I came to Portugal in 2011 knowing nothing about Portugal except that there would be sun and ocean.

“It is good to come to a country you know practically nothing about. Your thoughts grow still, useless. … In a country you know nothing about, there is no reference point. You struggle to associate colors, smells, dim memories. You live a little like a child, or an animal.”
​— Andrzej Stasiuk

I have a vivid memory of me saying to everyone that my first year in Portugal was the best time of my life. Now I don’t remember all that I did, but I remember how I felt: carefree, happy, in love. For a long time, and ever since my adolescence, I considered myself an existentialist (luckily, that’s not the case anymore; maybe I’ll write another post why I see it as “luckily”). Philosophy had me living on the more pessimistic side, as if being an adolescent is not already twisted enough. Then one day my mom died, then I rambled through life, running away from feeling the trauma, and I finally arrived in Portugal when I allowed myself to acknowledge the sadness and be happy again. The fact that I didn’t know anything about Portugal before coming here was a bless and a bliss. It allowed me to discover everything at my own pace, everything for the first time, without doing any previous research. As if I had just arrived to the world, again. It allowed me to “live a little like a child, or an animal”. I recommend it, it’s a gift only you can give yourself.