We have been living in Braga, Portugal for about 5 weeks now. It has been a rollercoaster ride of emotions. Moving to any new city has its own set of challenges but moving to a foreign country where English is not super prevalent is downright challenging. But we have overcome the language and cultural shock and have learned some good tricks on working around our limited Portuguese language skills. Now that we are settled in, we are very content, and Portugal is quickly feeling like home.

The flight or should I say flights to get from Seattle to Porto were exhausting and when we finally arrived in Porto our bike box was missing. It didn’t make the connection from Brussels. But the luggage team at Porto was very helpful and told me it would be delivered to our apartment in a couple days which it was without further incident. Score.

We hired a driver to take us from the airport to our AirBnb in Braga where we would stay for a few days until we could get our apartment ready to move in. We wanted to make sure we hired a vehicle large enough to haul all our luggage. After all, this was literally all our remaining possessions. Our driver was very nice and gave us a quick tour of Braga and some advice on places to do our furniture shopping.

Our AirBnb for the next few nights was in the historic city center of Braga. Very cool area and despite a touristy area, very quiet at night. We were immediately impressed that Braga doesn’t feel overcrowded which is exactly the vibe we were looking for.

We met the property manager of our new apartment that we had been paying rent on for the past 6 months of rent. We took the keys and for the first time set foot in our new home in Braga. We are in the north part of town — about a 20-minute walk to the historic city center. The apartment is bigger than our Portland condo and has a nice, big balcony. Everything was functional however, the place needed a lot of cleaning, especially the kitchen which had a layer of grease built up on the cabinets probably from years of cooking lots of fried foods. There was also a smell in the kitchen that seemed to be coming from either the sink or washing machine drain. We spent the next two days doing nothing but cleaning. And after running alot of hot water and baking soda and vinegar down the drains, the smell mostly went away.

Our neighborhood is incredible. The ground floor of our building has a market where we buy most of our produce. The butcher where we get our beef is across the street. A great bakery/pastry/cafe shop is also across the street, but we prefer the cafe that is a couple blocks away called Casa Das Natas. Several bars and restaurants within 1-2 blocks. Our favorite is Taberna Belga which features an amazing selection of Belgian beers. We have 2 supermarkets within a 10-minute walk. 3 shopping centers (full scale mall with high-end stores, movie theater, etc.) within 30-minute walk. 2 hospitals within 20-minute walk. 100’s of restaurants and cafes within 20-minute walk. Walk Score is only available on US addresses but if I had to guess, our address would be high 90’s if not a perfect 100. One of the things I like the most about our neighborhood is that we are very close to the city center but not right in it so we can avoid the touristy spots if we want.

A lot of expats that move to Portugal rent fully furnished apartments. But most of those are in the touristy part of town as I mentioned we were trying to avoid. Therefore, our apartment was unfurnished. Since we didn’t know how long it would take a furniture store to deliver, we hired a guy with a cargo van to haul all our furniture from the stores and deliver it to us. We called it the Big IKEA Run since that is where most of our initial furniture was purchased from. It worked out great except we spent the next full week assembling furniture 🙂 The first couple of days we worked all day and late into the evening but we were burning out fast. Once we got the critical pieces finished (bed, table, sofa), we decided to only work about 4 hours a day so we could at least spend some time exploring our new surroundings.

We have had little tastes of what I like to call the “The Portuguese Way” but our first full experience had to do with the mailbox key. When we moved in, we were given 1 set of keys and missing from that set was a key to the mailbox. Seemed like a simple thing to resolve — ask the property manager for the key, get the key, done. Oh no. That is not how things work in Portugal. Here is how they work:
-ask the property manager; wait a couple of days to hear a reply
-he replies with he will ask the owner; wait another couple of days for a reply
-owner never got that key, you “might” have to ask the building
-ask the building management who gives us contact info of the tech that they outsourced this building to
-ask the tech for a mailbox key; wait another couple of days for a reply
-tech replies with “yes that is possible.”
-ok, so can we get a new lock installed and new keys? wait another couple of days for a reply
-tech replies “new lock installed, when do you want the keys?”
-umm aren’t you downstairs? can you just bring them up to us? wait another couple of days for a reply
-I’m here at the building, can you meet me? luckily, we were just across the street at the cafe — finally keys in hand
-how much do I owe you and how do I pay? wait another couple of days for a reply
-I will send you an invoice
-wait about a week; another reply with the invoice
-I forward the invoice to the property manager — do you want me to pay this and deduct from the rent or is the owner going to pay it? this time no reply, even after sending same inquiry a couple more times
-rent is due — I pay the invoice and deduct it from the rent
-no reply from property manager or owner — guess this transaction is now complete

We have experienced a similar trend on a few other occasions. Three attempts at making a copy of a key before it finally worked. Three attempts at repairing some small leaks in our kitchen sink before we decide this is good enough. Two attempts and several hours later at the bank to make some changes to the account and order debit cards. Two and a half weeks to receive a letter that the debit cards have been ordered – not the actual debit cards yet – because the address is incomplete.

Sure, Portugal isn’t perfect. No place ever is. But we feel the things we do gain here outweigh some of the things that may not run as smoothly as the US. One of the things we like the most about Portugal is…cafe culture. There is a cafe on just about every block in the city center area which includes our neighborhood. Cafes are one of the most important social institutions here. You meet old friends, you meet new friends, you hear news, you hear gossip, you do work…all while enjoying amazing coffee and pastries. And amazing is not an exaggeration — all the food in general in Portugal is just really, really good. Most of it isn’t fancy, it is just simple ingredients, but local, fresh, high-quality ingredients and when your ingredients are of the best quality, it doesn’t take much to make a simple dish taste great.

In the short time we have been here, we have already made some new friends — both fellow expats and locals. Thanks to Cindy’s Braga+ Expat Group on Facebook! It is nice to share our experience with others who are going through the same up’s and down’s of relocating to Braga.

The weather in Braga has so far been close to what we expected. We were anticipating Pacific NW type weather — beautiful springs, summer, fall, but colder and lots of rain in winter. So far, spring in Braga has been very pleasant. A few days of rain but alot of sunny, warm days. A couple days already in the 80’s. We will see what summer brings but we are hoping it doesn’t get too hot. We anticipate some mid-90’s days but not prolonged periods of heat and probably a day of rain to bring the temp’s back down to pleasant levels. We have been warned that it can rain for weeks straight during winter. We will see — I’m hoping it isn’t much different than a NW winter but a bit warmer which sounds pretty nice to me.

We have hiked a few of the trails that are accessible from the city by walking or public transit. I like that the edge of the city can be reached in less than 5 km and you are in the hills which are lush, forested, natural spaces. No urban sprawl here. The Septe Fontes hike has great views of the valley, features the city’s original wells/water supply, and even an old road built during Roman times that is still in good condition. The Bom Jesus area features lots of hiking trails and amazing views of the entire city of Braga as well as some historic cathedrals that are free to tour.

Another thing we love about Portugal is the beer and wine 🙂 Portuguese wine is top notch. While craft beer isn’t as popular here as it is in the US, there are plenty of great Belgian and German beers available in a lot of the bars here. But there is one craft brewery in Braga — LETRARIA. And thankfully, they make some wonderful beer. It has become our spot every Wednesday — why Wednesday? Because 2 for 1 happy hour — I can’t pass up a good deal 🙂

We decided to rent a car for a day for a few reasons. 1) to get a feel for what it is like to drive here 2) to explore some of the neighboring towns and countryside that are more difficult to access by public transit and 3) we needed to return a mattress and buy some more furniture 🙂 We explored the river beaches just outside of town — beautiful parks with lots of trees, picnic area, slow-moving water for swimming or kayaking. We had lunch in Vila Verde which is just north of Braga. Excellent sushi. We explored the historic town of Guimaraes. All of Portugal is historic, but Guimaraes is packed full of history — walking the narrow alleys felt like I was transformed to Game of Thrones and Flea Bottom outside of King’s Landing even complete with a sweet castle at the top of the hill.

While we were exploring the Praia Fluvial de Adaufe, we met a cyclist that stopped to take some photos. He is a Brazilian named Joel that relocated to Braga a few years ago. We exchanged contact info, and he quickly became my new cycling friend. He has showed me all over north of Braga including Vila Verde and Ponte de Barca. I am looking forward to riding with him more in the coming months. Cycling in Portugal is so different than the US. I love how you are never far from a village where you can stop for a drink, a snack, or even a full meal.

After 5 weeks, our early impressions of Braga and Portugal are very positive. Sure, some things are not perfect. When you move to any new place, there is always things you gain and things you sacrifice. We feel we gain in so many of the things that are important to us that it completely outweighs the frustrations or inconveniences in other areas. We feel we can carve a very nice life out for ourselves here. We are already preparing to buy a car and doing a bit of house hunting. But moving to a foreign country is not suited for everyone. You must be adventurous, be open-minded, have a lot of patience, and be flexible because there are some things that are just outside of your control.

That’s a wrap for now…stay tuned 🙂