House Hunting, Port Tasting

Bernardo, our new real estate agent, is the kind of guy you want on your team.  We visited three listings with him last Wednesday, and he was a powerhouse.  Not only did he interpret for us, but he asked pointed questions and observed minutely.  He caught many things we would have overlooked.  He took video of each place, walking around and adding his commentary.  He strode up to neighbors and chatted them up, asking about the neighborhood.  We discussed each place thoroughly as we drove to the next, and he has excellent ideas and observations.  He's frank and disagrees when necessary.  Being a student of architecture, he has a great eye for proportion, quality, lighting, floorplan flow, color, and landscaping.  When a seller's agent contacted him the following morning for feedback he was clear and serious with her about improvements we would make and why the price needed to come down, getting her ready for negotiation.

His girlfriend Carolina came along and lent an expert eye too.  She is very good at assessing houses, loves doing it, and added greatly to our discussions.

One of the three places we saw was seriously interesting.  We are double-checking our top contenders and might view a few more from this group, but we can't stop talking about how drawn we are to this one.  Bernardo is arranging an independent inspector to take it to the next step.

On Saturday we got together with our friends from England, Jess and Julian, whom we visited in England in early August.  They are vacationing and home-scouting in the Porto area.  We lined up a port wine tasting with them at the Cálem port house here on the Douro river in Vila Nova de Gaia for the afternoon, and it was great fun.  At least it was after we got there late and sipped some so-called vinho verde at a very overpriced tourist joint waiting for the next tour, anyway.

Our tour guide was Columbian who spoke English well with a Columbian Spanish accent.  We saw vast ancient barrels and learned about the port making process.  Did you know that the vines need to be somewhat stressed to produce the best grapes, and that the "poor soil" of the schist-rich Douro valley is ideal for that?

At the end we all gathered in the tasting room, where we each enjoyed three glasses of port: white, late-bottled-vintage, and 10-year tawny.  As we finished, Julian realized that we had not gotten the full-boat chocolate and cheese sampling tour we had signed up for so she asked our guide about that.  He was very helpful and apologetic, setting us up in another room with our chocolate, cheese, and three MORE sample glasses of port.  Halfway through that we were getting pretty jolly, laughing uproariously, and we noticed that nobody was sitting anywhere near us.  The other tasters were either reading or engaged in polite conversation at the other end of the room.  We hushed up with some giggles and embarrassment, but an English-speaking woman a few tables away who had been smiling along with us said it was no problem, she loved to hear the laughter.  In our well-lubricated state we bought a bottle of 20-year tawny port and made our way out.

Two serious and scholarly port wine testers	And two more
St. Gerrit prays for redemption

Jess and Julian headed back to their AirBnB, but before we left we bought a bag of delicious roast chestnuts from a street vendor and sat on a stone wall overlooking the Douro river and the colorful houses of Porto on the other side to enjoy them.  It was like being in a storybook!  We have to pinch ourselves that we're really here.

The lot we parked in was 8 storeys tall, built up the steep side of the river bank, and to exit you had to spiral around all the way to the top.  We did so, and then discovered (when we couldn't get out) that we should have paid down on the ground floor.  Sigh.  Gerrit got a little exercise elevatoring down and back, and não faz mal (or "no harm done").

Today, Monday, it was a warm and beautiful day at the end of October, so we took a scenic drive south along the coast.  There is a large lagoon just inland from the coast called the Aveiro Lagoon, with a two-lane road which runs down the ocean side of the lagoon.  We followed it to the very southernmost tip, a town called São Jacinto.  We snooped around a couple little seaside towns on the way, too.  Everything was closed down since it's now well past beach season, but it was beautiful today and we had the places all to ourselves.  

We followed a boardwalk at Praia de São Jacinto ("beach of São Jacinto"), and then found lunch in town.  We had tostas mixtas, a popular Portuguese toasted ham and cheese sandwich.

(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click in the black area outside a photo when you're done.)

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New Friends, New Books, New Homes

 Last Thursday we went over scores of house listings online.  The listing site we're using sends us daily digests of new listings in our selected categories and the volume is pretty daunting.  We trimmed down our filters a little to reduce the flood.  That night Gerrit made Bacalhau à Brás for the second time, and it was great.

On Saturday we went to Staples (yes, they're here too) and shopped for office chairs.  We've been making do with the chairs that were in the apartment, but Gerrit's back is killing him from long sitting in them.  We found some nice ones, Gerrit's being a "CAD and gaming" chair for those extended sessions.  Pérola (our new "supermini" car) has these amazing fold-up seats in the back, so we were able to fit the two large boxes in easily for the trip home.

"Some assembly was required", so we spent the rest of the afternoon peering at instructions and reefing on hex-head bolts.  Gerrit found that his chair was not quite as comfortable as it was in the store after a few hours, but a little rolled-up lumbar cushion does the trick.  Pat's chair has been great.  It's her new beading chair.

We worked with our real estate agent a little more also, lining up several homes to view on the coming Wednesday.

Sunday saw us doing chores around the apartment, and a trip back to Staples because we had been charged full price instead of the sale price on Pat's chair.  It was no big deal to us, we were cheerful about it, but all four employees clustered around us seemed embarrassed or uncomfortable.  The manager gave us the difference in cash a little stiffly, with no apology.  Maybe hand-wringing store apologies are a US thing.

Our new friend and real estate agent Bernardo had invited us to his new flat for um copo de vinho (a glass of wine) at 5:00 on Sunday.  The flat is still under construction but liveable, and will be beautiful when it is done.  He and his partner Carolina were wonderful hosts, and we ended up lingering until 9:30 and enjoying some takeout sandwiches from a nearby bistro courtesy of Bernardo.  Carolina is Uruguyan and speaks Spanish, English, and Portuguese, and we all had a great conversation.  Pat even made a provisional identification on a neighborhood night bird which screeched a few times outside.  We left warm and happy after our first actual Portuguese home visit.  We spoke English almost all night, but Portuguese will come.

Monday we did some grocery and hardware shopping.  The Leroy Merlin store here is very much like Home Depot in the states, with all kinds of home improvement and hardware in a beautiful big warehouse.  So far there hasn't been anything we haven't been able to find locally or online, and it's generally equal or better quality and price to Seattle.

We also did some heavy housecleaning on Monday: shower stall, floors, and some hidden mold.  Pat found mold all over the back of the framed pictures here, so we took them outside, swept clouds of mold from them, and gave them a good disinfectant spray.  Yuck.  We've been cleaning mold from other surfaces too.  We think with our new dehumidifier the mold will be a thing of the past.  At least we hope so.

Pat found a line of adult beginner European Portuguese books from the Porto People expat group, and she ordered three of them.  The books are by Susana Morais, creator of Storyglot, and they come in everything from beginner to advanced levels.  The books contain a story or stories in Portuguese, the English translation and grammar notes, exercises, a glossary, and a link to download the Portuguese audio.  The books just arrived and we'll dive into them and let you know how they are.

Today, Tuesday, we spent some time carefully looking over the three house listings we will tour tomorrow.  We put together lists of questions and got all prepared.  Our first impressions will be in the next blog post, so stay tuned.

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Life is Good, Portugal Style

There were many sad stories which came out of the storm of wildfires which recently hit Portugal, but we learned about one unfortunate winemaker, João Tavares de Pina, from our Porto People expat group.  This poor guy had his vineyard and facilities burned TWICE, once by a wildfire several years ago and again this year.  He rebuilt from the first one, only to have it burned again.  Here he is in a video where he talks about his wine (in English). 

People are pitching in to help.  He doesn't want charity, he just wants to sell his wine so he can rebuild again.  His distributor is helping by waiving their commission and giving all their proceeds to him, and asking people to buy his wine.

We couldn't find any of his wines locally, so we ordered five bottles from the distributor.  They just arrived Friday and we started sampling them.  We are lucky that doing good tastes so good.  And we do sincerely hope this fine winemaker can recover again.  Maybe he needs some more help.  We should send in another order.  

Saturday was a beautiful day and we went to Pat's favorite haunt, the bird refuge at the mouth of the Douro river.  Oystercatchers, one of her favorite birds, are sometimes seen there this time of year.  We saw no oystercatchers, but plenty of flamingos and a beautiful little iridescent kingfisher.  We watched the kingfisher hover and dive for small fish for quite a while.

Sunday was also nice.  We drove out to the town of Ponte da Barca, the furthest north we have been in Portugal, to see another likely-looking property and its neighborhood.  We couldn't see too much, but the surroundings didn't wow us.  We're going to put this one in a secondary category and move on.

The dehumidifier we ordered arrived on Monday, ahead of schedule.  It's about as loud as a medium sized fan, which is not too bad.  It works well; we typically get about a gallon of water after running it overnight in the main room, where it drops the humidity from about 80% to 55%.  In the bedroom it should dry the clothes well.  It's strange to pull a bucket of water out of the machine and realize that it just came out of the air!

Pat found a website with Portuguese tongue twisters.  Here's a great one that shows off the raspy Portuguese hard R sound: O rato roeu a roupa do Rei de Roma e a rainha raivosa resolveu remendar ("the mouse chewed the King of Rome's clothes, and the queen, angry, decided to mend them").  Fortunately that's not a phrase you use every day.

Pat noticed some cracks in the shower stall grout a couple weeks ago and Gerrit told the landlord he'd caulk them up.  On Tuesday he used the new dehumidifier to dry out the bathroom thoroughly to prepare for that.  About noon the bathroom (and the cracks) were nice and dry, so he caulked them up.  

Yesterday, Wednesday, we went to see the house we're interested in, near the village of Arouca.  Our agent Bernardo drove us there, about a forty minute drive from here.  We had a great time in the car getting to know each other.  He is the same age as Gerrit's youngest son Ian, he has had an interesting life all over the world (like Ian), his English is excellent, and we shared stories and house philosophies.

In Arouca we met with the seller's agent, who spoke very little English, and we drove to the house a few minutes away.  It had been raining but was just drying up.  We met the owners of the house there and we toured it inside and out, accompanied by the Portuguese practice of everyone talking at once.  Fortunately Bernardo steadily interpreted and we learned about the property and had our questions answered too.

When the woman of the house got home she gave us our first ever beijinhos (little kisses), the little kiss on each cheek which is common in Europe.  It's an air kiss, but you touch cheeks.  She did it so naturally and sweetly that we passed with flying colors without embarrassing ourselves (by heading for the wrong cheek, slobbering, or the like).  What a sweet custom!  Beijinhos for total strangers and friends alike.

The place is a beautiful rustic property, being sold by the original owners after 30 years.  The walls are thick stone and there is lush greenery all around.  It is really beautiful.  Unfortunately the property would be a bit too much for us.  It's quite steep, which we didn't get in the pictures, and it would require a lot of work to maintain.  It was a little dark inside too.  Afterwards, the seller's agent gave us a tour of the village of Arouca and stopped just before we left to buy us a gift of a box of castanhas doces ("sweet chestnuts"), made by a local confectioner.  They're not actually chestnuts, they're egg yolk, almond, and a bit of sugar rolled up in a little chestnut-sized ball and lightly flame-roasted.  Oh, they are so good!

On the drive home we arranged a guided tour of Porto with Bernardo, including a fado performance (fado is a traditional Portuguese song form) and dinner.  He has also been a custom tour guide in Porto for three years.  The friends we saw when we took our brief trip to England in early August will be in Porto for eight days in a week or so and it will be a great way to show them the town and to hear some fado, which they wanted to experience.  We've been meaning to attend a performance since we've been here, too.

It was a beautiful day!  We met some lovely people, experienced more Portuguese culture with the castanhas doces and beijinhos, and set up a very authentic Porto tour with an expert local.  Life is good.

Bernardo picked a persimmon for us from a tree at the house we looked at yesterday and explained how to prepare it.  We tried it with our breakfast this morning and it was delicious: juicy and delicately sweet.  It would be great in a pork dish, so Gerrit has a new recipe to pursue: "Gerrit's Pork and Persimmon Surprise".

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First House

 Man, it's humid in Porto!  Especially when you have to dry your laundry indoors in October.  It's been 75% - 85% steadily for a few weeks now.  So we broke down and did what many people do around here: we bought a dehumidifier.  It should be here the middle of next week.  It will be useful to make it more comfortable in the main living area, then when we do laundry we'll hang it in the bedroom, put the dehumidifier in there, and shut the door.  Laundry Porto style.

We're still nowhere near being able to hold an actual conversation with a native.  Gerrit is getting pretty good at simple phrases and talking to clerks and waiters (as long as they mostly don't talk to him), but Pat is still overcoming nerves and having trouble retaining her lessons.  It's nerve-racking to talk or respond in a foreign language, you freeze up and forget everything you learned.  It's like the anxiety of public speaking.  We're both doing our lessons an hour every day ("tudos os dias"), but it's slow going.  We need actual practice with a real live native speaker who doesn't mind talking to four year olds.  Fortunately they actually have those, people you can pay or exchange English lessons with for video calls on the internet.  Now we just have to work up the nerve to tackle THAT.

Yesterday, Thursday, the weather was beautiful so we took a trip to the little town of Arouca, about an hour's drive due southeast of us.  We have found a house for sale in the outskirts of Arouca which we like.  Here's a picture from the listing.  We're going to see it with our agent next week, but we thought we'd drive around the area a little to see how we like the neighborhood.  (We didn't want to pop in on the home unannounced, especially being unable to explain ourselves.)

The drive was lovely, especially the last third or so.  You approach Arouca along a wide valley dotted with villages and forest, along a small winding highway.  We went to the house itself first, at least the foot of the driveway leading up to the property.  It's a beautiful forested secluded setting, just like it shows in the ad.  We'll see more of it next week.

We spent an hour or so driving all around the small town of Arouca and its surroundings.  It's just the right size to have a supermarket, a health center, a grade school, parks, many little shops and restaurants, and specialties like optometrists, pastry shops, and so forth.  It's clean, quiet, and well-kept, with some cool modern sculptures in its roundabouts.  We drove past a city road crew cleaning leaves from the street.  With rakes!  Quiet, old-fashioned, smoke- and noise-free rakes.  What a delight.

We were thoroughly pleased with what we saw.  But if we buy the first house we look at, after moving to Portugal without even a visit, you can call us completely insane.  Or maybe it's just a really nice house.

(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click in the black area outside a photo when you're done.)

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More Home Hunting

We just learned that it's actually a law in Portugal that the elderly, the infirm, or women who are pregnant or with babes in arms are to be given preferential treatment: seats on buses, places in line, and so forth.  So not only are the people here just kind and considerate, but they have codified it into law.  Is this a great culture or what?

We took a short trip to Porto a week ago to the bird observation park we got fogged out of last time we tried.  It was a beautiful sunny day this time, but about the only birds were gulls and cormorants (ho hum).  Pat got some nice pictures though, and it was a pleasant outing.  We got "lost" on the way back and had a fun time wandering some more through Porto.

Bird park on the Douro River

Residents of the bird park

A week or two ago Gerrit tried to make Bacalhau à Brás for dinner, a classic bacalhau preparation like he had enjoyed for lunch some time ago.  He found some good recipes, but they called for potatoes and he was sure the lunch he'd had used rice, so he decided to substitute brown rice.  He got some shredded bacalhau and the other ingredients.

The bacalhau needed to be soaked overnight to get the salt out of the cured fish.  Gerrit figured it wouldn't need to be refrigerated during the soak since there was so much salt, but he figured wrong.  In the morning it began to stink and the whole mess had to be thrown out.  Must have been some of that salt-loving bacteria from the Great Salt Lake.

He had better luck next time.  Last night, Saturday, he tried again after properly soaking the cod in the refrigerator, and also used shoestring potatoes instead of his brown rice substitute.  It was excellent this time, not quite as good as he remembered his restaurant lunch, but a good recipe to experiment with.

Most of the week, though, has been devoted to house hunting.  Normally in Portugal there is no real estate agent for the buyer of a home, only the seller's agent.  This seems a bit peculiar, putting the poor buyer in the position of negotiating with a professional agent, especially if the buyer is not fully familiar with Portuguese language and culture.  Buyer's agents are becoming more popular now though, largely due to the demand of foreign home buyers.  They split the seller's agent's fee, same as they do in the US, and there is no additional cost to the buyer.

The one fly in this ointment is that there is no financial incentive for the buyer's agent to negotiate a lower price.  Their fee scales along with the seller's fee, upward with the selling price.  So we have decided to give our agent a bonus of double what they lose with a reduced price.  If they get a 2.5% commission on the sale price, for example, we will give them 5% of the amount by which they can reduce the asking price.  That's pretty cheap money for us: for each €1000 the agent gets the price down, we save €950 and they lose €25 of their fee but gain €50 from us.

To firm up our own ideas of what is important to us, we went through the "ideal home" list we made a couple years ago.  Back then we thought we wanted a large traditional home on a large piece of land, but now we're not so sure.  We kind of like the modern features of this apartment.  We have also gotten some distance from the rooms full of stuff we had in Normandy Park and learned we really don't need that.  We're not so sure we want to upsize back to that after all our downsizing to get here.  We're also a little reluctant to take on all the gardening and home maintenance of a big home.  We'd rather be traveling or enjoying ourselves at this point in our lives.

So we sharpened our pencils.  We figured what we really wanted for our now-smaller-scale projects, what we needed for guest accommodations, and our tolerance for discomfort and home responsibilities.  Our current ideal home has a modern kitchen and amenities, high speed internet, is on one floor, has only three or four bedrooms, and is on a modest and reasonably secluded lot no more than 20 minutes from supermarkets and hospitals.  Oh, and a swimming pool would be nice.

We connected with a good buyer's agent in the Porto People forums and chats, had a video call with him, and sent him our most recent home wish list.  We sent links to listings for properties we liked, so he could get an idea of our taste.  He seems like an excellent guy and comes highly recommended, but we caught him at a bad time.  He is just moving into a new flat, so he won't be able to devote full time to his clients for a week or two.

But that's okay.  We're primarily using an online Portuguese real estate site called Idealista, which is pretty flexible and thorough.  You put in the region you're interested in, all the filters you want like price, size, etc., and it comes back with a list of matching properties.  We drew a region comprising the area in northern Portugal which has a suitable climate for us, punched in some features of our ideal home, and got back 1,200 results.

Whew.  Most of those results were not suitable for one reason or another, but it still took a long time to wade through them.  We have dueling laptops on the kitchen table here and one or the other of us would periodically say, "oh, this looks like an interesting one" and we'd huddle.  We have it down to a list of about two dozen now, and will get down to two or three to actually visit.  We can do these initial visits without our agent, while he finishes his move.  (The rainy season has come, too, so we'll need to get umbrellas.)

(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click in the black area outside a photo when you're done.)

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