just as welcome as clean cute well behaved ones!

It's beautiful, do a google image search!

It's warm.

The pace of life seems pretty relaxed, clearly if you are trying to get work done this is frustrating, but over all it's nice to be chilled and embrace the three hour lunch/siesta.

Some things I'm struggling with:

Portuguese is really hard, and frankly, unlike my husband, I'm naturally very bad at languages anyway - I do try hard.

The driving, they hardly signal at all and park everywhere, I saw a car parked on a roundabout with one wheel on the pavement! You have to make damn sure they are planning to stop at a crossing before you cross.

The smoking, you can smoke inside lots of places and bothers my daughter a lot.

Things have gone wrong but right too

I'm down in Portugal right now in a van with my family. I bought the van for £2500 and converted it for £400, it's pretty basic but OK. Lots has gone wrong, in fact it's in the garage getting fixed right now, but lots has gone right too. My family and I have learned so much wandering through Spain and Portugal with no plan other than roughly South! I've been here over a month and we have five to go. The emotion is intense, so much is new, the highs and the lows. Even if I can't sustain this, it's already changed us all for the better. I would not undo it, mistakes and all. If you want to change your life you can, it's a matter of a firm choice, not of circumstances or luck. I hope this helps someone. 

These are my own pictures, I have stood in each of these moments and that cannot now be taken away from me in the future. X