At the outset, I’ll say we’ve only gone to a total of 3 meet-ups between 2 different options. What seems to be true, so far, is that the one on Tuesdays in Olhão draws an older and very American crowd. The one on Wednesdays here in Faro gets a very international and fairly young crowd. We’ve been twice to the one in Faro. The other night there were a few other repeat attendees as well as some news ones. Here’s where they were from
I think we were the only Americans
Greece
Ecuador
Serbia
Ukraine
Egypt
Pakistan
We ended up talking mostly to the kid (he’s 30) from Ukraine. For the last 10 years he’s been living a truly nomadic lifestyle. He walks and/or hitchhikes everywhere he goes with a backpack and a thinly padded ground cover. He wanted to make his way to Australia, but apparently Australia won’t let people from Ukraine in?? He spent most or all of the pandemic in Taiwan. He went to Burning Man in Nevada. I lost track of all the places he’s been to besides Hong Kong, South Korea and Indonesia, just walking and hitching. He fairly recently, I think, walked the Camino de Santiago.
He seldom has any money, but when he needs some he does some juggling or he takes and sells photographs. He uses https://www.couchsurfing.com/ as his primary means of finding a place to stay or just meeting other people. He camps out if he doesn’t find somewhere to stay. So, of course, I invited him to spend Wednesday at our place. I learned most of the above from talking to him the next morning. Currently he’s making his way to a meditation event in Spain. I don’t remember where he said exactly.
We fed him the next day, of course and he went on his way around mid-afternoon. He says a lot of people live this way. I think part of his success is because he’s very non-threatening in appearance. Average height and weight, blonde hair and somewhat startling blue eyes. Quite a story. Oh, I left this out. His family are Jehovah’s Witnesses. He never wanted to be a part of that and they basically ostracized him to the point that he left home and eventually stopped contacting them. Sounded very much like scientology in how they treat family who don’t share their beliefs. Kinda sad, but he seems to have come to terms with it. Fascinating.
I’m still fighting a 2-front battle with mail. I’ve had to change the location of our US mailbox. That meant filling out and getting notarized a new USPS Form 1583 for each of us and now we’re waiting for “approval”. UNBELIEVABLE. Here in Portugal, I thought we were fairly straightened out. I’m unaware of any outstanding orders. However, on January 20 I got an email that said, “Shipment LW513203601DE has already arrived in Portugal, but we still need some information to complete the customs clearance process.”
I have absolutely no idea what this is. It appears to have originated in Utah. Hunh?? The email further said, “To ensure you receive your order quickly, go to the CT T Customs Clearance Portal and complete the missing information.” That basically it said I needed to pay 13 euro duty on it. Curiosity would not allow me to just ignore this. I have to find out what the heck it is. So I paid it and now get to wait to see when it actually gets to me, will it get to me and WHAT is it??
Again, please, please don’t send anything here!
Gotta go hang up my laundry now! Ciao!
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