Greetings from Coimbra! We have survived our first week of classes at the university and are enjoying this beautiful city. We had above-average temperatures last week (55-62 degrees F) but it rained nearly every day. Today was much colder (36-50 degrees F) but sunny, so Raymond and I took a nice long walk around the city, through the…

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We would like to wish all of our family and friends all the best in the new year! This past year was a grande one for Raymond and I – one which we thank our lucky stars for every day. May the coming year bring good fortune to you all! Cat Colony – Monte Brasil We spent…

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Boas Festas! Happy Holidays! We are excited to experience our first ‘green’ Christmas here on Terceira. It’s been interesting to see how the Portuguese celebrate – the shopping mall was decorated quite festively (above and below) and the shops play the same Christmas music standards one would hear in the USA. Scenic Drives Around the…

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November 30 marks a momentous milestone for us – the end of our resident visa validity! From this point onward, we are here solely on our temporary residency IDs. This also marks the longest we’ve ever been continuously in Portugal (the previous limit had been the 90-day “visa free” summer trip in 2022). One of…

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November is here and we are thoroughly enjoying nature’s bounty. First and foremost has been the long-awaited ripening of the custard apples (aka anona or cherimoya). We’ve been eating one or two a day for the last week or so (and have about a dozen more in a box ripening above the refrigerator). If you’ve…

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Yard Work / Roof Work The days are getting shorter, the nights cooler, but things are still green and growing on Ilha Terceira. In preparation for the rainy season, we’ve taken our newly acquired cementing skills and patched a few spots on the bathroom roof and around the big, traditional chimney. Unfortunately, there is a…

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We had our much-anticipated appointments with Portuguese immigration on September 28 in Terceira’s capital, Angra do Heroísmo (“Cove of Heroism”). It was the culmination of a year’s worth of planning – from setting up a bank account and obtaining tax IDs to gathering copies of every manner of document imaginable to sending fingerprints to the…

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Apologies for the delay – after waiting four weeks for installation, we now have high speed fiber internet! What a relief… It is a beautiful, sunny day today and we took a walk to a protected nature reserve and lava field about 2.5 miles away (uphill both ways…) that offered some stunning views: We have…

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Happy return, settling in, hoop-jumping After five months of visa delays, we arrived safely in Terceira on the morning of August 21. Right away, we got to work cleaning…mold and mustiness on the inside of the house from months of being closed up and a jungle of weeds and vines on the outside along the…

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After much delay, headaches, and handwringing, we finally received our passports with Portuguese residency visas today! [huge sigh of relief…] Here in Dundee, we celebrated by harvesting sunflowers, carrots, potatoes (11 lbs), and the first of our tomatoes. So gratifying to get our hands in the dirt and partake in nature’s bounty (grilling some potatoes…

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