We have been silent for several weeks. No entries, no updates, no enticing details of a powerful ocean and exotic seafood…nothing at all because we’ve been ground down by the mind-deadening, Sisyphean task of making our way through the incompetence and torpor of various bureaucracies, both governmental and private.
The shipping company we chose in blind faith (my bad) turned out to be as full of untruths, half-truths, truths that would evolve into untruths, avarice and cheesy greed as can be imagined…saying one thing, taking it back, saying another thing, denying it, failing to mention important details, hiring slack-jawed, mouth-breathing, maybe criminal/certainly incompetent sub-contractors and on and on as our spirits sank and our costs rose and then more than doubled from the original glib quotes. And still our household goods are on the docks near Porto. The car is in Lisbon.
The Portuguese Consulate in San Francisco is feckless and insouciant beyond description…with people like these in positions of authority it is little wonder that their nation was skewered by the economic recession of a decade ago and then passed over by the recovery. The Consulate produced a fallacious Baggage Certificate (a necessary document that describes who we are and what we are importing) that had been cut-and-pasted from several different sources, only a few of them us, was full of bone-headed mistakes and was as useless as a Chicken Crossed The Road Joke. But of course the Consulate doesn’t like to communicate directly with those they “serve”; they take no phone calls at all and normally will only respond to emails from institutions, “fixer-companies” and those they already know. Finally, after months of dithering, they responded directly to me, saying that the fees that our “fixer” had told us to pay were not enough and that they would not correct the documents they had screwed up until the fees were paid in full. Then they said all the documents were ready, but that there was insufficient postage for our self addressed return envelopes and that they would not send the corrected baggage certificates to us until we got them the proper amount of postage. (Can you feel a little frustration here? A smidgen of discontent?)
We got them their postage, at which point they took credit for their fine work, wished us a happy stay in Portugal and invited us to get back in touch if there was anything they could do for us. There are things they could do for us, alright, starting with painting our house and supplying us with free gas for a year, maybe two. I’ll let you know when they show up.
Meanwhile our stuff, our car, everything that didn’t find a new home in the sad garage sales of last year, is sitting on the docks near Porto…sitting on the docks garnering huge dunnage, storage, inspection and container fees. And the guru assigned to help us get our stuff through customs did her undergraduate work with Larry Moe and Curly.
This Odyssey of woe was fortunately leavened with the good cheer of our new friends here in Viana and the generosity and expert skills of several people along the way both in America and in Portugal. There is Neil, our financial advisor who is steadfast; our Portuguese attorney, Daniel; our bankers, Sara in Viana and Andy in Lake Oswego; our land lady, Flora; our dear spiritual counselor and Portuguese swear word coach, Nuno; and in the spirit of Nuno, a UPS employee in Porto named David who engineered a work-around to get our postage and pre-paid return envelopes to those hale fellows at the Consulate in San Francisco in only 24 hours! No wonder we had such an easy time of landing men on the moon….there must have been Davids all over that mission.
This world needs Neils to show us the way, all the Saras and Andys it can muster, Nuno’s to the tenth power, Daniels to restore the reputation of the business of law and faith in mankind, Floras to show us true strength; and Davids to remind us what we all could be if we tried, if we’d only listened in the fourth grade.
And then there is my wife, who is the glue on this mission, the majesty of this adventure. The one who reminds me, “Remember, I’m your only friend over here.”
The lessons we’ve learned, sometimes painfully, are several fold; the ones that jump right out are:
- If you are going to uproot your life and move to another continent, plan it carefully and keep it simple…sell your furniture except for the most precious life-milestone pieces. Sell your car. Bring your motor bike with a sidecar. Bring your art if you make art. Bring only the books that have truly made a difference in your life. Bring your dog. Don’t forget your dog. Learn as much of the language as you can before you arrive. Let your in-laws visit.
- Listen to those who have gone before, to the expats who have blogs and who chatter on the expat sites. They know whereof they speak when they talk about steeling one’s self for the low times…it aint all good seafood and pounding surf.
- Ask these expats about their experiences with shipping companies, In-country banks, customs brokers, emigration assistance companies, attorneys…all the professionals you may need. Will need.
- Rent when you get here. Buy later if at all.
- If it is Portugal you’ve chosen, open yourself to the magic of the Portuguese people, to their generosity, their genteel grace, but wherever you’ve chosen, bask in the love and good will of the friends you’ve left behind.
- And then come on over.
