I Did It!
When I last checked in, it was February 23rd. I gave a summary of my upcoming plight - get back to Portugal from Michigan for our residency visa interview, and then get back to Michigan for our next retreat. Let’s check the to do list!
Wed Feb 18: Porto → Berrien Springs
Wed Feb 25: Berrien Springs →
Thurs Feb 26: → Land in Porto
Fri Feb 27: Bus to Lisbon → AIMA appointment → bus to Porto
WIP: Sun March 1: Porto → Berrien Springs
???: Berrien Springs → Porto
Hello from my layover in Amsterdam on my way back to Michigan by way of Chicago!
Miraculously, I made it back to Porto easily, we made it to our AIMA appointment, we made it back to Porto, Shane and I had one lovely day in Porto before I’m not headed back to the US.
Friday was pretty insane! Because of the storms through Portugal over the past month, our only option was to take a bus from Porto to Lisbon, and then take an Uber to Cascais where our appointment was. All in all this took 4hs there and almost 5 hrs back. The 3 hrs separating that travel we stood in a courtyard! For 1 minute we went into the AIMA office and got our pictures taken. That was it! The actual “interview” part was just the woman who accompanied us, Sonja, taking in all of our documents, the person conducting the interview looking at none of it, and we were through.
Sonja helped us organize our documents, I had missed something! She said it wouldn’t be a big deal unless we get assigned one grouchy guy, she carefully timed out ticket taking to make sure we didn’t get the grouchy guy, and we were through!
We were given temporary visas until our 2 year residency visas arrive to us in the mail in 2 weeks-ish.
In the Uber back to Lisbon Shane turned to me and said - YOU DID IT! and up until that point I didn’t think of it like that, but! I DID IT! It took almost exactly 1 year and like $40K (money post coming!) but I did it! Unbelievable!
Slightly more unbelievably, I’m sitting in Amsterdam waiting on my flight back to the US. Somehow in the middle of all this Trump started bombing children in Iran to distract us from caring about the Epstein Files and I want to be in my new country, that I worked so hard to be in, where it feels so much safer. BUT I’m very excited to take another week back in the US to see friends and host one last L&A retreat this season. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?!
I wanted to pop up quickly while I could because so many of you have been wishing me well and I couldn’t have done it without you and your support so thank you so much! I’ll check back in soon!
Hang in there, everyone. As always, WTF!!!!!
