From California Comfort to Portuguese Chaos
How leaving the comfort culture of the U.S. taught me the real meaning of a good life.
Hello and thank you for being here! I’m Kimberly Anne—a U.S. expat who moved to Portugal solo in 2022, sight unseen and without a safety net. I started this Substack to document my own journey, but these days, I’m here to help you explore your own dreams of moving abroad. Thanks for joining me on the adventure! (Want more of the backstory? Click here.)
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Introduction
When I travel and when I first moved to Portugal there were so many differences that stood out. I remember it the most during a six week stay in China. I compared every little difference between what I experienced in China and what I experienced in the U.S. And moving to Porto was the same. But I met a woman here when I first arrived who had lived abroad for ten years and she told me she no longer even saw the differences. I wondered if that would happen for me too and I’m happy to say it has. Which is why I’ve had to switch my focus over the past three weeks so I can report the differences to you.
This will not be a complete list because I really am integrated here and what first bothered me when I moved, no longer does. Or if some things do, I reframe and remind myself how happy I am here.
Regardless, this article touches on some of the differences and challenges that come with living abroad, especially in Europe. Many are specific to Portugal. There are many I wasn’t prepared for and others I had heard about but dismissed. I also believe this will be helpful to those of you who are planning to move but haven’t yet, those considering a move and those of you who are already living abroad.
Much of this is subjective and all opinions are mine. I may be an eternal optimist but I try not to sugar coat things and consider myself a realist. Both of these can be true at the same time.
I talk about some of these negatives on my recent live with Mary Bartnikowski !! But you’ll find more in this article.
Adaptability
I wrote an article about adaptability here, and covered it in last week’s article but it pops up again and again. If you can’t embrace the differences or at least learn to roll with them, you will probably be miserable.
No matter where you go, it will not be the same as where you live now, no matter what. There will be differences. Some things will be better, other things will be worse. It’s a trade-off, and you will have to decide what is important to you.
The Gross Stuff
I’m not afraid to dive right in so here we go. My apartment and the issues I have here may not be the norm throughout apartments in Portugal. But it’s the norm for me. I have two bathrooms and one toilet is persnickety. It doesn’t always flush properly. Sometimes it’s fine but most of the time it’s not. The other toilet works a bit better. I had a plumber out twice and was told there’s nothing they can do. The pipes are old, the building is old. They told me not to flush my toilet paper.
Now I understand this is a complicated issue for a lot of people but it wasn’t for me. Prior to moving to Portugal I lived in a van for a year without a flushable toilet and before that I lived on a houseboat in Sausalito where you couldn’t flush the TP.
In the van I had a bucket with a toilet seat and you line it with a plastic bag. A dealbreaker for some, but if that’s the price for freedom, I’ll take it!
The point is that I got used to putting the paper in a trash can. So when I learned I had to do the same here in Portugal, it wasn’t a big deal. There are also many restaurants here in Portugal that have signs asking you to dispose of your soiled paper in a waste bin because you can’t flush it.
When I traveled to Greece all the toilets are like this which also makes sense, as both Greece and Portugal are two of the oldest countries.
If this is too much for you to handle, and no judgment if it is, you’ll want to look for a newer built apartment building. Or maybe it’s a complete deal-breaker for you but you still want to move abroad. In that case I recommend doing your research and looking at other countries.
No Heat or AC
This is a big one but it’s also an easy “fix” as long as you’re…. say it with me: adaptable!
Newer apartments may have AC and heat in the form of a split (one in each room). Yes, energy is pricier here in Europe so let’s talk about that first. When I had my bedbug scare I had to wash everything (in my washing machine) on the highest heat setting for six weeks and I was shocked to find my energy bill skyrocket to €300 a month. However, when I run two plug in oil radiators all day long in the winter along with one forced air heater on eco mode (yes that exists here) my bill is between €60 and €130 a month. In the summer it’s closer to €30 because I don’t have AC. It’s important to add here that in Northern California my energy bill was always $300 a month for a 1 bedroom apartment. So in comparison, not including those six weeks, I’m a happy camper with what I pay here. However, I don’t know what the cost of running AC is. Or the cost of running a split with heat because, I don’t have one.
How do I deal? In the winters, as mentioned, I use two electric oil radiators on wheels. One lives in my office and the other in my living room. The one in my office runs from 8am to 5pm. The one in my living room I turn on around 3 or 4pm and leave on until bed. In my bedroom I have a little portable forced air heater that I turn on just twenty minutes before bed but turn off once I’m in bed. I thought about connecting it to a timer for the mornings but I never have.
Is it cold in the north where I live? HELL YES! But that’s subjective as well. I find it colder and also hotter in the summers due to the high humidity. Where I’m bundled in a wool sweater, thick coat, hat, gloves, scarf and often wool undergarments, my friends from New York go out in thin jackets and jeans in the winter. I often have to wear my wool sweater in the house during wintertime and I have a robust winter wardrobe now because I get cold.
Summers for me are fine. As I write this we’re having our second heatwave and it’s in the high 80’s, low 90’s but that’s usually how hot it gets in Porto. Last year we had a heatwave for one week. This year it’s two non-consecutive weeks so far. Lisbon on the other hand, does go above 100 during the heatwaves. And the Algarve is consistently above 100 in the summer. But in the winter, those areas are not as cold, obviously!
You can buy a portable AC but I never have. In the summer I keep my blinds down in my living room and bedroom. This is the first year I bought fans and I only bought one because my BFF was coming to visit and he prefers to sleep with one running. But I loved it so much I now have two mini USB fans, one for my office and one for my bedroom plus the larger fan which lives in my living room. Today it’s 89.6 F/32C and I’m sitting on the couch with a light blanket, blinds down and the fan in a sleeveless top. I’m more than comfortable.
Paying for Fixes in your Apartment and Hiring People
Please make sure you check your lease and see if you or your landlord are responsible for paying (and/or hiring) people to fix anything that breaks! I hired a lawyer to go over my lease and she never said a word about this. Unfortunately my landlady refuses to pay for anything, even if the problems are due to the workmen she hired or in one case, the wind. And if that weren’t frustrating enough, I also have to find and hire the people, in a language I’m not fluent in, to fix each issue.
So far I’ve paid for a plumber for the toilet, a plumber for the sink when the drain clogged, who I had to find and hire, and a blinds guy. There’s almost always something that’s wrong or breaks. I learned the hard way during my year of full-time van living, that things WILL break.
While handy-people and plumbers may not cost as much as they do in the US, they’re not inexpensive. After talking to half a dozen plumbers who refused to come out for a week or two, gave me the runaround or tried to overcharge me, I finally tried Task Rabbit. I found a lovely Portuguese guy who came out the next day. When he couldn’t fix the sink issue during the time he was here he offered to return the day after for free. I insisted on paying him and he was able to fix it the next day.
During this past week my shower stopped draining. I spent two hours trying to clear the gunk myself. I got a mini snake and some drano (called Mr. Muscle here). Crouched down with DIY tools, I pulled out so much gunk that I was sure I’d fixed it. I’d taken a few showers since without issue but today it stopped draining again.
This time It was leaking from a place on the floor where a silver cap was screwed in so I unscrewed it and hit the jackpot. What I determined after cleaning this area out is that it’s the drain for both the sink water and the shower water. But it was completely filled with black sheets of slime that resembled seaweed. And I mean, filled! I spent another hour cleaning it out and after I removed all the water I found that the bottom of this drain was covered in pieces of broken concrete and mud left over from the builders. This is why my shower has never drained properly. The work was never done properly. And this is far too common here. But I’m responsible for it. I’m just glad I was able to figure all of this out myself, and completely clear the debris with my trusty leatherman and nose aspirator. See, DIY works.
While everyone may not have the experiences I have had, it’s good to know what could happen. My next door neighbors landlord fixes everything but I think this is rare. My friend Annie’s landlord wouldn’t even fix her leaking roof and every time it rained, her kitchen filled with water. He also refused to deal with her septic tank and I’ll spare you the details of what she had to do…
I also bring this up because all my life I’ve been told by homeowners that it’s a good thing I’ve never owned a home. Their reasons are always the same, “you don’t have to pay to fix anything, it’s your landlord’s responsibility”. Well… that is not the case for me here!
Sidewalks
I often joke that I could talk about the sidewalks for an hour. I probably could. First of all many are made of calçada. They’re gorgeous but ohhhh are they difficult to walk on! Many people mistake calçada for cobblestone. It’s not, but for ease sake I’ve posted a photo above, plus a link for more information, or just imagine cobblestone. First of all they’re extremely uneven. Not only are the stones uneven, but there are sinkholes everywhere so the sidewalks look like an undulating desert. And when it rains (8-10 months out of the year in Porto), watch out, they become a slip n’ slide.
I happen to have calçada sidewalks surrounding my apartment. One thing I have to be very aware of is only purchasing shoes with heavy treads, or else I’ll end up in a broken heap.
On top of that, many people don’t pick up their dog poop so you’ve got that to contend with as you’re navigating the uneven surface. Plus people ride their bikes down the sidewalks so you often have to jump out of the way. And then… yes there’s more, so much more… many sidewalks are only big enough for one person to walk. These aren’t the calçada ones so at least you don’t have to worry about falling. But many people are forced to walk in the street, especially if you ever need to pass anyone. However, the cars drive very close to the sidewalks. So close that when I first moved here I often jumped out of the way with a shriek and it still terrifies my dog, especially when a bus passes.
Another fun thing about the sidewalks is that people park on them. Like completely on the sidewalks up and down the street. While this is not technically legal, during a football game it’s allowed.
Crosswalks
Ahhh the crosswalks, mostly known as zebra crossings here. You’re basically taking your life into your own hands when you cross the street and I’m not exaggerating. It’s terrifying. Yes, legally cars must stop for pedestrians, but do they? About 60/40 with 60 being a big, fat NOPE.
I happen to live on a very busy three lane thoroughfare and my trash cans and recycling are across the street. When I first moved here I would bring down a bag of trash and all my recyclables only to teeter on the corner with my arms full of heavy bags for several minutes before anyone would stop to let me cross. I’ve since learned and only bring one thing at a time and always a very small trash bag.
I’ve seen several accidents in front of my apartment where one person stops to let someone cross, but the person behind them is tailgating and slams into the car that stopped. This terrifies me because the hit could propel the front car into the person crossing. My veterinarian has treated more than one dog that was run over in a crosswalk. My Brazilian neighbors say it’s so much worse in Sao Paulo that here they just step right off the curb here because once you’re IN the crosswalk most people, not all, but most, will stop. I love my life too much to try this.
I’ve seen my downstairs neighbor’s nine year old child standing in the middle of the street (in the crosswalk) while cars zoom past him on either side.
There are no guarantees and yeah, no thanks.
So remember, the trash is not in your apartment building. My friend in the Algarve who owns her own home also has to go outside her gate and down her dirt road to take out her trash and recycling.
Smiling
There’s just a different level of being conscientious here. In every regard. The Portuguese are much kinder in many ways but here, as in most of Europe people just aren’t friendly to strangers. They do not smile at one another when they are walking down the street. And if you smile at a stranger, it is not received well. Most won’t smile back and often they think you may want something nefarious. Not smiling at strangers is a hard thing to embody, if you’re not used to it, especially if you’re from California but once you perfect your resting bitch face, it will take you far and it’s also kind of fun.
Also, as a woman, do NOT smile at the men. Ever! They will think it means you want to bone. I rarely talk about this as it’s a contentious topic. Not ALL Portuguese men are this way but enough are that it’s not worth it to roll the dice. If you’re friendly to a man (and this has been my experience only) they think you want to bone. I’ve had men here touch me inappropriately when I was merely practicing my Portuguese. I’ve had several men invite themselves to my house. Even after I say NO, they push. And all of these have been married men. So there’s that….
If you end up driving here it’s a whole other kettle of fish. People will often box you in when you’ve parked so maybe you will have 1-2 inches between their bumper and yours. Even when they have extra space. It’s just not thought about here. On that note, no one gets upset about it either.
Drivers
But while on the road, watch out. I learned to drive in Los Angeles and have driven all over the U.S. even in Manhattan but drivers here are next level aggressive. The Portuguese will often tell you, “the Portuguese are nice people until they get behind the wheel of a car.” I won’t spend too much time on this one as I suspect most people won’t be driving and I always go back to, “at least they don’t have guns.”
However it’s good to note that stop signs are merely a suggestion here just as crosswalks are. Often people without the right of way will take it. There’s a four way intersection near my apartment where north and south have a stop sign but east and west don’t. No matter. Whoever is the most aggressive will go first. I watched three people run the stop sign and cut me off in front of a cop. The police did not care.
Lanes are also merely a suggestion. Also near my house is a shopping area where there is one lane around a park, however cars will drive next to you, zoom around you only to cut back in front of you and take that left turn 1/2 a second before you do. I’ve had my blinker on to take a left and had impatient drivers that are behind me, cut me off (on the left) by going into oncoming traffic because they couldn’t wait and of course I almost hit them because… I was taking a left. People cut me off illegally all the time here. But the thing is… many aren’t actually good drivers so there are a lot of accidents. I watched one woman cut around people on a one lane street and two blocks later she was in an accident.
Solution: always drive defensively while in Portugal. If someone wants to cut you off, slow down and let them. If you honk at them and get mad it could turn out badly. I did this once. A huge man ran a stop sign to cut in front of me and take a right, as I was taking a right and therefore I barely avoided hitting him. I honked, he blocked me in and started to get out of his car, threatening me. I’ve absolutely no doubt in my mind that if I’d engaged, I would have ended up in the hospital.
The Men
Back to the men/woman conundrum here for a second. Men over forty were raised under the dictator Salazar and they have a different attitude toward women. Not all but many. There’s a misogyny here that I never imagined possible. Once a huge guy got mad at me because my dog walked on a lawn. He started screaming that my dog was not allowed on the lawn, which turned out to be false, he was just trying to exert power. He was so out of control that I took out my phone and started filming him. The man came straight over to me, grabbed my dog’s leash, tried to grab my phone and started screaming at me, calling me names. I filmed the entire thing. He worked for the apartment building and I showed his boss the recording. The man was forbidden from talking to me or other people after that incident because I was not the first person he had come after aggressively.
However, if it had escalated and the police were called, nothing will ever happen to the perpetrator. Portugal has a high incidence of domestic violence and the men don’t even get so much as a slap on the wrist.
Don’t expect men to hold a door open for you, or even let you pass them on a sidewalk. It’s a man’s world here and women are second class citizens.
Do I know some kind, wonderful Portuguese men? Of course! There is no one size fits all as I often say but most of the time… just stay in your own lane and keep your head down.
Personal Boundaries
Personal boundaries are often not respected. Obviously there’s some overlap with the paragraphs above but I’m talking about cases like when I’m walking my dog. I’ve had people with dogs try to approach me but my dog has terrible leash aggression. I’m working on it but most dogs here are leash reactive and if another dog reacts aggressively first, forget about it. So I often hold up my hand and shake my head as strangers approach. I say, in Portuguese, “my dog is crazy, she’s aggressive on leash, please do not approach her.” They laugh, disregard me and approach anyway. My dog lunges, I have to hold on tightly and almost fall. The other person gives me a look like I’m the crazy one. And perhaps I am!
You’ll hear that people step closer to talk to you outside of the U.S. and yes this is true. There’s less personal space here. When I first moved here it freaked me out, but now I don’t notice it.
One lovely tradition is that everyone says, “little kisses” whenever you part. Even the woman at my local fruit stand and the mailman. EVERYONE! Neighbors, friends, acquaintances… Beijinhos!
Tolerance
Another thing I absolutely love about it here is that family is number one. It’s not every family but most. I spoke to a woman the other day who has a toxic Portuguese family and had to stop speaking to them, but they still live 3km from her.
However, in general family is more important than anyone’s sexual or gender orientation or political beliefs. Unlike in the U.S. I know so many queer folks here and their families are completely accepting because it’s more important for the parents to have a relationship with their children than to ostracize them.
Public Restrooms
There are rarely paper towels or any way to dry your hands. You often can’t flush the toilet paper. More often than not, there’s no soap. Oh and the light switches are always on the outside.
Noise
Ah the noise. I lived in San Francisco for twenty years and this is next level noise. I happen to live on a main street and the car noise is quite loud. I lived on the panhandle in SF and the street noise is louder here with a lot of motorcycles and trucks. Plus I live near the main football stadium and across from an elementary school. When kids go to school (walking by my apartment each morning at 8am) they’re screaming. When they get out of school at 3pm, they’re screaming. When Porto wins a football game (you may know it as soccer), people drive down my street wailing on their horns, screaming and throwing firecrackers.
Firecrackers are huge here. I hate them. They basically set off M80’s every few weeks. I’m not a person who can handle loud noises but forget about me. The poor dogs are terrified and often run away, get hit by cars and killed.
Which brings me to the dog noise. The barking is often non-stop. As I type this my downstairs neighbor’s dog has been barking for the past hour straight. Dogs on the street bark off and on all night. And in the country it’s worse. At my friend Leslie’s house in the Algarve, large dogs live outside protecting livestock and they bark the entire night. Solution: earplugs. I’ve tried dozens of different ones and highly recommend loop which you can order in Portugal.
Some streets here are made from some type of stone, similar to the calçada but larger and brown. If anyone knows the name, please let me know in the comments. All I know is that driving down these streets is LOUD! (see photo below). Not only is it loud to drive down the streets, it’s also loud when you’re walking on the sidewalks next to cars driving down these streets. It’s partly why I never leave the house without noise cancelation headsets.
Neighbors: I’m pretty sure I have “loud neighbor karma”. I’ve never lived anywhere with quiet neighbors and here it’s no exception. Weirdly it’s my downstairs neighbors that are loud. They have a screaming baby. It’s a year old and it still screams. Thankfully it screams much less than it used to but because they’re late night people, the child’s favorite time to perform vocal gymnastics is between midnight and 3am.
Construction: It’s ongoing. When I first moved in they were jackhammering the apartment next door. I had to rent a co-working space for several months because I couldn’t be in my home. Now there’s construction across the street. I’ve talked to many other people both in Porto and Lisbon and this seems to be the norm.
A few days ago a loud alarm was ringing down the street all day long for 10 hours without stopping.
My solutions to all the noise issues are a combination of noise cancelation headsets, earplugs and running a fan.
Smells
Because there is no cap on car emissions here exhaust often hangs thick in the air. When I first moved here I could barely stand it and now I hardly notice it at all, which is not a good thing! Breathing car exhaust is not healthy. My best friend David is the one who pointed it out when he visited in May. I had forgotten about it.
More people smoke cigarettes in Europe. You’ll get used to it.
People wear cologne here. I still haven’t gotten used to that.
You’ll be hard pressed to find an unscented cleaning product. Plus the scents they use are cloying and unnatural. You end up picking the least offensive.
Delivery
If you order anything from anywhere, IKEA and grocery delivery notwithstanding, you will have to wait all day for the delivery. You will get a notice that they will come between 9:30am and 7pm. Usually CTT (the postman) will arrive between a certain window which is different for everyone, but not always. If you are not home to collect the delivery, they will drop it at your local CTT (or DHL, depending on where it’s being shipped from) office and you will have to walk there to get it. If you don’t go in the morning, expect to wait.
If you’re friends with your neighbors, you can put the information on your order to ring them. My neighbors also work from home so we collect one another’s packages but this wasn’t always the case.
You can also choose to pick items up from a drop off point. This works for Amazon and Vinted but they will only hold the item for five days and then it will be returned.
But if you order from IKEA you can set a window. Don’t forget to schedule your Task Rabbit person to build your furniture for you for 1/3 of the cost on the IKEA check out screen! They charge like €7 to put together your desk or bed, etc.
You can also order groceries and they will deliver these within a specific window.
Take a Number
When you go to the post office, the doctor’s office, the bank, some pharmacies, the phone stores, and most establishment providing a service, you have to take a number. There’s a little machine by the entrance where you will have to translate the Portuguese to figure out which button to push. This is where google translate camera comes in handy. But sometimes, especially at the health centers, there is someone who is there to help. The machine will spit out a piece of paper with a number and you will sit and wait with one eye on a TV screen waiting for your number to be called. It will tell you what window to go to.
Other Weirdness of Note
Last week the construction crew left a piece of paper outside the front door of my apartment building telling everyone that the next day they would be removing asbestos. This is next to an elementary school. The paper said that no one should open their windows, sit on their balconies or dry their clothing outside. I brought the paper inside (there was only one and the building houses over twenty people), took a photo and left it on top of the mailboxes so everyone could see it. Within an hour someone had taken it and the neighbors I’m friends with had no idea. Luckily I was able to text them the photo. This would never happen in the U.S. but here I suspect it happens all the time and often without warning.
When you get a to go cup of coffee it’s hot. They don’t use coffee sleeves here but I like it, it’s less wasteful. The to go coffee lids are made of cardboard. The straws are paper. The to go containers are cardboard. They don’t use styrofoam here. It’s lovely.
When you open a plastic bottle of water, soda, anything; the lid remains attached. At first this freaked me out and I thought it was a mistake. When I realized it wasn’t a mistake I thought it was in the way and would try to twist off to break the little thread holding it on. But I got used to it. So much so that the last time I was in the US and the plastic cap came off I got confused wondering where I would possibly put it. Leaving it connected really does make much more sense.
Conclusion
Let’s get real. Are we soft? After reading about my battles with plumbing, sidewalks designed to trip you, and men who think a smile is an invitation, has our cushioned American culture robbed us of our resilience?
It’s the question I live with daily. My solution to the summer heat is to sleep with an open window, accepting the louder noise with the help of earplugs. A Portuguese friend confirmed it: you just deal with it. You accept the noise so you don’t end up sweltering in a puddle of sweat. You don't complain about the rain because, as the locals say, "At least we're alive." You learn that every day is a good day or at least has the potential to be so.
This is the trade-off, the heart of the matter. Life abroad isn’t about recreating the conveniences of home. It's about deciding what you're willing to exchange them for. Every challenge like a clogged drain you have to fix yourself is a reminder. Every difference like a non-existent smile, is a lesson in perspective.
What is your price for comfort? Is a life of ease more valuable than a life of adventure and security? Is the exchange a fair one? Or better yet, one you’re willing to live with (or without)? Is it worth moving out of the U.S. (or your home country) for fantastic, affordable healthcare? For a life where you don’t fear gun violence? For a culture not fractured by division?
No one can answer that for you. It’s time to make a list, figure out what you can’t live without, and what you’re willing to leave behind. The answer is yours alone.
Resources
Comfort Article
Adaptability Article
What's YOUR "Price of Admission" for a New Life?
This week I’m featuring Mary Bartnikowski’s Substack. Mary is an amazing photographer who’s been living as a full-time digital nomad since 2009 and is still doing it at age 69! When back in the U.S. she lives out of her camper van. I think I’m in love 🥰 it breaks my heart that she’s straight 🤣
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Cost of living: Article here
Healthcare (or lack thereof) here.
Safety—article here.
Polarization—too much hate and anger
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Part 2—Conquer your fears about moving abroad!
Part 3—12 Minimizing Mistakes Part 1
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Part 6—Your Move Abroad: The Ultimate Checklist
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—Expat on a Budget (AKA) Living Abroad on a Budget and My Unknown Adventure by Kimberly Anne
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I am an American living in Braga, NE of Porto. I find the drivers here very respectful of pedestrians in crosswalks. Perhaps because Braga is smaller and poorer than Porto, I feel comfortable smiling at and greeting people I pass when out walking. The people here are simply lovely. We have not ever regretted our move here.
Spot on!!!! I have experienced many of these differences myself but have been pleasantly surprised to find that I can handle a lot more discomfort than the US taught me I could. As you mention, "reframing" is a must - in all of life actually!