Portugal: Let's Get Serious

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Think it's time for a few serious posts. Life in locations like where I am is all sunshine ... but at some point the fun and games have to stop. Last week and this week has been a bit different ... the challenges have begun ... at some point life has to get back to normal and we need to earn a living.

Reality did sink in for me last week when all of a sudden I thought "Ok, Im here now, Ive made it happen, had a month of fun, but what now ... all these expenses to deal with, still an empty Hull house with a quoted 4k repair bill ... yet not in a position to receive consistent monthly income ... so what ya gonna do Etch?" ... and it kind of hit me hard because my profession is web development and where I'm living, there is no reliable internet connection. Here are my options:

- There is a vodafone wifi hotspot in the complex ... I can log on and buy 3 days access for €18, not 100% reliable, sometimes my PC wont connect, sometimes it cuts me off ... but 3.5Mbps which is good enough to work ... yet €6 a day is madness for internet.

- Last week I also signed up to a vodafone dongle service, €30 a month. Initially I was only getting 1.5Mbps but after going back and swapping the sim card, this went up to 7Mbps ... awesomes. The downsides: a) you are limited to 15GB bandwith a month ... no more ... and b) the latency is poor, so using Skype isn't an option ... something essential for me to be lining up contracts, having meetings, etc ... so no good.

- Yesterday I also had a cable company come over to look into hooking me up with ADSL internet/landline/tv package. In Tavira there are fibre optics installed in town with advertized speeds up to 400Mbps, but they're not willing to extend fibre to the complex here. ADSL is advertized at 24Mbps, but the guys at reception here use that company with ADSL and they tell me they can only get 1Mbps. Anyway, we couldnt even test it because they left telling me there's no way to get the cable into my apartment. Oh, and with this company I'd have to sign up for 24 months, so I'd need to be sure I'm staying here and have no problems obtaining residency (my next post will be about this).

So at the moment it's a concern because without reliable year-round internet, my life here is useless as far as earning a living.

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