Reddit mentions of Speak Portuguese: Michel Thomas Method (For Beginners) (Portuguese Edition)

Adding to what's been said,

• It's a great time for you to come, since the euro just sank with respect to the dollar. Everything will be much cheaper for you than it'd have been, say a year ago.
  
  
• You're not expected to tip as you do in the US. Locals either don't tip at all or just round the price up and let them keep the change. Unless they really want to show gratitude for some particular reason. That said if you do want to tip some 20% and put a big smile on people's faces, hey go for it.
  
  
• If you don't mind carrying your luggage from the airport when you arrive, the cheapest option is to take the subway to the centre.
  
  
• Uber is now available in Lisbon. Both the expensive UberBlack and the cheap UberX. It's also available in Porto.
  
  
• There's also a mobile Taxi application that covers Lisbon and a few other cities. It's called Meo Taxi.
  
  
  
• Mobile payment systems aren't big in Portugal yet. In any case you have MeoWallet available for both Android and iPhone. It is slowly making its way particularly in Lisbon. Here's a list of businesses that accept it. Note that you can use PayPal from MeoWallet, aside from credit card, or a regular top up via transfer. There's a new competitor around (SEQR), but not sure how much they cover.
  
  
• Quite a few banks in Portugal support transfers via MoneyGram. That may turn out useful.
  
  
• The most popular classifieds website in Portugal is OLX. The interface is rather shitty to be honest, compared with sites like Gumtree available abroad. But it does the job.
  
  
• In Observador, one of the newest and most popular online newsites in Portugal, the opinion column by Lucy Pepper is written in both Portuguese and English. Just click her articles and scroll down for the English version.
  
  
• The pirate bay has just been blocked, as were a bunch of mirrors. Either use any other among the gazillion torrent sites available, or some TPB mirror that hasn't been blocked, or switch to OpenDNS or Googles Public DNS, or install some chrome extension, or use a VPN.
  
  
• I'm not big on drinks and drugs, but as you probably know already, the drinking age is 18 years old, and drug consumption is decriminalised (meaning if you're holding a small amount for consumption that's fine). Don't want to sound like a dad but, whatever you do, do it responsibly though.
  
  
• You should go see the gorgeous Palace of Pena (Palácio da Pena), in Sintra, which is next to Lisbon. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And just recently considered the most beautiful castle in Europe by 'European Best Destinations'.
  
  
  
• A road trip down the coast, to see beaches and little towns of Alentejo and Algarve may be totally worth it. Particularly some of the less touristy sites.
  
  
• Everyone drives a gear stick in Portugal (or Europe for that matter). If you need to rent an automatic may be sure to specify it.
  
  
  
• The Portuguese language is 5th in terms of number of native speakers, and 8th in total number of speakers. And Portuguese, Spanish and English are the 3 european languages whose number of speakers is growing.
  
  
• If you want to dabble in European Portuguese before moving over, the Michel Thomas Beginners Portuguese may be a good choice. You can buy it or... er... stumble over it on the interwebs. The focus of the Thomas method is on spoken rather than written language. It gets you to understand basics quickly.