Stuff you should not do as a tourist in Portugal

1. Don’t shout YOU’RE OLD in our faces; the zigzags of life just taught us to be Wise and Experienced

While meandering through Lisbon, Oporto or Faro, and if you’re not being driven around by a tuk-tuk teenager chauffeur you might notice we are a bunch of old folks.

You should refrain from insult our slowly dying hearts and lungs (“…in 2017 the population of the people aged 60 and more was 27.9%, with an estimate to increase in 2050 to 41.7%”, according to the wikidudes).

Some of us won’t even listen or are just too slow to react with our canes and walkers.

Please be civil. We’ve seen to much. Nobody likes a gobermouch and a fopdoodle.

Just go tell the French they stink or something…

2. Don’t go to a shopping mall during weekends

If you really want to get into the hearts and souls of Portuguese people may I recommend you to stay afar from places like Centro Comercial Colombo, Vasco da Gama, AlmadaForum, Oeirasparque, Fórum Sintra, CascaisShopping, ArrábidaShopping, NorteShopping, Gaiashopping, ElCorteInglés Lisboa or Gaia-Oporto, Mar Shopping, AlgarveShopping.

In fact there are only two towns in Portugal where you can walk around and see no tiles of McDonald’s+Primark+FNAC+Zara+NOS (I’ve linked the malls, why going solo when I gave you the orchestra?!) logos sticked onto brick walls: Beja and Portalegre.

Shopping malls in Portugal put our current population of cockroaches in place: more than 3.2 million square metres of our territory are indoor stationery, printing, watches shops or “left handed products for left-handed people” stores.

Don’t visit our malls because they are the exclusive Portuguese way of saying goodbye to a hard week of work, our basic tool for entertaining kids or telling our aging ancient men they can have their last breaths of dignity while staring at escalators.

3. Don’t tip, it’s just embarassing…

I once saw a piece of news talking about the Portuguese mood for tipping. It didn’t last long and it gave this amazing example: Metallica, having lunch at a certain famous restaurant in Lisbon. Their tip? 900Euros.

Luís Figo, the most famous Portuguese footballer before Cristiano Ronaldo, went to the same fancy restaurant. His friendly contribution? One Euro. That’s yī in Chinese. Only the lonely euro. 200.492 ECUs, mate.

Let me tie your hands there Mister. Tip not and be happy!

It’s insulting to us. And, by the way, we most certainly don’t tip when we’re visiting your country so we absolutely don’t or won’t care your pity money.

4. Stop asking stupid questions like…

A) “Who’s your king?” (news flash: we’re not a Monarchy)

B) “When’s Amália singing?” (this just in: she’s?dead)

C))“Uh-la-la, this Jerónimos Monastery, is it in honor of famous Indian Chief Geronimo?” (spoiler alert: it’s?not)

D) “Uh-la-la, Torre dos Clérigos, what a nice building, who built it, the Romans or the Moors?” (“you are the weakest tourist, bye-bye”)

E) “What’s on the other side of the river, Spain?!” or “Is this the river Vasco da Gama?” will grant you bonus points for?dumbness

5. Don’t say “that’s mildy racist…” to a Portuguese cab driver; chances are he might get angry and start shouting Mein Kampf quotes to your wife’s face

Our taxi drivers, contrary to über folks?—?sophisticated and urbane?—?are still stuck somewhere in the 1900s. They say the most crazy, outrageous and mind-boggling stuff.

The most recent example of this?—?RIP Goebbels?—?was, quote, “These white girls today… they’re all into black dudes, I can’t stand this!”.

Lesson learned: it’s better to be late and nicely comforted by über AC and sweets than on time and tired of Alex Jones FM.

6. Stop asking us about fado

All you need to know is here.

7. Don’t go to Mealhada, Trafaria, Ponte de Lima or any other of our hidden culinary gems

These are only accessible to Portuguese folks and we should start asking for IDs on entrance. Our culinary safe havens (for “Leit?o à Bairrada”, awesome seafood or just “Arroz de Sarrabulho”) are Not For Foreign tasting buds yet (cue ghoulish laughter:)

You’re not certified just yet!

8. Don’t walk in the middle of the road, that’s just too Lisboner; don’t use too much slang, that’s exclusive to the citizens of Oporto

You gotta be local but you don’t wanna get cocky. So stay out of truly local costumes such as walking as a lunatic in the middle of the road (sidewalks are overrated, really:) when in Lisbon And talking like a drunken sailor if you’re spending an afternoon in Oporto.

9. Don’t clap when you land on our airports

If you ever flew with TAP or with a Portuguese crowd in other airlines you know what we’re talking about. Portuguese people are among captains’ top rated folks: we just love to clap when pilots do nothing more than their jobs.

Think of it as going to the bakery, ask for some sponge cake and cheer the shit out of the baker.

That’s right, we don’t tip so we have to find other ways to be thankful. It’s harder to think of us as cheap this way, certo? “Ceeeeeeerto.”

Also, our hidden potential might reveal itself through unnecessary and shameless cheerleading.

10. If you’re driving yourself, YELLOW is “gear down” and the horn is “Your mom’s so old she sat behind Jesus in the third grade”

We have Yellow in our national flag for a reason: a reminder of our true love for the stoplight that unleashed our inner Juan Manuel Fangio (or Richard Petty for the American crowd).

In fact, our national flag tributes stoplights if you think about it for less than two seconds.

Green is “go ape”, yellow is as aforementioned and red is “s#it, grab the balls for a moment and first one to honk at the geezer in front of us that doesn’t go light-speed as soon as this turns green eats a bag of penises”.

That’s right, we’re moody…