WSJ:  Here’s What It’s Like to Retire to Portugal

Four years ago, with my adult daughters gone from the nest, it was time for me to fly, too. And even though I had never set foot in Portugal, I decided to retire to Lisbon.

It has paid off spectacularly.

Doubt it.

This lady will change her mind and move back to the US within the next four years.  A person who moves to a foreign country that she’s never visited, is not a deep thinker.

Portugal checked other boxes for me, too: It’s safe and affordable, a good base for travel, the U.S. is reachable within six hours from the East Coast, and the culture and natural beauty provide a wonderful environment.

My car was broken into in Lisbon.  My Pentax ME Super 35 mm camera was stolen along with some work crap around mid-day, while parked in view of a couple busy cafes.    I have parked without incident in Los Angeles, Berlin, Madrid, Chicago, Orlando, Paris and a bunch of other places.

Lisbon might seem to be a wonderful environment if you’ve never been anywhere else.  It’s a nice place to visit.  More rustic, with less culture and natural beauty, than some other European countries,

The life I have created here has exceeded all of my expectations. I am more active and have deeper friendships than ever before. The best part is the vast community of friends I have cultivated—mostly Americans, but also some from countries around the world. They all make living here a lot of fun.

A segment of middle-aged American White women are in crisis.  A 55 year-old with three adult daughters and no deep friendships, might have modest expectations.  Ex-pats can bond through common experience, but it can be fun because it’s superficial.

On a temporary foreign assignment, I spent a year in Alcala de Henares, near Madrid.  Several guests at the hotel were in a similar situation.   I got to talking to these two people, they had talked to these other two people, and before you know it, we had a fun group of friends.

We did not have a common language, and there wasn’t even a person in the group who shared a language with everyone else in the group.   The Italians could get by in Spanish, one of the French guys could speak German, one of the Swedish guys spoke English.  The American girl spoke some French.  Like that.

The Italians were friends with a local bar owner.  The bar was closed because the owner was on vacation, so the Italians thought we should go there for a few drinks.  Man, that was a party.  I’d like to see a replay of that night, but it was a spontaneous thing where taking photos wouldn’t have been appropriate.

The German guy had a crush on the American girl.  He didn’t speak English, but I convinced him that it would be romantic to drink champagne out of her shoe.  I can’t describe how hilarious it was.  The American girl got the idea, but wasn’t happy that she had a wet shoe for the rest of the night.

It’s fun because it’s fleeting. 

I have visited Austria, Hungary, Morocco and Jordan, and I’ve visited the U.K, Spain and Italy multiple times in the past four years.

Yep.  It’s a good base to see a bunch of other places, but once that’s played out, you start wanting to go home.

My daughters have always encouraged me to live the life I want, and they love to tell their friends their mom moved to Portugal.

The best thing about going to Hong Kong for five summers, was telling people that I was going to Hong Kong.  Living in Portugal is adventuresome until it become mundane.  Then you are just living far away.

My youngest has been here once, and the middle daughter, who goes to college in England, has been here twice. All of my daughters and my son-in-law will be coming to visit me for Christmas this year, and I am ecstatic.

British people travel to the Algarve in Portugal pretty frequently.  If the daughter only came twice in four years, it’s already getting inconvenient.

If my daughters lived here with me, I would consider my life here perfect.

The daughters aren’t going to do that.  As the daughters get established, they won’t want to take all of their vacation time to visit mum.  Life will go on in America without mom until she decides to come back and settle down.

I like exotic.  When you live there, the exotic turns into the routine.  After that, it’s just inconvenient.