Scott's farewell tour

8

Dateline: Boston, MA

Amy and I had talked for a while about taking a "farewell tour" of the US before leaving for Portugal. The Grand Plan involved driving to see friends and family living up and down the entire East Coast (Florida to New York) - maybe also stopping at some old haunts like Newport and Maine - before flying out of somewhere like NYC. (Amy and I grew up in Connecticut. We moved to St. Louis in 2010 and haven't seen many of our east coast peeps since then.) 

It could easily have been a three-week journey. Possibly more.

As our plans came into sharper focus and we realized we'd have our dog and literally all of our remaining belongings with us in probably a rented mini-van, that trip turned out to be impractical. Instead, we each took short jaunts to see relatives and decided that would have to do.

Because our visas got approved roughly 24 hours before our flights out of the country, though, we didn't have enough time to actually have them in hand before leaving for Lisbon. This may be confusing. We will write in more detail about the entire process of moving to another country soon. For the purposes of this post, it is enough for you to know the following:

• the visa is a physical document that must be attached directly to a passport by an authorized official. We cannot just receive our visa by mail or courier and have it. We need to send our passports to the Embassy of Portugal in Washington, DC.

• it is both impossible to leave the US and illegal to be in another country without our passports in hand

Hence, the need for us to return to the US to retrieve the visas that were approved just over a month ago.

My trip here could have been a quick one. It’s possible to fly direct from Lisbon to, say, Newark, never leave a hotel at the airport for 48-72 hours and return to Portugal, visa in hand.

I chose instead to fly to Boston and do a mini farewell tour; I'm so glad I did.

I have seen friends I've known since high school - even earlier. I've shared meals with people I haven't really talked to in 15 years. People who've undergone major life changes - marriages, divorces, kids - since our last contact. 

I was granted the honor and privilege of staying with friends from UConn and their three high school/college-aged children for four nights, getting a once-in-a-lifetime glimpse at a family that I - raised an only child with no kids of my own - never experienced myself. 

I've been nostalgic. I've felt a little long in the tooth (I uttered the following sentence to a 15-year-old: "When I was your age, I was working for your grandfather." 😄) I've felt young. I've realized I've known people for nearly 40 years. That, to me, is an almost unfathomable length of time. 

I am deeply grateful to all who I've connected with this week. It has been very important to me.

It also underscores for me both the significance and the enormity of a task we have in front of us: building a community in Portugal.

Our time in Lisbon so far has felt very reactive. More often than not I've awakened and tried to determine which fire most needs water that day. 

Hopefully, upon my return to our new home we'll be able to settle in a little. We'd like to start establishing some day-to-day routines.

And we'd like to start making friends. 

We've met plenty of people so far. These encounters have generally been brief and we've yet to see the same person more than once (other than the guy who runs the hardware store around the corner and our delivery couriers, of course 😄). 

That needs to change.

We know what it's like to go somewhere we've never been before and where we know nobody. That's part of what gave us confidence we could make this leap in the first place. 

When we moved to St. Louis, we landed in a neighborhood. I had a job. There were built-in, starter communities all around us. In Lisbon, we haven't even been able to meet more than two people who live in our building - and one of them moved out after a week. It's a different beast. 

I am confident we can do this. We have leads to follow. It's just taken longer than I expected for us to be ready to start following them.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

While the husband's away, I ... get to rely on my - much worse - Portuguese. Which has been deeply challenging, and very instructive. I'm not going to get better if I am letting Scott take lead on conversations and interactions. It's been wonderful to realize that I have been doing that and not going out of my comfort zone enough. 

I've also developed a fabulous routine of waking early (here that's anytime before 7 - no one is one the street then), stumbling out of the apartment to take Josie on a quick walk, and ending up going miles.

We've gotten to explore the whole region and mentally map out a much larger neighborhood than the few blocks we've been confining ourselves to. We only got lost once! 

Actually, getting lost was a really good experience (and not just because I learned I must ALWAYS carry my cell phone with me!). I've heard over and over how friendly Portuguese people are. As an extrovert, I was really looking forward to continuing the ability to have long conversations with strangers I bump into (well, maybe not right away 😉). And yet... So you know how if you pass someone on the street you say "hi" or nod at them? Almost to a person, no one here does. It felt... cold. I was becoming very concerned about my "fit" here. On my lost walk, I was forced to interact with people. I couldn't even rely on the translator app to help with the conversations! Each person I saw - maybe one per few blocks - I asked "Onde Avenue de Libradade?" I figured I could get myself home if I got that far. And each person was wonderful - friendly, helpful. I even fell into some conversations with people. It eased my concern tremendously!

That's all for now.

Love from Lisbon (well, Boston & Lisbon)!

Scott & Amy