I never wanted to live in Portugal.
In fact, I so never wanted to live in Portugal that I never considered it as a real option. Being a Portuguese citizen, I'd visited many times with my family. The last time I was here, was in 1998 during World Expo. It was my first venture out into the world and I had a great time.
But I'd grown up with immigrants stories of Portugal, Mozambique and Angola and how awful the wars were and how poor Portugal was after having been such a mighty nation and how socialism was keeping it poor and how bureaucracy was killing progress and so on and so forth and all the rest of it. My impressions of Portugal, although memorable as a vacation, inspired little less than that. Whatever the reasons were why Portugal was undesirable to my parents and our friends, it was deeply personal to them and it influenced how I thought of Portugal. Of course, some things were absolutely true, like the bureaucracy for one. I was just not interested in dealing with that. At all... and yet, here I am.
So let me tell you how it all started, so that for nothing other than posterity and context, you understand why we're here. And like all interesting stories, this one begins with a death in the family.
We were living in Canada when we heard of the sudden death of my grandmother in 2009, on my mom's side. For a couple years before her passing, I'd wanted quite badly to go visit her and spend some time gaining some historical insight into our family's history. Unfortunately, that never happened. She left all she had to her son, my uncle, and her daughter, my mom. She had a little flat in a little neighbourhood in Lisbon and before anyone thought of doing anything with it, I asked Bridget if she would consider buying it to have a little place in Portugal to go visit. As is my wife's customary answer, "we don't have money for that." So I let it go.
The last time I saw my Vovo Graciana (grand-ma Graciana) was just before Bridget and I left South Africa. Fortunately, Bridget had a chance to meet her.
Soon after that, my other grandmother passed away in 2013 and that was a blow to me again because now, a part of my ancestry and it's history had been lost forever. A little while later, her house came up in conversation. The very house our family would go to when on vacation in Portugal. Again, I asked if it would be a good investment and to keep it in the family. And as is my wife's customary... you know where I'm going with this.
The idea to visit and see Portugal as a mature adult had started forming in my head and soon in my wife's head. It would still be many years before we'd actually decide to move here. But that's where I trace the inception of the idea back to.
One day, while I was working at home (during COVID) I stumbled across a travel YouTube channel where the host was doing a road trip from the north of Portugal to the south of Portugal. I found it fascinating because it was presented in a way that I'd never seen before. By the time the video ended I had been introduced to the beauty of Portugal in a new way and I couldn't get it out of my head. There began the search to know more about Portugal.
During that search we came across another video by 'Anton Somewhere' that he did of the Azores and that really piqued our curiosity. It was so beautiful. In Winter on top of that. Even though not mainland Portugal, the absolute beauty of the islands and the access that was possible living in Portugal had us hooked.
By the time 2021 rolled by, my mom had sold her mothers flat and only my dad's mom's house was still looking for a buyer. I started to entertain this idea of buying and renovating it to live in, until I asked my wife what she thought. And as is my wife's customary answer, she replied; "It rains too much in Aveiro." But I didn't feel despondent. At this point, I knew she would entertain the idea. So, I asked, "would you like to live in Portugal?" almost just to hear her customary answer again; "let's get some more info about living in Portugal."
SIDEBAR: My wife has many customary answers. You will learn of them.
Finally, by February 2022, we decided that we were moving to Portugal and we started to put a plan in motion.
To be clear, we had actually wanted to move somewhere else that was a little warmer for some time. We were looking at moving to one of the Gulf islands off the coast of Vancouver, Salt Spring Island. But then when the idea that we had an in into Europe via Portugal, we started to compare the two options. Living in the Gulf islands would be great, but we'd still be in the same boat financially, if not worse, just to get a smaller version of what we already had. The more we compared, the more attractive Portugal became. Obviously, making a move this big is more complex than what I've outlined here. But maybe we'll tackle those things on a sunnier day.
Just over a year later, we'd sold everything, including our wonderful home we'd spent so much time, money and love on. We left Canada in June of 2023 and immigrated to a new country. Again.
And now you're all caught up... almost.
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