What a birthday present!
You must be thinking, “Wow, what’s gotten into him?” And you would be right. Two posts in two days. Well, yesterday was my birthday and despite the fact that it was a quarantine birthday (which meant it had to be an at-home affair) and the fact that Ann couldn’t do her usual incredible gift giving (she really does find the coolest things to get me) because we pretty much have our bags totally packed so . . . how could I take anything to Portugal with me, I got one of the best presents I’ve ever gotten on my birthday. So what could that have been?
As you know, we’ve been going through the major steps necessary to implement our move-to-Portugal game plan. We’ve applied for and received our residency visas. We’ve sold our home. We’ve packed our goods and they’re sitting in storage waiting to be shipped. We just sold Beast. And despite the fact we have two vehicles to sell (one of which Jim will probably have to sell), we really only had one last thing I was waiting on. One last thing that could have pushed back our departure date. The Baggage Certificate from the Consulate of Portugal that will allow us to ship our household goods into Portugal without having to pay any customs charges, duty or taxes.
Two weekends ago I spent the weekend working on the necessary documentation (read: taking the packing list we prepared in English and translating it into Portuguese, making copies of other documents, proving we’ve lived where we’ve lived for the past 20 years, and filling out a couple of other forms) to obtain two documents we’ll need to get our stuff through customs. The baggage certificate and certificates of residency for Ann and me. Two of the documents involved declarations on my part . . . in Portuguese. I had two models to work from and in-between those two models, my small understanding of Portuguese and google translate, I produced two documents that I was confident said what I wanted them to say. (Or at least I hope they do.) I also had to get cashiers checks to cover the requisite fees, which took me a couple of more days before I could find the time to get. Two Fridays ago I sent the whole package off via 2-day air with a pre-paid 2-day air envelope included. By Monday everything was in the hands of the Consulate.
When Beast rolled out the driveway on Thursday, my mind moved onto the next thing on my must-get-done list - wait for the documentation from the Consulate. How was it going? Were they in lock down? Would they let me know if there were issues? I had no clue and no control over the process. We were talking about potentially arranging our flights and temporary accommodations in Portugal (can’t well move into a totally empty home can we?) this weekend. Would we have to schedule, then cancel because the documents hadn’t arrived? Yeah, one mountain down and another one to climb.
So guess what arrived on my Birthday?
I really could not have asked for a better birthday present!
What a burden off our shoulders. Now all I have to do is start looking at flights, a car to rent for a few weeks, and a place to stay for a couple of weeks. But compared to waiting for official documents, planning a trip is nothing!
This was the last big hurdle, now we just have to take care of a few little things. Well, maybe more than a few little things.
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This is what I get for writing and posting before the end of my birthday. Once I started looking at flights I realized we didn’t have many options so . . . I booked our flight on my birthday. We’ll be leaving Sunday June 7 and arriving in Portugal on Monday June 8. This is definitely happening!