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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