On Sunday January 20 we did a lot of shopping, at two hardware stores and then our favorite department store El Corte Inglés. We have an ever-increasing list of things we'll need at the new home, even though it is fully furnished, but we checked off many of the items. We had "piglet sandwiches" and wine for lunch at El Corte Inglés, followed by an espresso for Gerrit and a lemon creampuff to share. (Photo? What photo? We are miserable bloggers. Hungry too.)
Then we made another trip from the apartment to the new house with another carload of stuff. It was raining pretty hard most of the time, but it was great to see the place again and to move some more of our things into it. By the time we got back to the apartment we were pretty worn out. After a dinner of pork "lizards" and green beans we limped off to bed.
Our original plan was to hire movers to do all the moving at once, but our friend Bernardo insisted that he and Carolina bring their car and that along with ours they could do the whole thing. We then found that we had quite a bit more than two carloads, so this will take at least four carloads altogether. Two we have already done, and hopefully the two on Tuesday will do it.
We did the final packing of the small stuff on Monday. It was a big, all-day job, except for a quick visit to the clinic for a blood draw for Pat's regular check-up. We now have everything boxed and piled in a corner of the room except for the last-minute stuff which we'll do tomorrow morning.
Tuesday the huge news was that we got our AIMA immigration meeting appointments! Finally, after months of trying to contact them we got on the calendar. The appointments aren't until May 2, but they are both at the same time in the same office. (We have heard of couples being scheduled in vastly different parts of Portugal at the same time.) The AIMA appointment is supposed to be two weeks after you arrive in Portugal, but it will have taken us almost a year. Even with just an appointment now we can start applying for other certifications, and after the appointment we'll be official residents with most of the privileges of citizens.
We also finished the last minute packing, resulting in an alarmingly large pile to move. We started planning for two trips. Our friends arrived at 10:00 just as we finished up, and within a half hour they had both cars loaded with all the stuff and ready to go! Only one trip required. We buzzed up to the new home, they unloaded for us, and we were moved in before lunch. They had to rush back to Porto to apply for a passport renewal so they could make their Morocco trip in a couple weeks, which was too bad. We wanted to at least take them out for lunch.
We tried a new little restaurant about 5 minutes away for our lunch, called
Pika Já. The plate of the day sounded like "pork bananas". We looked at each other, shrugged, and thought we'd give it a try. Well, it had nothing to do with bananas. The waitress had probably said "
bifanas", or thinly sliced meat. It came with a rich rice in sauce with beans and bacon, and a carafe of
vinho verde.
That night we did more unpacking and puttering around the house. Pat had a great idea for adding a wrought iron feature to our plain solid gray gate which she sketched out, to Gerrit's hearty approval. Later there was much cursing by Gerrit at the godawful user interfaces of modern computerized appliances. Who designs this junk? We had a lovely fire in the evening though. Casa da Rocha is beautifully energy efficient and warm when the sun shines, but on cold cloudy days it does get cold. We're working out efficient ways of heating when we need to, with the fireplace and the excellent Mitsubishi heating/AC units. (Excellent except for the user interface.)
The fireplace is a work of art. There is a grating in the bottom which draws room air in like a bellows right into the middle of the fire when it gets going. It burns hot and clean. There are multiple heat exchanger inputs and outputs, so the maximum heat is extracted. And there is a thermally-activated fan to really circulate the heated air. Gerrit is bonding with his fireplace.
On Wednesday we had plans to go on a shopping spree, familiarizing ourselves with the local establishments, but we ended up staying home. It was kind of a nice nesting rest after all that packing and moving. As we worked, we watched the weather and the view from our glorious new perch as it slowly evolved over the day through rain, clearing, dramatic clouds, and fog. Caroline and Peter, who sold the house to us, dropped by for a chat and to pick up something they'd forgotten. Gerrit did a few little tasks like lubricating doors and inspecting garage items, and Pat did a lot of unpacking, puttering, and organizing. Gerrit also got the electric and internet utility transfers underway. He engaged the services of our friend Bernardo's sister Rita on the internet setup, and she negotiated us a 1/3 discount with increased services in addition to scheduling the hookup! We'll be keeping her on the payroll.
That evening, after a cool rainy day we started a fire about 5 PM, and it warmed the whole house all evening long. We sat after dinner in the darkened living room, enjoying the warm fire and the spectacular view of the village lights in the valley and the nighttime lights of
Ponte de Lima. Off to bed we went with happy hearts.
Until the power went out a little past midnight. We lay there talking about how unprepared we were for this, and finally drifted back off since there was nothing we could do. In Portugal you are billed based on a maximum rate of power delivery at a given time, and we wondered whether we had somehow exceeded that limit.
In the morning, Thursday, Gerrit called Nia, our fixer who had set up the new electricity contract, and she directed him to the main circuit box out on the street. It was a lovely morning and Gerrit enjoyed a fresh little walk. He pushed a button in the box and power came back on. Hooray! For a few minutes. Boo! He went back in and shut off the water heater, which he had been fiddling around with the previous day and may have screwed up, and he reset the control box again. Now the power stayed up.
He and Nia figured out later that the power company had shut off power at the end of the previous contract, which was the day previous at midnight. They don't provide continuous service with a new customer, they just shut it off and let the new customer reset. Huh? That most likely explains the midnight power failure, and the one shortly after that was probably caused by an improperly-configured water heater exceeding the power threshold. Gerrit figured out how to set that properly, and power has been humming along ever since.
We also had a visit from a lift installer that day. She carefully measured and evaluated our stairs, and instead of using the indoor stairway we found that we could install a platform lift like we wanted on a partially covered outdoor stairway. Everything looked good, so we made a deposit. The lift should be installed in eight weeks. This will be a great help, not only to move heavy stuff up and down but for us too. Next we need to get some handrails installed on all the stairs.
(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.)
