After a 7 month process (longer counting futile attempts to get fingerprinted at the Post Office), I and my Cats arrived in Lisbon on Saturday - coincidentally, the anniversary weekend of the Carnation Revolution in 1974, in which they overthrew their own Fascist regime. My driver from the airport to the Airbnb was a former Portuguese Special Forces soldier who had been deployed with US forces in Kosovo, Iraq, and Rwanda, and had some cogent and harsh things to say about autocracy and imperialism.

Thankfully I came with enough supplies for the Cats, and found a Lidl for myself on Saturday evening, so that when the Iberia-wide power outage hit on Monday all we suffered was lack of internet access. Apartment search begins in earnest this week.