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How I Ended up In Portugal Today (the first one is

   Alrighty then........I have finally succombed to the world of blogging....and man do I not like that word, 'blog'. It sounds more like 'blob' or 'slob' or something digusting that people wouldn't want to write or read about, where the hell did that word come from anyways? So I would prefer to take off the 'b' and call it my 'log' as that sounds more to the written-down version I would have done if it not were for the advent of modern technology and typing having become a lot more easier to do over the years. I just hope I can keep this thing somewhat interesting, to anyone who does stumble across it or for the very least, that I don't fall asleep when I read it after!

    Anyways, enough of that sad explanation, back to business. I decided to create this 'log' for myself while taking a stroll tonight, by myself, and thinking, man I really need to start putting all my damn thoughts down of this shit that's been happening to me. In fact, I really should have started this a lot earlier, as so many 'interesting' things have incurred in my life lately, that I've already been keeping a mental 'log' in my head the whole time. So for those of you who eventually may stumble across this sometime, you're probably asking now what the hell am I talking about to make create this thing in the first place, so let me appease your curiosity.

   First, a little bit of background about me for you strangers so hopefully you can start to get a grasp of where I'm coming from. I'm a 24yr old American from Washington DC with a background in the culinary arts field and hospitality business. Since my graduation from one of most 'prestigious' culinary schools in the US almost 3yrs ago, despite my 2 degrees and good grade point average, I've ended up working every slave job in the industry you can imagine so far. I've been mainly a server, serving for every dining period, every occasion and every hour and let's just say you really just hate people after doing that. I've also been a bartender, hostess, dining-room manager (aka dining room bitch) and I can't say that those were the most glorious times. The sad part is, the entire time I have been TRYING to get into working with wines and spirits, mainly becoming a Sommelier but the very least in the beginning, being an Assistant Sommelier. 4 times at 4 different restaurants I was promised this position, and 4 times I ended being their fucking slave or bitch for various reasons that were beyond my control.   When I look back, I'd like to think that it was just a series of bad luck, but what seems to be the real reason is the sad reality that there is still discrimination against women, and especially young women wanting to be in an originally male-dominated profession. It also doesn't help that I look more like I'm 18 instead of 24 and more like 16 when I was 22 so you get the idea of what managers thought when they saw me. I'm judged as an 'innocent' little girl, or even worse, some perverted sex object that some managers thought if they couldn't get with me, then they could squash my hopes of moving up in the world into submission. What was the most frustrating thing I've encountered still to this day is the fact that every employer wants to hire someone with experience, even for an entry-level wines position like an Assistant Sommelier, but god dammit, how do they expect to find those people if no one before ever gave them a chance to start building experience?!?!?!

            Anyhoo, I got fed up with that shit pretty quickly. I hopped from DC to Miami Beach and Back in just less than 3yrs, trying to find someone or someplace that would give me the same bullshit response to my career goals. You may think now, well maybe she's just a bad worker, and damn, I thought that myself at times when nothing seemed to be going right, but time and time again, so many people have supported me and said I was great worker and knew what I was doing and was quite knowledgeable in wines and spirits for my age. It's a shame that none of these people were ever in the authoritative position to change the way I was getting treated.    Needless to say, I began to develop quite a hateful resentment to anyone in charge as I was just waiting for them to screw me over yet again. I decided finally that I couldn't continue working in the industry at the moment, for I my hatred would just get worse and worse and would ultimately ruin my chances of ever getting anywhere so I thought a complete change of pace would be good for me.

            From my passion for wines and 'teaching' wines as a Wines Tutor in college, I looked at my passion for learning languages and combined that with teaching to pursue a temporary profession that every traveling American seems to do- get a TEFL certificate and teach English abroad.   After I moved back to DC from Miami, I quickly enrolled in a TEFL course in Barcelona, a place that I enjoyed visiting before and knew 1 or 2 people there or near there already.   After I completed the course, I intended to just stay there and live and work as and English Teacher for bit until I got back into the wines industry and maybe try out a new path in it- distribution and export. I got a quick and painless job back at home and started saving up money for the big move while living with my parents again. But only having 4 months to do it proved to be a bit difficult to save up that much money after returning broke from my miserable job spree in Miami and I was almost going to sell my car in order to get enough money to pay for the class and survive there until I was stable, but I was blessed with an unxpected gift from someone very dear to me and many others and it's something I'll never forget as I wanted so much to get away from it at then.   I came to Barcelona after and the TEFL class passed splendidly, I never thought I would enjoy teaching English this much and this made feel a lot better for taking a break from my career field to do this. As much as I loved Barcelona, I ultimately decided to move to Lisbon, Portugal afterwards as I knew more people from my past trips there (including a special someone) and I always had more of a passion for promoting Portuguese wines in the future.

          Now I have never been an immigrant before, but I have know quite a few from growing up in the DC area then living in Miami where all the immgrants flock to, both legal but mainly illegal. Many of these illegals were actually good friends of mine (still are) and I watch them go through the struggle of America giving them the double-edged sword of moving to their country.....and I really do believe it's quite unfair what they have to go through, as these are good, honest people trying to make a better life for themselves. So when I came to Europe, I told myself that I wasn't going to let the govt. screw me over, I was going to do it the right way and the legal way. But even the 'legal' way is a real pain in the ass, and that goes for any country! In Portugal, the worst part was that every person working for a govt. organization that I had to speak to, gave me a different answer for things each time! These people apparently from what I've been told, are not even trained and are never kept up to date with the changing laws so good luck for me! In the end I did manage to establish myself and have been here teaching English since.

           This brings me back to where I first started writing this, what looks like to be now, a really fucking long-ass blog, but I'm sure that's quite normal in the world of blogging. As the life that I just recalled so far wasn't turbulent enough for me, I wanted to move to Europe to 'hopefully' get away from the stress but I've ended up having more than I ever intended so far. So much that it is why I decided to start writing in this thing, because all these thoughts racing though my head over this time are making me go cookoo and I can't take it anymore. Aside from the big hassle in being the 'new kid on the block' here and trying to learn a language that I've only studied personally and never had a class in so far, I've seemed to have stumbled into another series of 'bad luck' episodes with the other aspects of trying to live a normal life. The worst has been when I signed on to renting out a 1bdrm apt here in the sub-city neighborhood of Campo de Ourique in Lisbon. Though it was a wopping 500euros a month with absolutely nothing in it and no utilities turned on, you can't blame me for wanting a nice looking apt with an awesome stretch balcony and a view on the 4th floor with no one above me in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Lisbon and everything close and convienent walking distance from me there.

          But having to start from scratch proved to be no way worth the trouble, because unlike the US, getting simple things installed and turned on like utlities and appliances are made to be so frickin complicated and you have to wait forever for anything!   And again, like the govt. agencies, everyone tells you something different, so it ended up being almost a month before I could get hot water and gas because the first 3 people told me if couldn't be done and that I would need constuction! On top of that, everything you buy for your home never comes complete, you always have to buy 3 or 4 other things that are sold separately which makes things quite expensive. Europe in general is not like the Wal-Mart and Target world of the US, they either know how to make boutique, brand-name items that are high quality and really expensive or they make wannabe brand-name things that are actually crappy and still expensive! Nothing is cheap in this dept. and I never thought I would miss Wal-Mart and Target so much! And the whole time I've been here as and English Teacher, teaching so many people needing to learn English for their jobs, not one of them actually works in one of the many govt. places or utility companies that I've had to visit and struggle to communicate with because they don't know a word of English arrrrgh isn't it supposed to be the International language for business and why I have a job here??

               Despite after the new apt. hassle, including one broken washing machine on delivery and a gas heater that just broke down 3 days ago after only working for 2 weeks, I sit here in my bedroom (with no hot water till Mon. cuz customer service doesn't work on weekends or holidays of course...) and recall all the interesting little things I've found or observed being a foreigner in this foreign country to me. Many come back to mind from my evening stroll earlier this evening that led me to write this whole damn thing in the first place.
Walking alone has not been a new thing for me here, when I'm not with my Portuguese boyfriend and his friends, I really haven't had much opportunity to make new friends here, much of it because of the language barrier, as I've only recently learned enough Portuguese to survive on my own, let alone carry on a normal conversation. All you guys think English is such a hard language to learn (and it is haha) but god dammit, Portuguese (from Portugal) is pretty fucking hard to!

            But enough ranting, thats part of immigrating to another country anyways, aside from an intimating language, the Portugese actually can be quite friendly people when you meet them. Unlike the Spanish and the French who many seem to come off quite snotty towards anyone not knowing their language well, the Portuguese are a much more humble people, coming as one of the poorest countries in Western Europe, it's surprising how long they've managed to keep quiet and to themselves from the rest of Europe to North America. Shit if you ask most in the US about Portugal, half of them don't even know it's still a country, let alone where it's located! Quite sad, but I must say, before I learned about the country through wines, I didn't even know exactly where it was located either....hehehe oops. It also definitely shows here how much of a lack of American presence there is, as not one person here so far has thought me to be American. I figured I'd get Canadian (and I have) for the most part, but actually, I keep getting some Eastern European country like Russia, Ukraine and Slovenia! No offense to those people (as I have friends from all 3) but the Portuguese don't really look at you guys very kindly, as these people have been the poor, uneducated immigrants flocking to their country in the past. So I've learned very quickly to tell people that "Eu sou Americana" or I'm American before I get judged too quickly.

             Anyways, back to the part about me walking alone, though it may be lonely at times, since I do it more often then I would like, I need my walking alone time and I realized especially now with all these thoughts in my head to sort out. It also makes me notice all the pretty little things around me here in this still very foreign country I'm stuck in and reminds me of some of the other reasons as to why I ever wanted to come back here in the first place. They were right when they told me that Campo de Ourique was one of the nicest neighborhoods, for one, it's one of the few neighborhoods in Lisbon that is all flat land on top, and coming from being in the 'City of Seven Hills' that's quite an achievement and a break for my legs! Campo de Ourique may not be the most traditional looking neighborhood in Lisbon, but it still has the quaint, Old World look that I love about Portugal, with all the intricate, wrought-iron balconies and cobblestone sidewalks. In fact, every single sidewalk in this country (and many roads still) is made like that, leaving no room for any grassy patches around. This had caused a bit of problem for the many leash-free dogs in the country, since there are no grassy spots to stop in, they have become accustomed to stopping right where they were walking and dropping a load right there, which is most of the time right where the rest of us humans have to walk...ugh. During my stressful times, my boyfriend has always told me to keep my head up and smile, but how can I when I won't be smiling right after I've stepped in dog poop! (only happened once so far and that was enough). But I've developed a double vision now for walking in order to still see the beauty of the scenery without ruining my shoes in the process. And luckily, there happens to be a wonderful little park in the center of my neighborhood that both people and their dogs can enjoy, with giant cypress-like trees that look older than dirt and the popular card tables that all the old Portuguese men gather every afternoon for their gambling tournaments, quite a site :)

There are many other good things to importantly note about Portugal (like the food and wine duh!) but I must save those for future logs as this first one is so long winded, if I haven't lost your interest before, I've certainly lost it now and definitely mine! But along with these good things have come all the bad things I've been through, (many still unnamed here) and have cumulated up to this point which has led me here to question what I'm doing with life and what I will do next. Do I want to try to sustain living a Portuguese life here and keep trying to go after my goal of getting back into the wine industry and hopefully make it this time or will it ultimately continue to be a constant struggle and lead me to the familiar path of going nowhere? Well, as most of us know, only time will tell now and until then, I will try to keep documenting my International Life on here and will hopefully help me sort all these thoughts out better. But damn if I write another log this long again, I'm gonna shoot myself to stop my endless banter to save for another day or another hour. Hope this ended up being semi-coherent when I read it later.......

So until then, cheers and adeus.
Andrea