The North Wind Blew

A Quick Introduction

The text below is an updated version of a note we emailed to friends and family between early April and mid-June, 2021. We put a version on Facebook in late June, after we moved, to connect with folks we might have missed. The note has gone through several iterations, but the basic story is unchanged. We’re posting it here on The Cook and The Writer so that the “origin story” of our move is captured. I’ve added a few details, and the element of surprise is gone – if you’re reading this here, you probably already know we moved to Portugal.

But it’s a good tale. Over time, we will add some other posts that give additional detail about how we we progressed with the planning and execution of the move.

When we sent the emails, we said we had a message to deliver that was in two parts.

Part One

On Tuesday, April 6, 2021, we put our house on the market.  Over three days we had nearly 40 showings.  There was so much traffic that we had to check into a hotel to get out of the way. At various times during the three days there were up to five groups touring the house at once. Our neighbors told us it looked like a circus, with the driveway full of cars and people parking on the road in front of the house.

We were fortunate to be selling a house at a time when there were almost no other properties on the market. Several of our friends in the real estate business told us that the market was “hot”. They were right. By Thursday evening, we had received eight offers – all but one at more than the asking price. We accepted one around 8 pm.

We did in three days what I thought would take two months.  Mike said It was the first time in his life that he overestimated how long something would take.

We had lived at “Second Act Farm” for 9 years.  During that time we had done a complete renovation of the house that included demolishing the front third and building on a new addition. We worked with a local architect to design a space that was uniquely ours. Large windows in the living area were oriented to look out over neighboring fields and a wide porch gave us a place to catch the evening breeze. It was a house designed for entertaining, and we hosted a number of memorable meals and holiday gatherings with family and friends.

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We hired a local contractor to do the major construction and then, over eight years, we did the majority of the interior finish work ourselves. We hung doors, installed baseboards and trim, painted, and hung kitchen cabinets. Mike built a 12 foot long island in the kitchen. We had a huge pantry for Mary to store appliances and ingredients. Mike used half of the two car garage for a shop and filled it with tools.

We were on six acres, with a barn, an extra shed and a chicken house. We raised organic vegetables and a variety of poultry over the years – mostly laying hens, but also a few turkeys, ducks, and one incredibly messy flock of meat chickens.

It was a one-of-a-kind house on a country lot close to town. It was an incredible amount of work, but it suited us perfectly.

Until it was time to move on.

Part Two

People who have known us for awhile probably know we are gypsies at heart.  In Mary’s favorite movie, “Chocolat”, when the main character feels the north wind blowing, she knows it’s time to move on. 

In 2020, as we quarantined at home, we felt our own north wind. 

We have had a lifelong dream to live outside the US.  If the pandemic had not happened, we would have been traveling or living abroad much earlier. But while we quarantined, we spent time researching our options and over the winter made a decision to pursue our dream.

We decided to move to Portugal.  

Getting Ready

The first big hurdle to making the move was getting a temporary visa from Portugal. At that time, all of Europe was closed to Americans because of the pandemic. But people with a visa could enter the country. It took us a couple months to collect all the documents we needed for the visa application. We needed criminal background checks from the FBI. We had to apply for “NIFs” – the Numero de Identificacao Fiscal number used by everyone in Portugal. We had to open a Portuguese bank account and transfer money. And we had to arrange for a place to live for at least 6 months while we applied for temporary residency.

Most of this required multiple phone calls, emails, and Zoom calls. We tried to work through it in an organized way, using a project plan that I created and a poster-sized calendar that Mary made. (We are both obsessive planners, we just work in different mediums.)

In early April we submitted our visa applications to the Portuguese embassy in Washington, DC.  Their standard processing time for approval is 60 days.  They approved ours in 10!  (This was the second time Mike overestimated!). 

So between selling the house and getting visa approvals, we took almost 3 1/2 months out of Mike’s carefully crafted project plan. As a result, we worked like mad every day until we drove away from the house.  We sold or gave away almost everything we owned. It was a stressful but truly liberating experience!  A few boxes of mementos got stored in our daughters’ basements.  Mary digitized a lifetime of photos and Mike scanned hundreds of documents. 

We sweated the seemingly ever-changing logistical details of getting the two of us and Sox, our Boston Terrier, to Portugal.  Despite our careful planning, some of the details were in flux up until the last week we were in the US. (There’s another post or two to come about the logistics and moving the dog.)

On Our Way – Finally!

We drove away from our house for the last time on Sunday morning, June 6 and spent almost two weeks visiting friends and family. Our friends Rosa and Sherod put us up in their guest house outside Selma, Alabama for five days. That gave us a chance to almost catch our breath. Then we drove back to Indianapolis and stayed in a condo owned by other friends, Ann and Alan. We enjoyed a family reunion and several dinners with friends as we counted down the days. We retrieved some luggage that our friends Jayne and Charlie had allowed us to store at their house.

And then it was time to go.

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On June 18 we loaded everything into a rented SUV and left Indianapolis. Our first stop was Washington, DC, where we got rapid COVID tests done the next morning. We had to have test results in hand to board our plane, and they had to be valid within 72 hours of arriving in Portugal.

Then we drove up the corridor from Washington to New York City, slowly and in the rain, and on to Boston. Travel tip: Never, ever do this!

On Sunday, June 20, we handed Sox over to a pet relocation company that was handling her flights. One of the last-minute changes was to her schedule. Instead of leaving at the same time as we did, she would fly a day early to Frankfurt, Germany and spend time in the Lufthansa “Animal Lounge”.

The next afternoon we flew from Boston to Frankfurt overnight. After a 2 ½ hour layover, we took another flight to Porto, Portugal, in the north of the country. Sox was in the cargo hold on that flight. We arrived in Porto around noon, but it took until nearly 4pm to get Sox sprung from the cargo area. By the time we got to our apartment and carried in all our stuff, we were frazzled, jet-lagged, and very happy to be in our new home!

Where We Are Now

We are slowly, slowly learning Portuguese.

So far, we’ve had lovely weather – some days up into the 80’s (or the high 20’s, if you follow Mary’s post on Celsius).  Most days are in the 70’s / low 20’s.  We can keep the windows open in our apartment day and night and enjoy a nice breeze most of the day. We haven’t had any rain, except a few overnight showers, though that will change as we get into winter.

In another couple weeks we have an appointment with the Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras, the Portuguese Foreigner and Borders Service. At that time we will formally apply for temporary residency.  If all goes according to plan, in five years we will become permanent residents, but will retain our US citizenship. 

Our lease in Porto runs out in January. After that, who knows?  Mary is already investigating apartments in Lisbon, and the Algarve region at the southern coast looks appealing.

We’ll just have to see which way the north wind blows.

With best regards / Com os melhores cumprimentos,    

Mary and Mike

The Cook and The Writer

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PS

Before we moved, several of our friends asked if we would be writing about our experiences.  That was the inspiration for reactivating The Cook and The Writer.  We’re using it as our method for keeping you up-to-date on what we’re doing.  Mary and I each have a growing list of topics we want to write about.  If you’re interested in seeing future updates, please subscribe and we’ll send an email whenever a new post is published.  We only want to send these updates to folks who are interested – we’re not spammers!

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PPS

What adventures are you contemplating? Tell us about it in the comments below or via the Contact Form. We’ll cheer you on!

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