Portugal, what a country!

It is great to be here. We still wake up every day and pinch ourselves that it’s true we live in Portugal! The summer was wonderful. The weather couldn’t have been better, mid 70’s to low 80’s. Now, I’m told that this was a very unusual summer and it is usually much warmer. And to that, I say, thanks to the universe, and hope that cooler summers will be a trend. 

And, of course, the food has been fan-freakin’-tastic everywhere we have gone. The same goes for the wines. I used to be such a wine snob. In the US, I would look at the wine list and sometimes not even have wine if there wasn’t anything that looked good. Here, the house wine is fine. They are nearly all good, and many are excellent. 

As for the Portuguese bureaucracy, we have been extremely fortunate. At our visa renewal appointment, we only had to wait about 15 minutes. When we went to finanças (Portuguese IRS) to register after getting our resident visa cards, we waited five minutes tops. Incrível! So far, so good. 

The DMV (IMT in Portugal) was another matter. You have three months after you get your resident card to turn in your foreign driver’s license for a Portuguese drivers’ license. (Although, I have been reading that that is about to change, and it will soon be three years before you must get a Portuguese license.)  If you make the three-month deadline, it only costs 30 Euros. If not, it costs 60 Euros, and you must take a driver’s test. (Ugh!) Before you can go to the IMT and get your new driver’s license, you must register with the Centro de Saude, (national health system) and get a certificate of health. You must also get a certified copy of your driving record. To prove the validity of your current driver’s license.  Three months, no problem.  Right. 

After wrangling with the Colorado DMV and the USPS for a month, we received the certified copies of our driving records by registered mail.  At this point, we now had 10 days before the deadline to turn in our US licenses.  It cost $64 and change to mail four pieces of paper to arrive in Portugal within a week.  International logistics are still costly and time-consuming. 

It took three trips to various Centros de Saude and a trip to the wrong IMT office before we arrived at the right office and spent the afternoon waiting for our numbers to be called. (It reminded me of the afterlife waiting room scene in the movie Beetlejuice.)  Happily, though we spent the day from 9-5 between the health office and the IMT offices, we made it on the last day of the deadline! Whew! Got ‘er done. I guess long waits at the DMV are universal.  

Now, theoretically, we should be Portuguese bureaucracy home free until next June when we will have to renew our resident visas again.  It has certainly been an adventure.