00:00:00 [MEREDITH]

I'm Meredith and I'm Mark and we just said goodbye to the traditional American dream in Charlotte, North Carolina, to instead experience a life of adventure right now in Porto, Portugal.

00:00:13 [MARK]

We rented our house, packed up some suitcases and our fur baby Charlotte, and created a new life for ourselves.

00:00:20 [MEREDITH]

It's been a wild and glorious ride full of ups and downs and change and discomfort, but man are we glad we did it.

00:00:27 [MARK]

And now it's time to give back and help others. If you've ever considered moving abroad, we hope hearing about our journey will help you too.

00:00:35 [MEREDITH]

And if you're considering Portugal, well, we know you're in the right place.

00:00:40 [MARK]

Welcome to Portugal Junkies Podcast.

00:00:43 [MEREDITH]

Adventure is a verb, y'all. You guys, this is the first episode of Portugal Junkies Podcast. And we're going to be talking about the world of adventure. And I'm Meredith.

00:00:58 [MARK]

I'm Mark.

00:00:59 [MEREDITH]

And we are super excited because we are sitting in Porto, Portugal, where we moved from Charlotte, what, five months ago? Almost five months ago. And this is our first episode and this has been a, gosh, it's been an idea that we've had in our head probably for a good year. And so we're just so excited to kick it off. I will say.

00:01:30 [MARK]

Please forgive me.

00:01:32 [MEREDITH]

It's all new to us. I've done podcasts before for other people. But this is a different world for us.

00:01:40 [MARK]

We're on the other side of the microphone this time. Yeah.

00:01:43 [MEREDITH]

But here's what our goal is. Okay. Here's what our goal is for Portugal Junkies. We knew that when we moved over here, it was going to be the adventure of all adventures. And it did not come easily, there, and we had a lot of hurdles in the way that could have made us stay right where we were in our comfortable lives in Charlotte, and we pushed through those things because we found some pretty good resources, but we also realized that we had a unique vision and experience that we could potentially bring to other people like us who are interested in moving abroad. And more specifically, moving abroad to Portugal. So that's why we're doing this. That's why we've become the Portugal Junkies because we really are. It is one of the most magical places.

00:02:38 [MARK]

And it's just overtaken our lives.

00:02:40 [MEREDITH]

Well, it's kind of hard not to since we moved here.

00:02:43 [MARK]

And it's difficult to make sure that we're seeing it as a place that we live and also a place that we can tour around and become part of. The community. And I know that doesn't happen overnight.

00:02:57 [MEREDITH]

It doesn't. But we have been here for almost five months now. I think we're right on that line, like, we can't act like just tourists anymore. I think we'll always be tourists. Yeah.

00:03:08 [MARK]

And it's also very expensive to act as a tourist. That's very true. So we've got that to put into the equation.

00:03:14 [MEREDITH]

So that's kind of where we are. But here to back up, we want this podcast to let you know a little bit about who we are and how we even got here. And really kind of introduce our lives to you as brand new expats. And then we will continue throughout the podcast series sharing information that we really think is key for people to know if they're considering the same thing. So we hope that you will connect with us and tell us what resonates with you and ask for the information that you might find valuable. So we can help you do that. So that's the goal here with the Portugal Junkies.

00:03:59 [MARK]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, there's a lot of resources online-YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, all of that.

00:04:06 [MEREDITH]

Some good and some bad.

00:04:07 [MARK]

Yeah, some not so great and some absolutely fantastic. And we relied heavily on it at the very beginning, for sure. But I think as you start to live it yourself, you can come at it with a different lens. Yeah.

00:04:23 [MEREDITH]

We have even more experience.

00:04:25 [MARK]

Yeah, you can listen and hear to what other people say. But also, you mix that into the pot with what you now feel and know yourself.

00:04:33 [MEREDITH]

Right.

00:04:33 [MARK]

So I think having started it and now living it, it's a privilege and it's an opportunity to aid others as we wanted.

00:04:48 [MEREDITH]

Absolutely. So that's our goal. So let's back up there. For those of you who don't know who the heck we are, I mean, why would you? Gotta be all of you. Why would you? My name's Meredith. And I grew up in North Carolina. I went to UNC Chapel Hill. And I kept moving a little bit west to Charlotte. And I moved there in 2005 where I basically spent my life dating and wondering if I was ever, ever going to find my person. And then at 38, a long ass time. I found out. I found my person. And he happened to have a British accent. And I just swiped that bad boy up. But Mark, you tell me. Mark had moved over here from the UK.

00:05:35 [MARK]

Yeah, so I moved to the US in 2017. Started a new job. And within two months had met you on Match. com. Like I said. Don't knock it until you've tried it.

00:05:46 [MEREDITH]

Now I can't talk shit about Match. com.

00:05:49 [MARK]

For sure. Yeah, met on Match. Dated. Got married. Built a house together in Charlotte. And through different life changes, we got to a point where we both love travel and experiencing something different. I think somebody else said it, but being comfortable being uncomfortable. And I think that really helped resonate a lot of who we are.

00:06:16 [MEREDITH]

Well, I think we do a good job of pushing ourselves to be uncomfortable.

00:06:21 [MARK]

Yeah, we don't do it for anybody.

00:06:23 [MEREDITH]

Nobody likes it.

00:06:24 [MARK]

We don't do it for anybody. We don't do it for anybody else's purpose. We do it for our own. And sometimes it's great. And sometimes it's, oh, I wouldn't do that again.

00:06:31 [MEREDITH]

I mean, it's definitely not like the place where you all what you want to stay. But I think that you and I both come from places in our lives where we, well, we kind of say this as the tagline for Portugal junkies. You know, adventure is a verb. You have to go and do. And we're both doers. We don't.

00:06:52 [SPEAKER_3]

Yeah.

00:06:52 [MEREDITH]

We don't do a lot of like hanging around. We're both very much fast decision makers. I wouldn't say that we're like very risky, but I think we err on the side of caution because we both see life. You don't know. Right. If you don't take risks, you don't get anything.

00:07:08 [MARK]

And, you know, throughout growing up and just before moving to the U. S., you know, moving around different countries, my father was in the army, so we would travel around a lot. And I think that's definitely where I got my itch to travel. Travel and explore. And, yeah, I think having found each other, this is just the next chapter in a whole series of books.

00:07:36 [MEREDITH]

I think we're just so like-minded. I mean, obviously, he's the best thing ever. He's my great partner. But I think that the reason why we are wonderful partners is because we see the world the same.

00:07:47 [SPEAKER_3]

Yeah.

00:07:48 [MEREDITH]

And not that we always have the same opinions. But because we see the bigger picture the same. You know, like, we; I think it takes a certain type of person who is willing to uproot your life and move somewhere to a foreign land where you don't know anybody, you don't know the language, and you're just kind of going on the, well, what's there to lose? Yeah. And that's really where we got to. Like, I wanted to ask you, so when I was, I like to plan things, so I planned out a little bit of this format for the podcast. Mark's like, well, you're going to ask me questions? I would like you to think about, like, where were we emotionally when we got to the point or we even were even considering moving abroad from our cushy little lives in Charlotte? Because it was. We had a real estate business that was successful. I was working a full-time gig as an instructional designer. We don't have kids. Because, like, we have a little fur baby who's our life, but why are we in suburbia? Why are, I mean, that was the number one thing for me, but I would like to ask you again, like, think about emotionally, where do you think you were and where do you think I was to get us to the point where we were?

00:09:14 [MARK]

Well, I think, you know, just tracking back onto my point a moment ago, I was lucky enough, if you put it that way, to have traveled a lot. Mm-hmm. Both through work. And through just being dragged along for the ride with mum and dad. But I think we got to a point where, yeah, this is great. This is comfy. This is cozy. There was a lot of crap happening. Yeah. COVID and, you know. Political crap. Political scene. And I think it just got to a point where the world is much bigger than this one piece of land that you live in and around. And again. I mean, if we go back to the point of, we're both adventurers in different ways, but in the same way, we hold the same desires and wants of chance. So we took a chance. And I just think I was ready, I mean, six years, seven, yeah, nearly seven years in one place.

00:10:14 [MEREDITH]

What made you ready though, really? What do you think it was that like, because we talked about this for a while and we will continue. There's. This is probably going to be an entire topic on a podcast in the future about this year of consideration. Like, and I say that because I feel like it's going to be a theme that I'm going to talk to people a lot about during this process, if we're lucky enough to connect with people who are interested in doing this. But the year of consideration for us was no joke. It's it's, I say that that's probably the minimum for most people to decide something this big. You can't do it on the drop of a hat. You can, but I don't know if people, many people would in our situation in a similar situation.

00:11:00 [MARK]

I mean, like for like, I think you've got to go through a process of talking it through. Yes. No. I mean, how many times, you know, you asked that question about how did I know I was ready? We went through this a dozen different times of like, oh, let's go there. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. Let's go to Portugal. Let's, let's look into this D7. Let's speak to an immigration, um, for me over here and they were great. And then it was like, yeah, but it's not what I'm going to do that really crap. So what do you think it was just ready for a change? I think I wanted to experience more. I think that with health issues from family of getting, you know, from, from your mom, dad. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Um, I just think that if you don't do it when you can, then when are you going to do it? You know, we've spoken about this a lot of the fact that we've referred to it as quotes reverse retirement. I mean, it kind of is, but it kind of isn't because we're not retired, wishful thinking. Um, but I, I just think that the opportunity. The, we had in front of us because of the lifestyle that we have with no children. If not now, then when? Yeah. And I didn't want to be regretful that in 10 years' time walking around a cane or not knowing where I'm walking around because some, something happening medically, that's not the life that I want.

00:12:47 [MEREDITH]

I'm sure this will be a recurring thing that we will talk about a lot on this podcast, that whole, like, you know, one day I just woke up and realized what bullshit retirement is and this whole social construct and like how we have bought into this for years about being told that like the path that you should take is, you know, it's not going to work. You know, study hard, go to school so that you can get a job working for someone else and hopefully beg for a, an increase or, you know, you'd be so happy if you get your 2% increase every year and then, and then by the time you're 65 or 70, when you are let go and free, quote unquote, what, what if you can't and I just, I don't know, I mean, it's not like I've never thought about it. I've never thought about that in my lifetime, I'm 45, but I think two things for me happened. Well, maybe three. One is that true realization like that, like you don't have to, you don't have to follow the path that society has laid out for you and sometimes I think we do it like robots. It's not even a thought. It's just what you do. And I also was unhappy in my corporate life. You know, I worked in corporate life for 20 something years, probably since I was 21. So what is that? 23 years already, 23 years, literally for someone else and the, the grind and the rat race and everything everybody ever tells you about it is, it was all true for me. Yeah. I was the person who would be your stellar employee, but what did that get me? More work and more stress and more pressure and so it always felt like, what the hell? Like what am I? Why am I spending the majority of my life doing this? And I would say that the third thing was definitely, um, and this is a pretty personal. Yeah. Side of things for us, but we're here to be vulnerable and share our lives with you.

00:15:18 [MARK]

None of this is, I mean, you've got notes and you know, we, we, we talk about everything through, but these conversations are just going to go and track the way they go and track.

00:15:28 [MEREDITH]

I didn't say, oh, we're going to talk about this, but we are.

00:15:30 [MARK]

And this isn't on, you know, this isn't on the talking list, um, I think pretty much everything is going to be on the talking list because I think, I just think it's important. And, and you know, whether it's personal, whether it's vulnerable or anything of that nature, it may resonate with some, it may not with others. And you just pick up the bits that you want to pick up and you leave the bits that don't matter.

00:15:54 [MEREDITH]

We're here to be ourselves, but I think part of it for us, I know that we've talked about this many, many times, and this conversation was very much a part of our decision making to move here in that. Yeah. You know, you can sit here and say, you just never know if today is your last day. It's cliche after cliche, right? You can, you've heard, heard them your whole life, but until you actually really internalize those and really start to like envision what it would feel like in terms of regret about things like that, um, you're probably not going to change anything, but for us, we were kind of faced with it. Because, um, when I met Mark, his dad was already, um, two years into his Alzheimer's diagnosis. And, um, unfortunately he did pass away a little over a year ago and we both witnessed that decline, and then my mom has just shown early signs of it. I mean, I say early. She is 74, I think. Um, so it's not early onset, but it is early signs of dementia. And it's something that my family is dealing with. I would say we've been dealing with it for the past three or four years. Not anything yet like Mark and his dad went through, but the truth is that, you know, you, you realize that there's a chance. With your family history that both of us are susceptible to this and you know, it is certainly not something that, um, you know, that it's a guarantee or anything like that. But even just the chance, it scares me.

00:17:59 [MARK]

I think it's a case of not hanging around for it to happen to you, go and make some things happen for you. And if the result is at the end of the day, the one of us is going to die. That's what both of us get it. We're never going to have stopped that from happening, but what we've done is lived our life before that happened.

00:18:19 [MEREDITH]

Right.

00:18:19 [MARK]

And I think that's, for me, that's one of the reasons why I think I was ready. Also, the stress of real estate and the stress of other things and things like that. So yeah, everybody's got stresses in life. Um, unless you're extremely fortunate, but I still think even then you've got the stresses in life. Um, so no, I think I was ready. And you know, the, the doctor, the doctor, the doctor, the doctor, the doctor, the doctor, the doctor said to me, many a night, let me go and bark some Portuguese.

00:18:46 [MEREDITH]

The dog he's talking about is our daughter, Charlotte. She was seven-year-old Boston terrier.

00:18:51 [SPEAKER_3]

I'll introduce her at some point, but she's sleeping as he's her life.

00:18:57 [MEREDITH]

Even in Bordeaux. Well I think that that kind of outlines for you a little bit about how we got emotionally to the point where we were willing to leave our family and friends and our jobs and our comfort. But the comfort of the home that we built, there's so much, you know, that we had to say goodbye to. And it was not necessarily an easy, easy process either. But I will say sitting here now, even if I have hard days because I miss my family, I wouldn't go back home right now. I wouldn’t look at this and go, oh, well, this is a mistake. It’s a mistake. It’s the things that you have to kind of deal with in order to adventure.

00:19:40 [SPEAKER_3]

Right.

00:19:41 [MEREDITH]

So that's kind of where and how we got here. We moved from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Porto, Portugal, which is where we are sitting right now. And we did that in December. So what?

00:19:57 [MARK]

There's going to be some interesting conversations in the future about moving. In December to Porto. Oh, yes.

00:20:05 [MEREDITH]

In the middle of the winter. Old times. It's a good, it's another good example that we will continue to talk about of the real life, you know, moving abroad, like things to expect.

00:20:19 [MARK]

The good, the bad, the ugly and the truth.

00:20:21 [MEREDITH]

People can tell you, you know, I love Porto, but just be sure that you're OK with the weather patterns. And, you know, it's a rainy, wintry, you know, winter is usually not very cold, but it's. It's rainy. I was like, sure. I mean, I'm not, no big deal about rain. Right. No big deal. It's not like it's snow or ice.

00:20:41 [SPEAKER_3]

Right.

00:20:42 [MEREDITH]

It rained for, when I say it rained for what felt like a month straight when we got here. It was hard. It was very hard. And, you know, this one being from England, I was like, well, I don't care.

00:20:54 [SPEAKER_3]

It was like summer.

00:20:55 [MEREDITH]

He's used to this. I had some sort of like emotional, like I was just having. I mean, the only thing I can really equate it to is like a seasonal aspect, whatever. Like I just had no sunshine to pull me out of these, this hard transition. So, but anyway, I digress. We will come back to all of those details at some point. They are extremely important.

00:21:20 [MARK]

They are definitely things to consider when, you know, if, if let's say you're considering it from California, which sees how much.

00:21:28 [MEREDITH]

Oh, yeah. Right. I mean, somebody compared it to Seattle. And I would have to say after this winter, I would say it's worse than Seattle weather in the winter for the past 20 days. It's been beautiful sunshine and 70 degrees.

00:21:41 [MARK]

So, I mean, I'm hoping it looks to stay that way for quite a while. Yeah.

00:21:48 [MEREDITH]

Okay. So now let's talk about, now that we've talked about like how we got here and where we were emotionally to even get to that point. Why did we choose Portugal?

00:22:02 [MARK]

I think for me, I don't think in large for both of us, but I think that it was about safety.

00:22:09 [MEREDITH]

It was about safety in terms of the country. Yeah.

00:22:15 [MARK]

Yeah. Overall. Yeah. Overall country safety.

00:22:18 [MEREDITH]

I think it ranks like in the top three or five. No, I think it's even higher than that of European countries.

00:22:24 [MARK]

Again, I'm saying it's within the top 10. It depends on how you look at it. But ultimately, yeah, it's way up there. Okay. Against where we were coming from, which was 130. Not good. But no, definitely safety was a real concern. We wanted to, I think, to go to a place where we didn't have to have a car. I think, again, America, very car-centric. Everybody drives. Nobody walks unless you, for one or two particular reasons. But to not have a car, but be able to get around.

00:22:56 [MEREDITH]

Yeah, it was definitely like if we're moving to Europe. That is one of my musts that we don't have to drive. We need to live in a place where everything is walkable. Because to me, that's what Europe is. I mean, again, that's very like American living in Europe. Cliché, vision, what it could be, what you think it is as you sit in Charlotte. But like that was very important to me because number one, I didn't want to have a bad car over here. And number two, I'm just done with, I just feel like I'm just over driving after being in Charlotte. I'm like, oh, that would be so nice to have a break. I'm going to be somewhere where we don't have to drive.

00:23:31 [MARK]

So I ain't saving no car. I think one of the biggest ones, and I think one of the biggest ones for, I'm going to say everybody, is healthcare. The cost of healthcare. Having access to the national healthcare after a period of time or going through certain bureaucratic steps to get what you need to access the healthcare available on a state system, coming from an English perspective, I'm just saying.

00:24:01 [MEREDITH]

It's great. I don't even know what national healthcare means until I met you. Right.

00:24:05 [MARK]

But, you know, and having, you've got to have your private insurance, you know, private medical as well. You don't have to. You don't have to. But even the cost of that for what you get, and that's, again, another story because that's something that we've recently gone through. But healthcare is a huge reason to have picked Portugal. And, you know, Porto in particular, I think, after we came here a couple of times, it was, you know, this is the place. This is the place.

00:24:38 [MEREDITH]

I mean, when I say when we came here the first time, we were here, obviously, as tourists in August. And June prior to that was the first time we even considered moving to Portugal. And the reason why we picked Portugal to at least scout, I thought of it as like an. . It was an expedition mission. What was the word we called it when we were like... We're scouting. Basically, it's a scouting trip. Like, I'm coming to this place that I've never been to, but I definitely am looking at it through the lens of, could I live here? And we'd never traveled that way before. I will say I remember we were driving up to the lake. My parents live at Lake Gaston. And we were driving up to the lake from Charlotte. And Mark's mom was with us. She was visiting for the summer. Mm-hmm. And we were talking about moving to Europe. And I think she said, well, where would you want to live? And I pulled out my phone, and I literally just started Googling.

00:25:35 [MARK]

Top ten places to live.

00:25:36 [MEREDITH]

Yeah, top most affordable places to live. Yes. Fantastic reason. In Europe, or move to in Europe. Portugal, top of the list. For me, it is an affordability thing. The older we get, the more I want to make choices that help us financially. Like, I don't want to go... I don't want to go the opposite way, where you're like, oh, I'm going to buy this million-dollar house today, and then what? Like, you're just tied... You are tied to it. And I know that sounds ironic, coming from realtors. But it is true. There is an element of that, that if you're an adventurer, it's not necessarily in your best interest to have all those things tying you somewhere.

00:26:16 [SPEAKER_3]

Some things you've got to give up.

00:26:17 [MEREDITH]

And so it's affordability for me. Mm-hmm. It was safety. And it was climate, ironically. I know I just talked about how wet the winter was. Doesn't that work out for you? But if you guys could see what it's like for the past 20 days straight, it has been absolutely gorgeous. It reminds me of California weather. It's not humid. It's warm. It can be 75 or 80, but you're not even really sweating. It's just... And you get down on the river. It's just so nice.

00:26:47 [MARK]

And you get that breeze. Yes. It's like, yeah, another glass of port.

00:26:51 [MEREDITH]

So we will talk probably even more so about each of these, like, reasons. Because I think I think you guys probably want to know more details about what are you talking about with the safety and what are you talking about in terms of, like, actual cost of living? Is it really that different? And so we're going to go into some of that as we move forward in the podcast. Absolutely. Because we're going to try to make sure that we're always coming back to what did we want to know? You know, what did we want to know? And what did we want to know more about?

00:27:22 [MARK]

I mean, that's not to say that there's a ton of information out there. There's a lot of people that do a lot of really good stuff. And there's a lot of people that do not so great stuff. But if you want to know the top ten things to do in Porto, you can dive through a thousand different iterations of that. But I think it's really important from our perspective if what we're trying to do is to deliver helpful, informative, action. Fun, factual-things that we did right. Things that we definitely did not do right. Yes. And there have been a good number of those things.

00:28:00 [SPEAKER_3]

Mm-hmm.

00:28:01 [MEREDITH]

That we're going to vulnerably share with you. Yeah.

00:28:07 [MARK]

As realtors, we didn't get the first one right. Yeah.

00:28:10 [MEREDITH]

We didn't get our first apartment right.

00:28:12 [MARK]

So we'll share that. But at the same time, you know, that's a live and learn kind of thing. Yeah. But, you know, there's so many important lessons that we've learned in this very, very short span of actually living here. Um, that I think if we had seen from somebody else that was being as vulnerable as we are and as we are going to continue to be, I think it would have added a lot more; hmm, better make sure we make a note of that, that we don't make that mistake. Yeah.

00:28:41 [MEREDITH]

This whole process can be super overwhelming. And, you know, I can say that because we went through it. I can also, on the other side, go, it can be overwhelming. But it also... It also can be pretty simple if you have the right... Tools. Resources and tools. Um, so anyway, we're going to dive into more of that, I'm sure, at another time. One more question that I have on this.

00:29:08 [MARK]

Drum roll.

00:29:09 [MEREDITH]

What were all the reasons for us not to go? We talked about this whole year of consideration. We talked about, like, how long it took us to actually land on it and decide and be like, stop the wavering. We're going to go and we're going to adventure and we're going to go and do this. Like, what were the reasons not to go that kept us from doing it in August when we came here and visited and we're like, oh, my God, this place is magic. Yeah.

00:29:39 [MARK]

It's like anybody that goes on holiday. Oh, my God, I could live here. And in actual fact, if you remember back... We... So, very, very Just... I'll come back to that. But... Tell a story, honey. Tell a story. I'll tell a story. Are you sitting down? Can you come and sit? Um... We had lunch at a... What is now probably our favorite restaurant. I mean, shout out to Alecrim. Alecrim Restaurant. In Porto. And we... We had lunch outside next to this park. And again, in this whole caught up in the beauty and the moment of, could we live here? And if we did live here in Porto, my gosh, wouldn't it be great if we lived next to this park? Charlotte would love to live next to this park. She would love it here. We could just walk through And, you know, we've been back there probably more times than we should. But we know them very well. They know us. And, I don't know, it's just one of those...

00:30:40 [MEREDITH]

We manifested it. I believe it.

00:30:42 [MARK]

Yeah, it's just one of those things where if you want something bad enough, you can get it. But you're going to have to give up a shit ton of other stuff. So, bring it back to... So, what were the reasons not to go? Comfort. Income. Like... Drastic. Regular income. Just regular income. Friends. Family. Routine. Good weather all around. Security. Access to the mountains. Access to the seas. You know, so many personal things to lose. Lose out on. But if the amount of things that you could lose are less than what you can gain.

00:31:33 [MEREDITH]

Yeah. At some point you have to say... You've got to say... That's an if. If we lose out. If. And I think for us, too, we've always had aspirations to build something for ourselves. We were both unhappy in our jobs. And it's like, time is ticking, man. If you want to go and change and do something that you really feel good about and inspires you every day. Then this is the time to go do it. And if we are lucky enough, and we were, to be able to make a move like this. Then it was silly not to. I mean, it really got to that point where it was like, all the stuff you dreamed of and wanted outweighed the fear of the stuff that you might be leaving behind. And I will also say this. For us, we always looked at this as like, we really don't have anything to lose. Because we rented our house. Our car sits out in my mom and dad's driveway. If shit hits the fan, we go home. And we have a roof over our head. And we have a car to drive to Harris Teeter. You know? And I... Target. Oh, I missed Target. Oh, I just had a moment. Anyway. I just... I feel like that's what happens. Is that you can dream of something. And until that desire... Literally that dream And the desire to have that kind of life outweighs the fear of what you might lose or miss. Then that's when I think people become ready to do something like this. And that timeline can be any timeline. Because who knows? It took us about a year. Yeah. I mean, I think, again, for me, it was definitely my family. Like, I... But at the same time, my family and my friends, they are like... I am the luckiest chick in the world when it comes to my family and friends. And I also have the most supportive group of family and friends that were, like, jumping up and down for us to go and do this. And excited and proud and all the things. And I know that not everybody gets that from the important people in their life. But that was the big one for me. And, you know... We were very worried about bringing the dog over here. Not that she's a bad traveler. Not that we're, like, the actual traveling with her. It was the regulations of the airline and being able to take her in the cabin with us. And that, I think, was the number one thing that kept us going back and forth. Because I was like, I just... There's very few airlines that will take her. There's very few ways. And we just made it happen. We just kept pushing and kept researching and making sure that it was... Possible. We even looked at taking a transatlantic cruise with Cunard because they have kennels on board. I mean, there were all different things that we considered to make this happen despite our fear about her little fur baby. But we made it. And we did it. And it was... We should probably talk about that in an episode, too.

00:34:44 [MARK]

I mean, if you've been keeping up... You know, you've got a scratch card... A scorecard going. You should be up to at least nine, maybe ten. Reasons not to go? Reasons... No... Editions of new other podcasts. Other podcasts. Yeah, other things that we're going to talk about. Because each one of these things... You know, talking about just the dog. Oh, the dog alone, we'd have an entire episode about. Yeah, when you look on all the expat forum pages and there's a... There aren't many out there. Well, maybe not many, but there are a good number out there. But there are some that are absolutely invaluable if you are even contemplating it because they're a fantastic resource. But one of the things that comes up in there, I'm not going to say every day, but numerous times every week is... Can somebody help me with my dog? Can somebody help me with my dog? Can I do this? Can I do that? And I think it was one of the things that we were looking for when we were making this move. And I don't know that we found it in one place. Yeah, we had to go. . Specifically, it was taking it from there and taking it from there. And learning. And sure, you know, go and find some. .

00:35:53 [MEREDITH]

But I will say. . Information. Do you know what put me over the hurdle with this one? I feel like the final time that we got information about the dog situation that made me go, okay. That makes me comfortable enough to be like, let's make our appointment for our interview for our visa. And that was speaking specifically to a person who had taken her two dogs on United from Newark to Lisbon. And that. . Changed everything for me. And this is again what I bring it back to with what we're trying to do here. We desperately want to make sure that we are a good resource for people. Because we know what joy it's brought to us so far. We've experienced the things that keep... might keep one from going and doing this. Because it's not the easiest process to get your visa. I mean, I'm not saying it's impossible. It's just you need to know certain things. And so, our goal is to share all of that with you guys. And that's what Portugal Junkies is going to be all about. And then, of course, raving about everything that we love about Portugal and our experiences here. But primarily, that's what we want this podcast to do and be. It is... We want it to be... That's my husband opening a bottle of port for those of you listening on the podcast.

00:37:18 [MARK]

Actually... So, one last thing. Oh, my God. Interruptions. Yeah. That's your life. So, this bottle is from Christmas when it was... What did we buy each other for Christmas? We don't buy each other anything for Christmas. We have no money. We just move the bar. We have no money. We just move the bar. We need to conserve everything. So, we decided to do 50 euros, one high street only. And we both had to shop on this high street.

00:37:44 [MEREDITH]

Can you tell someone what a high street is? For those who don't speak British English, like a street with shops.

00:37:52 [MARK]

Like a main street. Main street.

00:37:55 [MEREDITH]

Retail area. Yeah.

00:37:57 [MARK]

But it was this one place. And so, I went in and I bought a couple of these small little ports.

00:38:05 [MEREDITH]

That's all. That's a good story. You should tell it at parties.

00:38:07 [MARK]

Oh, I do. And do you know how many laughs I get?

00:38:10 [MEREDITH]

So, that was, you know, Megan Owen. That's my little sister's favorite thing to say. That's such a good story. You should tell it at parties.

00:38:18 [MARK]

You need to do that.

00:38:20 [MEREDITH]

Anyway, bring it back to... Yes. Our goal with this podcast is to help people like you. If you have tuned in because you're interested in Portugal in any form or fashion, I hope that you will stay connected with us. We are going to be rolling out a lot of different things in terms of helpful resources to people. But we're starting with this podcast. And we are so excited that this is episode one.

00:38:45 [MARK]

It's episode one. And it's been a long journey in the making. And I'm so proud and privileged to make the choice. And I'm so proud to be able to share this journey with you. Oh, he's the best guy in the world. Ultimately, you know, the best is still to come.

00:38:59 [MEREDITH]

Yeah, it is. All right. Cheers, y'all. We'll see you next time. Cheers, babe.

00:39:04 [MARK]

Cheers.

00:39:05 [MEREDITH]

Listen up, future expats. For more content about our move, the visa process, Portuguese culture, and destinations, and tons of support resources for your own decisions and potential move abroad, follow us on Instagram. And TikTok at Portugal Junkies.

00:39:23 [MARK]

Stay in touch and help us reach more people by subscribing here and following us there.

00:39:29 [MEREDITH]

Cheers, y'all.