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The wild nature provides besides vast spaces full of green, an untamed beach culture that still seems to escape the greedy thought of profit and displays the audiovisual backdrop of an ocean so vast it separates continents. It is a good place to escape to, and a great place to call home. A lot of us folks that are lost come here to find, some of us manage to stay beyond the honeymoon of summer and many return back to where they came from or find new Shangri-la's. The expat community is made up by people who appreciate the climate, surfers that follow their love of the waves. Hippies that enjoy the possibility to openly hide and then us, The 'for other reasons'. I like to lovingly call this place 'The asshole of Europe', where people that have tried the more exotic versions and deemed them to complicated end up, since the next step towards further takes you straight to the welcoming arms of US immigration. The circle of expats I know here are an unruly bunch, weary of the world and society at large but with a youthful spark coupled with the kind of broken down maturity that many of us outsiders enjoy. A very colorful eclectic community. Circumstances here are not the optimal, Portugal has been hit hard by crisis and poorly managed governing. People still carry the bitter taste of a recent dictatorship and it seems to have robbed them of some of their confidence. Economy is harsh, bureaucracy complicated to say the least and the more commercial aspect of distractions are sparse. Practical life here is very often a struggle. So why do I stay, why is it still my beloved home? Well after circling this globe in search for adventure, freedom and Love I know that wherever I go there I Am, and this little corner of the world provides me with sanctuary, enough struggle so that I truly value what is. A beautiful spacious environment that allows me to breathe a little deeper and to every day see the ocean and look beyond the horizon. It's after all a very good place to Be.