Meredith Burns
[ 00:00:07 ] Welcome back Portugal Junkies! Hello! What's up? We are so, so excited to have you back. This is our 10th episode.
Mark Burns
[ 00:00:16 ] Well, congratulations. You just hit me.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:00:18 ] We're having a little cheers.
Mark Burns
[ 00:00:20 ] We've brought back the wine appreciation.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:00:25 ] I love how you say 'appreciation.'
Mark Burns
[ 00:00:29 ] Let me take the wine off. I haven't had one sip yet; I promise. Appreciation is how you say it. In recognition of celebrating... what is it? The two-thousandth?
Meredith Burns
[ 00:00:42 ] We'd had over two thousand listens, total, of Portugal Junkies podcast since we launched-not very long ago.
Mark Burns
[ 00:00:52 ] I think that's a celebration in itself; it is a celebration.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:00:54 ] So, we did bring back our happy hour. So, we're going to record a podcast slash drink some wine. So, talk about this wine, babe. You got it tonight at the store across the street.
Mark Burns
[ 00:01:07 ] You got it from the store. It's a Dao. Dao is a region here. It's a red. It's Fuga. F-U-G-A. Fuga. Be careful how you pronounce that later on.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:01:20 ] Well, it won't be hard to remember. And how much did you pay for this honey?
Mark Burns
[ 00:01:23 ] Well, it was on that $17. 99.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:01:27 ] I just almost did a sip of tea.
Mark Burns
[ 00:01:28 ] But then it had a 50% discount. That was like $8. 99 including tax. So we wanted to celebrate and push the boat out. So, we pushed the boat out at nine euros.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:01:37 ] When he left to go get the bottle, I was like, 'Get something a little nicer, we're celebrating tonight and he came back and said it was $17. 99, and I was like, 'Um, who do you think we are?' He was like, 'But it was 50% off.' It was great.
Mark Burns
[ 00:01:53 ] Yeah, definitely an advantage to get all the loyalty membership cards you possibly can for all the stores.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:01:59 ] Should we tell the story about the Harris Cedar card? That is my favorite. That's one of my favorite stories of our beginning. I'm going to take a minute and do it because people want to hear the story. Come on. Story time, and then we'll get into the good stuff. When I met this man, um, he didn't have a Facebook account. Oh no, he had a Facebook account and it said he went to school at 100 of Who, which I thought okay, well he's just full of jokes; this is just a fake account or something, and he you know, but anyway, he actually went to a school called 100 of Who doesn't it sound like a Harry Potter school?
Mark Burns
[ 00:02:30 ] Hoo St. Warburg.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:02:31 ] Oh my God, I can't believe you have schools that sound like that. Anyway, um, I was giving you that example because he had just moved to the US. We were going out on like second date, maybe to Thai Orchid in Charlotte, and he over beers pulled out his Harris Teeter, like, customer care card or whatever. The loyalty card. for those of you who are not in the south or don't know here what Harris Teeter is in in America it's one of the bigger grocery stores this man was thrilled to show me that he had gotten his Harris Teeter card like this was what we talked about on our second date like he's pretty adorable though I it was in an English accent so it was fun yes when I had when I got that I felt like I had arrived you had arrived okay so let's get this is what we were gonna talk about today yes we every I feel like every time we start thinking about podcast topics we are constantly thinking what is someone out there really really interested and hopeful to learn if they are considering moving abroad and if they're considering moving to Portugal so we're we're still really trying to be focused on that and the number one thing that I kept thinking of this week was where do I land like if you've decided that you're going to move to the United States you're going to move to the United States you want to move and you've even decided that Portugal is the place that you want to start researching to move to where the heck do we end up like how do you even start in a country that you might not be as familiar with you know like to figure out where to actually where's your place yes and so we thought we would give kind of our top criteria or top things
Mark Burns
[ 00:04:21 ] That we thought about, yeah, so we landed in Porto, yeah, this is 1955, visited the ports, export to the search, the first we then went down theensa, watch for auditors right in May, riot, Perier because she said it wasn't by the way that Recon.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:04:55 ] We call it recon when we did it. It's a recon. Or it's a recce. Or a recce. Anyway, so we live in Porto. We have been here for eight months now. This is the place where we land. I can't believe it. Where we landed and we chose and we're going to kind of walk through all the reasons why we chose it as we go through this stuff today with you. But Porto is in the north of Portugal. And I would say there's kind of three regions of the country.
Mark Burns
[ 00:05:26 ] North, central, and Algarve. Yeah.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:05:29 ] So central would be Lisbon. Biggest city, right? Porto is the second biggest city, but it's in the northern part of the country. And then you've got the world-renowned Algarve coastal region that is like retiree heaven for many people. Beach life, Mediterranean types. Right. It's like the ideal place for retirees and probably the most popular area for retirees in the country. That being said, those three regions are completely different, wouldn't you say?
Mark Burns
[ 00:06:01 ] Massively different.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:06:02 ] Like in our experience so far, for sure. They're completely different and for all different reasons. So I just wanted to kind of lay the groundwork there of like the country, because we're going to probably reference it as we go through some of these things. So what do you think is the number one thing about choosing a place or at least researching places?
Mark Burns
[ 00:06:21 ] I think it really comes down to affordability. You know, can you afford to live in the place where you want to live? And that's not just, you know, can you afford a, like a pint of milk or some bread or whatever? This is definitely much more about. It's a big part of your budget. Yeah. It's probably for most people, at least the biggest section of a budget. Yeah.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:06:49 ] So cost of living 100%. And this could be positive and negative, right? This could be, you're trying to move to a more cost-effective place or you're trying to find your dream place here in Portugal, right? And so maybe you have more money to spend on the next place that you go to. So it's all relative cost of living and affordability. I keep saying this to people because they ask me like, is it really as affordable? And I'm like, to you, to me, to him, to her, I have, you know, it's all.
Mark Burns
[ 00:07:19 ] It's very subjective. It's so subjective. It's a very individual. It's a very individual. It's a very individual decision.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:07:23 ] Yes. But we use one website. You've actually found it.
Mark Burns
[ 00:07:26 ] Yeah.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:07:27 ] So www. numbeo. com. So this website's crazy good. It allows you to choose your actual city that you're in right now and choose the future city that you are interested in. And it will give you very detailed, like itemized comparison of costs.
Mark Burns
[ 00:07:51 ] That will really tell you the cost of bread or the cost of a pint of milk or beer and an apartment and all sorts of things.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:08:00 ] Utilities, cell phone, a pair of jeans. It's really, it's really cool. It's kind of addictive to go in there and choose places. So, obviously we chose Charlotte and we chose Porto and we started to see the differences there for us and started weighing that against When we very first started looking at it, it was like something about 52 point something percent cheaper.
Mark Burns
[ 00:08:24 ] Yeah. Um, than Charlotte, than where we were.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:08:28 ] Now again, you're, you know, it's an average in Charlotte. It's going to be an average here because there's going to be different options. I would say most of the time in Numbia, it's pretty accurate. I think where it's probably, you might want to be a little bit wary is the actual rent number that can vary so much right now. Um, and I think that you have to go to additional sites. Like Idealista and other things to really know what's listed right now in the area that you're looking for. So, okay. So number one, cost of living.
Mark Burns
[ 00:08:59 ] Cost of living for sure.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:09:00 ] I would say the second one for us was we don't want a car.
Mark Burns
[ 00:09:05 ] Yeah.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:09:06 ] We don't want to have to buy a car. We don't want to have to park a car. Maintenance a car. We don't want to have to gas up a car. I don't want to have to park a car. You're right. I don't want to have to drive a car. Okay. Yeah. That's us. But I think transportation and accessibility. Overall is probably a big factor of why we chose Porto. Why we chose Porto and why you guys might want to think about that impact, right? Like if you have your own car, it doesn't matter, right? But if you're choosing not to, which I'm loving, by the way.
Mark Burns
[ 00:09:38 ] That's really nice.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:09:39 ] I'm loving not having a car. Um, you need to be in a place, right? That either has other transportation options. Yeah. Um, Uber is amazing here. Yeah. At least in Porto. And it's actually been amazing in Lisbon. It's been amazing in the Algarve. We've been there and used it there. It's, it's been so, um, affordable, but also red, like readily accessible. Yeah.
Mark Burns
[ 00:10:04 ] I mean, it's either Uber or Bolt. Yes. Both are just as good as each other. Yeah. You pay your money, take your choices, which one you have. But, uh, yeah, transportation, accessibility of an airport as well for us was important. True. Proximity to an airport. Yeah.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:10:20 ] Is big for us.
Mark Burns
[ 00:10:22 ] You know, just, just getting, getting back to the UK would be real simple. It's a two-hour-ish flight. Yeah. Maybe. Um, if I'm lucky. Um, so yeah, transportation was, was huge. Again, that's going to figure into how, how, how you. How often you're going back home or where your people are. I love it. But also, you know, whether you have a car or not, whether, whether you want to be in the city or whether you want to be out of rural. Right. Or other things like that. We didn't want to be in rural for a number of days. Right. For whatever reasons. Hence. Right.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:10:52 ] And I'll be honest with you. There are many, many beautiful little towns all along this coast that we have stumbled upon already. But I'm telling you, I probably couldn't live in those places because there's maybe no train station. Or there's something you'd have to, you know, Uber for a longer period or always take the bus. Bus is not my favorite. Train. I love train. But my point is, is that consider those things when you're talking about a place to land, because I think that whether or not you have a car is going to impact that. Yeah, immensely, yeah! I would say for definite and so Porto, we chose because it has an amazing metro. Yeah, I mean, I freaking love the metro.
Mark Burns
[ 00:11:36 ] I mean, the cost of the metro as well to get-so to go from Porto city center to the airport is one 95, one Euro 95. And it's like a 30-minute train journey. Yeah. On a metro. And it's just the best thing ever. It really is. They're super clean.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:11:56 ] They're super nice. They're just... they're not often overloaded. It just feels like you can get around in the city. Yeah, pretty easily through the metro. Definitely.
Mark Burns
[ 00:12:06 ] And even then, even the, the, the regular rail, the national rail system. Yeah. We love the train. They're fantastic. Yeah. So.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:12:14 ] Okay. So we've talked about the cost of living. And we've talked about like transportation, airport, accessibility, all that other stuff.
Mark Burns
[ 00:12:23 ] Yeah. What made Porto the better choice for us for those two reasons?
Meredith Burns
[ 00:12:26 ] The other one was climate. So we were talking about the three kinds of regions of Portugal earlier. This is probably one of the biggest differences between north, central, and south Portugal. In north Portugal, you get cooler, typically cooler temperatures throughout the year. And I'd say the more southern you go, the hotter it gets. And drier. And drier it gets. There are drought issues in the Algarve.
Mark Burns
[ 00:12:56 ] Water shortages.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:12:59 ] There, but it is, I mean, it's true like Mediterranean beach living down there. Whereas up here, we get a lot of rain. Now I'm not saying we don't get rain in Lisbon. They don't get rain in the Algarve, but when you compare, like you looked it up the other day.
Mark Burns
[ 00:13:15 ] We get a lot. We get a lot up here compared.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:13:17 ] And especially in the winter months. Um, and so we've talked about this before, I think on this podcast about how, when we landed here in December, it literally rained for three months. I'm not joking. It might not have rained steadily for, for three months, but there were very few beautiful blue sky days in those three months. Yeah. So again, you can read that on paper and they can say, but each year is going to be different.
Mark Burns
[ 00:13:52 ] Yes. I think this year was just really bad. You just can't control. Yeah. So, but you should know that. I think you, I think you should just be very aware that the North is wetter. The central is a little bit less and the South is far less wet, but very hot in the summer.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:14:09 ] I feel like the last time I looked it up. Yeah. It's something like the Algarve gets 300 days of sunshine a year. So, you know, that's pretty amazing. That's enough. Yeah. Not many days of rain down there. That's the problem they have. Yeah. It's the, the drought problem down there. Yeah. Um, okay. Let's see. What else would we say? What do we have? We wrote down notes. Oh, lifestyle. It's really a lot of this is about like what kind of life you envision when you are moving here. You know, there's going to be, there's beach life, there's city life. There's, um, I mean you could live literally in a medieval-type village life. You know, there's all kinds, there's wine country. It's, it runs the gamut, but I think that you have to be thoughtful about like what you envision.
Mark Burns
[ 00:15:07 ] Yeah.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:15:08 ] Your real life to be. Yeah.
Mark Burns
[ 00:15:10 ] And if you're going to be in one of the medieval cities, like town, then make sure that you've either got somebody on hand to come and pick you up, um, or you've got to go because probably not going to do too well with an Uber. Yeah. Um, probably.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:15:24 ] And they're not going to be like on a train line typically, but so, but I think that's something to really think about and I think we'll talk about this in just a minute, a little bit as we, um, move forward, but it's like. City life is very different than beach life, right? And so do you, are you looking for the vibrance and the restaurants and the bars and the live music and the, like all the things that like a city can give you right outside your doorstep? Or are you looking for more of like a chill existence, you know, it just, it really just depends. And I, but I think that those, I think most people will know in their gut immediately what they're kind of looking for with that, but it also allows you to kind of eliminate. So if you're looking for a chill lifestyle, it's not Lisbon, right? It's beautiful.
Mark Burns
[ 00:16:21 ] And there are parts of it that are very chill, but it's a big city.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:16:26 ] It's a beautiful big city and I do love to visit it, but we knew we were not going to live in Lisbon. Right. It was never even on our radar and this is not because it's not amazing. It's just too big and I think that's where Porto kind of came in for us because I think that we wanted to land in a place where we could really immerse ourselves. I'll be honest with you, too. I feel like Porto is much more Portuguese.
Mark Burns
[ 00:16:55 ] It is definitely. There are far more... The traditions are still here. Yeah. There are far more Portuguese people still. Sorry. Porto. There are more Portuguese people born living in Porto than there are Lisbon-born living in Lisbon.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:17:08 ] Correct.
Mark Burns
[ 00:17:09 ] You know, and that's not just in regular jobs, that's in the tourist industry as well. So I think that it kind of gave us a connection with one of the reasons why we came to Portugal was to immerse in a culture and that's not to say that you can't do that in Lisbon. You can absolutely, but for us it worked better in Porto because the connection with Porto people. Yes. Was that much deeper. Yes. Immediately. And I just feel that that was great.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:17:38 ] I think that you, how many times have we heard it since we've been here that it's like, you won't get the same treatment in Lisbon that you do here with, with the people of Portugal. Right. And maybe that has been to our benefit, you know, and I know that's a sweeping, again, a sweeping statement because I'm sure that there are many lovely people in Lisbon that are from Portugal and from Lisbon. But the majority of it is now going to be people from all over the world and that might appeal to you. And I think that that is lovely. I wanted us to have a true cultural immersion type of experience when we first landed. And I think that we still made that right decision that Porto was a better choice than Lisbon would have been for that piece of what we were looking for. Yeah. I think you'll also find, you know, in the Algarve, it's a lot of immigrants and expats from other places. So you go back and forth, right? Like if you really want to be like just dumped into a different country, different culture, different language and start swimming, then choose something that is right. Choose something that is more traditional. Yep. The place that is more traditional. The Algarve is probably not going to be that place. If you're looking for something where it's going to be a more comfortable landing, where you're probably not going to have much of a landing barrier, an easier landing, you may want to choose Lisbon or the Algarve.
Mark Burns
[ 00:19:22 ] And the Algarve has got so many different aspects of it, whether it's a big city nightlife stuff you want. Yeah. Or it's a small fishing village. Small little fishing village. It's, you know, it goes from both ends.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:19:35 ] Yeah.
Mark Burns
[ 00:19:36 ] So, you know, I think that we have, we decided on the best place for us in the imported. Oh, yeah. I think so too.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:19:46 ] I mean, again, I think it was the right place for us to begin this journey of ours for sure. Right. The other, the last thing I would say, and this is not that we can add much to this because we're not parents of kiddos. Right. But we understand that a lot of you listening are going to be like, well, how do I want, you know, like I'm, I'm, my kids are the center of my world and I need to make sure that the schools, you know, all of that plays into that. I would say. Do your research. Yeah. You have to do your research. I would reach out to other Facebook groups that are out there, probably a more toward parents and ask because I think once you whittle down to a couple of different options, then you can make those decisions.
Mark Burns
[ 00:20:28 ] And I think also if you're moving with, with, with kids in mind, um, that's also going to maybe not largely, but definitely have an impact on where you're going to be, you know, are you going to be in the city center of Porto or are you going to be on the outskirts because school is closer and traffic is a nightmare and all those things. So not that we have any firsthand experience of that other than what we hear and see on different forums, such as Facebook and forums and such like. Yeah. So it's definitely something to consider, top tip, but then we have our reality check.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:21:11 ] Oh, you want to talk for real now?
Mark Burns
[ 00:21:13 ] Let's talk for real.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:21:16 ] Here's the reality check for all of this. We chose Forte. We did. We've been here for eight months. We have. It met all of these criteria that we've talked about.
Mark Burns
[ 00:21:28 ] Absolutely.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:21:29 ] I wouldn't even talk about the whole connection thing, which is my hippy dippy lovey self. The big one, which is when you go and visit a place, I really do believe you will feel a connection to it or you won't. I'll give a good example.
Mark Burns
[ 00:21:46 ] Right.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:21:48 ] Viana de Costello. We went and took a day trip the other day.
Mark Burns
[ 00:21:54 ] Yeah. I mean, I'd already been up there.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:21:56 ] You had. Yes. Yes. He had been up there for his AIMA appointment. Yeah. Regardless, I was at another place on the same day for my AIMA appointment and it was not as fun as his.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:22:06 ] No.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:22:07 ] But he was like, we have to go back. We have to go back. You'll love it. Yeah. I loved it. I mean, within an hour, I was looking at him and going, maybe, could we live here? Because it's not something that you can put your finger on. To me, I feel like certain places just ...
Mark Burns
[ 00:22:28 ] shout at you. Yeah.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:22:30 ] Mm-hmm. If you're willing to listen, I think they're connected.
Mark Burns
[ 00:22:31 ] I mean, certain places either shout at you, go away, or come here.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:22:37 ] Come hither.
Mark Burns
[ 00:22:38 ] I was going to say that, but then I thought you'd say the Mick out of me.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:22:40 ] Yeah. I just did. Okay. I'm sorry to get us off track, but this was another big one. I feel like in terms of criteria, I am a true believer that you have to go with your gut on certain things like this. When you're making life choices, it can't all be paper and black and white; this is very much him, and I'm the opposite, which is like, what does something make me feel? And I do believe that you can't discount what a place makes you feel. Honestly. Yeah. Right. It has to be a good combination of all those things. But go back to the reality check.
Mark Burns
[ 00:23:14 ] Yeah. Let's do that.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:23:15 ] What's the reality check, babe?
Mark Burns
[ 00:23:18 ] We're looking to move. Yeah.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:23:21 ] We're moving.
Mark Burns
[ 00:23:21 ] We're going to move.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:23:23 ] We're going to leave Porto. Yeah. Soon. Ish. Ish.
Mark Burns
[ 00:23:27 ] September, October, something of that nature. Probably. Is the expectation. And there's really just a few reasons that are high up on the reason why.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:23:43 ] What would that be? What's the number one reason?
Mark Burns
[ 00:23:46 ] I think, well, it's either for you or for me. For you. For me. For me. For me. For me. For me. For me. For me. I love the city, but I love more space. I love being able to just walk out into nature. And you can do that here, but it's sort of a ... Yeah. You have to make more effort into it. It's like a city park of nature. And it's amazing. It's gorgeous. It's beautiful. Oh, there's plenty of them. And there's plenty of them. But you've got to really sort of either get from our point of view, you've got a canoe or the metro, a little bit further outside of the city center. Yeah. And sure, we can walk down to the river. It takes us 10 minutes to walk down there, and it's an amazing, beautiful riverside. It's stunning. And that is nature, but it's also not the nature that I now want. Back then, it was, and I will happily come back and visit here any time of the day. But yeah, I think having been in the city, I think I've had my city life experience. Yes.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:24:52 ] And it's been fantastic. And for me, I agree with all of that.
Mark Burns
[ 00:24:56 ] By the time it comes around, it will almost be a year.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:24:59 ] Yeah. And here's the thing for me, we are moving ... And by the way, we haven't really solidified where we're going. That'll be a future episode, I'm sure. But we know that we're probably going to go. Because for city life, we both feel that way. Where it's like ... Our first few months here, we were in the second largest city in Portugal, and we got to experience every Portuguese food, every Portuguese wine, all the beautiful people, learning the language more than we probably would have ever in Lisbon. Fantastic. We still have a long way to go on that. Yeah. But it's still city life, and I find myself wanting an even slower pace.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:25:47 ] Mm.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:25:49 ] And that's okay. The way I feel about it is you can only ... If you're moving over here, you can only do what you know in the moment. Right. Right? And you really have to adopt a little bit of a nomadic lifestyle, in my opinion, unless you absolutely fall in love with the place, and you buy an apartment, or you buy a house, and you know that this is your retirement place, and you're so super happy. Yeah. I love that for you. For us, we had to look at this like it's very different from our prior life, which is we built a house. We lived there together for five years. It's very stable. This is more of like, where are we going next? Yeah. Because this is adventure for us. It will not be the same for all of you, so we're just kind of giving our perspective on this. Right. But we are taking more of a nomadic approach. Yeah. We're taking more of a nomadic approach. It's like, we're going to live in the city for the next few months. We might go spend that time in the Algarve.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:26:52 ] Yep.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:26:53 ] Right? And then in May, maybe we'll go to Viana do Castelo because we fell in love with it so much.
Mark Burns
[ 00:27:00 ] And I think as well, one of the reasons is, it's all about the city. And that experience has been absolutely fantastic. I've loved every minute of it. I really have too. Most minutes of it. Except for the rain. Except for the rain. And that kind of brings around another reason of a real- The reality of being in the northern part of Portugal. You have to be okay with rain. And as you can probably tell, I'm from England. We're okay with rain. We have quite a lot of it. But even for me, it was just getting a little bit tiresome at the end. It was hard. And it was tough because, you know, we've got a dog. Take her out two times a day, but your first apartment, 63 steps. No lift. That's 63 one way. So bad.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:27:45 ] Yeah. It was a challenge. It was a challenge mentally too. So he says city life is the number one reason. I say my number one reason is that I don't think that I can make it through another winter up here – Another season.
Mark Burns
[ 00:27:59 ] Yeah.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:27:59 ] With that much rain that we experienced last season. And again, people told us over and over that it's more wet in the winter up here. And I get that. But to experience it like it was last winter was unbelievably challenging for me. Yeah. It just really caused me some mental-I don't think you've ever experienced anything quite like that.
Mark Burns
[ 00:28:23 ] I don't. In that volume. Not for that long. In that period of time.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:28:26 ] And it really just, I didn't know how much it would emotionally affect me. And I have to, I'm going to protect myself from that. Yeah. Right? Like it just is what it is. Like if you've experienced something that it doesn't work for you, then in this world of this adventure that we're having, why would we do it again? We have an opportunity.
Mark Burns
[ 00:28:43 ] We have an opportunity to change it. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do. So this has been a fantastic landing zone.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:28:52 ] I can't talk enough about how magical Porto is. It's like, I want to give it this like homage. Like I just, it is, I don't know how to describe it other than that. There's an energy about this place. The minute that you come across that bridge or you see the river, you're like, where is this? Where am I? Because it is just so breathtakingly gorgeous. But it's not just about that piece. It's about time, I swear, and I've, I have talked about it over and over and over again, but the people here have literally crept up into my heart. Like I, I just, they have a pride about them, about this place and well deserved because if you're from Porto. If I meet someone who is from Porto, they rave about their city and they deserve to because it is absolutely gorgeous. And if it was a little bit farther south, I probably would never leave. I probably would never leave. Probably not. But that's why we help. So hopefully that's helped you a little bit. Right. Think about our criteria. Think about like what we've talked about. And you know how we chose Porto, but also that it's not a guarantee that it's your permanent place. And you know what I say? Be okay with that.
Mark Burns
[ 00:30:25 ] I think. Yeah. I think if you've got the opportunity to be okay with that, I. e., you, you know, you're not taking kids in and out of school and changing all of that up. Yes.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:30:33 ] It's a different, different, different experience. But kids are also resilient. Yeah.
Mark Burns
[ 00:30:39 ] Well, they are for sure. Because I spent all of my time moving kid life growing up, going through, I don't know how many schools now he's the social butterfly.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:30:51 ] He is because of it.
Mark Burns
[ 00:30:52 ] I was like 12 or something schools.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:30:54 ] Meanwhile, would anybody guess that I'm an introvert because I am, she is, she's like a hermit. It's true. It stays at home. Like this, this kind of activity. And then I have to go take it out.
Mark Burns
[ 00:31:11 ] Seriously. Did you just get that on your white shirt?
Meredith Burns
[ 00:31:13 ] Oh my God. Anyway, I really hope this has been helpful. You know, I; we will continue to try to bring you content that will help you make decisions for yourself.
Mark Burns
[ 00:31:29 ] Ask us questions that you love. Yeah. I've loved it.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:31:31 ] By the way, I've gotten some questions. So please, again, we're going to put out the call, right? Yeah. Instagram, TikTok message, email portugaljunkies@gmail.com. Um, whatever it is that, however you're connected with us on YouTube, make a comment, whatever you want to do to get us some topics that you think are valuable, that you want to know more about, um, ideas, questions that you have, bring it on because we, we want to make sure it's valuable in that we're not just doing this, um, to kind of document our life. It is doing that.
Mark Burns
[ 00:32:09 ] It is doing that. But I also think, you know, when we, when we sat down. Yeah. Back in Charlotte and we said, 'we're going to do this adventure' and one of the things we're going to do is a podcast, and oh, you know, it's going to allow us to have a diary of us and our adventure, um, but also help other people, help other people, and throw out things that we were missing when we were researching because, you know, yes, there are others, you know, other options out there to, to get your resources from, and that's absolutely challenging. Absolutely. Absolutely. Go use everything you can possibly find. We did, but I think that, you know, coming onto a, uh, onto a podcast with a glass of wine, um, and just chit-chatting and sometimes going off on a tangent, it's not overly scripted, and I love that.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:33:02 ] Oh, it's not, it's not scripted. We have some ideas of where we want to go, but it's, we want to be real. We want, I mean, this week on socials. Yeah. I got accused of not being for real about this place, which I had to process for a hot minute before I came back and said, 'Thank you for your opinion.'
SPEAKER_3
[ 00:33:22 ] But here's the thing.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:33:26 ] There's going to be people who move over here and it's not the experience that they anticipated. I want to try to make sure that we're not, we're certainly not making it rainbows and butterflies and rose-colored glasses. It's been challenging. And I think we've done a good job of that.
Mark Burns
[ 00:33:46 ] Thank you. All the way along, that we're going to be truthful and open.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:33:51 ] And if people email me and ask me, 'Should I move abroad?' Like, I don't know.
Mark Burns
[ 00:33:56 ] Should you?
Meredith Burns
[ 00:33:56 ] I don't know. There's a lot, there's a lot more conversation to be had. We're just trying to share our experience and help others who are interested in doing the same for whatever reasons you have. Yeah. And help you decide whether moving abroad is for you and if Portugal is for you. I mean, I'm biased because our experience has been lovely here. But I know that it's not perfect and I want to make sure that we keep reiterating those things that are not perfect because I certainly don't want to come across as like we're trying to sell you on moving. I want to help people who are interested in this process more than anything else. You know? And if you listen to us and go, yeah, that's just not for me, then that's great. We hope you still listen and join us.
Mark Burns
[ 00:34:48 ] I do think, though, from one final thing: that if what you're going to do is move, just make sure, from a housing perspective, you get the vast majority of what you want in the place where you want. Because switching it around like we have-because we have, we've been cocked up the first time and now by choice, we're changing again. Moving again. But that wasn't because we did this like Porto wrong; it's because the first apartment wasn't quite what we should have thought. Yeah. That was us.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:35:24 ] That's a good podcast to begin with. I mean, we've talked about our first apartment in another podcast if you haven't listened. But I do think that maybe we should do a similar episode that's talking about what are the criteria that we would consider in a new place. We can document it when we start to move.
Mark Burns
[ 00:35:45 ] Yeah.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:35:45 ] How about that?
Mark Burns
[ 00:35:46 ] I mean, again-We can think about like-I'll be the first to criticize myself as a realtor and we might get up. So there's every chance that everybody-There's things that maybe you're not thinking of that we can help with. Has an opportunity to learn from. Yeah. And so, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But ultimately, we've enjoyed Porto, we've enjoyed the city. Oh, I've loved it. And time for less rain.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:36:17 ] It will literally always have a piece of my heart. In fact, I'm going to get a tattoo for it.
SPEAKER_3
[ 00:36:24 ] Right.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:36:26 ] That'll be another episode. But I already have tattoo plans. Which you know, thinking about something that's a permanent part of your body, it had to have made an impact on you.
Mark Burns
[ 00:36:35 ] Yeah.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:36:35 ] Yeah. Sure.
Mark Burns
[ 00:36:36 ] Sure.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:36:37 ] All right. Anyway.
Mark Burns
[ 00:36:39 ] There we are. There you have it.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:36:40 ] There you have it. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for your support. Yeah. As always. Please share, tag, follow, subscribe. Rate us. You know, we'd love to have feedback, but we are celebrating over 2,000 listens so far.
Mark Burns
[ 00:36:56 ] Which is crazy bonkers to me. We're just so thankful. The people want to listen to what we've got to say.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:37:03 ] My favorite thing is when a complete stranger reaches out and is like, I'm binging your podcast right now. And I'm like, oh my God, you're my bestie.
SPEAKER_3
[ 00:37:11 ] Yeah. I love this. It's crazy.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:37:14 ] I love it. It's crazy. I'm loving this whole process because I feel like A, it gives us purpose, but B, it's like therapy for me.
Mark Burns
[ 00:37:22 ] Yeah. For both of us. That's true. But definitely for you.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:37:26 ] Awesome. Thank you. Cheers, you guys. Cheers to everybody. We will see you next episode. Absolutely.
Mark Burns
[ 00:37:31 ] Take care.
Meredith Burns
[ 00:37:32 ] Cheers. Bye. Cheers. Cheers.