O testemunho no. 2 da Mikk (SPEAK)

I have been in Portugal for 7 months now and I have been enjoying the different lifestyle experience very much. Here is different culture: people are more socialising, work-culture is more freestyle and there is a lot of beating around the bush, but having fun at the same time situations. For example I have seen that everybody is out at the daytime not doing work and enjoying their coffee. They do the same in the morning and always have these coffee breaks outside the office in the sun. That is cool, but at the same time I am always wondering are they not hungry. They start morning with coffee and sometimes eat melons and apples in the lunch time. I would starve if I was like this. :D

But as for socializing aspect, I am really impressed! People are really friendly, helpful, supportive and also it is much easier to make friends out of nowhere. That is because the culture is international. When you are in a centre, yes sure some can argue that it was so much better 10 years ago when it was mostly Portuguese people in Bairro-Alto and so on, but now it is even better in my opinion. If the culture has only local people, then it will be difficult to make connections due to the language barrier. International environment brings more friends, happiness and cause to stay so much more than only local people. As for Portuguese people I only have one good friend so far and that is my mentor. It is difficult to approach them, but when you do, the results are usually really nice. Same as Estonians hahah. Much sun helps a lot too, but sometimes there is even too much of it. Would personally like some rain sometimes.

As for the language, I can understand the basics now, but not being able to understand many conversations and I am not fluent in the language. I have no problem to order anything on the restaurant and that is the most important.

I am going to leave after 8 months of my project however, because the future is not that good in here. It is almost impossible to have any savings with this high prices for rentals and low salaries. There are more reasons why I am leaving, but from what I have seen so far, it is great place to retire, but you would have to spend a lot of your time when you are young that otherwise can be put under your career. And that is one downside that I felt through my experience.