Quatro Meses

We just finished our 4th month in Portugal. We are now stuck here until we receive a residency permit. But what a place to be stuck — never get tired of these views.

Being Stuck in Portugal

What do you mean stuck? Let me explain. A regular U.S. passport holder is allowed to travel as a tourist for 90 days in the EU, specifically in the Schengen Area. We applied for a long-stay visa and although the visa stamp is valid for 120 days, that doesn’t change the 90 day rule. Our long-stay visa allows us to enter Portugal for the purpose of obtaining a residence permit, and we have 120 days to do that. But we won’t meet that deadline.

Wait, won’t you get deported? Even though we will have our appointments after day 120, we won’t get deported because of the decree extending everyone until June 25th.

Why didn’t you make an earlier appointment? Hahahahahahaha hahahahahahaha. It is next to impossible to make an appointment at AIMA (Agency for Integration, Migration, and Asylum). When our Visas were approved, I got assigned an appointment but Tom did not. Calling daily for months was an exercise in futility. Going to CLAIM (Centro Local de Apoio à Integração de Migrantes) for assistance is a good option, and the office is nearby at the Tavira bus station. When we heard that they were issuing appointments on a first come first served basis, we made plans to arrive in the wee hours of the morning. When we checked in on this, CLAIM told us that since they already emailed on his behalf, he needed to wait. With this mixed message, Tom ended up arriving only 90 minutes before CLAIM opened. He was 138th in line, and they issued 42 appointments. So, he continued emailing daily and was poised to file his third complaint when it arrived – the appointment! Was it the emails he was sending, or the email that CLAIM sent, or the complaints he filed, or was the scheduler finally catching up? We may never know.

Tom got his appointment in Faro, 25 minutes by car. Mine is in Viana do Castelo, almost 6 hours by car (or according to google maps, 2 days to bike there and 6 days to walk there).

Why didn’t you make a closer appointment? True, my appointment is probably the most northwestern AIMA office in all of Portugal. Seeing how hard it is just to get an appointment, when you do get one, you either complain or plan an adventure. We chose the latter, so look for a blog post detailing this adventure in early May.

Rainy Days

People are super apologetic when they learn it’s our first months here. You know how it goes, first assuring us it is indeed an unusually wet year followed by a but we need it.

We have been finding breaks in the rain to explore, and one of our favorite places to walk is in the salt pans. On this particular day, the air was noticeably fresh and we were engulfed in it. The mud on the trail was quite unavoidable, and were collecting it by way of our shoes. The amount of absolute peace I felt on this walk is not really describable. Maybe pictures will help.

As we walked, I was interested in getting a closer look at the fixer-upper situated on one of the larger pieces of land in the salt marsh. Was it a single dwelling or several? It will take a bit more digging around to figure it out. Until then, enjoy the pictures.

Everyone Needs a Hobby

Maybe we should show our faces every so often. Here, Tom is having gelato to celebrate getting an AIMA appointment and I am showing off my bad art at a crafting group.