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I have written this before, and I fear that I will have to repeat myself in the future on various occasions, but living and working in this sunny country remains an unbelievable challenge. Was it Alexandre Dumas, the famous French writer, who once said that Africa starts at the Pyrenées? Spain has changed, that’s for sure, but I am not certain that this is the case for Portugal. European economists fear that the crises that started in Greece a couple of weeks ago, will now come to the Iberian peninsula, and especially to Portugal. With the mentality of the Portuguese people, and especially, the Portuguese politicians than run the government, this does not come as a surprise to me at all!

What happened? A couple of months ago, I discovered a new product, a sort of dietary supplement that contains Resveratrol, Açai, Pomegranate, Green Tea, Grapeseed and Aloe Vera. According to what I heard and read about this product, it would be wonderful. I started taking it sometime in November of last year, and I couldn’t believe the results I was feeling after having been on this product for only ten days or so… Yes, I love it, it tastes fine and it makes me feel absolutely incredibly amazingly unbelievably fabulous !!!

So, early January, I ordered two boxes online, directly from the manufacturor in the USA. The total value was only US $ 40,00 and they charged me US $ 47,52 for shipping and handling. The order was sent by FedEx to Portugal, but to my big surprise, the manufacturor in the USA called me a couple of weeks later, telling me that FedEx had returned the order because they had problems with my address, phone number and e-mail address. I immediately contacted FedEx in order to find out what had happened. Apparently, that company does not phone any mobile numbers (because too expensive???), but decided to try to contact me on my fax number. No, they never sent a fax, the phoned the number, and were pretty surprised that there was no answer. Then they sent an e-mail to a non-existing e-mail address (only God knows how they got to that address), and then they returned the products back to the USA.

The American company then sent the products through DHL. And earlier this morning, DHL contacted me, to notify that I have to pay an extra € 79 and some eurocents for VAT and import taxes!!! Believe it or not, the total value of the products I have ordered was US $ 40,00 (which is more or less € 25,00), and on this small amount, I have to pay an extra € 79,00 for taxes!

DHL told me they are going to deliver the package, maybe tomorrow, maybe on Monday, maybe on Wednesday. I asked the DHL lady to give me a call about one hour in advance on my cellphone, so I could be at home by the time they come to deliver the goods. The lady told me that was not possible. If there is nobody at home, they will leave a note, to notify me they will have been here and that nobody was there to accept the package. Then they will wait until I contact them, and then they will come back!

This same thing happened a couple of months ago as well. I remember that I could not find any sign of a contact telephone number on that note they left behind at that time. A simple phone call to my cellphone number could avoid a lot of hassle. But apparently, these large companies can’t communicate in a normal way anymore.

In those big companies, the art of communication was left behind somewhere in the past century.

But I am anxious to receive my new pack of products. Next time, I am not going to order the products online anymore. I am going to jump on a plane, fly to Florida, and get a full years supply of products directly from the manufacturor. And I might have a couple of drinks in Orlando’s Church Street Station. I come to think of it, I haven’t been there in quite a while. And above all, this will be cheaper than relying on incapable transportation companies that have to charge far too much money in taxes by an incapable government.

And I must admit, I won’t care if in this case, Portugal looses some (an insane lot of) money in taxes. This can only happen in Africa. So yes, Portugal must be the most northern African country!

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