RESIDENTS!!

We had a huge thunderstorm the night of May 1, bright flashes and great crashes.  We were both awakened by it about 2 AM and didn't get much sleep until 5, when we got up to get ready for our big immigration meeting in a few hours.

We drove an hour and a half to the city of Vila Real and met our friend and fixer Rita there, who was to interpret for us and negotiate on our behalf if necessary.  Remember that we didn't know whether our appointments for May 2 were actually valid or not.  At 9 AM the AIMA office opened and the security guard at the door began checking people in by name.  We presented our emailed appointment notices to him, and Gerrit nervously peeked at the list of names he held.  We were on it!  He let us in, to our great relief.

The office consisted of only four little workstations manned by AIMA agents.  After a short wait we were called and presented all our paperwork.  Rita was marvelous and quick, smoothly interpreting with the agent who spoke only Portuguese.  The agent was pleasant and friendly, welcoming us to "come and retire to Portugal, where it is peaceful and the people are warm" with a smile.  She scanned our documents, took our biometrics, and within 15 minutes we were Portuguese residents.

Residency gives us many of the rights of citizens.  We have access to public services like health care and protection under Portuguese law.  As foreign residents we have the right to live in Portugal.  We have minimum annual residency time requirements, but can travel freely outside of that.  It puts us on a path to citizenship if we desire, too, in five years.  Citizens, in addition, can vote and hold passports, and can live, work, and retire freely in any EU country.

So hooray!  This residency meeting with AIMA was to have taken place two weeks after we arrived on June 25 of last year, but we have been waiting in limbo for almost a year since AIMA was hopelessly backlogged.  It is such a great relief to have this taken care of.  Now we can get driver's licenses, apply for public health care, get social security numbers, apply for a special tax regime, and start the process of shipping our stored belongings from the US.

(Also, Gerrit went through the teeth-grinding exercise of porting this entire blog and all his supporting programs for it because its audio library is being moved.  His internet service provider probably had a good reason for changing host locations, but it cost Gerrit hours of frustration and tedium.  By the time you see this post it will all be over and working flawlessly.  He hopes.)

(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done.  Also, you can click on the bold underlined phrases to play the audio.)

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