About Blanca
These are always interesting to write. Hmmm…about me. Born in Colombia, moved to the US in 1987. When I landed in Miami, all I knew how to say was “Mi no spiki inglich” and “pollito-chicken, gallina-hen, lapiz-pencil, pluma-pen). It took me a few years of teasing by virtually every kid in school to finally figure out the proper pronunciation of the word “school”, that sch sound was tough. Went to Rutgers with the idea of going into Law, but I took an art history class and fell in love. Sadly, I found out after taking quite a large number of courses towards that major that Art Historians really don’t make that much money.
I got a job at Nordstrom to pay the rent, where I learned a lot about customer service (thanks Arnold & Nick). Then I ended up in the wine and spirits world. I did my rounds with Bacardi, and then moved onto wine with a wonderful company called Seaboard Brokers. This is where my love of wine was cemented.
Somewhere in between this time, Petey came into my life. Best thing ever!
During this time, someone encouraged me to go on Match.com. I met the man who would become the love of my life and business partner there, Antonio Evans. Soon, we were sounding quite a bit like Pinky & the Brain as we plotted ways to take over the world.
We started our business, FriendsEAT in 2005 and we’re still here. We’ve just launched Socialdraft and are looking forward to changing the world with it.
Want to connect with me? You can find me pretty much everywhere, but you’ll have better luck if you ping me on Twitter or Google+. I’m just getting started with the site, so bear with me and enjoy…hopefully I’ll get time to update the new Google+ “persona” page too.
Hey Blanca! You’re everywhere! 🙂 I enjoy reading about the places you visit & people you meet! Keep going and yes you will change the world!
Hi Blanca,
I have been reading about you house built in Portugal, and is very interested in your story, as me and my girlfriend is moving to Portugal to build a house.
I am Danish and she is Portuguese, but have not lived in Portugal for several years, and now we have made the decision of moving to Portugal.
We are very curious about your process and experience, and would very much hope to meet you guys.
We hope to hear from you.
Kind regards
Monica and Michael
Hi Blanca,
I’m having trouble finding travel insurance with a medical component to satisfy the Portuguese SEF’s requirement to qualify for the temporary residence visa because of my age (80).
Any tips?
Hi Tony, I may have someone who can help you. Just sent them an email. Will ping you once I hear back 🙂
Great, thanks Blanca. We found a company on line called Fidelidade and they have an option: 60+ActivCare which simulation with our data produced a quote of 456€/year but it gives no information about its limit and, as you know, SEF requires a minimum of 30000€ coverage.
Listening out for your reply then.
Cumprimentos!
Following up on my last message, I found out that the plan I mentioned, 60+ ActivCare 2 is actually a discount card and not an insurance policy.
Tony,
I’ll be introducing you to a friend that should be able to help you out. I will connect you via email.
Blanca
Thanks Blanca. Meanwhile, however we found an Argentine insurance company online, asegurasuviaje.com, which gave us a very attractive quotation and when submitted to the Consulate in Washington, met with their approval. So one less hurdle to cross, except they answered us adding that we should no longer contact them directly but contact VFSGLOBAL who will be handling all visa application enquiries and processing in future via: vfsglobal.com/portugal/usa.
I’m thrilled to hear it, Tony. Lots of paperwork and lots of stamps to get here, but for me…it was worth it.
By the way, Blanca, that insurance website is: aseguratuviaje.com and NOT asegurasuviaje.com, in case anyone is interested.
Hello Blanca, many thanks for the article about building your own home in Portugal…we are moving to the LIsbon area in October and am looking to find a plot, get a prefab from Estonia and start a new Chapter. Having lived in England for 35 years and being Swedish married to an Austrian… no need for rainy England no more – went to visit my ‘kids’ in Lisbon a year ago and fell in love! Really like your set up here and very useful info, I work to help people get more life in their life by maximising their inborn potential. Health challenges, pain, not thriving/under performing etc but my passion is working with parents and children to prevent their spines and nervous systems go faulty…due to incorrect use, lack of understanding, etc etc 30 years a Chiropractor specialising in advanced spinal trauma and rehab, injury prevention and optimisation of our life experience by understanding what’s involved. I will be running free workshops for parents ‘Life by design, not by default, how to maximise your childs inborn potential” I would love to meet up to see if there is anything that I can do to help the future generations of Portugal. Many thanks for your time and keep up this amazing work – Thank You, Mats Hansson
Congrats on the move Mats. Portugal is wonderful and I don’t have enough nice things to say about Lisbon and its people. We (Antonio and I) started the blog to help those who were on a similar journey as we are…we figured if we can help a few people to not make the same mistakes we made when moving to Lisbon, that it would be a good thing. When are you due to move?
Oh mi gudnessss. 😉
…ventana-window, and piso floor. Hola, soy de PR. One of the 3 besties is from Bogota, Colombia. First question, do you have Instagram or FB page? as I do not follow twitter and google + I believe does not longer exist? I would love to follow your blog/page and read all of the info necessary and required to live in Portugal.
I am most active on Instagram. Google+ was officially shuttered this year. And if you ever have questions, come by and drop a note. We have tons of info and we have a questions section where anyone can ask and answer 🙂 Nice to meet you btw 🙂
URGENT. Hello Blanca, my Golden Visa was approved earlier this year. I live in Mumbai, India, and am desperately looking to start learning the Portuguese language for my A2 level test, which is only about 4 years away. In Mumbai I have not been able to find a Portuguese language teacher for the last 1 year now. I would very much appreciate your help, in giving me a list of books that I could study from, and also some guidance on how to conduct the study. My daughter lives in Lisbon, and I will be visiting her on 13th August for 2 days, as on the 16th of August we will be leaving for the Algarve. On the 20th of August, I will be flying out to London. I would like to buy my books when in Lisbon, so some information on where I can buy them, would also be very useful. Look fwd to hearing from you soon, thanking you.
Pleased to meet you Anita,
I started learning with the Memrise app and Duolinguo apps. I supplemented this with the podcast “Portuguese with Carla”. If you want to really learn well, check out my list of European Portuguese classes. Nuno, my teacher is now doing lessons online and I could not be happier.
These are some of the books we use. You can decide if you want the three-pack or if you just want the books for Level A.
Hope the list helps.