I am back!

I’ve been busy in the past several months. Mostly because last July while I was at the Their Master’s Voice concert perfomed by the wonderful Cecilia Bartoli and John Malkovich in Vienna, I received a message from my landlady, who informed me that she would like to have the apartment back by the end of the year. This did not come as a surprise. To be honest, I was one of the lucky few who rented an apartment in Lisbon during Covid times and had been able to stay there for a good number of years. Most of my friends who came to Portugal during that time had already been kicked out by then, thanks to the promotion of Portugal as a retirement haven by numerous articles on US media and the influx of Digital Nomads, the housing price in Lisbon has skyrocketed over the years, driving locals and not-so-wealthy retirees out of the city. Fortunately, after a frenzy search, I found a place that I liked and moved right at the time the chimney of my old apartment collapsed, with debris gushing out of the closet.