Portugal: The Real Version (Not the Reel Version)
If your social media algorithm looked anything like mine, it would have become a highlight reel of Europe — literally. Thirty-second clips with cinematic color grading, perfectly timed music drops, and shots so beautiful they look like they were pulled from a tourism board budget. Portugal shows up constantly. The Azores especially — those dramatic volcanic lakes, the lush green hills that look lifted straight out of Hawaii.
And look, it's stunning. I won't argue that.
But here's the thing about the Azores — they're expensive, they're far from the rest of Europe, and they're geographically cut off from the convenience of being in the heart of the Schengen region. So while they make for incredible content, they're not the Portugal I'm going to.
I'm also seeing a lot of those comparison reels — you know the ones. Someone sitting at a restaurant in Europe, surrounded by a beautiful cobblestone square, people strolling, café culture humming along. Then cut to America: similar meal, but you're staring at a parking lot, traffic crawling past, a dirty sidewalk in the background. I get it. The contrast is real. But it's also curated.
My daughter recently posted a video about Oregon — beautiful scenes, the kind that make you nostalgic. She lives in California now, and you could feel the homesickness in every frame. Oregon is beautiful. But she'd also be the first to tell you there are things she is absolutely not missing — drug-addicted people rummaging through her garbage cans, the relentless grey rain, the cold dark days that seem to stretch forever. The beautiful video didn't show any of that.
That's what I want to avoid doing as I write about our journey to Portugal.
I'm going in with my eyes open. I want to show you the real thing — the frustrations, the quirks, the moments where the "differentness" of it all hits me sideways in ways I didn't expect. I also genuinely want to find the places where it's better. Where life is slower in a good way, where the food is honest, where the community feels intact in ways that are harder to find back home.
I might love it. I might get desperately homesick. Probably both. I'm going to try not to be a hater of anything — not Portugal, not America — but I'm also not going to pretend everything is perfect just because the lighting is good.
So, with all that said — here's where things actually stand:
1. Still no retirement pay. I officially retired on October 1, 2025. Today is the last day of March 2026. Tomorrow, that'll be seven months without a check from the Federal Government. I won't editorialize too much here, but I will say — as the primary breadwinner, this has been a source of stress for me personally and it's not resolved yet.
2. Visa appointment: April 15th in San Francisco. This is a big one. We're moving forward.
3. Our house closes April 17th. We'll likely be out by April 10th — which is also the day we will have sold or given away literally everything we own except the suitcases we're taking with us. Everything. Let that sink in for a moment. I once talked to my father about him trimming down what he owns at his house (recently he got a shipping container to put on his property for even more storage of stuff). He laughed a little, somewhat abashed, and said, “It’s too hard. That’s too much work.” In other words, that is never going to happen. That’ll be the work of his kids after he’s passed. I love my dad, but that is something I don’t wish for my own kids – cleaning up and managing my stuff after I’ve gone. When I go, I hope to have as much impact (cleanup-wise) as a kayak slipping into a river. Yes, it means letting go of some stuff earlier than perhaps I’d like but it’s also somewhat freeing in a way that’s hard to describe until you’ve done it.
4. We don't have a flight date yet. That depends on our passport situation, which we're getting more information about today. So you'll have to stay tuned for the next post — I promise it's coming soon.
That's where we are. No filters, no color grading. Just the real thing.
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Before I go — what do YOU want to know about Portugal or about our process of going there? What questions do you have that the reels aren't answering? Drop them in the comments and I'll do my best to address them as we go. No filters, I promise.
