Portugal: Flirting in Faro

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This week's adventure happened on a weekday as I needed to go to Faro (where the nearest airport is to me).

When I purchased the apartment in June 2010, it was done through a bank called BBVA. I have a bank account with them, they supplied the mortgage and take payments out of this account ... they take the equivalent of council tax and buildings insurance out too ... it's simple here, everything is done for me. I didn't browse around to find a quote for buildings insurance ... I just see the cash taken out of my bank account twice a year.

Anyway, I have a bank account here but no debit card to use it. I've been trying desparately to get one since moving here, but the Portuguese don't make things easy. Before requesting a card, first I need to change my bank address to the apartment where I'm now living in rather than my prior London address. However, I can't do this unless I show the bank a utility bill for proof of address.

I don't have gas, I don't pay for water ... the only thing I have is the electricity bill from EDP (1 of 2 electricity supplier companies in Portugal, there aren't many options here). But this also has the wrong address (somewhere in Lisbon) so I request that to be changed ... I have my agents here ask twice, and each time EDP say it's done and it isn't. I call up a few times over the space of 2 weeks to do this myself and ask them to send me an updated bill with the new address. "Yes sir, it will be with you in the next 5 minutes". Does it happen? Does it fook.

Eventually I call up in week 3 and get pissed off ... and this time the dude on the phone tells me "Oh, by the way you can sign up online for an account with EDP and you will be able to download all your bills". "Oh, you're the 1st person to tell me this ... so I can download a bill with my new address on it then?" ... "Oh no, it will have your old address on it ... you will have to email our billing department for a copy with the new address". Email sent, 1 week later I get my bill with proof ... awesome.

So now I had what I needed, I could finally go to Faro. On Thursday afternoon I left after dropping Saag/Aloo off at reception for the crew here (in return they gave me green beans and haricot beans from the local garden ... I can have a plot of land here if I want, will consider it in spring time).

I wasn't mentally with it for some reason ... actually I almost smashed my car into a bus one time and later on I almost died doing a crazy u turn after jumping a red light. But when I found free parking and started walking in the city ... I felt happy again. There's something about Faro which appeals to me ... you get the city life but with something magical about it ... could be all the Univeristy students walking around with clipboards ... not sure ... but it's only 30 mins drive away. It's very different to Tavira and it's great to have the diversity here of all the towns.

I went to the bank and got my MultiBanco card ordered. All banks here have MultiBanco machines, its the same regardless of bank branch. And u can do more than just take money out ... the MultiBanco ATM can be used to for example, pay your taxes, pay for ur phone bill, etc ... it's more than just an ATM. The pretty girl behind the desk "Andreia" ended up getting me to open a savings account ... something I don't need ... but it allowed me to chat to her for longer and practise some Portuguese. I learnt some slang terms used in Faro ... Ta Bom means s'all good baby, s'all good.

Out of the bank, and time to explore a bit of Faro. I wonder down to the pier where there are boats ... and as I'm walking by somebody stops me to sell a tour on a boat. I find out they work for a company whose website I was checking out the night before ... something I wanted to do, so I sign up for a little cruise around the islands near Faro, €15 if I go alone, €10 if there are others ... and there are 4 French peeps.

I have half hour to wait, so I make this girl laugh telling her my crab story from last week ... and I mean seriously laugh ... I need to use my stories more often. Not sure why it was funny to her that I thought I was going to die being eaten by crabs and never make it home.

Anywayz, we get to the boat, and our tour guide is Carlos ... (which is strange because my bank manager is called Carlos Lopes and this day I've met someone called Carlos and someone called Lopes) ... this tour guide asks what language I speak, then speaks to me in English. He asks the other 4 and then speaks to them in French. Im impressed, I ask him how many languages he speaks and he gives me a long list ... and then tells me "next year is going to be German and Polish, the year after some more" ... what a guy.

The tour was actually useless ... we didn't go anywhere near the tropical islands around faro (Ilha Armona, Ilha Deserta, etc) as for that tour you pay €35. This was just me, the cool tour guide and 4 French homies sat in a little dinghy checking out the swamp, cutting the engine and drifting around the swamp ......... and getting stuck. The idea was to tour around what they call "Rio Formosa Nature Park" which is a protected area along the coast from Faro to the Spanish border where I was last week, where protected species of birds and fish hang about. I did see 1 bird during the tour, but it didn't move and I'm pretty sure it was a statue. When I asked the tour guide if they planted it there so we think we're getting our monies worth, he said "around the corner are crocodiles" and then looked away. Nope ... no crocodiles.

Something cool that came out of the tour was this boat that was drifting there in the middle of the sea. Back in the day it was used for something or other, but now it's just used as a club in the middle of nowhere. People get on boats to come to this one and party all night ... it has 2 floors with dj decks, bar, job lot. The boat is called "Jamanta" ... check it out here, I need to be playing on the decks here next spring:

After the tour ended, I saw a MacDonalds and decided to have a go ... 1st time in Portugal. You can't beat a tartar-filled Filet o Fish ... mmmmmmmm.

Next stop was Faro beach .... not the island but the mainland beach near the airport. In fact the only way to get there is to go to the airport and take a single-lane bridge to the beach. Sadly there was no atmosphere here by the time I got there ... quite late and windy. So I left to go back home.

And that was that.

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