In this episode we share the worst experiences we’ve had living in Lisbon. We open up about our most embarrassing public moment, our worst customer service experience, the most awkward social situation we got ourselves into and much more. Also we share our biggest expectation vs reality moment when we moved to Lisbon.
Enjoy listening and don’t forget to rate the podcast and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform, like Spotify – it will help more hearts find our little corner of the world.
With love, April Betts & Anna Jirina.
About From Lisbon With Love
Welcome to From Lisbon With Love! A podcast about real stories of love, laughter, and life in Lisbon — from women who have left it all behind. We share real stories about moving to Lisbon, starting over and figuring life out along the way. We talk love, dating, friendships, breakups, healing, growing, all of it. Basically, the stuff we usually talk about over coffee ☕️ or vinho 🍷. If you’re thinking about moving to Lisbon, already here or just love honest conversations with heart: you’re in the right place! Learn more about our story here.
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The reality of living in Lisbon
Luckily we had a lot of really good experiences in Lisbon so far. The Portuguese people are really friendly and we’ve always felt very welcome from the start. But of course it can’t always be sunshine and rainbows, quite literally actually – since winters in Portugal can be very humid and rainy. Especially the last two years, we didn’t get the promised 300 sunny days a year ;-)… And of course we’ve also had some bad experiences in Lisbon that we share in this episode, just to give you an insight in what living in Lisbon is really like.
To sum it up, here are some things you might didn’t know about life in Lisbon:
1. Houses aren’t well insulated
If you think of moving to Lisbon, you definitely need to know about this: In summer, you’re most likely melting away in your apartment, while in winter, you’ll freeze your ass off. Houses in Lisbon aren’t well insulated, something you’ll notice especially if you live in an older building. In winter time, the climate outside is actually nicer than inside. In Portugal people speak about ‘indoor winter’, which may sound a bit funny, but it’s not.
Especially during the rainy season (winter), the humidity can cause a lot of problems, since houses in Lisbon are not really build for so much water. You might deal with water leaking from the ceilings and (worst case scenario) with mold, especially in longer periods with a lot of humidity.
2. The ‘semana-semana’ mentality
You might have heard of the “mañana mañana”-mentality, as people jokingly call the mentality of the Spanish. And as we all know, there’s a grain of truth in every joke ;-). Well, brace yourself, because Portugal on the other hand has a ‘semana-semana’ mentality, which is even worse. In case you don’t know: a ‘semana’ is a week. Sometimes it can be extremely difficult to get things done and make appointments, as we also discuss in the episode. But we’ve also had many good experiences with getting things done, so it might also be a matter of luck. Who knows?
3. Traffic is always stuck
If you want to go from A to B in Lisbon, you’ll better be patient. Although Lisbon isn’t that big, you’ll easily spend about an hour in public transport or in the car during peak hours. The narrow one way streets with the cobble stones make it extremely hard to get around, especially in the centre and older parts like Alfama. Most of the times, it’s even faster to walk or take a scooter – which can also be a challenge in a city with many hills, small stones and crazy traffic, as we also discuss in the episode… 😉
Want to hear more about living in Lisbon?
If you’re curious to know what living in Lisbon is really like: we also made an episode about what we find most annoying about life in Lisbon and about how we deal with Portugal’s cost of living crisis. In this episode we share the whole process of finding an apartment in Lisbon, in case you want to know all about apartment hunting in Lisbon. But despite everything, we absolutely love living in Lisbon and we wouldn’t have it any other way!
