It’s been three weeks since I’ve moved to Portugal with Julie, and I feel good. My apartment feels livable, and I seem to have found my routine on both keeping in touch with friends and immediate family, getting some irons in the fire on work and advocacy, and figuring out things like laundry and exercise.
Julie and I left the US on September 22, with nine checked bags and our two carryons. We arrived in Lisbon after an overnight flight from Philadelphia, and retrieving all of our luggage off of the belt was probably the most stressful part of the trip. I could not fit all of our luggage onto just two baggage carts, so I wound up taking off my belt in order to strap two luggage carts together. Customs barely raised an eyebrow at the setup, and we were waived through with no questions or inspection.
Our hired transport up to Porto gave us good conversation and advice, warning us about our American accents and my clumsy use of Spanish false cognates. When we arrived he quickly schlepped all of our bags into the apartment for us.
We are living in a 2-bedroom apartment in Matosinhos, on the second floor of a squat, modern condominium. Our street is a mix of residential and light commercial. We are neighbors with other apartment buildings, a co-working space, a daycare, a hair salon, a health club, and a congregational church. We are one block away from a hotel and several restaurants, and two blocks away from a Pingo Doce, a large-ish supermarket.
The sounds of our neighborhood during the day are mostly construction noise. We have construction and construction cranes all around us, with another apartment building going up to one side, and another co-working establishment being built on the other. There are many families with young kids walking in the neighborhood. We’re about three blocks away from the beach, so in the evening, the construction sounds give way to flocks of squawking seabirds, and the strong scent of the ocean, as the westerly winds blow in.
I’ve explained before that Matosinhos is to Porto like Santa Monica is to LA. Matosinhos is a smaller city connected to the bigger city by public transportation, and is very close to the beach and beach culture with a separate identity from the big city. Matosinhos is the heart of Porto’s old fishing culture and maritime industry. We are blocks away from one of the two remaining sardine canneries in Matosinhos. (At the height of Portugal’s sardine canning boom a century ago, Matosinhos was where the action was.) Matosinhos beach is within easy view of the port of Leixões to the north, where we can see huge cargo ships with the cranes unloading or stacking shipping containers.
A short 15-minute walk to the north of our apartment is a stretch of seafood restaurants, close to the waterfront, that grill the day’s catch. These are some of the restaurants featured on celebrity chef travelogues. Last week, Julie and I went to one of them, and I had the best grilled sardines I’ve ever tasted. (Julie had what she called a “mediocre steak”.) Today, I chatted with my landlord about those restaurants and he tut-tutted me; apparently this is not sardine season, and the sardines being caught and grilled now are sub-par. “Desculpe, eu sou Americana,” I said. “I’m sorry, I’m American.”
We have rented an unfurnished apartment, and I ordered a full suite of Ikea furniture, delivered from the Ikea store about fifteen minutes away. I hired American friends I met during my scouting trip in April, to accept delivery of the furniture and assemble it. So Julie and I arrived to a mostly furnished (but bare) apartment. So while our first two weeks in Matosinhos were a flurry of getting settled into the apartment, buying bedding, towels, and kitchen supplies, we didn’t have to worry about furniture.
One of the things I have started loving about Portugal is how 80’s style American shopping malls are vibrant and thriving. Online shopping and delivery has not caught on in Portugal, and the “hypermarts” are located in shopping malls, replete with food courts and specialty shops. Julie and I fell into a bit of a routine, taking the Metro to the shopping mall, buying an armful of supplies, and then returning to our apartment via Uber. This includes small appliances, and the load with a dehumidifier and vacuum was a big one. I feel like I have avoided purchasing unnecessary kitchen gadgets.
Food-wise, I think both Julie and I are finding our footing. Living a block away from a large grocery store has made it easier to be mindful about grocery shopping, and the extensive bread section has had some lovely bread. We have other big grocery stores, including a Lidl, within easy walking distance, and the bread is even better from those stores. The hypermarts have most of the spices I’m familiar with using, including Asian things like chilli paste, oyster sauce, and fish sauce. I even attempted Asian-Portuguese fusion, using some leftover bacalhau (salted codfish) to add some extra umami to a Chinese chicken-and-broccoli stir fry. (My ancestors may be skeptical, but I thought it was tasty!)
Living in a truly walkable neighborhood feels wonderful. I have started taking longer walks up and down the paths by the beach, and do not mind the weekend crowds. Julie has taken solo walks to the grocery store, and to the beach herself.
I am starting to figure out community here in Porto, while exploring Porto’s rich cultural offerings. After two weeks of setting up the apartment, I started meeting other Americans, mostly from online “expat” groups. I’ve reconnected with the trans people in Porto who I met in April, and even turtle-sat for one couple, who moved here from Maryland, who are now a short walk away. I also attended an orchestra concert at “Casa de Musica”, the big concert hall in Porto, and this past weekend, Julie and I went down to the riverfront, visited the Igreja de São Francisco, a gothic stone edifice with an ornate 17th century Rococo interior and 19th century egalitarian catacombs, and ate dinner a few blocks away from the Douro riverfront.
I have a lot on my plate, with many details, big and small, of life in Portugal still to sort out. I haven’t started sorting out health insurance or prescriptions yet. I can stumble through ordering um café cheio (an espresso filled with extra water) or um copo de vinho tinto da casa (house red wine), but I feel woefully unprepared for more-substantive interactions. Julie and I both like the apartment, and it already feels like “home”, of a sort. I can see this place feeling more and more like home, as the weeks and months progress. During my second week here, I realized that I was getting a good night’s sleep, perhaps for the first time in over nine months. So perhaps my body was telling me what my heart already knew: the decision to move to Portugal feels right.
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Thank you for reading. I hope to maintain a regular journal, documenting our life here in Portugal, for friends and family. And as with so many other things in my life, I am trying to figure out where journaling fits into my priorities. What I do know, though, is that staying in touch with friends and family is one of my priorities. I’d welcome hearing from you, via the various messaging apps, or via a scheduled time for a video chat.