Angelique (00:00.3)
Thank you.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (00:03.385)
Right. So I know that inevitably, uh, once we get started, the doorbell is going to ring because we, we have a, we have a delivery that's going to happen and I don't know. So if that does happen, uh, we can just pause and then jump back in cause it should be a fast delivery, but, uh, okay. Sound good. All right.

Angelique (00:11.97)
We have one today too.

Angelique (00:22.286)
Sounds good.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (00:24.773)
Angelique, it is good to see you again. It feels like I just saw you last week, maybe because I kind of did at your show. And we'll talk about that in a bit. But let's talk most importantly about how you got to Portugal. So what was happening in your life before you made the move?

Angelique (00:41.258)
The chaos of the United States.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (00:43.785)
Okay, I think a lot of people can empathize with that and they're maybe listening to it, going through it now or are already here looking back at it. So when did you make the decision to move?

Angelique (00:56.974)
Um, wow, that's a good question. Um, my husband who you met is from Poland and we had been living in England. We were there for three, almost four years and we realized that England was not our place and we took a road trip, uh, through from England. We drove down France, down into Spain across, back up, back up in the England because we thought.

It's got to be France or Spain. It's one of those two places that has to be our vibe. And it wasn't. It wasn't, which was. Yeah. It was heartbreaking because I mean, they're both beautiful countries, but they just didn't click. So I obviously I'm from the United States and he had never lived there. And he said, well, can we give it a shot? Let's move there. I would like to have that experience. I said, okay.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (01:27.909)
Hmm. Yep. That's a normal thought. That's a normal thought, right?

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (01:42.775)
Mm-hmm.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (01:53.253)
Cool.

Angelique (01:54.998)
puts me back closer to my family. And we went through the whole process of getting him a green card and everything and packed everything up and moved over to the United States. And we started off in Atlanta, which is where most of my family lives. And he really wanted that California weather because when we met, I had been living in LA and you know, that weather gets everybody. Everybody loves it. And so we took a road trip across the United States so he could see.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (02:17.538)
Yes.

Angelique (02:23.358)
a lot of the country. We landed down in Carlsbad and we were there about a year. And I said, I can't do this. I can't take it. I don't want to be here. I don't like it. And he confessed that it's not what he thought it was.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (02:41.137)
Okay, what was it like? Could you put your finger on what exactly it was? What that feeling was?

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (02:56.982)
Okay.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (03:01.39)
How's that? Test, test.

Test test. Okay. I can try to change it in the settings here.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (03:18.149)
Check, check, test one, two, test, yeah.

Okay. Yep. I'll do that. How's that? Nope. It's okay. My bad.

Angelique (03:28.798)
No worries. Thank you for.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (03:32.909)
Yeah, so can you put your finger on like what exactly that was?

Angelique (03:36.866)
For him or for me?

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (03:38.565)
Both.

Angelique (03:40.038)
Okay, well, I think it's a little bit different. For him, having grown up in Europe, and you guys have traveled all over, you know what it's like over here, there's just culture and history and there's architecture that's amazing and every place has its own little flavor. And he noticed as we're driving across the United States, you know, from...

all the way from Atlanta, all the way to the West Coast, California. Oh, wow. It looks the same. Oh, look, here's more of the same. Oh, look, another strip mall with the same shops. Oh, look, so more of the same. So he was really missing. He doesn't feel like we're old enough in the United States yet to have a culture other than the consumerist culture that we have. And, and for him, this just wasn't.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (04:19.299)
Yes.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (04:33.475)
Okay.

Angelique (04:38.334)
wasn't what he thought. You know, he grew up watching Hollywood movies and TV shows, and you get in your head that this is what America looks like, and then you realized, no, this is what Hollywood wanted you to think America looks like. So he was quite disappointed. And then for me, having had been out of the United States for, you know, several years, to go back into that, and I know this is going to upset a lot of people when I'm saying all of this, they're going to think I'm a traitor.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (04:46.53)
Mm.

Angelique (05:08.166)
whatever, but just the consumerism is rampant. I don't feel like you get the quality of life that you get in Europe. The food quality is not the same. Just life in general, it's hard to go take a walk living in places like LA and Atlanta, right? I mean, there just aren't a lot of places you don't feel safe. It feels like a lot of Americans have gotten very

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (05:13.041)
Hmm.

Angelique (05:37.21)
angry and aggressive and rightly so. I mean the country's getting more and more dangerous it seems and people are upset about it but then this is like everybody's on edge all the time and we just wanted just a chill life. Who doesn't want a chill life? So

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (05:52.953)
Sure. Yeah. Sometimes it feels like those, uh, day to day interactions can, can get a bit aggressive when it doesn't need to be right. People being on edge like that. Okay. So you moved, um, to Portugal at the end of June in 2021. So you've been here, what would that be about two and a half years? Right. Yeah. Did you, okay.

Angelique (06:15.51)
About two and a half years, yes. Yes, and we came sight unseen. We had never visited.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (06:21.357)
So you just knew that it wasn't France, it wasn't Spain, and it must be Portugal. Like the third, maybe fourth option that people kind of generally have in their minds. It's usually like Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, one of those four Americans tend to gravitate towards.

Angelique (06:37.898)
Well, here's what happened. So we're living in Carlsbad and every day I'm getting more and more upset with, oh, we're back here again. I don't want to be here. I don't like it here. And I kept sending him, I was on Instagram and I had found a page called cheap European houses or cheap EU houses or something like that. Because we're looking at houses in Carlsbad.

At one point we were crazy and thought we're going to buy a house over here. And you know, they're like in the millions of dollars for not that great of a house, just a normal house. So I'm like, okay, well, if we're going to do this, if we're looking to buy a house, let's not spend a million dollars that we don't have anyway. And let's buy it somewhere that maybe we'll actually like, you know, where we can set, set roots down and everything. And

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (07:03.81)
Yeah.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (07:08.401)
Sure.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (07:12.72)
Yeah.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (07:28.374)
Yep.

Angelique (07:31.99)
So I kept sending him these houses I was finding. And they were beautiful houses, they were reasonably priced, and for some reason the first one that came up was in Portugal. And when we lived in England, the pub owner that was right across the street from the house we lived in was from Portugal. And we loved him and we became really good friends with him. And at some point he moved back to Portugal and he kept saying, you need to come, you need to come. It's beautiful, you'll love it.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (07:51.889)
Okay.

Angelique (08:02.238)
And before we did our Spain-France trip, we did actually look into it, but it felt so remote at the time. It felt like there's only Lisbon and his family's all the way over in Poland and mine's all the way in America and there's no direct flights and it would be difficult to get around and we'd feel very isolated. And I finally just got the point. I don't care if we're isolated. I don't want to be here and it looks beautiful.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (08:09.349)
Okay.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (08:22.013)
Mm-hmm.

Angelique (08:31.946)
And I kept pushing him and pushing him and he kept going, no, we're not doing it. We're not doing it. So finally, he started doing research to shut me up. He wanted to prove me wrong that this is not our place. And the more research he did, the more he was discovering, hey, it's like got a lot of really great stuff. And the weather is just like where we live, which is what I love about California. And they have nice architecture and it's in Europe. And look, now they have daily flights.

look at this and look at that and the next thing you know we packed up and here we are.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (09:06.037)
Okay. And did you move on a particular visa or did you kind of use the fact that he's a part of EU to get in to Portugal?

Angelique (09:15.186)
Yes, we use the right of movement family reunification visa. I'm allowed to get on a plane and come over with him without any visa. I mean, I have to take care of residents and stuff once I land, but yeah, they have to let me in because I'm his wife. So it was a much, much simpler process than what other people have to go through.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (09:19.297)
Okay, so that process was fairly simple, I assume.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (09:27.148)
Okay.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (09:30.612)
Mm-hmm.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (09:34.725)
Okay.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (09:39.341)
Okay, and so you've been here two and a half years. How do you find it? Is the weather indeed similar to Carlsbad? Is the cultural difference enough, the variance difference enough from place to place that you find it adventurous or is it becoming a bit samey the same way that the US did?

Angelique (10:00.274)
absolutely love it here. I will say that a lot of people would probably tell me that I'm being ridiculous because we haven't gone anywhere. We started off in close to Aveiro. We bought an apartment in Praia da Vagera and we decided that it was too remote.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (10:13.58)
Okay.

Angelique (10:25.298)
It's a 20 minute drive into a Vero. So anytime we needed to go to the grocery store, anything, you had to have a car. And I really coming from that U S culture wanted to be able to walk everywhere. And I wanted access to public transportation. So we started driving up and down the coast to see who's got that. His criteria was, I need a sea view. This is important to me. And my criteria was I need public transportation and I need to be able to walk to things.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (10:35.23)
Mm-hmm.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (10:53.549)
Okay.

Angelique (10:53.866)
And we found several pretty places, but a Spino, which is where we ended up, just ticked all the boxes. Now, we both work from home, and we came to a Spino in July of 2022, and other than going into Porto to go out to eat or something, we literally have not been anywhere else in Portugal.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (11:19.469)
Okay. So you've, you've been in the, the Avedu district because I believe that spin you as, as kind of the first city that's part of that district. Yeah. Right. Between Gaia, which is the, the Porto like greater Porto area. And then what becomes the next area south is the Avedu.

Angelique (11:27.826)
Yeah, we're right at that, the boundary. Yeah.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (11:39.865)
district. Okay. So do you ever travel into Gaia for anything any medical stuff? Because I think their facilities are a little better than what a spin you has.

Angelique (11:50.81)
We have gone into, we were actually at a hotel having a coffee, meeting a friend in Porto and my husband had a medical issue with his leg and they took us to the hospital in Gaia and it was great, not a problem. But for day-to-day stuff, like our doctor, general practitioner, and dermatologist and all that sort of stuff is literally walking distance to our house.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (12:05.238)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (12:09.805)
Mm-hmm.

Angelique (12:20.258)
has everything you need. They don't have everything you want, but they have literally everything you need. You have, yeah.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (12:26.623)
Mm hmm. That's a good way to put it. What is it missing maybe for you when you say it doesn't have everything that you want? Are there what things that you might want that are missing there?

Angelique (12:39.794)
If you want a particular brand of something, for example, I don't know why, but my husband is addicted to Starbucks coffee and we don't have a Starbucks. We have plenty of other coffee places, but he wants Starbucks. Sorry, I just knocked my coffee over.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (12:48.671)
Okay.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (13:01.221)
Did it have a lid on it? Okay, that's a bummer. Okay.

Angelique (13:02.694)
No. They can wait a minute. Then as far as like, uh, close shopping and things, we have a couple of the chain stores. We have, uh, Benetton and Throttleman and L'anadour, like Portuguese line of porches, those sorts of places. But if you need a bigger shopping experience, we have to go into Porto for it. But you're-

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (13:28.789)
Okay. And what's your commute like into Porto?

Angelique (13:32.402)
of 12, 15 minutes by Uber and maybe half an hour by train, but only because they're doing construction on the line right now to make it even nicer and better. So it'll be faster once they get that done.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (13:39.062)
Okay.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (13:47.969)
Okay, nice. Well, I mean, 12 to 15 minutes is nothing for most Americans. That... Yep, exactly.

Angelique (13:52.342)
It's not, well, we're in the suburbs, right? I mean, technically this is the suburbs of Porto. So yeah.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (13:58.401)
Yeah. What are some other things that you noticed about life there that you can make a comparison between the first place that you arrived, the kind of the smaller town that was more inland versus this seaside, uh, spot that you're in now.

Angelique (14:13.01)
Okay. Well, both were on the coast, both were on the sea. The one in Vagera was more like a small fishing village that local Portuguese people would go to for their holidays. There were a handful, you know, I would say there's probably

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (14:16.362)
Okay.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (14:25.563)
Mm-hmm.

Angelique (14:31.862)
3,000 people that are there off and on, and probably regularly there's maybe 800, 1,000 people that live there full-time. So it's really small. But it's very Portuguese. And you could run across people that could speak a little bit of English, but not a lot. So you're kind of, you know, deep dive into better figure out the language. And Spino feels similar in that regard.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (14:40.752)
Mm-hmm.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (14:55.732)
Mm-hmm.

Angelique (15:01.634)
Excuse me, but it's very Portuguese. It's the tourists that come are from Germany and from France. And they only come, I'm sorry, hold on. I don't know what's going on with my throat.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (15:09.353)
Okay. Go ahead.

Angelique (15:18.438)
The tourists that come only come in the summer. So we don't get a lot of tourism year round. So it's very common to walk outside and run into somebody and they don't speak any English. And I wanted that because that's the best way to learn the language is to immerse yourself. And I feel like if you're somewhere that everybody speaks English, it kind of becomes a crutch in your...

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (15:24.355)
Hmm.

Yep.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (15:43.394)
Yeah, Porto's that.

Angelique (15:44.03)
you're maybe not integrating as quickly as you could. So, yeah.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (15:48.089)
Sure. Yeah, definitely Porto's that. I mean, majority of the time, Kaylee and I are with each other and we're communicating in English, obviously, because it'd be silly for us to try to stumble our way through Portuguese with each other, blind leading the blind. But you know, a lot of times when we go out on the streets, yes, we do try to interact in Portuguese. However, most of our friends are English speakers. And so again, we're just speaking English.

Angelique (16:16.352)
Right.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (16:16.481)
So how have you found your adaptation to Portuguese since you are in a smaller place that is a bit more Portuguese forward instead of English forward?

Angelique (16:27.678)
Um, usually it's the people when you're trying to speak Portuguese are accommodating. They usually switch to English if they have it quite quickly, I think, because they want to practice their English. Um, but the, the friends that we've made over here, if we, you know, obviously if we ask them, please speak to me in Portuguese, I need to practice, then they're completely accommodating. They slow it down and they, you know, try to help as much as they can. Um, I don't know if you met.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (16:36.809)
Mm-hmm.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (16:47.889)
practice.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (16:55.412)
Hmm.

Angelique (16:58.19)
one of my friends that was at the gallery opening. She was the real estate agent who actually sold us this place and she has become a very good friend of ours and she's one of the people that anything in Portuguese that I have trouble with. She calls me in Portuguese, she sends me WhatsApp messages in Portuguese. She's like, come on, you can do this, you're going to learn this. So yeah, it's so helpful. It's very, very helpful.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (17:08.911)
Okay.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (17:21.676)
Nice.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (17:26.017)
Nice. You kind of hinted at what you do because earlier you said that you and your husband are both remote workers. You have digital jobs. So what do you do and how easy was it to take your job to or bring your job to Portugal?

Angelique (17:40.85)
Okay, so I am an artist, so my job's easy to take anywhere in the world, which is awesome. Working over here has been a little more difficult. It's all new supplies, it's all new materials. Artists get really, really weird about the specific brands of things that they fall in love with, and then when you go somewhere that doesn't have them, you kind of freak out a little bit. So it took some sleuthing.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (17:45.679)
Yeah.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (17:52.911)
Okay.

Angelique (18:10.63)
into the market of the EU to find my products again. It took probably a year to get to a place where I knew where to get all my materials from. The one thing I'm still struggling with is canvas. If there was canvas I would buy in the United States. That was really nice, thick quality canvas and it was very inexpensive probably because they buy it in enormous quantities because there's what, 350 million people in the United States, something like that.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (18:33.518)
Mm-hmm.

Angelique (18:38.29)
So Europe, obviously much smaller market. Their purchasing power is a little less. So I'm finding now that I buy paint from Germany and I buy water colors from the Sweden and I buy, you know, it's coming from all over. Uh, I would say that the art stores in Portugal are, they're there, but I feel like they're lacking a little.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (18:56.229)
Yep.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (19:07.673)
Like they're not professional grade. It's more for beginners. Yep. That's what I've seen. Not that I'm an artist, but just like passing by kind of seeing the, the level of materials that they have, it does look like it's for students. Okay. So how have you.

Angelique (19:07.722)
I mean, they have a lot of the stuff they have in the shops or student grade. Yeah.

Angelique (19:23.027)
Yeah.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (19:27.049)
How have you bridged the gap on not just professional things that you're looking for, but just things in general, getting the products that you really want? Have you been able to do that or do you just kind of suck it up and get the local substitute?

Angelique (19:41.798)
Oh no, I was insistent on having specific products, so it just took some time sitting on Google and really researching. The other thing is that all the artists that I've connected with over here, whether they be other Americans or expats or even Portuguese people, have been so helpful with everything. It's a very supportive community over here, much more so than I found in the United States.

in the sense that it doesn't feel like there's a competitiveness happening. It's, you know, you do your art, I do my art, we're both in this together. If I have a resource that will help you, I'm happy to share it. And that's why one of the things I did for the gallery opening is invite all the artists I knew so that they could meet the gallery owner so potentially they could have a show there. Hopefully that will happen for them. Anyway, so I've been able to ask them...

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (20:12.311)
Okay.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (20:29.015)
Okay.

Angelique (20:35.382)
for resources of, okay, this shop doesn't have this thing and I need it, does anybody have an idea of where else I can get it? There's a massive shop that is equivalent to something you'd find in the United States inside the UK, but then you gotta deal with customs. Yeah. So.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (20:50.133)
Okay. All right. Okay. I'm curious because you know, this is talking a bit about community. Um, and, and hopefully it's applicable to the broader listener, but looking just specifically at kind of the, the artists community, um, is there kind of bleed into different pockets of art? You do fine art, but you know, is there.

kind of the fine artists are also with the musicians and other creatives? Or do people just kind of stick to their lane as a specific type of artist?

Angelique (21:29.006)
I think for us creatively, we're anything that feels creative, we're gonna do it. You know, I'm learning to play the piano, I have started learning watercolor, which I never really played with before. But you find that thing that sparks your joy and you just kind of stay in that lane professionally, right? But...

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (21:35.339)
Got it.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (21:51.393)
Yeah. What about meeting other people though?

Angelique (21:55.202)
Um, I think in the United States, there seems to be a divide between fine artists and craft artists and an attitude behind it of if you do crafty stuff, you're not really an artist. But I don't seem to find that here. It seems to be more inclusive here of, look, we're all creating something. And it's, I don't, what even makes it fine art or a craft? I mean, who gets to decide what that is?

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (22:08.673)
Okay, you're a hobbyist.

Okay.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (22:17.171)
Hmm.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (22:25.305)
Okay. What about in a broader context of finding community? How have you and your husband met other people? Are you meeting Portuguese and foreigners? Is there a balance there? Is it more Portuguese because of where you live? What are you all doing actively to kind of broaden your friend group?

Angelique (22:43.698)
we're not being active, it's really horrible because we're so consumed with our professions. You know, I love what I do. He loves what he does. And we very rarely leave the house.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (22:46.394)
Okay.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (22:57.053)
Okay, which goes back to the whole like you haven't traveled much in Portugal bit.

Angelique (23:00.614)
Exactly, exactly. We keep, we use your videos. Thank God for those. We can travel vicariously through you. We really keep meaning to get down to the Algarve. We have not done that yet. We keep meaning to go to Braga. The day we were going to go there was a train strike. So you know, you just kind of get, I'm sure you guys, if you were not...

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (23:04.885)
Okay.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (23:12.445)
Hmm.

Angelique (23:25.054)
doing what you do, you guys would probably be, because you get caught, right? You got your podcast you're doing, you got your videos. It's real easy to get blinders on and not get out in the world.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (23:29.233)
Sure.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (23:35.257)
I totally agree with that. I honestly think that like we could, if we weren't intentional about it, we could have weeks and weeks and weeks just melt by without even thinking about it and not having reached out to a friend.

you know, here in town, not having, you know, just pause life and gone and grabbed a meal or a coffee with somebody and, you know, had that kind of relationship building time because we do, we get consumed with work. And I think this is going to be different, obviously for a retiree. I think your retiree wouldn't have that work component, uh, that, that maybe they fall back on, but they wouldn't have that work component that they have to worry about so they could go out and meet up with other people or go out to a different town or village nearby.

Angelique (24:00.085)
Yeah.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (24:16.757)
or across country to Algarve for example. Yeah, it's tricky, it's tricky. Kaylee and I probably aren't the best at balancing it, but we do get a lot of joy out of making videos about other places in the country and visiting that place several times before like dropping our opinion or final verdict on it. For sure. So.

Angelique (24:34.118)
Right. Well, it's awesome. So you're able to meet a lot of people through what you do. What we do is all, you know, I'm usually locked up in my studio and my husband's usually on a Zoom call.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (24:48.449)
Right. Who do you make sales to? Are you, are you selling mainly to Portuguese, to foreign buyers, to a foreigners living in Portugal? What's that been like over the past year or so?

Angelique (24:58.762)
Well, in the past, all of my sales were in the United States, obviously. Well, I had a couple of sales in Europe. I've had a sale in England and a sale in Poland that was not family, believe it or not. But since we've been here, this was my first show. This was my first attempt out into the world because, like I said, it took me a very long time to get my supplies together. Then moving and trying to get settled in.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (25:02.627)
Yes.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (25:22.788)
Yeah.

Angelique (25:26.622)
and settled in a new culture and you don't know the language and everything is new and fresh and then as you know I try to capture quiet on a canvas so that's difficult to do when your brain's going like this because everything is a new stimulant. So it took me a year to create this collection, which it normally doesn't take me that long to paint this stuff, but it took me that long to get settled back into a mindset and get the material so I could even, you know.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (25:42.735)
Yeah.

Angelique (25:55.342)
create something that could go out into the world. So I can't answer your question, I don't know yet.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (25:57.867)
Okay.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (26:01.073)
No, no, it's okay. So at your at your exhibition, and I hope people do make it out there. So today that we're recording it is the beginning of February, but you're going to have this exhibition run until March 9 at the peculiar gallery. It's import though, we'll put the link in the show notes. So people can check that out. How many pieces do you have? And are they sold? And then they're removed or?

Angelique (26:15.486)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (26:30.261)
are they sold, but they don't move until the end of the exhibition. I'm just curious about how that works.

Angelique (26:35.746)
Okay, so there are at the gallery there are 18 pieces hanging, I think. I can't remember. Oh my god, I can't remember. Let's see, there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Yeah, there's 18 pieces. Okay, sorry. There's 18 pieces.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (26:47.857)
Yeah.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (27:00.165)
It's okay.

Angelique (27:01.262)
There are 22 in the collection in total. There were three or four paintings that we didn't have the space to hang, but they're part of the catalog. They also all have NFT chips, which serve as the provenance, and it has other information for the painting, like personal stuff that I as the artist attached that I wanted to share with whoever purchased the painting. There are photos of how I made them. There is a song.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (27:07.557)
Okay.

Angelique (27:30.366)
attached that the title from the painting came from, all that kind of personal that if the buyer, if someone buys it, they have access to that information. What happens in a gallery is if someone buys it right now, they'll put that little red dot that you see and it hangs there until the end of the showing. And at the end of the exhibit, then it goes to the new owner. Because otherwise you'd walk in and there'd be blank spots on the walls.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (27:50.347)
Okay, got it.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (28:05.657)
Okay, cool.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (28:22.829)
you found challenging that maybe you're still working through or you've already overcome that you can let the audience know.

Angelique (28:31.666)
The transition from Seth to this new film is a royal pain in the butt. I need to up- I don't know if I have to, but I want to update- I had to renew my passport so I feel like I need to give them the new passport number. And trying to get a hold of someone when there's a Seth office like, you know, 500 meters away that I could walk to and-

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (28:35.445)
Ayma? Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. It's a mess.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (28:49.25)
Mm-hmm.

Angelique (28:58.262)
They have a sign on the door that basically says, call this number, don't bother us. And you call it, and I mean, just this type of stuff, the bureaucracy that everybody complains about. I will say, once you get to the office or you get a hold of someone, they're usually incredibly helpful. It's just the frustration of, now they've changed everything and nobody really knows what's going on. Or the other day I had to go to the social security office to get my social security number and...

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (29:02.126)
Right.

Angelique (29:26.686)
You know, there was only one person that spoke English in the whole office and I probably could have stumbled through some Portuguese, but they were like, no, no. So I had to sit and wait three times longer than normal because I had to wait for her to be available. And I mean, it's that kind of stuff. And they were doing it to help. And I appreciated that, but it's kind of like, oh, three more, three hours at the social security office.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (29:42.901)
Sure. Right.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (29:52.041)
Right. No, exactly. I mean, we've, we've heard this story far too many times and, and actually Portuguese complain about maybe not Seth and Ima because they don't have to go through that process, but other bureaucratic things, uh, when it comes to the municipality, like going down to the city hall and having to deal with something, depending on the day who you get, the answer is going to be different. Like there's not a

a guideline or a rule book or SOPs on how this thing is done. Although maybe there is loosely, there's different interpretations. It's a mess. It's a complete mess.

Angelique (30:24.33)
It's a mess. Or you go on the app and it says it's in English and you hit the English button and the first page will translate and then you go to the next page and it's not in English anymore. Have you come across that? Ha ha ha.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (30:34.677)
Right. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Well at Expat said where we believe that living abroad transforms lives. How has living abroad transformed your life?

Angelique (30:48.31)
We feel so much calmer. We feel so much safer. We feel so happy to be here every day. We have, as you saw my view, I walk out every day and feel so grateful for where I live. And I think that everybody should be able to live somewhere that makes them feel grateful.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (31:10.241)
That's awesome. Angelique, thank you so much for joining us. Bye.

Angelique (31:13.986)
Thank you. Bye.

Josh | ExpatsEverywhere (31:19.233)
All right, Dan.