A quarter of a year.
That’s how long we’ve been living our new adventure in Portugal. Similar to parenthood, challenges, and life in general, it feels both like it was only yesterday that we boarded that plane and a lifetime ago.
Here’s where we’re at:
Eased into the pace of life here.
There’s countless comments about Americans needing to pack their patience when they move to Portugal. The pace of life, the speed of customer service, etc are all just inherently slower, which we wanted. And have embraced, most of the time. The frantic energy and urgency of literally everything just isn’t here. A lunch at the cafe can be 2 or 3 hours, a cup of coffee and a pastry easily turns into an hour or 2 of conversation with the owners. On the flipside, trying to obtain anything bureaucratic from the government is…an experience. For example: I needed to obtain a Portuguese social security number for tax purposes. I drove 2 hours to the office (because there’s only certain offices that do this service) only to be told I cannot be given one before I’m a resident. But I need the number to prove my income to the government so I can be permitted to be a resident. So they sent me to a different office, where they told me to try online again or to go to a different city. I drove an additional hour to be turned away for not being able to translate items correctly, before finding one last hope at another office in town where they were incredibly kind and helpful and took care of everything. I think. I was told I would get a letter in the mail with the number within 10 days…and that was several weeks ago, so who knows.
Aside from anything government related though? A slow life is lovely.
Getting ready for another move. For what it’s worth, 3 months in 5 months is way too many.
We were required to show a 12 month lease when we applied for our visas, which meant the lease started months before we even arrived. So we always knew this house would be just a landing place, somewhere to stay while we got our bearings, while we figured out what we thought we might want/need in the next few years. We didn’t really expect to move again quite this soon, but the opportunity arose and we took it. We’ll be in our new rental by Christmas, and are excited to (hopefully) not have to move again anytime soon. The kids are both sick of moving around (SAME), but are looking forward to the new space. I’m just excited that there’s 2 bathrooms again after the 4 of us sharing a single bathroom since June. 0/10 do not recommend this many people sharing a single bathroom.
The grief is still present, but not as heavy. At least, not every day.
We’re all finding our new routines, places that feel comfortable and familiar, and starting to build friendships. The sadness, loneliness, and homesickness isn’t quite as ever present as it was the first month. It does still have a way of swelling up when you’re not paying attention, and you might find yourself crying for hours and sending a bunch of voice notes to friends telling them you miss them. Video calls and texts help, but it’s just not the same.
Adjustment to new roles.
Before we moved, Jon wasn’t able to be part of most of our activities. He worked Monday through Friday, was out of the house from 8am-5pm, and immediately had to help get the kids ready for dinner, bed, etc. Weekends were for relaxing for him, since he didn’t get a break during the week. And there wasn’t really an option to adjust— we needed him to keep that job because it came with good health insurance, and we needed the salary to cover bills.
For me, I was homeschooling the kids 4 mornings a week, running a homeschool co op once a week (not to mention the amount of hours I spent with the admin side outside of the actual meetup), and running my practice 3 days a week. I had no time for hobbies, unless I was able to roll myself out of bed at 4am to go for a run before Jon left for work. I didn’t realize how exhausting it all was, until it changed.
The kids enjoyed plenty of free time and play. They had their daily and weekly chores, school work to complete each day, co op to attend, and lots of time with Grandma. There was running around to extracurriculars like ninja warrior classes, archery classes, and a million hours spent with friends.
But here? Everything has changed. Jon now runs the household (groceries, laundry, cooking, cleaning, taking the kids to/from school, etc) while I run my businesses and work so that when I’m off and the kids are home, I can enjoy that time with them. I still miss being part of their learning, having them around so much, but I also love that I have free time for hobbies and relaxing and exploring while the time I do have with them is just about hanging out rather than squeezing in a lesson or activity. The Oldest is very much enjoying being around other kids every single day, and never wants to skip school. The Youngest is not a fan of book work he does at school each morning, but is doing great with figuring out who he is apart from being a younger sibling.
Adventures & opportunities
We did a ton of day trips and field trips and exploring in Maryland. Museums, zoos, hiking, parks, national parks, you name it and we did it. Here though? The options for adventures are so different. Sure, we can go to the beach. And we have, many times (actually, we prefer the river beaches but still). But because of how old Portugal is, the choices here tend to be just as old: castles, convents and Knights Templar, old districts in cities, Roman ruins. It’s still startling to be driving along, make a turn, and suddenly have a castle or aqueduct looming above us. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that!
Having the kids learn another language was something I’ve wanted for years. I found it so difficult to learn a second language in high school and knew it would be easier for the kids if they still learned one at a younger age. We tried a bunch of different things at home, like language learning apps, family language systems like talkbox.mom, I even tried to hire tutors to teach another language at co op, but none of them really did much. I dreamed about worldschooling where the kids could be immersed in another language for a month or so at a time, to experience different cultures, to see just how big (and small) the world is. Turns out, all we had to do was move abroad. Portugese is HARD. My brain is fried every time I have a lesson and try to conjugate verbs (why are there sooo many irregular verbs!?). But, the kids are doing great with it. It’s exhausting for them at school because they’re constantly navigating the language differences and learning it, but it’s going much better for them than it is for us! They’re quite excited knowing they’ll be fluent before we are…and will be able to have conversations that we can’t understand!
So that’s where we are, a fourth of a year later. Lots of ups and downs, and still grateful for it every day.