2026-04-10 You are now free to move about the city

 

      

This also begs the question, what errands do you do once you've arrived on your VISA and gone to the grocery several times?

Whelp, one thing we are excited for here in Porto is the expanse of the public transportation system. There are 6 or 7 metro lines and a bazillion buses available.  Also available is at least one tram and one funicular. As we may have said, we aren't interested in owning a car here. Stacey is one year away from being considered a 'senior'. That being said, her monthly card is €40 and JR's is €30. (For those of you keeping score at home, NYC monthly pass was running at $200 when we left in 2017). It provides access to all the Metro

All the local buses as well as these lines.  We are at the purple dot.

What Stacey calls the 'deli ticket system' is deployed at most places in Porto.  You don't just stand in line, there is almost always a place to get a number - digital or paper - to be served.  The again, helpful, smiling cashier spoke excellent English and explained our options. She took our passports, NIF (national number) and our Portuguese phone numbers along with a real-time selfie and produced our monthly, plastic cards. We maybe waited 15 mins before she called us up and maybe 20 mins with her. Not only was she helpful, but she also encouraged our Portuguese, gave us some pointers and wished us well.  Now THAT'S service. 

We will be traveling to Figueira da Foz next week on the Rede Expresso Bus - not included in the card - but for both of us direct and roundtrip, it was €13. Map for reference - we are the purple dot.

We've also been attending multiple expat coffees and happy hours and connecting with people and seeing who we want to hang with.  On our way back from coffee yesterday, we were so happy to stumble on this:

          

We visited a local plant store that had a lovely variety of plants and trees. They even had a few fruit trees for €7 - that's right, €7 for a tree! Well, a sapling, but a fruit bearing tree nonetheless. We haven't discussed what we'd like to grow on the patio, but good to know we can come to this local store.

We visited our bank which is a half block past the grocery we frequent, to change our address & phone from USA to Portugal and found out we can't do that until we get our resident card.  The process for the bank is a ticketed system like the public transport office.  The 'bank teller' was at what we would describe as a booth in a diner and called up the numbers in sequence. He was incredibly helpful, spoke great English, explained the system very well. This maybe took 20 minutes.

We visited the local internet/cell phone/tv provider office which is in the mall down the street - again, deli counter method - to see how to turn on the Sports upgrade we purchased. There weren't many people there and we waited maybe 5 mins.  And just when you think you have everything figured out, (under the category of almost everyone speaks english), our customer service rep did not speak English but we had Google Translate for the win. She was nice, happy and welcoming and showed us what to do.  Another pleasant interaction.

Under the category of things Stacey should have packed was her insulated water mug - it wasn't a huge Stanley, but it was bigger than a pint glass. She's been on the hunt for one that is similar. The apartment glasses selection is varied but none are very big - think mostly juice or rocks glasses - and none have a way to ensure it doesn't leak when it tips over - she is a self-admitted clutz. She is enjoying this hunt as she gets to go into all kinds of interesting stores to see if they have one.

Today, we are visiting a produce and flea market!