We arrived on June 29 and took an UberXL to our new apartment. Our driver was great and managed to get our 4 very large suitcases, one large duffel bag, 2 carry-on suitcases, 2 backpacks, as well as our briefcases....and he still made room for us! We flew into the Porto airport. I highly recommend that if you are traveling to Portugal anytime in the next year, consider flying into Porto instead of Lisbon because the larger airport in Lisbon is having massive problems with flight cancellations, staffing issues, etc. I've read that the airport there needs a major expansion as well. Surprisingly, we pretty much breezed through customs in Porto....we had nothing to declare, however the sheer volume of our bags meant we were pulled aside to explain ourselves. After explaining that we just got our residency visas, they only asked if we had any electronics with us so we had to pull out our laptops and cell phones and verify that we have owned them for a minimum of 6 months.
It probably took us a week to adjust to the time change and get over our total exhaustion in managing the packing, etc. We are fortunate to have 4 grocery stores within walking distance so we were able to get some initial needs met. When we first secured this apartment lease back in March, we were able to buy some basic dishes, glassware, sheets, towels and the like that we knew we would need initially. Prior to moving we sold off a ton of our things so we've been shopping a lot this last week, trying to fill in the gaps. Our intent is to never own a car again and just rent one as needed, so for 3 days earlier last week, we had a rental car and made many trips to Ikea, an electronics store and a Target-like store. We finally feel like we are getting settled into our home. Next Tuesday our new dryer will arrive and be hooked up. While I don't mind hanging our clothes to dry (on inside racks, not out the windows 😃), towels need the fluffing of a dryer. And clothes dryers here are totally different....no one owns the American style dryers that vent to the outside. After much investigation we ordered a Bosch heat pump dryer. It takes longer to dry but it won't heat up the apartment like a condenser style dryer and it isn't as noisy (I'm told) as the latter. The apartment already has a new washing machine and a new dishwasher.
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| View of sunrise from our living room |
Our apartment is a two bedroom/two bath in a high-rise apartment building, however the shower in the guest bathroom isn't operable at the moment. The landlord was installing the new shower surround a few days before we arrived and one of the glass panels fell and smashed so he's waiting for the new part to arrive.
We were able to get our internet and tv set up within the first two days (Vodafone) and it seems to be fine, though I will say that our selections on Netflix and Amazon are very limited due to licensing agreements I'm told. We do have Apple TV and that works well. Local stations are very limited. We both got SIM cards for our iphones with new Portuguese phone numbers that we use here. Whenever we head back to the states for a visit we will just switch out our sim cards. If you want to text with me, you can find me under my name on WhatsApp but you cannot text me on my American phone number anymore. WhatsApp is free BTW and it's how everyone in Europe texts and calls.
Friday was our first actual day of sightseeing here in Porto and it was an amazing day! Temps were in the 80's. We decided to start our day at the Sao Bento train station because it's supposed to be a place to see and it's walking distance to the Douro river waterfront. The train station has beautiful azulejo tiles depicting various historical events in the country. It was busy with tourists yesterday, taking pictures and/or on tours. Then we headed to the riverfront and wandered around, had lunch and then took a boat ride on the Douro to see the six bridges that connect Porto to Vila Nova do Gaia. And since we could walk across the bridge to the Gaia side...we tasted some Port wine and bought a few bottles for our home. Gaia is where all ports are made, aged and bottled, though the grapes are grown in the Douro
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| The Douro River in downtown Porto |
valley.
Next week we are planning to meet up with our friends Ed and Rhonda, who own a home in Portugal two hours south of us and with whom we stayed for a week back in March. They are bringing another couple with them to visit Porto for a few days at the end of next week and have a favorite spot they like to rent right along the waterfront. We look forward to seeing them again.
Here are my observations thus far....we LOVE Porto and while we like our apartment, we will probably be looking for something bigger eventually. Before we make any decisions however, there are still more towns we really want to check out that we didn't have time to see on our trip earlier this year. People in Porto are amazingly friendly and welcoming. We're living in Europe now and things are different....grocery stores are smaller, people don't buy things in bulk like they do in the states. Paper towels usually come in packs of two; toilet paper rolls are smaller; milk only comes in a size similar to a quart, refrigerators are smaller so you may need to shop more often. They don't tend to have as many electrical outlets in homes so we had to buy a number of outlet extenders to accommodate our needs. We have yet to see a single bug in our apartment and our windows are usually open all day and night....and windows don't have screens on them. All of our windows can be opened either swinging out or tilted open at the top...something I've not seen before. I've seen flies down at the waterfront but so far not a single fly or spider in our apartment. The Portuguese language is very difficult to learn but we are both committed to learning it. Right now we are still studying via Duolingo but we will eventually find a class, hopefully a total immersion class, to get us up to speed.
Our next appointment to complete our residency request is scheduled with the SEF (Portuguese immigration) on October 20 in Coimbra, the university town about an hour+ south of us. We are scheduled to meet with our attorney next week to go over the specifics of that appointment. Bureaucracy is alive and well in Portugal and there are still a number of things we need to accomplish to be ready for the final meeting.
So far we have no regrets and are not suffering from homesickness. We're staying in touch with our kids/grandkids via WhatsApp, which is a free app for texting and video chatting. We look forward to having visitors!
I will be posting many photos on Instagram so if you want to follow me there, please do. It's difficult to attach many photos to emails so I may have to send a follow-up email containing some photos. If you do not wish to receive lengthy emails like this from me I will not be hurt. Just send me a note to take you off future mailings...really, no hard feelings.
Adeus, abraços e beijos
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| June 28, ready for take off from SFO |
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| View of Porto from the Dom Luis I Bridge |
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| Porto at night taken from Gaia |