Neither here nor there

......I wonder where is the place for me in the world......

One year I am in Portugal and I still don't get the way of doing things in this country. Procrastinating is a world that must not exist here, as it is such a common attitude that here it would lose its meaning....yeah, yeah, I know, I generalize too much.......The thing is. I am sure that there are exceptions to the general trend, but my experience living in this country for a year already shows me that I can't expect anything to happen in a reasonable time.

Three things I noticed in a year and that people who visited me got (all of them) noticed in a matter of just a couple of days.

- Service here generally sucks. Portuguese people are nice, no doubts about that. However, it seems that selling you something, serving you or whatever other interactions especially including food service could not happen in what I consider a normal service....no, instead either the person serving you does not even pay any attention to you for a randomly but generally quite long time span or if he/she does, you can bet that it will be a rather unfriendly exchange, like if they are doing a favor in serving you....no matter if I am actually paying for the service.
So, up to now this is an example of things that happened to me (and this is not a complete and extensive list, but just a few examples):

- At a restaurant, the waiter left me waiting until a soccer game action was over to get my order
- At a restaurant, my friend and me were left unattended because the waitress owner left and none else was in the restaurant except us and another customer.
- At a restaurant, the waiter shoveled the plate with the food to a friend of mine, so that most of the olives that were in the plate ended up on his pants, on the floor, or on the table.
- At a restaurant, the waiter kept smiling at us for long time before actually come to get out order, when it was clear that we were ready and she was not really busy.
- At a restaurant, the owner/waitress would not bring us the bill because she was too busy eating (and this not at the end of the service, but in the middle of opening hours).
- At a restaurant, the chef, waiters, and waitresses would sit at the table to eat when we were still there and would have liked to leave....but since everyone was eating at a table next to us, they couldn't stop to bring us the bill.
- At a cafe', we had to wait 15 minutes even if the cafe' was almost empty before someone would come to ask us what we wanted....and this after we got told 15 minutes before to sit that someone would have come (of course....they didn't specify when they would have come).
- In my apartment, I still have water on my kitchen floor every time it rains.....today I had to stay at home another day and work from home to wait someone who was supposed to come to look at the problem....only, as always none showed up and my landlord not only didn't call to tell me something, but he also didn't reply to my calls. I have no idea how many days of work I have already lost staying at home waiting for someone to show up.
- At work, my student has the philosophy that either something can be done quickly, no matter how badly it is done, otherwise we could do it together so that she could do something better with her time.

I feel that in this country, respect of other people time must be a very fuzzy concept.....
Now, considering my very organized mind and way of doing things and my kinda-of-German mentality, I can't stop struggling and being frustrated all the time.

And it seems that it doesn't matter what I can do....nothing change, nor if I try to solve things nicely, nor if I get angry. Nothing.

Too bad it is a lovely country and I love the place where I live, because otherwise I would have already had a break down.

On the other hand, I am applying for plenty of jobs in the USA, where my boyfriend is and where there are more job opportunities. Unfortunately, the fact of not being American and not having presently a working VISA in the USA, makes any of my application becoming a nightmare, as I have to keep sending email to ask if I can actually apply to the position and my application will be considered or as I am currently an "alien" I cannot even dream of getting a job in the USA.........

The older I get, the more I get the impression that I should just stop caring about things and try to abuse of any system I am in and not even bother trying to do things in a proper and efficient way, because most of the times the only one getting completely frustrated is just me.............................

The art of effectively protesting

I love my native country, Italy.....but there are things about Italy and Italians that I don't understand.

In this moment of deep economic crisis, in every European country facing more strongly the crisis, Portugal, Spain, Greece, there are massive protests, with an incredible amount of people of every age participating to it. In Spain and Greece the massive protests against the measures proposing large cut in public sectors like health or education were even violent. Maybe these protests will not help or change anything, but it is the only power that a normal citizen has to complain about decisions of the government that we didn't agree with.

And what about Italy?

Every single day, I get news from Italy about friends or family losing their jobs or having problems to get to the end of the month.....and yet, not longer than five-six days ago hundred of people waited in long cues in the major Italian cities to buy the new iPhone, l'iPhone 5 the price of which in Italy almost reaches 1000 euros!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1000 EUROS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and the most impressive thing is that the people waiting in line for hours to get this iPhone were young people, under the age of 30......how can they afford it??? I don't believe that all these people are either selling drugs or their bodies to make money to buy these gadgets......

It just doesn't make sense.....as it doesn't make sense that in my home town little family run shops are closing one after the other, because they cannot afford the expensive rents with the low income that they make now. And yet, beauty centers do not feel the effect of the crisis.....When I was in my home town this summer, I spoke to a friend of mine working in a beauty center and she told me that this last year they sold more beauty packages (expensive beauty packages) than any of the previous years....

my question is.....in a moment of economic crisis, I understand to keep the market running and flowing, but wouldn't you limit your expenses saving on things like going to a beauty center??? It is good keep spending money to not stall the market.....but still.....

maybe because for me these are not necessary things.....

In any case, today I read on the Italian news that high school students protested on the streets of Milano and Roma........high school students??? most of them will be under 18....I don't want to diminish their impact and the value of their protests, but I have been an high school student too and these protests were always at the beginning of the semester and at the end of the semester, when the desire to go to school was almost zero and any excuse to spend the time doing something else was good......

I would really suggest to Italians that if we really want to learn how to effectively protest and do a strike, we should attend a couple of protests and strikes in France and then maybe we will effectively manage to send a strong message of disappointment and disagreement to the govern.