For those who have followed along on our journey of moving from the United States to living in Portugal, you may be just as surprised as we are to hear that it’s been three years.
One thing you may not know is that we arrived on 25 Abril Portugal, or the 25 of April. The revolution that took place in 1974 ended the dictatorship and started democracy in Portugal. This year is the 50th Anniversary of what is called the Carnation Revolution. Almost no shots were fired during this military coup. The story goes that a restaurant worker, Celeste Caeiro, offered carnations to soldiers when the people took to the streets.
She took the restaurant’s flowers to start what would become the tradition of red carnations representing Freedom Day. This is an official Portuguese holiday that is celebrated throughout the country and the world. Many parades, festivities, and gatherings are planned.
Now we celebrate this day along with the Portuguese as our “Freedom Day.” We have our red carnations and are ready for the big day.
If you’d like to learn more about Freedom Day check out this BBC podcast that’s in English and includes sound clips from April 25, 1974.
What We Have Learned Living in Portugal
We Are Grateful
We made it through A1/A2 language school. This is a requirement for Portuguese citizenship, which we can apply for in another two years. This was a HUGE deal for us. I’ve never learned another language and I’m also a horrible student (of course the teacher is). But I bucked up and made a commitment to myself to pass the class. Diana had a much easier time of it but we both made it through. We definitely celebrated with a few cocktails. We would still highly recommend Portuguese with Carla to get started and to supplement your Portuguese learning.
We’ve also made more Portuguese friends and learned a lot more about the culture and history. We purchase Portuguese products and have become acclimated to our new place.
Our Safe Home
We continue to feel safe and secure in our home and in Portugal. Although Portugal is not crime-free, violent crime is very low and guns are not a part of the culture. They are used for hunting and police. That’s it.
Our Abundance
We count our blessings every day. Our lives are filled with many friends from all over the world who have come to Portugal to create new lives. Our table is often full of friends who are Portuguese, Brazilian, Angolan, Irish, British, French, and others. We continue to learn about cultures over food and drink.
We know that we are privileged to have had the opportunity to choose to move here and enjoy the freedom to live where we wish to.
Living A Portuguese Mediterranean Lifestyle
We’re In Charge
Over the last year, we’ve made positive healthy lifestyle changes. We’re both in our 60s and want to be sure that we can continue to move about and be healthy. We’ve both lost weight. Walking 4-5 miles (6-8 kilometers, that sounds like so much more, right?) every day and following a Mediterranean lifestyle and diet. I hesitate to use the word “diet.” We now eat red meat 1-2 times a month. We eat lots of fresh veggies and fruit and watch our quantities.
That doesn’t mean we won’t splurge now and again. Especially while on a European Waterways French barge cruise in Burgundy France that’s for sure! And we enjoyed every morsel.
We’re also focusing on what we’d like to do more. Diana has been helping people with her hypnosis and coaching skills and is writing a novel with her Dad. I’ve been gardening on our veranda and making time to draw and paint. We have found if we don’t earmark time to do the things we love we just don’t do it. Portugal does have a slower pace but sometimes our American brains still strive to get the most work done out of each day. Being purposeful about how we spend our time has made a big difference.
Community Minded
Part of the Mediterranean Lifestyle is being social. If you know us, you know that’s not difficult for us. However, if you’re an entrepreneur, you also know it’s sometimes difficult to juggle work and your social life. Most of us tend to be a little obsessive with work. We have made it a priority to get out with friends, and schoolmates. It’s also important to us to take the time to participate in community events and do what we can to help in our piece of the world.
After a fire raged through a forest in a nearby town we hosted a fund-raiser for our local volunteer firemen (bombeiros). It’s important to us to give back to the community that gives us so much every day.
Getting Outside More
Another challenge with working for yourself is making sure you get up and away from the many screens we need to look at most days. We committed to our walking to get out every day. This includes taking more drives and exploring new neighborhoods and regions of Portugal.
Even if we went to someplace new every weekend it would take us years to see all there is to see in Portugal.
Mindful Travel
Just Beginning To Discover Portugal & Europe
We imagined that life in Portugal would make it easier for us to see more of Europe. We have been able to travel to France, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Greece, the Netherlands, and many parts of Portugal since moving to Portugal.
Family and friends have visited and more will be here soon. We just love showing off our adopted home taking them to all our favorite places and discovering new ones with them too.
We’ve traveled with friends here in Portugal and to other spots in Europe. We look forward to doing more of that in the future.
We are speaking at the TBEX Conference in San Sebastian, Spain in late May. Living in Portugal makes it easy to turn this opportunity into a road trip. We are planning to make stops in Bilbao, Salamanca, and many other smaller towns on our trip. We are continuing to look for places that are unique, less traveled to, and have great food.
What Lies Ahead?
It may seem like we have sugar-coated our experience here. We sure don’t intend to. As we’ve said before, Portuguese bureaucracy is enough to send many people back to the U.S. It’s not for the faint of heart. Real estate and rent prices have risen. Portugal never was a “super cheap” place to live but that didn’t stop many people trying to move here under the pretense that it is.
Food, utilities, and the general cost of living have gone up in Portugal as they have around the world. If you’re considering a move to Portugal PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do your homework. Way too many people rely on random information from people who are not experts and find themselves in a difficult if not impossible situation.
Portugal is a wonderful place to live. If you make the move you must be willing to assimilate into the culture. Going to the corner cafe for a bica instead of heading to Starbucks (although much to our dismay, there is a Starbucks in Cascais now). Stand in a line and wait your turn patiently. Shrug and say ok, when a doctor walks up to you in the waiting room and says, “I can’t see you today let’s make another appointment” (at least he said it with a smile). It’s an old saying but you do need to go with the flow. Take a deep breath and know typically everything is going to be ok.
Our hope is that we live in Portugal fo another two year and apply for our citizenship. In the meantime, we’ll keep sharing our stories and living the best lives that we can.
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