Episode 51: Looking Back: 9 Lessons From Our Move to Portugal

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Welcome to As the Dinoson's Turn, where we chronicle the adventures of the Dinoson family. A seemingly ordinary family from Iowa who decided, hey, you only live once, so let's move to Portugal. And now your hosts, Jason and Tracy Dynason.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Welcome to another episode of As the Dinason's Turn. We say another episode like we just did one, but it's like three and a half months since we last recorded an episode. But that's right, we've had a few things going on.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Life's been a little bit busy, and I think that's a good thing. It just goes to show that we've got full lives and we're doing all kinds of things, and it's exciting.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

And so rather than doing what we've done in the past with just like life updates, we're trying themed episodes now.

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We'll see how this goes.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

So we've come up, we've got a written list here of nine things on a list of what would we do differently if we could basically rewind the clock to when we moved or before we moved, and we still were going to move, what would we do differently? That's not a that's not a good title, is it?

SPEAKER_00 1:28

No, I think it's five less I think it's lessons learned. These are lessons learned that if we could do it again, these are the things we would do.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Things we would do differently. Now, some of this is hard because it's like everything is always different in hindsight. But I do think that maybe this is something where if you're thinking about doing what we did, maybe this can provide some insight to you. Um, as you're thinking about moving. So, number one, I came up with language, which I would say means as soon as you are thinking of moving to a country where English is not the first language, start learning the language and make arrangements for taking whatever classes you need to take, etc. etc.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Yeah, and I would say that that's definitely true for everybody in the family. So I think that that would be a great start is to actually do those things and do them together. Having advantage of having Spanish, which is close to Portuguese, and being able to start with a leg up on that actually worked really well for me. But that also meant that I was basically the language interpreter for at least the first six months to a year. And we were getting better.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

I walked into FANAC today, though, and talked to someone in Portuguese.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

And I think that's the thing. Like, I know that you also wish you had a higher level, and now our lives are full and crazy and busy, and we have to figure out a time for you to take language classes, and so and usually the language classes we've seen are like when you're working, because we work US schedule still in a lot of cases. So we I think that also is another reason why we're saying, Hey, you know, start your language earlier uh than you because it goes fast, doesn't it go fast? Yeah, like before we know it, we'll be at, you know, gosh, we're over three years now, so it just flies.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

And March 15th was our three-year anniversary here. March 16th, I guess. Uh the second thing we had written down was practice driving a manual transmission. Now that's gonna depend some on where you move to. That's kind of a European thing.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

I think that's an almost every other country thing. So I would say practice a manual transmission because you're gonna rent a car or have any of those things, and that's what you're gonna get for most of them. Even the automatics here are very different than an automatic in the US. So knowing how to drive a manual transmission, I think, would go very, very well for people.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

That's true. I mean, we've both had experience with that, but it does take getting used to it's like getting back in the saddle again or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

I mean, I hadn't driven a manual transmission since college, and it was a slanted H because I had a Volkswagen bug, so that's a little bit different than what we do here.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

So yeah, it and it's different from my dad's old uh 1965 or 66 Chevy pickup that was originally red, but by the time I was driving it, it was faded to orange.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

I was gonna say it was a rust bucket.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

And it was a rust you could see through holes in the floorboard.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

That's how you know it was well loved, babe. But yeah, I'd say practice, practice that. I think that that would be great. And it comfortable things like roundabouts, where we are from in the Midwest. Roundabouts are not as big of a thing. Roundabouts are basically replacements for all lights here, um, in a lot of cases.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Roundabouts terrify the average Iowan. I speak from experience on that. Although they're not bad. I mean, I remember being like completely puzzled by them in places in Iowa. West Des Moines had a few, and um I was driving in Grimes one time and came upon a random roundabout. And I don't know, you get used to them, they're really not that bad.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Oh, but you know, they're it's different. I think definitely different for them.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

I think the lesson really is just think about driving if you're going to be driving, which I guess feeds into location, is something that I know you had on your list. I mean, driving ties, it's not just driving, but driving ties into that.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Yeah, I I think if we could do this again, we would choose a city instead of outside of the city. I think that we would choose being in on public transportation routes that are more consistent, have more bus lines and more options, that we would have, you know, train line. I think that's a huge thing is not being able to hop on a train and get to the airport or any of those things means we are always driving and paying for parking and all of that kind of stuff, also because of where we live. So I think that being in a city um would have been very helpful for us. And I know that we thought about it. Our goal was to live someplace where people we would have to learn the language. We definitely need to learn the language, but we could have made that transition a little bit easier for ourselves and for our whole family. We didn't want to live in a community that had a lot of English speakers in it, and there are some places in Portugal and other places, other countries as well, where you can kind of live in your own little world, your own bubble. Um, and that's definitely not the case here. I think that we took that way to the extreme and then uh unbeknownst to us wound up being like, you know, the English-speaking family who had children and our children being the very first English speakers to go through Portuguese classes and trying to get everything lined up for that, that was a huge uplift like for the community, but also for us and navigating that. And you know, that's it was a lot, it was really hard, and I think that if we'd been able to be in a city, there would have been more experience and more resources and more English speakers, and I think that that would have been uh a little bit more of a wiser choice.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Finances was on our list too, and I think that where we were going with that is like in some places you will save a lot of money. Where we are, you in Portugal. You won't. No. At least not.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

I mean, I suppose maybe if you are from California, the prices might be somewhat or if you're retired and you've got, you know, you're selling your house and you have like, I mean, you have a lot more in savings or any of those things. I think that if you're in a different period of life than we are, then you can do this all very differently. We've got a full family. If it's just you and or you and your partner, that makes it easier. But also, I think that knowing that you probably spend just as much money to live here in the day-to-day life and in housing and all of these things, but there are other offsets that are definitely less that help with that, like our health insurance. Even though we have private health insurance, it's still very, very reasonable, and so that's a huge offset from what we were spending before. So just go into it with your eyes wide open.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

And then we had school.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

I would have picked some place that had a stronger program for our kids, like for Lingua Dalma Tata, for those supports. And again, I think that part of that's location you go where you live, and we are not in by any means able to afford international school tuition, which is like its own college tuition in a lot of cases, and so I think that that was a big thing to keep in mind. But I would say that school is one of those things that making sure that we had a place where I think we had more options, um, that would have been a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Number six, I think it is now. Start earlier with getting rid of stuff. So that the backstory is I mean, we did start like three months ahead of time getting dumpsters and throwing stuff out or putting stuff in storage, and donating and all of those things.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Even then we weren't done by the time that we had to move out, and so our friends and our real estate agent had to do uh the final pack-up of stuff and the final cleaning. I think that that stuff in modern day life, it just it's gonna take longer than you think it's going to.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Definitely. I mean, I I know that we have more things than we needed, and then we probably have more things now than we need, but I'd say that getting rid of your stuff and doing that process brutally and doing it quickly and doing it thoroughly is and and like taking a good six months to a year to get it done. I would say if you've got six months at least, then then do it. We did not, we had three, so um, we did what we could.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Number seven, hire help, which we did in terms of paying an attorney to help with the paperwork. But also, I mean, I guess we got lucky with our landlord helping us with the utility setup and things like that. But I think that the more that you can find locals that you can hire for those things, people think they want to do it themselves to save money, but the spending of that money is going to save you aggravation as well.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Yeah, I would say there are relocation services. I mean, you can go like, and there's a wide variety of different levels of concierge services that you could go all the way and they do the whole thing, and you just have to show up. Um, but then there are places that you tell them, like, you know, for 500 euros, like you pay them and they find you a place to live that's furnished and they help with all the utility setups and all of those things. But you can hire somebody that will help with all of the utility setups and all of that as well. I think that making sure like when you get access to your banking, just getting access to our banking took us four months. And if we known then what we know now, it wouldn't have taken us that long.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

And that feeds into the last thing on our list is understanding that basically you're not in America anymore. That's a shame in all ways, you know, whether it's good or it's bad, or in between, it just is what it is. And so the bureaucracy, for example, it makes good stories to talk about the ridiculous, you know. You go to the bank and oh, we can't do that here. You have to go to this town and fill out a form and come back in a week, and then you come back in a week, and the home office says you need this form also, and weeks later you still don't have access to your account. And you, you know, it makes a good story, and it could be humorous to talk about, but you can't be like, well, that's not how it works in America to the bank because they don't care how it works. This is in America.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Well, and I think that quite frankly, you've got to go in knowing that you're going into a completely unknown system. So the more you can learn about that system, the better, and the more you can connect with people who understand the system, who are willing to navigate and push back in that system is great. When you are from outside of a culture, it's really hard to navigate the higher bureaucracy things yourself or even just trying to make things work, no matter your level of language, no matter your level of skills.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

That's true. I think if you have a Portuguese person who can help you, they can push back on the bureaucracy sometimes, and suddenly the ball starts moving again.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

And I think that so you I think that you have to recognize that you are from outside, you are outside, and you are working to become part of, but it takes a long time, and you have to have the patience and the grace. You can't get frustrated. Because if you get frustrated and then and get angry, then you are done. Like the whole thing shuts down, comes to a halt, comes to a stop, and then it's a refusal to even do anything to help. I mean, we witness this all the time. Yeah, and and have conversations with people or two or three even and say, Hey, don't do that. Like it do it this way because it's never gonna work. The moment you get to a level where you get confrontational or you show frustration, it's done. It's all over.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

And then number nine, do it sooner. We talk about that a lot. We had intended to make this move in 2020, and COVID and various things derailed a move to Spain that was in the works. Um, but sometimes it's like maybe we should have just done it.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

I think that, yeah, maybe we should have fought harder to push through the bureaucracy and just gone through the dedication. I would say that I don't regret our move at all. And I think that's a huge thing, no matter any frustrations or any of this, like the pros and the positives and all of the things that we've been able to experience and the ways we've changed and grown as people and as a family and our children as well, it was all worth it.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

So I think our main point with this is if you're thinking of doing what we've done, maybe just do it. There does have to be some planning, of course, involved, and finances have to work out, or at least you have to figure out how you're gonna make that work.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

And you there's timing, but yeah, and you have to be aware also of your family and your family needs and requirements and all of those things. Like Portugal's not the right place for a lot of people, and there are times where we really questioned is this the right place for us, and things have worked where it is the right place for us at the moment, and that's a good thing, but yeah, you've got to really go in with your eyes wide open and experience things, and then also being able to take some risks, and that's why it's like you know what, if you've been thinking about it, it go ahead and do it, yeah, just try it.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

The timing is never gonna be 100% perfect, but also, I mean, if you think about if we had moved in like February, March of 2020, like we had planned, or whenever we could have because that was COVID. We would have also the start of COVID. But if we had done it then, it would be five or six years down the road. We'd be through whatever struggles there would have been at that time.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

There's always struggles, but we would have been through and I think that we would have been through a lot of the adjustments and the things, the the growing pains and a lot of the difficulties. But you know, for some people it lasts longer. We've been very lucky in that respect that we've worked really hard together and that we've been lucky in that it's not just us being successful, it's also our kids. So I'd say do it, you can change your mind. You can get there, you can go through the whole thing, and you can do what we did. We were said we will do this in like for two years, and and we'll do it for the length of our visa and decide. And for us, the decision was easy to go ahead and do renewal. But if you'd asked us six months in, I think you would have had a very different answer. So being open and honest, these are things that would have helped us and made that fatigue when you get to that six-month to one year a lot easier for us.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Well, that'll be our next episode, actually, is what made us stay.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

So, well, that's nine things that we look back on now. That we I guess it's a combo of what we would do differently or what we would recommend if you're thinking about moving. Join us again next time.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

You've been listening to As the Dinosons Turn, a podcast presented by Dinoson Media Ventures. Don't forget to like and subscribe, and catch us again next time for another episode!