Have been thinking about immigrating to Portugal (from the US) for a long time...

Hi, sorry this post is in English. I took 3 years of Spanish in college and feel like I could get passable in Portuegese with 6-12 months of effort, which would be my #1 priority if I ever took the ex-pat leap.

I am a late-30s IT guy (no wife or kids) in Seattle who is sick of what Seattle has become and is generally disillusioned with America -- where the only thing that seems to matter is money (boring). When I first moved to Seattle as an 18 year old almost 20 years ago, I loved living in a liberal/progressive bubble and had many happy years here, including graduating from the University of Washington and building a 15+ year IT career that has resulted in my having some serious IT credentials (along the lines of senior sysadmin/systems engineer/devops engineer/network engineer/database admin), which I hope to leverage in my attempt to get out of the US.

Sadly, over the last 5-ish years in particular, Seattle has changed from the town-wanting-to-be-a-city that I came to love, and I am not sure I want to stay here. My other US choices are Chicago, DC, Boston, and NYC.

I've been reading .pt news and attempting to familiarize myself with your (pop-)culture and local politics for a couple years, and while I have not visited your country, my parents have, as have several of my close friends, and they all have nothing but nice things to say. I occasionally read your local papers and I'm also a book nerd and read as many Portuguese authors as I can find (fiction), with Jose Saramago being one of my absolute favorites.

I browse job listings in Portugal and see several positions I am well qualified for, but am worried that my lack of Portuguese is going to be a deal breaker. I am currently looking into local Portuguese classes to alleviate this anxiety.

Do any ex-pats (US or Canada in particular?) post here? Any thoughts? I've read various "ex-pats living in Portugal" type blogs/articles and it sounds like my scene. I've browsed apartment listings and it seems like a doable thing.

I am the type of person who likes to live in the city, amongst the people, taking public transit, and getting out of my apartment as often as possible to visit parks, museums, historical sites, and other scenic/"cultural" places. I have mostly grown out of my bar/club days, but I do enjoy good live music. I am definitely a city person.

If anyone has any advice or input or connections to other groups that have been in this same boat, I would greatly appreciate it. It seems like it would be much easier for me to move to London or somewhere else that is urban, fairly progressive in thinking, and speaks English, but there is something about the progressive/liberal attitude (or so it seems to me) in Portugal that is greatly appealing. I have been active in homeless/mental-health outreach as a volunteer for many years, and would like to continue this in an environment that supports it wholeheartedly.

Thanks for your time in reading this and I look forward to any input from ex-pats living in Portugal, and input from locals who interact with ex-pats as well. Take care!