Monday, October 31, 2016

A Blank Slate

We moved into a wonderful apartment the first part of October in a quiet peaceful area across the river from the main part of town.  It has two bedrooms, two Juliette Balconies, two bathrooms, a lovely living room and a very cute kitchen.  

The bottle of red wine given to us by our Landlady's boyfriend.

Guest bedroom

Living Room

View from my kitchen window

The Tech installing our internet and television.

 Where do you begin when you have a blank slate? There are so many choices of styles, colors, fabrics, furniture, dishes, bedding and on and on.  My notebook became pages of measurements, lists for each room for our trip to IKEA.

The Alpha Pendular high speed train to Porto for our trip to IKEA.  
At one point it was traveling 155 mph.  

This was part of the view to Porto from the train.  We could see the Atlantic Ocean.


Four trolleys and two carts.....yes, we were exhausted.


Thank goodness for the App for IKEA on our phones.  It took more time in the store than we thought and we were running from aisle to aisle pulling boxes of beds, night stands, tables, chairs, stools, mattresses, lighting, dishes and numerous other things.  We were lucky we didn't miss our train back to Coimbra!

It took about a week to put it all together and we are very happy with our choices.  We still have some rugs to get to feel like it is complete.  And Vince is finishing putting up our light fixtures.  In Portugal, like most other countries, you need to supply your own lighting.  So we bought 4 ceiling and one wall light.  Thank goodness we didn't need to buy a refrigerator or stove.  We will be posting pictures of our finished apartment very soon.






Saturday, October 1, 2016

Putting Down Roots

View of Coimbra University


The quilt I made a few years ago.  I am glad I brought it.



 This first month in Coimbra, Portugal we stayed in an Airbnb in an a 50 year old building on a busy street with walls so thin we could hear the neighbor's cell phone vibrate. It is a university town and classes started about two weeks after we arrived. With this, of course come the parties. Evening meals in the country are traditionally between 7 pm and 11 pm so we needed to become used to noises late into the evening. It's not a big deal because we can nap in the middle of the day if we don't get to sleep until 2 or 3 am! Oh, to be young again! :)


Like many cities in Portugal the apartments, houses, shops and businesses are built on the hills. And these are very steep hills with stairs in the sidewalks. The difference in elevation of the apartment to the plaza downtown is a steep 300 feet. I was wondering why my ears were popping on the way back up the hill!

We are finding the locals so helpful, kind and patient with us. We met a Portuguese man that lived in the US most of his childhood and he has been amazingly supportive, driving us around the area and helping with translation when we spoke to real estate agents. Thank you Vitor, we are looking forward to having you and your family over for dinner.

Our Portuguese is beginning to help to order food, drink and taxi's and we have even joked with several locals which left us all laughing. It was a relief to have a fun moment of humor and understanding when neither of us understood each other's language. It was bonding on a core human level we have missed.

Our original intent was to rent a furnished apartment to keep ourselves free of stuff that would weigh us down if we ever wanted to pick up and head somewhere else. We looked at many photographs for furnished rentals, it seems they are not particularly plentiful. The ones that are out there are for students and for us that is a big Nope!

We can't think of any other country we would want to live in and we can travel all over Europe from here very easily for mini visits.  Our serious discussion about furnishing an apartment turned to joy when we decided we wanted to put down roots.

We found an apartment in a quieter part of town. It is so lovely! Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large kitchen with gas stove, oven, dishwasher and washer/dryer combo and a large living room. We will post pictures when we get the furniture.



Our apartment is a 5 minute walk to the river where Vince can get some amazing shots of the Coimbra University and the city on the hill.  We can't wait to see what the sunrise and sunsets will bring.

8th of May Plaza
Church of Santa Cruz
This is the plaza called 8th of May.  There is always something going on there. The Airbnb we are staying in is down the narrow walking only street on the right side of the building in the middle of the picture.  We will be posting many more pictures of the area while we are there.

We had already arranged to stay at another Airbnb in the oldest part of town for the month of October because we didn't have a rental yet. We will still stay there while we wait for our furniture to be delivered and then we can take our time putting it all together. We are glad Ikea is just over an hour by train and they deliver! It will be a long and fun day and I get to finally try the famous meatballs and some Lingonberry jam.