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I could not handle the summer heat there. Much like Grootfontein and Kuruman except the Algarve has no rain in summer.
Most of the beaches are in coves and not accessible for old folk. Too steep to walk back up.
Northern Portugal is about 20% cheaper than the Algarve with food and housing but except for Porto, there are very few expats and few Portuguese understand English.
Food is about 4x more expensive in the UK and housing about 3x more expensive.

Some interesting facts while I'm here:
Portugal is the second highest consumer of wine in the world. For a tiny country that's heavy going.

Except for banks, most businesses work from 9 to 2 pm and from 5 to 8 pm. For this reason the pubs and restaurants only start filling up after 10 pm and close at 3 am. People take their kids and dogs for walks after midnight.

Portugal, Spain and Hungary have the lowest percentage of locals that understand English. About 25%. This will change as Portugal has now started English as a compulsory subject from grade 4. French was a compulsory subject for many years.

Portugal has the most sophisticated banking system in the world. They also have the most ATM's per capita  and are even found in residential areas.
Their Multibanco ATM's can be used for paying anything from fishing licenses, tax, foreign bank withdrawals etc. They even have Windows OS internet banking ATM's.

Since Portugal legalized personal marijuana use, the drug problem has ceased. You can openly smoke weed here but not many people do but I have seen some.

Financials led the day.

Ouch, you're bad O.

Nice photo's P.

Was a joke and my wife even laughed at it. Love her.

You biked around Europe with Marilyn Monroe. Tough to top that!

I meant to ask P about her as she is an exact carbon copy of my girlfriend from 1974. Perhaps a daughter of her's but thought it would not be appropriate.
PS. Is her mother's name Bev?

Great blog on this topic Patrick. When I was in Dusseldorf, I went to a cafe to buy a bottle of water and stood at the counter with it waiting for the attendant to pay him. Stood there for some 10 minutes until another customer came in and grabbed a soda and chucked some money into a box, took his change and walked off. I felt like a fool.
Interestingly, in most European countries especially Scandinavia, farmers are not allowed to chase people off their land. Berry and mushroom picking is a very old tradition and one can wonder through the farm lands and the farmers would smile and wave at you.

Here in Portugal vacant stands can be hired and planted with veggies and fruits. Brussel sprouts, kale and melons are popular. Most are not even fenced off and people would walk past and buy the stuff at the fruit and veggie shop.

I'm by no means blowing my own trumpet here but the people that have sent their money to the US are now feeling the pinch.
This is not bad as the ZAR will eventually reverse.
In the mean time, I will continue to invest in SA as an emerging market. EM's are future Emerged Markets.

I agree to disagree. The ZAR shot up over the 14 mark after the NFP results but she proved her resilience by gaining most of it back within hours. This is proof enough for me that the ZAR will still see 12 soon and the election results will edge her on.

The EFF asked it's supporters who it should go into a coalition with and when I last looked it was 69% for the DA and 16% for the ANC. Even the EFF now trusts the DA over the ANC as the DA can no longer be seen as a white party due to the volumes of black supporters that are obviously in its fold.
I don't trust Malema but I'm sure he will do what his supporters want. He is clever in that respect.