Bizarro World

It never ceases to amaze me the amount of things that go on in this country I live in. Things that anyone with even minimal intelligence would find comical. I mean, ok, yes this country spent 46 years in a dictatorship and yes there are still many people here who lack the education most others take for granted, but still, you have to be kidding me.

Case #1: Giving students the right to strike
This was the first thing I came across when I first moved to Portugal in 1991. Under Portuguese legislation, students from grade 9 and higher actually have the right to strike and protest. These strikes are pre-approved by the student councils of the respective schools and the teaches CAN NOT mark you absent on a scheduled strike day. Basically, you get extra days off granted by the elected student body.

Ok, that's already a bit weird, but not nearly as weird as to WHY many of them strike in the first place. When I was in high school, we "striked" about final exams and imposing tuitions for college. You know, things you are normally used to in the US and Canada. Hell, today, there are high school students striking because they are against a new law that allows for the creation of a "parallel group" of teachers that were on call for whenever a regular teacher was sick.

That's right, they were protesting against SUBSTITUTE TEACHERS! See, up until now, if the teacher was sick, there was no substitute teacher. Hell, there wasn't even a class. You were given that hour off which was dubbed a "furo" or hole. The argument the kids have: "it makes no sense to sub a history teacher with a gym teacher". Hey kids, you have books and homework, DO THAT while the teacher is sick.

Case #2: Highly restrictive rental laws
This is another archaic policy in this country. Ok, you're an owner of an apartment and you decide to rent it out. Well, if you rent it out to someone, you have to BY LAW offer them 3 consecutive leases and, after each lease is over and you decide to sell the apartment, you HAVE to propose sale of such FIRST to the current tenants.

But, as the old cheesy 80's ad goes: "But wait! There's more!". See, aside from being bound and gagged by these clownish leases, you also are bound by a strict rent that CAN'T be adjusted at will. You are allowed to raise rent by a government-established percentage, which never really goes over 5%. So, what does that mean? It means that, in an old apartment building, while tenant A, who recently moved in, is paying $700/month rent, tenant B, who moved in when Eisenhower was president of the US, is paying $100/month. Yes, there does exist such cases.

Screw it! When I want to rent out my place, I'm renting it to US Air Force personell. They're here for 1.5 to 2 years tops and have no intention of buying the place. Why risk otherwise?

Case #3: Buying a used car is very "easy"
This one just borders on blatant stupidity. Ok, so you're in the market for a used car (which the market is flooded with now, by the way, thanks to dirt cheap financing offered by new car dealerships). You go to a used car lot and find the car you like. Hell, you can go in, say you want a certain car and drive it off the lot in the same day.

Oh, wait a sec, there's something wrong there you ask? Well, see these guys don't care if you have the money on you right there or if the car is insured or not or even if the car is in your name. See, they'll worry about it later on. It works on a "trust system" here where they trust you to go back and take care of everything. So, what happens? You end up having cases of cars switching hands many times but it still being in the name of the original owner. Yeah, real nice system.

This happened to my folks already. They sold the car they brought over from the states in 1994. Simple enough. But 2 years later, a guy comes to their house asking them to sign a "buy/sell contract" for the car. Huh? But they sold the car to someone else in '94. Well, it seems said guy never transferred the title to his name and it changed hand 3 times until such happened. My parents went as far as asking the cops to impound the car until the title was finally transferred (which happened about 24 hours after that happened. People get nervous when they see their car being hitched to a Police tow truck).

Yes, these are just 3 of the things that happen here. But I've grown acustom to these things over time. Key is to not let it get to you and know how to work around it. People who are used to a certain routine most of their lives aren't going to change if you tell them too, so why try? In exchange, I got 11 years of comfort in a small island.

So bizarro or not, it's not too bad of a tradeoff :)