SO many emotions! Such an exciting day. After watching the Countdown app on my phone for about three months, it finally said hours instead of days or weeks until our flight was scheduled to leave. We had a delightful Sunday brunch with two daughters and their families before getting a lift to the airport. We are so proud of how mature and responsible they have all become. Their support makes this move so much easier.
We traveled with 6 max-size and max-weight bags to check plus a carry-on bag each and my backpack and Wayne’s briefcase. Before going to the airport we weighed, reweighed, and rearranged each of the big bags to be confident they were under 23 kgs (50.7 pounds) each. Like always with big trips, we went to the airport very early. That was good as we were the only ones at the Lufthansa check-in counter. The checked bags weighed in just fine. However, I didn’t realize they were also going to weigh our carry-on items which only allowed 10kgs. My bag was 3.5 kgs over. That’s a lot. Wayne’s was about 1.5 over. The young man at the counter was very patient while we took out enough to get them down to acceptable. I removed the giant expandable file of important papers from my bag and said I’d carry that. It was all a little chaotic as I pulled out jeans, shoes, and more. In the process, an old pair of shoes and a nearly new pair of jeans plus some miscellaneous item were tossed in the trash. Oh, well.
We flew from Charlotte to Munich where they had a dusting of snow on the ground. There we stood in line for a passport check. We did not have to collect our bags as they were staying on the same airline. The passport guy asked how long we planned to stay in Porto. I said possibly forever. He just smiled and stamped it. He did not ask us for a return ticket (which we were prepared to have to buy.) By the time we got to our gate they were 5 minutes from boarding the flight to Porto. All went smoothly. In Porto we collected all bags on two carts and just drove through the “nothing to declare” tunnel and saw no one checking anything. I had brought proof of purchase for my camera equipment but ended up needing none of it. We walked out to find our driver waiting with a sign.
Our driver was awesome and helped us contact Helena, our landlady, to meet us at the apartment with our keys. She was waiting there when we arrived twenty minutes later. She graciously helped us schlep all our bags up the tiny elevator to our top (10th) floor apartment. I’m sure she thinks we are crazy.
We exchanged emails with Gail who is assisting us here and learned she was able to call and schedule our SEF appointments for 14 February to apply for our 1-year residency permits. Not bad at all.
We arrived at the apartment around 2:00 in the afternoon after flying over-night. After partially unpacking, we walked a half block to the Vodafone store and got sim cards for our phones. We now have local phone numbers. We grabbed a few groceries to make dinner in the apartment. We stayed up as long as necessary to wake up the next morning on local time. All adjusted. Just like that, we are now residents of Portugal.
