Weather, Wine, and Wonder: Retirement Life in Madeira With Paul Corning and Kevin McKay

Episode Transcript
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(01:13):
Welcome to the Where Do GaysRetire? Podcast where we help you
in the LGBTQ community find asafe and affordable retirement place.
Join Mark Goldstein as heinterviews others who live in gay
friendly places around theglobe. Learn about the climate, cost
of living, health care, crimeand safety, and more. Now here's

(01:34):
your host, Mark Goldstein.
Have you ever wondered whatit's like to live in Madeira, Portugal?
Well, stay tuned and find out.Today we have our guests, Paul Corning
and Kevin McKay. Paul andKevin moved to Seattle, Washington,

(01:57):
to Madeira Island, a semiautonomous region of Portugal, in
March of 2021 during the COVIDpandemic. They've been married for
six years. Paul retired fromthe Washington State Attorney's general
office in 2016, where he hadoverseen the state's lemon law for

(02:18):
30 years. Paul has beentogether with his former husband
Michael for 43 years untilMichael's unexpected death in 2017.
Kevin retired from EdmondsCollege, part of the Washington State
Community College andUniversity system, in 2021, where
he served as Vice President ofFinance and operations. Kevin has

(02:42):
been previously married to hiswife of 36 years with two adult children.
Paul and Kevin met onlinethrough match.com and quickly realized
they had found the secondchance at happiness in each other.
Both wanted to travel more andboth had an interest in moving and
living abroad. In order tomake a dream a reality, Kevin retired

(03:06):
early. They sold everything inSeattle and moved to Portugal's subtropical
island in the mid Atlantic.They have lived on Madeira island
for just over four years andhave no plans to ever leave their
new home. Well, sounds great,guys. Welcome to the podcast. Thank

(03:28):
you so much for coming.Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you for having us.
Sure, my pleasure. So let's,let's get right into the questions.
Can you, let's talk about, canyou give us a little bit more background
and share what you learned alittle bit about Madeira? And how

(03:51):
did you choose Madeira out ofeverything? Every place.
Shall I start with Mexico?
Sure. How about I'll startwith Mexico?
All right.
Before COVID we had planned tomove to Mexico and had our visas
done and an apartment rentedand tickets, and we were packed.

(04:19):
And 10 days before ourflights, Covid happened and we went,
maybe we better stay where weare until we know what's going to
happen here.
So we'd been, we'd beenthinking of Mexico as kind of a one
year move abroad, kind of easybecause we're familiar with the culture

(04:43):
and the language. And then wewere thinking about southern Spain,
some of the hill towns upabove the little white Hill towns,
the smaller ones up above theCosta del Sol. And so when we didn't
go to Mexico, we decided touse that COVID lockdown year to just
get everything in order andskip Mexico and go straight to Europe.
As we looked into Spain moreand more, we found a lot of references

(05:08):
that just said, hey, you oughtto be considering Portugal, too.
Now, neither of us had been toPortugal. I'm not even sure either
of us had really, really knewwhere Madeira, the island of Madeira,
was. But, but we, we decidedafter some investigation that Portugal
sounded like a little biteasier immigration process. And it
sounded like it ticked all ofthe boxes, at least as well as Spain,

(05:30):
despite having anotherlanguage to learn. So that's what
we did. We. We said, okay,let's. Let's focus on Portugal. And
then we started looking athomes we might either rent or buy.
We didn't know what we wereplanning to do for sure. And we'd
see these listings for these,you know, beautiful little homes
with the sweeping view down tothe sea. And the prices then were

(05:54):
quite good. And it's like, oh,yeah, and then it's on one of those
darned islands. Don't want toget stuck on an island. And we'd
keep looking. After thathappened about a dozen times, we
thought, all right, let's takea look at this island. How bad could
it be? And, you know, we'retalking about an island that has,
you know, year round, nearperfect weather. It's kind of like

(06:14):
spring, summer weather prettymuch all year round. Had an airport
that last year saw over 5million passengers coming through
the airport here on Madeiraand direct flights to all of the
major European capitals and alot of other cities besides, with
subsidized flight rates forresidents of.

(06:36):
The island, at leastsubsidized into major cities in Portugal.
Right? Yeah, that's a good,good point. And everything else we
looked at, it just, itsuddenly became, gosh, why wouldn't
we look at Madeira? I mean, itjust sounded perfect. So we, we actually
ended up finding a home beforewe moved. And so working with the

(06:59):
realtor that we trusted andsome video home tours, we actually
ended up buying a home inMadeira before we moved. And we flew
to the airport, got off theairport, rented a car, drove to our
new home, and yeah, wow, weloved it.

(07:19):
It was a better house than wehad expected in Madeira. We actually
researched quite thoroughly.There's lots of YouTube videos on
Madeira, what it's the islandslike, because it's a little bit of

(07:41):
paradise sitting out here offthe coast. Of Morocco, rather.
That's what I was going to getinto. Where is it and what's the
climate like?
Well, it's a subtropicalisland. It is, as Paul said, it's
much closer to the continentof Africa than it is to mainland
Portugal. It's a hour and ahalf flight from Lisbon, about a

(08:05):
two hour flight from Porto tothe island. Subtropical means that,
like I said earlier, ourweather here fluctuates from, I don't
know, at the coldest part ofthe year it might get down to around
60. Yeah, 60 would be a cold,a cold night.
Yeah. That's when the puffyjackets come out. All the locals

(08:29):
are bundled up like it'sgonna, they're going skiing.
And then usually it doesn'tget much above 25 or 80, 80 degrees
Fahrenheit. 80, 85. If it hits90, we all start complaining. So
that's kind of our year round.Humidity, humidity to like 70 some

(08:52):
percent. Usually it's closerto 60%.
Right.
And we nice ocean breeze mostof the time.
It's the kind of climate that,as they say here, you break a piece
off any plant and stick it inthe ground, it'll grow.

(09:13):
Yeah.
And that's just about true.There are very few things that aren't
available here. I was actuallyquite surprised, coming from Seattle,
how many plants here were thesame kind of plants at home. But
they're also sitting next tobird of paradise.

(09:35):
Yeah, yeah, those beautifulbird of birds of paradise. So the
weather is different frommainland Portugal, I would say is.
So I'm thinking the Algarveand then I'm thinking Lisbon and
then I'm thinking Porto to thenorth, so Algarve to the south. Is

(09:58):
it similar to Algarve's weather?
No.
Well, I mean, when theweather's nice, they're all similar,
but the mainland seestypically periods of much higher
heat. I mean, there are timeswhen it can get well into the 30s
and up to even 40 in morerecent years in places on the mainland.

(10:23):
Whereas the northern part ofthe country, they often see a lot
more colder weather. It canget down, you know, get down close
to zero, down to freezing, andeven has snow in places. Now we do
get snow, but that has to dowith. That has to do with the very
vertical nature of thisisland. Because, because, you know,

(10:44):
it starts about 20,000ft underthe ocean, about 6km down and then
breaks the surface and thenthe highest peak goes up 6,000ft,
a little over 6,000ft. So inreally cold weather, if there's wetness
Coming, we will get just thislittle tiny skiff of snow right on

(11:06):
the very peak that lasts for afew hours.
It's nice to look at.
It's exciting for some people.
All right.
Some of us knew what it was like.
Yes.
The. The main difference, Ithink, is the extremes of temperatures
that we just don't have here.Never gets really cold and doesn't

(11:32):
have the blistering heat thatinland Portugal can particularly
have.
It might also be worth noting,when we talk about weather and geography,
that the beaches on Madeiraare, by and large, the natural beaches,
are rock beaches, not sand.Yeah, not, you know, beautiful soft

(11:56):
sand beaches. We have a lot ofsand beaches, but they truck the.
Or ship the sand in fromMorocco to create these sand beaches
during this. During thesummer. Spring, Summer, early fall.
Yeah, I guess they take therocks out and put in the sand.

(12:17):
Yeah, yeah. They do somedredging and then they. They backfill
with sand. And.
And now that the localsgenerally prefer.
The rocks.
Because it's easier to make anice, comfortable, you know, chair.
Chair.
And I like my own lounge chair.

(12:38):
You don't have the sand problems.
That's the piece of it. Theydon't. Yeah, they don't like getting
the sand everywhere.
There you go. Yeah, and I'mnot a fan of sand either, but okay.
All right. So have you noticedany climate change impacts with the
island, and do you know if thegovernment is doing anything to mitigate

(13:03):
that?
Yeah, I think what we'restarting to see this winter in particular,
has been really unusual inthat, like, the mainland, there have
been a whole string of, like,tropical depressions that pass through,
and while they've mostlyimpacted the mainland, we tend to
get at least a portion of themcoming through. In fact, we've got

(13:25):
another one coming tonight.And then, you know, like, from 6pm
tonight here until 6am it'ssupposed to be quite windy and potentially
really heavy rains. And we'veseen a string of them this winter.
Everybody's fed up because,you know, we're not supposed to have
to experience normal weatherlike that. We're supposed to float

(13:46):
above that in this.
Right.
Paradise of pleasant weather.So. And I do think that's part of
the change that's going to be.It could be a trend continuing. We
also, because we're in themiddle of the Atlantic, the Mid Atlantic,
those mid Atlantic currents,as they respond to climate change,

(14:08):
are likely to have someeffect. And I don't know if this
is part of that or if. Ifthat's a change yet to come. Not
seeing Much by sea level rise.And I don't know if that's just because
of, you know, where we are,how deep it is and shelves, it's
very vertical up from below. Idon't, I don't know if that helps.

(14:32):
No flooding you have noticed?
Haven't had any of theflooding or things like Port Valencia
got hit with. Yes, a hailstorm day before yesterday.
Oh, really? Another bad storm maybe.
I was looking at an old video,but yeah, we, we haven't seen any

(14:56):
of that kind of thing.Historically, there have been kind
of major flooding episodes onthe island, but they've really addressed
that by containing rivers andchanging how they. The rivers flow

(15:17):
to keep the debris separatedout and that sort of thing. So.
Well, our, our floodingdoesn't. Hasn't traditionally come
from storm surges coming offthe water, although there have been
occasions when, you know, areally strong storm has caused some,
some damage on the coasts. Notvery frequently. Our flooding generally

(15:42):
comes from the mountainsbecause the island collects a lot
of water. Despite therelatively warm blue sky weather,
the peaks are high enough thatthere's a lot of moisture condensation.
And that's actually, we'retold that's the primary source of
water on the island. That'sfed all across the island through

(16:02):
a series of what they calllevadas. They're like ground level
aqueducts. There are thousandsof kilometers of these all over the
island. And they're allwalking trails too, because the maintenance
paths beside them createwalking trails. So that condensation
in the mountains and any rainthat they captured then feeds through

(16:26):
these levadas and down ifthere's a really heavy rainstorm.
In the past, there have beensome that, you know, went on for
several days and then therewould be big floods coming down through
the rivers and valleys thattended to do a lot of damage. And
as Paul noted, they built upthe berms for all of those. So hopefully,

(16:48):
knock on wood, we won't seeanything like that.
Awesome. Okay. Have younoticed the government doing anything
to mitigate any climate change issues?
The big effort is around. Thepush for renewable energy is to be
a higher and higher percentageof total output. Madeira is actually

(17:13):
kind of a shining star for theEU. We expect here to be at 50% renewable
energy in the next few years,and that's mostly comprised of hydro,
solar, wind, and evenmunicipal waste. Solid waste burning

(17:34):
is what makes up therenewables and with natural gas and
then some diesel making up therest of it. So Portugal's really
pushing, like much of the EUis Really, really pushing the renewables
for a variety of reasons, butclimate change is one of them.
Great. And where does yourhome sit on the island? Is it down

(17:56):
sea level or is it up a little bit?
We're pretty much sea levelwhere we're located. If you look
at a map of Madeira, we're onthe southern coast and right about
dead center in a town calledRivera Brava, or the mighty river.
It's, it's right where there'sa valley that bisects the island,

(18:22):
north to south or south tonorth. And we're at the mouth of
that, where that river comesdown and meets the sea. It's one
of the few level towns on the island.
Okay.
Pretty level.
Downpours just started.
Okay. Oh yeah. What time is it there?

(18:45):
7:00Pm 7, 7 7:30ish.
11:24.
Yeah.
Am here. Okay, gentlemen,let's talk about the cost of living.
So I would think on an islandit might be a little bit more expensive.
So how would you describe theoverall cost of living compared to

(19:06):
mainland Portugal or the USbecause you came from. Did you say
Seattle?
Seattle, which had a pretty high.
Which is pretty high. Yeah. Soyour cost of living must be pretty
good as compared to Seattle.
Indeed. Yeah.
What did, what do you figure?
Well, Portugal a third. Yeah,Portugal. And including Madeira,

(19:30):
it's about a third of the costof, of living compared to the US
the average US prices, we'reprobably a bit more expensive than
the mainland, but not a lot,because a lot of the things that
really go into the monthlybudget, the big ticket items, especially
if you're coming from the USare things like property taxes and

(19:53):
car insurance and medical andhousing costs. And a lot of that,
A lot of those major bigticket items are quite a bit lower.
We are, I mean, just as anexample, we have a fairly large house
in a. In a really good centrallocation. Our annual property tax

(20:18):
is about €400 a year.
Wow. And what's your squarefootage or square meterage?
Yeah, it's about, it's about2700 square ft for the house and
then it has a rooftop terraceof 3,400 square feet.

(20:39):
Wow. I'm coming over.
Yeah. Do we have two wonderfulguest rooms with ensuites? We're
always glad to, always glad tohave friends here.
So leaving Seattle, the homewe sold there, our taxes were at
eight plus thousand a year. Imean, that makes a pretty big dentin.

(21:06):
Sure.
And here taxes, like salestax, we always had in Washington.
Here taxes are built in, soyou don't see them as A separate
cost depending.
It's like a VAT tax.

(21:26):
Yeah, you do see the vat, youdo see the VAT special.
Right. But it's usually builtinto the cost of the item.
Medical insurance. We pay forprivate medical insurance. We don't
have to. The public system isfree and quite good. It's certainly

(21:46):
the World Health Organizationranks health care here and I, it's
probably a later question, buthealth care here, much higher than
in the US but because we comefrom the US we have this constant
paranoia that you can neverhave enough medical insurance. So
we, we pay for a fairlypremium private medical insurance

(22:07):
plan that is really probablynot needed. But for the two of us
and at our ages, we're payingabout 250amonth for both of us combined.
That's unheard of.
It's, it's and yeah,ridiculous and we're not spring chickens.

(22:29):
So it's a higher level now.
So everybody talks about preexisting conditions with private
health care. Like most don'tallow it. Some allow it, but. But
charge you more. Can youelaborate a little bit on that?
It depends on who you get yourinsurance through. Some of the plans,

(22:51):
some of the companies do havepre existing condition clauses or
won't cover certain things. Ifyou've had before, the plan we're
with now has no pre existingcondition clauses. There is for a
few things, few kinds ofthings like I needed cataract surgery.
There was a one year waitingperiod before they would cover that

(23:13):
in particular. But, and, andsome of them have, you know, some
of them, if you're 70 orolder, they may, some plans won't
cover you. The one we're indoes. So they're available.
Yeah.
Now the public system has nopre existing limits. Once you get

(23:38):
your visa and you become awhat's called a temporary resident,
you have full access. It putsyou into the full medical system,
the public clinics, thenational pharmacy system. So my medications

(24:01):
are the same as I had inSeattle and it's easily.
What, a tenth.
20% of what I was paying inthe States through a health system.
Here I can walk in and prettymuch all my prescriptions for a month

(24:23):
cost less than oneprescription back in Seattle.
And how long is the wait onceyou get a visa? So like in Spain,
I believe you have to wait ayear to get onto the public system,
but you have to purchaseprivate. But I think Portugal is
a little better about that.Can you tell us as soon as.

(24:46):
As soon as you have your, yourresidency visa, you can go to the
local Saudi, the, the Healthcenter and be signed up and avail
yourself of it. So there's no.
There's no waiting period forthe visa process. They require a
year's private, privateinsurance. But once you get to Portugal,

(25:11):
you get. And you immediatelyget into the system anyway. So we
had pretty major duplicationof. Of what we could do.
The first year.
Yeah, the first year. And alot of people don't even carry insurance

(25:34):
because care here, even in theprivate sector, in the private hospitals
and whatever, is so much lessthat they just pay out of pocket.
A friend of ours today, infact, was telling us she needs to
go in for an mri and she'sgoing to pay for that out of pocket

(25:57):
because the cost of an MRIhere is less than her co pay in California
for an mri.
Is that crazy?
So that's just.
She's in out of pocket a viral and.
No, no, she's here on theisland. It's. It's. It. Oh, okay.

(26:17):
But anyway, that's. That's notimportant. Food here is so much less
expensive. Oh, my gosh. Imean, now if we go to any place else,
it's like, what, you'recharging me more than 90 cents for
my coffee? A sandwich morethan €3. What's going on? Well, it's
no bottle of wine here.

(26:38):
We're cheaper than water.
Yeah, it's. It just about is.I mean, if you go, say, to the grocery
store to get a bottle of wine,you can shop, you know, you can shop
middle toward high shelf foreasily €5.
6. 8.
6. 8 is a nice 12 is.

(26:59):
You wait for it to go on salefor 3.99.
Yeah, that's so funny. Andyesterday we went to. What was it?
Wines, Wine and more?Something like that.
Yeah.
Big wine superstore here, andwe bought a gift that had six small

(27:20):
bottles of wine and. And thenwe bought another bottle of really
good. Oh, what was it? I'mtrying to think. But anyway, it was.
It came in, the bill was like150 bucks.
Right, right.
Yeah, you could. You could.You could buy wine for the town for
that.
Yeah, it was tequila. It wasgood tequila.

(27:44):
I feel extravagant if I haveto pay a dollar or a euro 99 for
cooking wine for bottles thatI'm just gonna dump it. Spaghetti
sauce meat can be expensive.
Not by comparison.
Well, beef tenderloin filet ina premium center cut from a hand

(28:10):
cut by the butcher might be€22 a kilo. So that's about £2. So
sometimes I'm a little shockedwhen I go, oh, my God. It was 2,
2 kilos for this giant pieceof tenderloin and I had to pay €22

(28:33):
for it.
Probably be 50 here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because they're. Portugal ismostly seafood also. Right. There's
a. Yeah.
Seafood plays a major part ofthe diet and you know, let's face
it, as seafood and they doseafood quite well, but their favorite

(28:54):
seafood is bacalao or saltedcod. They, they say there are 365
different recipes for saltedcod here. But when it's done well,
when it's done properly, itcan be fine.
Yeah.
And actually kind ofdelicious. Coming from the Northwest,
I never experienced salteddried fish.

(29:17):
Yeah.
So coming to find this hasreally been interesting because it.
In restaurant menus can beincredibly good and there's a huge
variety of, of fish available.Yes. So. And, and on the mainland

(29:41):
they've got probably access tolocal shrimp and clams and stuff.
Madeira doesn't have enoughslope below the shelf for the sea
level, so there, there isn'tthat kind of thing other than limpets,

(30:01):
which are local favorite.
How about utilities and yourdaily living expenses like Internet,
your phone bill stuff.
So unlimited cellular servicefor two phones. We're paying 46amonth
now. Mind you, these areeuros. Okay. So you do have to.

(30:24):
It'll be like 50 something dollars.
Yeah. For.
And that includes data.
Yeah, that's unlimited. That'swhat, that's what I mean by unlimited.
Unlimited data for. I don'tknow, cable, Cable television and
Internet is 40. No, 30. 37. 37amonth.

(30:48):
Wow.
What else?
Yeah, down from 350amonth in Seattle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We were.
We're very generous with ourelectricity use. We've chosen not
to do a lot of scrimping andsaving there. We. Because of our
inner city location, we tendto use AC or at least dehumidification

(31:15):
more than open windows justbecause of noise. And, and so. And
we have a dryer, you know, anactual clothes dryer other than just
a string hanging it that wehang our, our colorful underwear
over.
So the neighbors are grateful. Yeah.

(31:35):
So, you know, for electricitywe have, because of the terrace upstairs,
we've got extensive gardensthat we put in up there and those
are on timer dwarf water. Soour water consumption is a bit higher
than normal. And all, all ofthat together we're spending about
2500amonth for everything forthat's our complete budget. Groceries,

(31:57):
dining out. Yeah. And that's,that's higher than it needs to be
because we could certainlyeconomize. In several areas.
Now, I know in Portugal on themainland, homes are built, they're
kind of like, I guess stone.So they become kind of musty and

(32:20):
moldy in the summer and coldand damp in the winter. Is that,
do you experience that on the,on Madeira as well?
Yeah, you see that same thinghere. They do a lot with cinder block
and concrete and plaster. Theydon't insulate traditionally. Traditionally

(32:41):
they have not insulated. Soyou get these essentially concrete
houses.
Right.
With no insulation. And if youget into cold weather, that cold
just stays.
It just goes.
Because we're in a veryvertical area. If houses are built
up against a hillside,everywhere where there's earth, concrete

(33:02):
with that oninsula, earthcontact with that uninsulated concrete,
you get moisture. And thatmoisture, you know, that humidity
that it builds up needs to beaddressed as well. The good news
is more modern constructionand more modern remodeling. Like
our house here. This house wasremodeled from a commercial space

(33:25):
just before we bought it. Andit is all insulated all the way around.
So it's.
That's great.
Yeah, it's very, verycomfortable, very efficient. And
we don't need to, to do muchwith it. And that's a trend. All
the new construction I've seenuses pretty heavy, kind of a styrofoamish

(33:49):
like insulation.
Yeah, good to know. Good toknow. But okay.
You know, if you're looking onthe mainland, if you're looking to
rent an apartment on themainland park, particularly of the
northern half, that'ssomething you really have to be aware
of. Yes, it's cold. Thoseapartments get. It just kind of gets
into your bones. And mostPortuguese homes up until recently

(34:13):
do not have any kind of builtin heating or air conditioning. So
it's, you know, little plug inheaters and those cost a fortune
to try to combat some of thatcold. And so that's definitely something
to think about if you'removing into one of the areas that
gets colder and damper in the winter.
Sure. Great to know. Allright. Cost of living is pretty good.

(34:38):
As you said, it's like a thirdof Seattle. Let's go a little bit
back to health care. Westarted talking about it. Now I know
you would rate the health caresystem. You said it was better than
the United States. States. AreEnglish speaking doctors available?

(34:59):
Yes, very common.
Yeah. English is, is requiredfor students in the medical universities.
So they, you know, they, theylearn a lot of their, their learning
is done in English. Portugalhas some of the oldest and considered
some of the best Medicaluniversities in the country. So we've

(35:24):
had, we've had no, no problemfinding English speaking doctors.
Healthcare. Occasionally thefront staff speak less English.
Right. People at the deskmaking appointments and.
That'S, that's occasionally,that's not, that's not normal. Usually
there's one or two peoplethere that are pretty fluent with

(35:46):
English.
Right. Almost always there'ssomeone that will step forward to
handle the English speaking.Our, our questions.
Yeah, it's important, it'svery important because you know,
God forbid you have anemergency and you are rushed to the

(36:07):
hospital and you know, youdon't know the language, you feel
panicked.
You know, we've had, you know,we've had friends that have tripped
and fallen and you know, bonessticking out, fractured, you know,
broken legs. We've had anotherfriend who in a moment of distraction

(36:30):
tripped, fell, knocked out herfront teeth and had to have dental
surgery. I just had a fewweeks ago emergency surgery for a
detached retina. Everybody hashad exceptional care. The equipment
here is very modern, high end.Getting in especially for anything
that's an emergency or needs arapid turnaround does not seem to

(36:54):
be a problem. If you're juston the public system or just using
the public system, it can takea while for non urgent needs or to
see a specialist for somethingthat's not super urgent. But you
know, if, if, if even on thepublic system, if somebody finds

(37:15):
a lump and there's anyconcerns about it, those people go
right to the front of the lineand you know, they're in usually
same day.
Now how about your private.I'm kind of curious, how long is
the wait to see a doctor or specialist?
Sometimes same day, sometimes.

(37:36):
You know, that's unheard of here.
Yeah. You know, usually withina week or within the week. If I called,
if I call on a Monday, I'musually going to get in within the
week, if not, same day and aspecialist might take a couple of
weeks through the private system.
Do they make house calls?
Yes. If you live in the bigcity of Funchal in its environments,

(37:59):
there are several of theclinics that have 24, 7 house calls
at no extra cost.
€18.
Yeah. For an €18 doctor visit.
Most people don't even knowwhat that means, house calls. Because
when I grew up, I don't knowif when you grew up we still had

(38:21):
house doctors, house calls fora limited period of time. I think
they did it in the 60s, maybethey stopped in the 70s.
I'm just gonna say I'm notthat old. I never met.
Well, you Lived in a biggercity out in the county. It was. It
was a little bit more commonto have a house that came out well.

(38:42):
Yeah, and I lived in Brooklyn,New York, at the time, and I still
had. I remember as a kid, Imight have been only four or five
years old, but I stillremember my doctor making house calls
if I got the flu and I could.You know, it felt really awful. So,
yeah, that's all right. Soyou're in quick to see a doctor,

(39:03):
and you explain thedifferences before between the public
and the private. So that'sexcellent. And there's no wait. Which
is different than Spain,because I believe in Spain, you have
to wait a year. I'm not quitepositive on that, but, yeah, you
can get onto the public healthcare as soon as you become a resident
here in Portugal. All right.And is there any different medical

(39:33):
facilities or anythingdifferent for the LGBTQ community?
No, they just treat.
No, it's just. It's just. It'sjust the same. There are no. No restrictions.
It's not any more difficult.There's not any kickback. You know,
Portugal was one of the firstEU nations to start putting LGBTQ
protections into theConstitution, such that the. No judge,

(39:56):
no president can later comealong and remove them, including
gay marriage. And so from a.From a public services standpoint,
LGBTQ is. Is not. Is nothandled any differently. We. When
we first got to the islandbecause of the. We had some boxes

(40:17):
that we were shipping from theUS and we needed to get a letter
from our local town hall thatsaid, yes, indeed, we are actually
here on the ground. They'vephysically seen that we are here.
And we went into the office todo that, and, you know, the. The
woman looked at us and justautomatically assumed. She verified,

(40:43):
but she automatically assumed.Okay, and. And you're married, correct?
I mean, it wasn't. It wasn't.You know, there were no raised eyebrows.
There was no. You know, wedidn't declare it. We didn't have
to clarify. It was just, youknow, we're together. She assumed
we were married, and they justwanted to know if we were married
under a community propertysystem or. I don't know what the

(41:04):
other one is.
And that was a small village.
Small country village. Yes. Yes.
This was not a big city. Idon't know there. But had to have
been other gay people in the community.
Oh, there were.
I'm sure there were. Okay, sohealthcare that checks the box. Let's

(41:29):
get. Let's talk about youractual neighborhood and transportation
and walkability. Is it easy toget around Madeira without a car
or do you need a car?
I. Well, it depends on whereyou live. We have several friends
who choose not to have a car.They live in Funchal. Funchal is

(41:51):
the big city. So if there's aroughly 250,000 residents of Madeira,
about 125,000 of thoseresidents live in Funchal. That's
the big city. And if you're inFunchal, there's all sorts of transit.
If you're over 65, it's freeand it's good, it runs frequently,

(42:15):
it works well. And in some ofthe closer outlying areas, those
connections work well too. Asyou get farther away from Funchal,
then there may not be as manyoptions each day. And there tends
to be one or two routes forevery area. So you can get to all

(42:38):
of the major areas by buspretty much, but it's. It may take
a long chunk of the day to do.
Yeah, even the farthestvillages up in the hills have bus
stops.
Yeah.
Again, it may not be much morethan once a day.

(43:02):
Right.
But you can get there and getback, of course, Bolt and Uber and
that kind of services. InTexas, taxis are everywhere here.
Yeah.
And quite affordable. Thelocals frequently use taxis.

(43:22):
Yeah, locals often use taxisand. And Uber or Bolt. Some of our
friends, without cards, ifthey're going some like from Fun
Shaw out to our place, theymight take a bolt for, you know,
€10.
How far are you from Fungal?
18 kilometers, which is about15 minutes driving on. On the highway.

(43:52):
Yeah.
That's not bad.
And there's a lot of rentalcars. So some. Some of our friends
that don't own a car willoccasionally rent a car for the weekend
or if they have guests in fromout of town, they'll rent a car for
a week and take them aroundthe island. Personally, I recommend
getting a car even if you liveright little something just because

(44:13):
if you really want to explorethe island and get everywhere, you're
going to need a car.
Gotcha. Is everythingcontained so, like from where you
live? Well, I guess you saidthat you need a car. Can you walk
to like any cafes, markets, restaurants?

(44:35):
Oh, absolutely. Bravo. Is Ithink about the fifth largest.
Yeah. About 15, 000 peoplepeople live here.
But it's level and it's abeachfront town. And, and we have
within walking distance we'vegot two major grocery stores. We've

(44:56):
got, you know, we've gotbutchers, bakers, candlestick makers,
clothing shops, coffee shops.I mean, a whole bunch of restaurants
to choose from, from high endto very Very casual. That's one of
the things we like about wherewe are. It's. It's incredibly walkable
little area. And many, if notmost of the. Of the small towns and

(45:16):
villages are that way. Theyhave a. A center that's got most
of the basic things you need.
They're going to have a littlegrocery store, probably even a meat
market, and someplace that'ssort of a tavern cafe that serves

(45:36):
food of, you know, localvariety. Pizza is everywhere here.
Not always necessarily great pizza.
What they.
Call pizza when we talk about food.
Yeah. So, okay, that's what welike. We like walkable towns. And

(46:04):
Europe is pretty set up that way.
Yes, it is. It's. And this isa very European island. Remember,
it was, you know, when thePortuguese first discovered the island
and first started to populateit in the 1400s. This was. There
were no mammals. There were noindigenous peoples. There was nothing
here but a lot of trees. Infact, Madeira means wood in Portuguese.

(46:28):
And they decided the treeswere in the way, so they burnt the
island for seven years. Theystarted a seven year fire to. To
kind of clear out. No, sevenyears. It burned for seven years
to try to clear some of thatout of the way.
Interesting.
Yeah, interesting.
And besides the buses, they.They don't have any trains in your.

(46:54):
Your neck of the.
We do have several sky tramsor what do you call it, cable cars.
There's eight or nine of themaround the island, but usually it's
where there's a major cliffthat has to be navigated.

(47:14):
Okay.
All right, let's talk a littlebit about the LGBTQ community, or
if there is one, andacceptance. So do you have any LGBTQ
friends.
In your much bigger socialworld here than either of us ever

(47:39):
had in Seattle?
Yeah.
Tell us a little bit about that.
Easy to meet people, generally.
Are these expats or locals?
Most of them are expats. Someof them are locals. Locals are a
little bit more. The localLGBTQ community has it a little bit
more difficult because of thestrong family culture. You know,

(48:03):
you. If you're local,everywhere you go, there's probably
an aunt or a cousin or, youknow, somebody that's got their eyes
on you, so. And because it'sso difficult for the family to have
sometimes. Yeah. Somebodywho's LGBTQ in their family. It's

(48:28):
kind of a shame thing. It'skind of a. Oh, people. Yeah, yeah.
It's. It's. It's kind ofdeeply entrenched in. In particularly
the older culture for theolder folks. So they tend to Be a
little bit more closeted and.And discreet. So it's a little bit
harder to get to know some ofthem. But we certainly have some.

(48:51):
Some gay and lesbian friendshere on the island that are locals
and more from the expatcommunity. But I will say, and this
is general advice to anybodythat's thinking of relocating, it's
really, really important toreach out and make community. Don't
wait to stumble across it. I'mnot a Facebook fan myself, but Facebook

(49:16):
groups. Finding an LGBTQFacebook group in the area can be
a really good way if you'vegot people that are thinking of coming,
like, here, people thinking ofcoming to the island. We've often
talked to them through those,set up video calls with them, answered
their questions, ended uphaving many of them come and stay

(49:36):
with us for a week or two justto explore the island. And some of
them have moved here andbecome great friends. And through
those who you meet, they mayknow two or three other couples or
individuals, and you juststart to build community. So we.
It's not unusual for us tohave a dinner party with, you know,

(50:00):
21 people. That's great.
That's great. And that'sreally anywhere, especially here.
Also in the US Community is alot. And. Yeah. I think. Didn't we
meet on a Facebook group?
I think so. Yeah.
Yeah. Paul.

(50:21):
Yes.
Paul answered my quest. My.Yeah. So I appreciate that.
So, actually, Funchal openedthe first gate LGBTQ center in Portugal
about a year and a half ago.So it's got a little office. Not

(50:46):
much of anything, but at leastit's there.
Yeah. Something.
And, like, anywhere with a bigtourist area, lots of tourists around,
it's hard not to stumble across.
Yeah. And I'm all about makingcommunity and building community.

(51:07):
Yeah.
So I just, in fact, started myown website called LGBTQseniors.com.
okay. And it's Facebook, like,with no ads. And I set up. You can
private message somebody. You.There's a bunch of different social

(51:27):
groups with discussion forumsin them based on different locations.
I have Europe, U.S. mexico,Costa Rica, lots of places. And I
just add content, and peoplehave been answering back. So it's
only been open for, like,three weeks, and I have. I think

(51:48):
it's close to 200 members sofar. So.
Wow. Is that posted on theYouTube channel or.
It's not. It's. So it's justLGBTQ seniors.com I do advertise
it in my Facebook groupsbecause I also have. Where do gays
Retire? I'm the admin of whereto Gaze Retire Facebook group, as

(52:11):
well as game men 60 andbetter, so.
Which are fantastic resourcesfor creating community.
Yeah.
Learning about what? Likethese podcasts, you know, learning
about other places where youmight want to land.
Yeah. So when you escape thatfor the. For the community, there's
no charge. The website istotally free.

(52:34):
Cool.
And I. I am going to be doingat least monthly Zoom meetings so
people in the community fromall over the world can get together
and maybe make a friend.
Yeah, that's great.
Yeah.
You know, so fantastic.
I love to see that, because Iagree. I mean, the people that I

(52:57):
see struggle, you know,because it's no secret that sometimes
when people move abroad, youknow, a certain percentage of them
end up moving back becausethey just feel lonely. They never
find that feeling of home. And I.
Right.
I think having a home is, youknow, whatever that home looks like
for you. Having a home isimportant. Getting to know your neighborhood

(53:19):
is important. I mean, gettingto that point where people know you
and say hi to you every day.How you doing? You know, how you
doing is important. And then,you know, doing the work to build
community.
Yeah.
So that you've got.Participating, you've got chosen
family wrapped around you.

(53:41):
You hit it on the head.
You can be so comfortablealmost anywhere.
You hit it on the head. Ournext Zoom is about creating your
or your chosen family.
Yeah. Yes.
Yes.
So, yeah. So check it out. Allright, well, are there any gay restaurants

(54:05):
or gayborhoods or any.Anything in the lgbt? Everything
is just integrated, Correct?
Everything is. Is integrated.There's not really a gay neighborhood
anywhere. There's.
No.
There aren't any. What I wouldconsider to be gay bars. It's. This
is not a nightlife kind of gaydestination. So you. If. If that's

(54:29):
what people are looking for intheir retirement, this is not the
location for that. This is.This is more everyday life where
it's quite comfortable andeasy to be gay and be publicly gay
and build community, but not,not, not, not, not life night, like,

(54:49):
nightlife, gay bars and thingslike that. I'll also say that for
those that might be lookingfor a dating scene, that's a little
bit problematic too. Most ofthe people that we see here in the
LGBTQ community are alreadycoupled. And the locals, while many

(55:16):
of them are very beautiful,it's very complicated because of
the dynamics I referencedearlier, tends to make for unstable
relationships. I am told thatif, you know, folks are into the
grinder hookup scene, youknow, with all the cruise ships coming

(55:37):
through, that certainlyprovides opportunities for that kind
of Thing.
Who's telling you that? We'lltalk. Yeah, we'll talk.
We'll see. But, yeah, forthose that are interested in that
kind of thing, I. You know,that. That exists. But this is not.

(55:58):
This isn't Lisbon. This isn'tthe Canary Islands.
Right. That's a big difference.
That's. That's not what you'regetting here.
I kind of picturing it aslike, a little, small Hawaiian island.
It is often referred to as theHawaii of Europe or the Pearl of
the Atlantic. And with atopography that's very similar to

(56:22):
Kauai in many respects.
Beautiful.
Very vertical, very verdant. Yeah.
But I'll tell you, there arelots and lots of gay tourists here.
Oh, yeah.
We see them everywhere inrestaurants and just walking down

(56:43):
on the waterfront. I'd besurprised if I went a day without.
We're everywhere, guys.
Yeah.
I'll tell you a funny storyabout how you make community. We.
We have a kind of a homeimprovement store here. It's part.
It's Leroy Merlon. It's a, Ithink, French chain.
Yes.

(57:04):
And we pulled into a parkingspot in Leroy Merlin, and another
car pulled into the spotimmediately facing us at the same
time. And we looked up, andthey looked up, and it was like looking
in a mirror now, because they.
Four of us with.
Yeah. I mean, we all look baldheads in the same thing, roughly

(57:27):
the same age. And it was justsomething. And, you know, Paul and
I kind of nudged each otherand said, think they're family?
Yeah.
And you see the same thinghappening there.
And then they said the same thing.
They get out of the car, andone of them says something to the
other, and the other looksback, and they're kind of chuckling,
and they go in, and we go in,and we end up passing them two or

(57:47):
three times in this great bighome improvement warehouse. And eventually,
you know, Paul says, you know,we really ought to stop and say,
we can't.
We can't not say hello.
So we did. And, yes, they werea gay couple, and so, you know, points
for gaydar.
Were they expats?
Huh?
Were they expats?

(58:10):
Yes, sort of. One. One isBrazilian and the other is New Zealand.
Okay.
But they. They've spent timein Brazil and here in Madeira, but
this is where they live now.And. And, of course, they became
friends.
There you go. And now they're.They're coming to your dinner parties.

(58:31):
Exactly.
Awesome. Do they have anypride events? I'm kind of curious.
Any private pride events likePride Parade?
There's an annual Prideparade. Wow. It's not huge, but it's
there, it's present. And thecarnival brings out that side.

(58:53):
Yes.
Of the community as well. Socarnival serves. The carnival parade
serves as a little bit of apseudo pride parade.
Okay, all right, very good.Let's talk a little bit about arts,
culture and entertainment.What kind of arts, culture and entertainment

(59:14):
opportunities are available?
Lots of concerts.
Local.
Local generally. But I've beento symphony and opera concerts where
they've flown in singers.There's an incredibly talented classical

(59:37):
orchestra here. For such atiny little place. It's stunningly,
very talented quality. And ofcourse there's everything from guitar
concerts, fado mandolinconcerts, accordion concerts.

(59:58):
Wow, here's a winner.
Portuguese love theiraccordions. It's the only place you
can go, I'm sure where I. Yougo to a rock show and. And there's
accordions on stage.
Yeah. You don't hear manyaccordions here in the U. S. Only

(01:00:19):
on the Lawrence Welk reruns.
Yes.
I think Mr. Will kind of burntus out.
Yeah.
So lots of music, traditional,all varieties. Particularly during
the summer. Most cities orvillages really have big festivals,

(01:00:40):
often with. Well, they alwayshave live music and a stage and they
go long into the night.
Yeah. Usually for thefestivals or the fes. And every village
has them. And it's rare thatthere's a weekend that there isn't
at least one village having anonion festival or banana shrimp festival.

(01:01:06):
Yeah.
Or a saints festival orsomething. And you'll get local kind
of traditional music. Theyusually bring in some well known
Portuguese popular singers forthe evening and then it switches
to electronica slash disco.Well into two or three in the morning

(01:01:29):
during the festas. But that'sall pretty local stuff if you're
looking to catch, you know,Madonna cigaros, you know, you're
not going to find that. That'son the mainland. The good news is
it's an hour and a half flightin a hotel.
And the flight's subsidized bythe government. So it's a maximum

(01:01:54):
cost of €72.
70 something. Yeah.
Round trip trip.
It's great.
And ticket prices here are somuch less than they are in the United
States that. Yeah, you know,the whole package will cost you probably
no more than.
Yeah, that's great. Wefrequently have gotten flights for
like €35 100 to Lisbon.

(01:02:19):
And most. Most majorperformers do come through Lisbon.
Yeah.
But you can just as easilycatch them in Paris or you can hop
to the UK to London to seethem. And you know, it's really easy
to do.
It's easy to get to. Yeah,that's great. All right. One of my
favorite subjects is comingup, dining and restaurants. So tell

(01:02:44):
us about the dining scene, therestaurant scene in Madeira. Are
there any Michelin starredrestaurants there? Tell us.
Michelin guide lists 12restaurants. 12 on the island.
Wow.
And so there are. I mean thisis. We have lots of small local cafes
that also have identical menusof the handful of local comfort food

(01:03:11):
dishes that are popular withthe locals. Right. They're what everybody
expects. Then we have prettymuch everything else that you would
expect from a resort touristdestination. So ethnic foods, high
end restaurant, Michelin starrestaurants. You know, they're here

(01:03:34):
and high end afternoon tea,cream teas for the British.
And do you have your menu deldia menu of the day?
Yes, yes.
With the three entrees and a drink?
Yep. Or. Or two entrees forlike really cheap, two items in addition,

(01:03:56):
plate of the day. They'reusually quite inexpensive. You know,
€6 might buy you pork chopsand roast potatoes and vegetables.
And some. Some vegetables.
Yeah, yeah. One of a reallynice restaurant.
They.
The three courses is. Well,last time I checked was €12. Great

(01:04:22):
with tablecloths and the fulldeal. Don't forget really nice restaurant.
How about what's their littlepastry? There you go.
Or the pastiche denates. Ifyou're talking about more than one.
Yes, they are always talkingabout more than one.

(01:04:45):
They are really smalltemptation. That's a. You know, it's
an egg based custard in a puffpastry that's made in a particular
way. So you've got this crispyflaky shell with this custard feeling
filling. If I have one in themorning, I refer to it as an omelette
because. Because I feel likeit's got enough egg in it to justify

(01:05:07):
that. That name makes me feela little.
Better about the calories,about having dessert for breakfast.
Now you pronounce that reallywell. I forgot to ask, do you guys
know the language? Portuguese fellow.
Portuguese fellow. Pelco Portuguesh.
I didn't tell us. Much better.
We are studying again,Portuguese. It's not an easy language.

(01:05:31):
No, it's difficult. It's.
It's interesting because it'slike English in that it's not a language
that equally pronounces allsyllables. It emphasizes certain
syllables. So what'sinteresting is exactly what we struggle
with listening here, othersstruggle with when listening to English

(01:05:52):
because we don't stress allsyllables evenly. And that happens
here, which results in a Lotof parts of words just kind of getting
eaten. Yeah. And. And it doesmake it. It does make it difficult
to learn the language. But wedo. We. We are speaking the language.

(01:06:12):
We're getting better. I cancarry on some basic conversations
and not get terribly twistedup. Now, my favorite phrase, and
I use it frequently, isobregado pele supaciencia comeo Portuguese.
Thank you for your patiencewith my Portuguese because that tells
them, look, I'm trying.

(01:06:33):
Love that.
I appreciate your effort. Andthey just, you know, they usually
smile and laugh and then, youknow, they're, they.
And every little old ladywants to.
Kiss it and, you know, andthen they, and then they want to
help. Correct?
Right, yes.
Biggest challenge. There's twobig challenges to learning Portuguese,
Madeira. First, everybodywants to switch to English. So getting

(01:06:58):
to actually use it every dayis a real challenge because again.
They just, they'll say, let mespeak English.
Yeah, yeah. They want topractice their English. They want
to show them. The other isthat Medeira's form of Portuguese
is, has developed for many,many years separate from the mainland.

(01:07:22):
And mainland Portugal hastrouble understanding Madeiran Portuguese.
Almost like learning Englishin Appalachia.
Gotcha.
Okay, so it's. You're notlearning, you're not learning high
Portuguese, and it's that muchharder to hear what's being said.

(01:07:49):
But it can be done. And thegood news is it's hardly required.
Got it. Now, I've heard fromother people that the local Portuguese
cuisine is not tasty to, let'ssay, expats or people from the US

(01:08:10):
at least. Can you tell us alittle bit about that?
Sure. The local cuisine is atleast here on Madeira for a long
time. It's classic peasant food.
Potatoes, sustenance.
It's what you could grow a lot.

(01:08:32):
Of farming, self sufficientfarming, what you grew. You get three
crops of potatoes a year here.So potatoes figure prominently in
everything.
Some tropical vegetables, lotsof sweet potatoes and that sort of
thing. The food is not heavilyspiced. In other words, it's pretty

(01:08:56):
bland. Usually they makewonderful soups. The seafood's great.
It's almost always grilledover wood. So you get very real food.
Even in the, the local littlerestaurant, it's frequently mamas

(01:09:21):
in the back cooking. And soit's interesting cuisine. Some of
it is, for me anyway, andcertainly for Kevin can be a little
challenging because it's, youknow, you get lamb soup with chunks
of bone and it's very localand you have.

(01:09:48):
To get used to that.
Great. But you have to workIt, Yeah.
It stems from a culture ofgrowing your own, using every part
of everything. It's, you know,it's like so many, so many of our
comfort foods stem from whatwere once survival and, or even poverty
foods.
Right.
And so that's, I think,similar to, to here because Madeira

(01:10:11):
has not always been a verywealthy island. And you're right,
they don't season much andthey really don't like spicy here.
Spicy is just not, notsomething you're going to find generally
on a, on a menu. That beingsaid, the. There are a lot of local
dishes that I really like andthey do fall under that comfort food

(01:10:34):
heading. They have somethingcalled picado, which is chopped up
pieces of chicken or beef ormixed together chicken and beef,
occasionally pork with a gravyand some French fries. I mean, is
it healthy? No, but it tastes good.
Right?

(01:10:54):
Is very popular. And thatskewers of beef and sometimes chicken
on laurel branches cooked overa wood fire, wood ember fires, sometimes
rubbed with garlic butter.That's really common. Salads are
for most people coming fromelsewhere a big disappointment here

(01:11:16):
because a salad amounts to apiece of lettuce with some slices
of cucumber, maybe some slicedcarrot and maybe some sliced onions
sitting, just sitting on top.Few slices of tomato. And then there's
always a jug of oil andvinegar at the table. That's it.
It's not a mixed salad. Itdoesn't have a bunch of goodies in

(01:11:38):
it. It's just. And there's noother salad dressings. So I, I understand
why people think, oh, it'skind of boring, basic. But yeah,
as Paul said, the seafoods aregood, lots of grilled fish. Octopus
is very popular here. Well, I,I like the taste of it. I'm not a

(01:11:58):
fan of eating octopus, butthey, it's very tender the way they
do it here and can be quite lovely.
So there's such a hugevariation. Some of the local restaurants
are very, very nice and havevery high quality, interesting dishes

(01:12:21):
as well. The basic little momand pop taverna more or less out
in the villages is not goingto have high cuisine, but you never
know. There's a great pizzaplace out in the middle of a village

(01:12:43):
that you have to know it'sthere and that's great. There's a
French restaurant out in the.
Middle of nowhere that has afixed menu every night. That's what
the chef is cooking, is whatyou get.
It's incredible.
But, but local cuisine isless, less diverse and pretty consistent.

(01:13:07):
Yes.
Oh, Bolo de caco is Somethingthat's also kind of a Madeiran specialty.
And for those in the US thinkof a, think of a large English muffin.
It's very similar to anEnglish muffin cut in half, soaked
in garlic, butter and a littlebit of parsley. Nicely crisped up

(01:13:30):
and very crispy. Served asbread, you know, with the meal for
the macare, which is asandwich that's made with that garlic
bread and things in between.Fried eggs are very popular too.
Fried eggs on sandwiches. Afried egg on top of a steak. Fried
egg in your tomato soup orcooked in your tomato soup.

(01:13:50):
Yeah, not fried, but yeah,cooked frequently. Eggs are a big
addition. You can get eggs onpizza. Oh my God.
Portuguese. Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.
I was just gonna say the localstandard for pizza is not what anybody
from Italy or anybody that'sused to a good wood fired pizza would

(01:14:13):
consider. They, they. It's notwhat you would expect of a pizza.
That being said, there are ahandful of pizza restaurants here
that do. What I'm used to is agood wood fired pizza crust.
Yeah. How about sourdoughbread? Or, or Portuguese bread in

(01:14:34):
particular is pretty good herein the States. Is it?
It's lovely. I like to make myown bread, but when I can. When we
can so easily and soinexpensively buy all sorts of good
bread every day, it's reallyhard to get motivated to bake it
myself.
Even though the big grocerystores have incredible bakeries for

(01:15:01):
bread and you can get itintact or they've got slicing machines
that you drop it in.
It's good stuff.
Local bakeries where they'redoing it on their own, there's lots
of rolls as well as differentflavored breads. Incredible.

(01:15:23):
Sounds yummy to me. Okay.Safety and crime or crime and safety.
Do you guys feel safe living there?
This has got to be one of thesafest places in the world, both
statistically and byreputation. Portugal is often considered
one of the safest countries,certainly in EU in Europe. And Madeira

(01:15:46):
is the safest place inPortugal. I mean, it's just, it's,
it's extremely rare. But mostcrime, when it happens, tends to
be rural and it tends to bemore often domestic or, or yeah,
domestic crime, which isunfortunate. We don't generally have

(01:16:07):
guns here. So that aspect ofcrime you can. But it's extremely
expensive to get a license fora gun and maintain it. And so you
just don't see very many guns.You don't hear of gun violence here?
No, it's extremely rare.
Yeah.
So you can walk out you canwalk the dogs at two in the morning

(01:16:31):
and feel fine. Right.
Absolutely. Anywhere.
Now is the culture for eatingalso late at night.
It's later than most of the USbut it's not like Spain or Argentina.
A dinner here, most peopleseemed, if you, if you think like

(01:16:51):
restaurants, most people showup. Yeah. Closer to 8pm Seems to
be a really peak time, maybe nine.
But so if you were walkinghome from the restaurant at 11 or
close to midnight, if that,you know, that late, do you feel
perfectly safe?

(01:17:12):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Never.We've never felt in any way threatened.
That's such a big thing, you know.
Yeah, we take it for granted now.
Yeah. Because that's reallyimportant because who wants to move
to a place that has, you know,crime wherever you go and you hear

(01:17:33):
shooting here, shooting there.And you know, unfortunately we still,
you.
Know, because of our age andmaybe earlier in life experiences
is, you know, I'm, I'm notsuper comfortable walking hand in
hand down the street as acouple and I certainly would be doing
a constant 360 monitoring. Butwe see younger gay and lesbian couples

(01:17:57):
that are walking hand in handon a fairly regular basis and it
doesn't, you know, nobody'sstopping to stare or pulling their
children under their skirtsor, you know, any of those shocked,
horrible reactions.
Yep, that's very, verycomforting. Yeah. So that's very
important. That's a big,that's a big decision. And where

(01:18:19):
to when you decide where to,to move, especially as we age.
Because, you know, let's faceit, we all should, we live long enough,
we'll get to an age when we'rea little less stable on our feet,
move a little bit slower,reactions are slower, that makes
us more vulnerable andsituations out and about.

(01:18:39):
Yeah.
And so being someplace wherepeople are and this is such an intensely
family oriented environment,there are families, there are elders,
there are youth out at alltimes. And again, because of the
close family network, nobody'sgoing to get out of hand without

(01:19:00):
their aunt seeing it andreporting it to their mother. And
I don't care how old you are,your Portuguese mother's going to
take you in hand and it's notgoing to be any fun. So it's a close
knit community. So even ifyou're out late at night, you're
around other people too thatare not worried.

(01:19:21):
And I would assume, I wouldassume you don't have a big homeless
population because of thatfamily culture.
No.
And because the health caresystem here treats the addictions
and the mental illness thatusually lead to homelessness. That

(01:19:42):
being said, there are ahandful of folks who don't want to
take advantage, aren't readyor in a position to take advantage
of those systems. So there issome homelessness. You will see some
people sitting quietly,asking, you know, with a hat out
for coins, but nothing likeyou see in any of the big cities.

(01:20:05):
Yeah.
Especially at least not so inthe States.
Yeah, that's actually quite rare.
Yeah. Well, it sounds like,you know, every topic that we go
over, it sounds like a greatplace to live.
It is. We can't imagine havingpicked kind of by accident any better

(01:20:30):
place. The environment'slovely. The people are so lovely.
Yeah, they are.
And friendly and helpful. The.The biggest negative for most US
expats is they don't treattheir dogs very well.

(01:20:53):
Yeah, yeah.
But it's a, it's a. It's. Itreminds me of when I was a kid growing
up and the way pets weretreated on farms.
Oh, yeah.
You know, it was a much moreutilitarian practice.
My husband grew up on a farm.Yeah. And he said. He said, oh, my

(01:21:13):
God. Growing up on a farm witha dog, it was totally different than
it is now.
Yeah, yeah. That was my memorytoo. And I think that's where a lot
of it stems from. Again, avery traditionally agrarian society.
Right. Yeah. So integratinginto the community was pretty easy.

(01:21:36):
It has been for us up to apoint. For example, out our front
door is a taxi stand, and sowe see all of the taxi drivers that
park there and we talk to themand you know, pretty much every day.
And as we go about ourbusiness here, we have locals that
were constantly saying, youknow, hi to or stopping to chat for

(01:21:58):
a few minutes or somebody willask how we're doing. And that's just
the local people working inhere, in our community. And that's
been really easy. Again, Paulreferenced how easy going the Portuguese
are. That being said, gettinginvited to somebody's house, say
for dinner. A Portuguesefamily, that's different. And it's,

(01:22:20):
I think, different for tworeasons. One, because they assume
that you're not going to speakPortuguese, which likely to be true.
Right.
And that that createsdiscomfort. And two, because families
are family together and it'snot about bringing guests and strangers

(01:22:42):
into that environment. So ittakes a lot longer to get to where
you're. As something thatpeople might be interested in knowing
about. Often people are afraidto drive in Madeira because the roads
are steep, sometimes narrow,very windy. It's not hard. We found

(01:23:03):
that on most of the smallerroads, there's a great deal of courtesy
that we don't typically see.You know, if, if somebody's waiting
to turn in some place or comeout of a driveway or turn left across
traffic, you know, peopledon't speed up to make sure that
they don't get in front ofthem. They will stop and let people

(01:23:25):
go.
That's different.
And that happens all the time.Just general curses. That doesn't
mean that there aren'tprobably expats.
Yeah.
That feel differently. But,but for the most part, you see that
on the freeways here. And thefreeways here are gorgeous. They're
less than 25 years old.They're, you know, mostly four lane

(01:23:48):
divided freeways. There areover 140 tunnels that the freeways
pass through on the island.They get like the mainland. There's
a lot of aggressive driving.Cars are doing anywhere from 40 kilometers
an hour to 130 kilometers anhour. And that's a complicated mix.

(01:24:11):
And cars that want to passpull right up on your back end. And
not for any fun, just ridingto be riding to say, you know, and
it's their way of reallytrying to push you out of the way
so that they can get past you,even if you're, you know, you get
a string of traffic on yourright and you're passing at a. At

(01:24:32):
a measurable speed. So theViera Pita feels the, the freeway
feels very aggressive, whereasthe other roads don't. But Madeirans
also have kind of a flexible,casual approach to the rules of the
road. Lane dividers are kindof suggestions. So it's not uncommon

(01:24:57):
to see even police. We've seendriving straddling the center line,
especially around corners andparking. People park everywhere.
On a lot of these roads, thereare two narrow lanes side by side,
but there's no driveways forsome of these more traditional houses.
So the cars just simply parkon the road. So that means one lane

(01:25:19):
is blocked and it may be onboth sides, but they don't.
You may be weaving in and out.
Maybe weaving in and out. Andthere's an etiquette to it. You know,
who has the right of way andwho doesn't. And it's generally followed.
So it's daunting at first.Easier the more you do it. Yeah.
And I do recommend stickingwith a small car.

(01:25:42):
So here's a. Here's anotherquestion. Did you have to start over
and get a new driver's licenseor was it reciprocal from the states?
Reciprocal you have now, Ithink you have as much as a year
before once you Start drivinghere before you're required to exchange

(01:26:03):
your license. When we moved, Ithink it had to be three, within
three months of starting todrive. And you simply take your US
license in and they exchangeit for a Portuguese license.
So that's a big thing. It'sdifferent than any other place in
the, in the EU or in Spain. Atleast retest. Yeah, they have to

(01:26:24):
retest because they figureeach state is different and nothing
is really reciprocal becauseof state versus country.
It would be a good idea ifthey at least required everyone to
figure out how to use a roundabout.
That's a good.
Consistently, that's a good success.

(01:26:45):
Point of contention.
Yes.
So quickly, quickly, let'sreview visas and residency. I just
need to know for our audience,when you apply for a visa and there's
the different types of visa,retirement visa, they have digital
Nomad, they just got rid ofthe golden visa. How do you go about

(01:27:08):
applying for that? Is thatapplied for in the U.S.
Yes, you're required to dothat in your country of origin. So
for US Citizens, you've got todo that in the US you have to use
the consulate that serves yourstate. And the consulates have a
defined territory, so youdon't have an option as to which

(01:27:28):
consulate you work with. InSeattle, we had to use San Francisco.
The San Francisco consulate isknown to be a little bit pickier
and a lot slower than some ofthe other consulates. You work with
a company called vfs. So theconsulate out, like many countries,
outsources to a third partycompany called vfs. You meet with

(01:27:50):
them rather than theconsulate. They ensure that all of
your paperwork is in order andcorrect and then they submit it to
the consulate on your behalf.You need the typical things, you
know, you've got to have proofof income, speaking from the D7 visa,
which is the retirement visathat we went through, got to have
proof of passive income. Andit has to be at least minimum, minimum

(01:28:21):
wage, Portuguese wage, whichis such a low threshold. I'm afraid
to say that I think.
It might be 1200.
I don't know. I don't thinkit's 1200amonth. Even for couples.
I think it's less than that.
So that's a lot lower thanother countries in the eu.
Yes, it's very low. And thatnumber will change.

(01:28:43):
And that means Social Securityincome, pension income, it. Does
it include like 401k savings and.
Not savings that they don'tlook at your total worth? They're
really looking at what'scoming in, what's A monthly income
that you're going.

(01:29:03):
To live off of.
Yeah, yeah.
Investment income is notconsidered passive income for the
purposes of the D7.
Right.
So. But, you know.
But the threshold's really lowfor that. Amongst the other documentation
is an FBI criminal recordreport that has to be gotten. Marriage

(01:29:29):
certificates, often apostled,which is something even working in
the legal field I'd neverheard of before, which simply means
it has to be notarized, butthen sent to either your state or
the Department of Commerce fortheir recognition that it's a legitimate

(01:29:55):
notary.
Was it very bureaucratic goingthrough that process?
No, it just took a couple ofstarts and stops. We chose to work
and pay a company to help usthrough that process. It's certainly
something that you can do onyour own, but we. We opted to do

(01:30:15):
that just because we felt likethe money was worth it.
Yeah.
Well. And we were right afterand during COVID so things were only
beginning to start again. And,you know, there weren't a lot of
resources. There's lots ofinformation in expat groups.

(01:30:39):
Yes.
That are constantly updatingthe kinds of documents and that sort
of thing.
I will say that one of theproblems that many people face with
many of the expat groups isthat every question has a multiplicity
of different answers, allciting a variety of different sources

(01:31:04):
or personal experiences. So itis actually the source of a lot of
confusion when it comes tothese kinds of things. So I recommend
going directly to the VFS sitefor Portugal and getting the information
directly from them and. Ordirectly from the Portuguese consulate.
It takes about six weeks rightnow, I think just based on a couple

(01:31:28):
of folks that we've got goingthrough that we know that are going
through the process now. Ithink it's running about six to eight
weeks. Once everything'ssubmitted for you to get your visa
stamp or visa in your passport.
Right. Excellent. All right,gentlemen. So what advice would you
give someone consideringMadeira as a potential retirement

(01:31:49):
destination?
Wow. I would say check yourpriorities of how you want to live
in a new world, a newenvironment. What's going to be really
important. A lot of it has todo with. Some people are very loath

(01:32:13):
to give up their lifestyle,and their expectation is they're
going to be able to achievethat just the same, wherever they
are. That may or may not beeasy to do. The other thing is realize
that where we. At least inEurope, where you're going, you're

(01:32:36):
not going to a third worldcountry. They have everything right.
Everything is here on Madeira.Everything's Here, except a really
great Mexican restaurant.
But.
We keep trying to encouragesomebody to come here that can do

(01:32:58):
that.
But I would add, even thoughwe didn't do it and didn't have the
option, I, you know, if youcan afford to do it, come check the
island out first. Hook up withsomebody, whether it's another example
or a local. Maybe I shouldn'tsay hook up. Okay. Identify somebody
that can help show you thevariety of the islands so that you're

(01:33:21):
looking at. Because, you know,we've got six different microclimate
zones. The bulk of the islandsits around 3,000ft. A lot of it's
the towns are at sea level.You can pick and choose your weather.
You can pick and choose thekind of town. Big, small, rural,
busy, quiet, you know, comeand look at the island and get a

(01:33:43):
feel for what it's like. Wouldbe a smart thing to do. And of course
we're always glad to answerquestions for people and, and show
people around the island. I,I, I think, I think that's, I think
that's important.
How about one, one specialthing that you wish you knew before

(01:34:04):
you moved?
Not for us. And we may not bethe best people to ask for that because
we knew wherever we moved thatwe were going to be going to someplace
that was foreign to us and wewere simply going to be adapting

(01:34:27):
to whatever was there. Andwe're pretty flexible about that
kind of thing. I think Paul'spoint. Well, I, one thing that I.
All right. One thing that Iwould pass on and this doesn't fit
for everyone, but I wouldquestion heavily question how much

(01:34:49):
stuff you bring with you andparticularly furniture. Unless you
know the house you're movinginto is going to accommodate your
furniture from the UnitedStates, which tends to be bigger
than best fit here. Andbedding is all different sizes, so
your sheets and things aren'tgoing to fit. The local beds you

(01:35:13):
can make do, but they're notgoing to fit. You know, it's clothes
are inexpensive.
Right.
Quality.
In other words, leave yourstuff at home.
The less you can travel with,the better off. Most, not all, most
people will be. Now somepeople have, you know, really expensive,
beautiful legacy furniture.They don't want to lose it. I get

(01:35:37):
it, I get it. And you know,your personal special belongings.
Sure.
Right.
But, but really it's get ridof this stuff. Yeah. And having a
home, having to furnish a homewhen you get here, having projects
to do like that, that's good.
Retirement.
It helps with, yeah, it helpswith retirement, but it also helps

(01:35:59):
with Anxiety around moving.
And it's a hell of a lot offun because this is such a different
world. There's so much moreavailable in Europe than you will
ever find in the States.
Huge antique markets in Parisyou can get to really quickly, you
know, I mean.
Yeah, yeah.
If you've got the right. Youcan, if you've got the right gay

(01:36:21):
card, you know, in your wallet.
Right.
Have a lot of fun with the.
Decorating and you can order,you know, custom made furniture.
In northern Portugal, there'sa whole town that you take the, you
stop in and they're whateveryou want they can make for you. We

(01:36:42):
have friends that had customsofas made and that kind of stuff
in Portugal. They went toRomania for chandeliers and Italy
for clothes.
Awesome. So if you can sum uplife in Madeira, we're going to wrap

(01:37:02):
this up. If you can sum uplife in Madeira, in Madeira in a
sentence or two, what would it be?
Well, it's a cliche, but itreally is a slice of paradise. I
mean, the weather, the pace oflife, the quality of life. And really,
you know, people keep askingme, is there anything from the US
that you miss? Mexican food.And we make our own. So yeah, you

(01:37:27):
know, that's, that's really it.
I was thinking about what Imiss. One of the things I miss is
a bathtub. They're almost non existent.
No bathtubs.
Unless you go to a hotel. Theydon't build them. And do they have
days remodeled or new houses?

(01:37:50):
Not the new remodel stuff.Yeah, showers are more popular.
Yeah, it's all showers. It's fine.
But, but don't bring yoursfrom home.
Don't bring yours for mine.
No.
And the other, other thing Ireally miss is really good aluminum
foil when I'm cooking.
Oh, they don't have Reynoldswrap aluminum foil.

(01:38:13):
You go.
And how about, do they have bidets?
Yes, bidets are very popular,very common, traditional ones and.
Or the little sprayers off the side.
Do you have one in your house?
Yes.
Oh, okay.
Yes.
I never asked that question.
I. I think they're great.

(01:38:33):
I'll have to try one. Butanyway, on that note, gentlemen,
thank you so much for coming.It's been great. I love talking to
you guys. I feel like we'refriends. Hopefully someday we'll
get out to Madeira and pay youa visit and knock on your door.

(01:38:55):
We would love that. Room andboard taken care of.
So sweet. Thank you so much.
It's been a real honor.Pleasure to be able to participate
in this and like, like We'vesaid before, we always glad to talk
with folks about, you know, ifthey have questions about moving
here, you know, because it's.It's hard to imagine who this place

(01:39:15):
isn't good for. But it's notgoing to be for everybody. So, you
know, getting questionsanswered can be really important.
Lots of people step off theplane and go, oh, my God, this is
perfection. And they'relooking for a house before they go

(01:39:36):
home.
That is true.
That is true.
We've had people say,absolutely. On their first trip.
We're just looking.
We're just looking in two dayslater, they bought a house.
Wow. That's incredible. Allright, we'll see what happens when
we get off the plane.

(01:39:58):
Mark, thank you so much.
You're very welcome. Let'skeep in touch. Okay.
I absolutely agree. Let's do.
All right.
Feel free to share our contactinfo with others that might be interested
in questions or whatever.
Yeah, perfect. Thank you,gentlemen, and we'll talk soon.
All right, great. Bye,everyone. Bye.
Bye.

(01:40:20):
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