Homeowners!

One of our internet Portuguese instructors had a video where he interviewed a famous Canadian polyglot who knows 20 languages including Portuguese.  Wow!  20 languages!  It soon became clear though, that he really didn't speak Portuguese very well.  He was fully conversational, but his pronunciation was not so great and he dropped in Spanish words now and then.  He admitted that he made a lot of mistakes, but you have to admire his willingness to just dive in and flounder.  That really is the hard part, and is probably key to actually getting the language.  But maybe these famous polyglots aren't exactly model language users either.

We came across this old-time photo of downtown Ponte de Lima from what looks like the 1920s based on the cars and dress.  Then we realized that all the buildings, including the castle tower of course, are still exactly the same today!  The 1920's seems like so long ago to us, but not to the slow passage of history.

To the right is a pretty nice sunset from our apartment.  Spoiler alert: see below.

Monday Jan 13 was a day of furious planning and communication.  There was a mix-up regarding payment for the house: the sellers asked for a direct wire transfer (here on the day before the deed signing) but we had been told to get bank checks, which we had done.  The lawyer hadn't noticed that we told him we had checks last Friday.  He smoothed it out though, convincing the sellers that they could cash the checks and wire funds to their own UK account with no trouble.  They verified this and agreed to the checks.  Whew.

The sellers spent the day at Casa da Rocha cleaning and packing, preparing it for its new owners.  They sent us a lovely picture of the sunset, sitting on the deck bidding their place farewell after their day of work.  (This went much better than our purchase of our home in Normandy Park, where the scumbag sellers ran off with window blinds and medicine cabinets.  They even tried to take the stove, but that was thankfully hardwired. Naming names, these people were the Caryls of Normandy Park.  Stay away.)  These sellers have been wonderful, agreeing to sell the home completely furnished, cleaning it up, and connecting us with local resources and the homeowner's insurance company they used.

We got the contact information for their housekeeper Inês from them.  We have already met Inês a couple times when viewing the house; she let us in since the owners were not there.  The seller told us that "she said how lovely (and friendly) you are" so we are really looking forward to having her carry on as housekeeper and as our neighbor and friend.  She also speaks only a little English, so it will be great Portuguese practice for us.

And when we weren't busy with all that, Gerrit was fielding questions from lift installers and contacting new ones, and Pat was finding movers to help us relocate.  Gerrit has four lift installers quoting on the job, and Pat has three potential movers lined up.

At 8 PM the night before the signing, we received the contract for the furniture sale (separate from the house sale for tax purposes).  Sheesh...

But the deed signing was very thorough and meticulous, much more so than we ever saw in the US.  A notary supervised the whole process, reading the entire Portuguese contract through while the lawyer checked every number.  A very thorough Energy Certificate is required for every house sale, which shows efficiency, where heat enters and where it leaves, insulation problems, suggestions for improvement, and more.  Casa da Rocha got an A on the scale of A to F.  Then our real estate agent translated the whole contract to English for us and for the British sellers.  Everything was in order, the mood was light, and we exchanged checks and keys.  Casa da Rocha is now ours!  The lawyer told us all that it was the best house sale transaction he had ever experienced.  Between activities the sellers and we chatted and we heard more of the story of the house (which they custom-designed and built in 2014), and planned to get together on Friday at a neighbor's house near Casa da Rocha.  The sellers want to introduce us, and take us around to some landmarks in the neighborhood too.

After a quick lunch we drove excitedly up to our new home and wandered around with stars in our eyes.  We got familiar with things, checked out the kitchen inventory, and were stunned at how lovely and clean the sellers had left the place.  There were bundles of documents tied with a bow and explanatory notes, dozens of keys and door openers all neatly arrayed and labeled, and careful operating instructions and pool cleaning instructions.  We even found an alphabetized file folder with owner's manuals for every appliance and piece of equipment in the house.  And on top of all this, they left us a bottle of wine, a lovely card, and a jar of lemon curd made with "our" lemons!  Yes, we have lemon and orange trees, and the ripe fruit smells and tastes heavenly.  We made a few measurements, snapped a few quick photos, and reluctantly headed back to the apartment since we had doctor appointments in Porto early the next day.

First selfie in the new home

A real Casa da Rocha sunset, from the balcony

Before bed we confirmed that our new TV was exactly the right size, to the centimeter, to fit comfortably in the TV cabinet.  This is just nuts.  We feel like we're in a dream, or like some twinkly fairy is following us around with a magic wand.

The following day (today) Pat lined up some movers for Tuesday January 21.  That's the stake in the ground, Moving Day, we're outta here.

Our ideas about a lift are evolving.  We found that the terrace is too narrow to allow even the smallest lift through it without almost completely blocking it.  We also started thinking that maybe an exterior lift would really mar the beautiful architecture.  So we're looking at other options now, including a nice-looking platform stair lift (like a stair chair but with a discreet fold-up platform instead).  We could move people, groceries, or boxes of stuff that way.  First we need plain old stair railings, then stay tuned for the next development.

(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done.  Also, you can click on the bold underlined phrases to play the audio.)

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