“I will return to the USA as an urn at most. Period.” This is how an American woman confirms her decision to emigrate to Portugal with her husband. How CNN Reportedly, since their wedding, Cynthia Wilson and Craig Bjork have had “a never-ending conversation” about spending their time in retirement on another continent – and it couldn’t have gone better.
Wilson, a former restaurant owner and chef, and Bjork, a former soldier in the US Navy, decided to jump across the Atlantic earlier than planned due to the Covid-19 pandemic. They submitted an application for a D7 visa, also known as a “retirement visa,” and moved to the small town of Marinha Grande on Portugal’s Silver Coast in early 2022.
“We wanted to be part of the culture and community”
Speaking to CNN, Wilson said she and her husband wanted to integrate into the local community and spend their time with Portuguese people rather than other Americans. That’s exactly what they found with the almost 40,000 residents of Marinha Grande. “We wanted to be immigrants, people who move to a foreign country to become part of its culture and community,” Wilson told CNN.
The couple enjoys hosting dinner parties and attending local events, which makes Wilson feel like he is part of a close-knit community.
Challenges of emigration
Although she knows five languages, Wilson admits that studying Portuguese is challenging. “Portuguese is very difficult,” she tells CNN.
However, the language is not the only thing that the two Americans had to learn in Portugal. They also had to adapt their direct American way of dealing with the locals, Wilson told CNN: “My Portuguese friends taught me that first of all you have to recognize their humanity.”
Escape from the USA because of political tension and gun violence
“There is absolutely nothing that would make me want to come back to the United States,” Wilson told CNN – not even her children. Political tensions in the United States and increasing gun violence prompted them to leave the country. “I always tell people, ‘We fled the country,'” Wilson told CNN.
USA: Presidential election is approaching
While Wilson and Bjork have started a new chapter in Portugal, their compatriots in the USA are preparing for the 2024 presidential election. The American president will be elected again on November 5, 2024, a day on which the current incumbent Joe Biden will face his predecessor Donald Trump.