The Decision to Move
“Aren’t you happy? You hated your work, your boss drove you up the wall, and working every
morning was hard for you!” Valeria told me after I said to her I had been fired.
“Yes, that’s true.”
“You should be over the moon, Ginevra. Now you can do whatever you want!”
I nodded. It was all true, but how could I explain to her that the initial freedom had given way
to a sense of inadequacy and dissatisfaction and, above all, a realization that I was once
again unemployed? I was feeling blue.
I had been sending applications to the most disparate companies for two years, but no one
answered me. I believed that it was my bad, that there was something wrong with me, that I
didn’t have the right skills, that I wasn’t enough, that there was always a better candidate
than me applying for that Italian company.
“Wassup Ginevra? You don’t have to think that you are wrong. Maybe the way you approach
the job search isn’t right,” my husband Mark told me a month later. “You are feeling down in
the dumps and take these doors slammed in your face as personal failures, closing in on
yourself rather than reacting, complaining about how unfair everything is instead of trying to
change things.”
“Are you kiddin’ me? It’s easy for you, you have a job, and what’s more, you can do it from
home! In fact, from wherever you want…”
We looked at each other intensely; my tear-filled eyes slowly relaxed and gave way to a
smile. His eyes sparkled, and an amused smile could be seen from his beard, conveying
immense love. He knew that I understood what he was trying to tell me, I had to change the
way I was dealing with what was happening to me, and I decided to do it with a clean cut to
roots that I actually didn’t really have, not in the place where I was.
“Where do you want to go?” he asked.
“To your homeland, let’s go to Brazil…”
Brazil’s Surprise
Over the years, my husband and I had saved a good amount of money, so we moved to Rio de Janeiro. I gave private Italian lessons while looking for a job in a school, and Mark worked in our new house, a very basic tiny villa. The first few weeks, I was stocked, teaching Italian to kids who lived in our neighborhood, going out in the evenings with Mark and his cousins, and exploring Rio during the weekend.
“Don’t go far from this group of villas, don’t wear flashy clothes and jewelry, avoid backpacks or bags, don’t show your mobile phone, and only take the essentials with you,” was the advice Mark repeated to me every day and which I had read in all the travel blogs. The big cities in Brazil are the most dangerous, so you have to follow these simple rules and go out only with locals. I thought I was more afraid of the psychological terrorism that Mark and his relatives had given me because I didn’t witness any robbery or unpleasant situation until one day I had to take a bus to a school for an interview.
I was in the bus yard with about a hundred people waiting at their bus stop. I had never seen such a crowd at the bus station, which made me so anxious that I held my book tightly in my hand and tried to hide my mobile phone and documents I kept in my pocket.
Until I heard two shots. People began to push and huddle. I looked around, not knowing what to do or where to go. Pushed by the crowd, I yelled, “Damn, guys! What’s happening”. I didn’t understand where those shots came from, and I only knew that they were damn close. It all lasted a few seconds because we rushed into the bus, which left immediately. At that moment, still trembling and in shock, I thought about freedom with wide eyes, looking out of the bus waiting for my stop.
Was it worth it to follow all these rules, leaving the house with the fear that something might happen to me every day, not being able to be myself but only something imposed for my safety? I looked around; people were quiet again, and nobody was talking about what had just тhappened. They were used to it, whereas I could never.
When I arrived at school, I called my husband, explaining what had happened and asking him to pick me up. Every time I left our villa, he watched me through the window until I entered the neighbor’s house. I would not allow myself to be bound by fear and, above all, to restrain Mark as well.
Landing in Portugal
We talked at length for the next few days; his understanding was disarming. There was only one problem: where to go next. The decision came by itself, so afterward, we set off on a short trip to Europe, with an endpoint in Portugal, which has always gone hand in hand with Brazil, so there were no problems adapting.
Portugal was precisely the place we had been looking for. Great climate, the ocean at hand, friendly people, and the best environment to start a business in all of Western Europe. Back in Brazil, we decided that we had to find an opportunity to move to Portugal.
Among the many companies, we came across the MoveToCascais service, easily booked a free consultation, and immediately found all answers to our questions. After listening to our story and learning about all our desires, we were offered a great option: a Golden Visa of Portugal through real estate investments.
I had read about the Golden Visa on the internet and understood that it was the best solution for us since it would not oblige us to stay in Portugal for six months of the year to preserve residency but only seven days. However, the procedure seemed complicated and lengthy, and I couldn’t figure out the best way to get it.
“So we buy a house and start our lives with a roof over our heads, a place where we can feel safe and where we can look for work and figure out how to create something of our own in Portugal. This time, however, we rely on someone who can help us not only with finding a house, but also with all the paperwork to move to Portugal, such as NIF and opening a bank account,” I told Mark.
“And also to open our own business that you can manage and where I
can work remotely, “ my husband added. How I loved that man and our idea!
That’s how we found MoveToCascais, which made everything so easy by providing the answers to all our doubts.
Cascais was much more than what the company had presented to us, a seaside village with golden sandy beaches, elegan19th-century architecture, numerous museums, and historical homes scattered around a neighborhood overlooking a beautiful marina that hosts some of the most important sailing events in the world.
The wonderful flat we bought soon became our love nest, the safe and enjoyable place to live! When I think back to the day we decided to change direction, everything seems so far away as if it had never happened, but if I had not been fired and decided to leave Italy, I would not have been able to visit Brazil. And without Brazil, I wouldn’t have discovered my limitations, and we probably wouldn’t have moved to Portugal. Everything happens for a reason, and mine led me to a place that became the origin of our happiness.