Today we received an email from the Portuguese consulate in DC saying our visas have been approved!!! It was exactly a month ago today that they received the applications. Even though there is no logical reason they would not be approved, we still anxiously sweated it out. We were afraid to buy plane tickets or such. Which is crazy, I know. We’d already sold our home, sold our business, gave away a ton of stuff, re-homed our dog…  Plane tickets seem pretty minor in comparison. Now we just over-night our passports to the consulate with a pre-paid return envelope so they can insert the actual visas. Then we can move when we are ready.

Yesterday, feeling anxious, I emailed the contact (Dina Silva) at the consulate groveling for an update. Then I worried that she’d be annoyed by my bothering her. She replied on that email this morning saying our visas had been approved. I am so glad I sent the email and can’t help but wonder if something had fallen through the cracks, or if it was just a coincidence in timing. Guess we’ll never know.

Now things get real…