We found our perfect apartment. It’s a T3 with 2 bathrooms. Huge living room, it’s on the ground floor, 10 minutes walking from town, and it’s beautiful. Great price and the owners are looking for someone to sign a longer lease. There is a small garage, which we hadn’t even been looking for, but now we want it because it would be perfect for bike storage. The problem is that the apartment is in huge demand. I’m not sure how many other people want it, but I know the owner has numerous showings.
The process so far has been a learning experience and different than anything we have done so far. We hired a company to help us find an apartment, and they met with the owner and toured the apartment. They told us how important family is to the owner and that they want a family with kids living there. We definitely fit that bill. They told me to call the owner to tell her a little about the family and then to follow up with an email, so we did exactly that. We put a lot of emphasis on how great the apartment is for our kids and how much we want to raise them there. We didn’t even have to embellish at all, we really do love it and we want to live there so much. The owner said that she will choose someone and let us know of her decision by Wednesday. So now we wait. We have no idea how it’s going to go.
Leo being a goofball
In the meantime, we’re trying to stay busy and distract ourselves. Today we went to the Cascais mall. I swear we do more than go to malls all the time, lol. We started going to malls a lot more once Sofia was born because it’s a win for everyone. We can walk around and exercise no matter the weather. There is food, usually a playground, and if the kids want to walk around we don’t have to worry about cars. I was very proud because we took the bus from Sintra to Cascais. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it was our first time and it was a bit intimidating. In case you ever want to take the bus around here, you have to flag them down, they don’t automatically stop.
The mall is big and has a nice playground with slides and a ball pit. Sofia and Leo had a blast. The mall has a Toys R Us, which was really fun to see. The US ones went out of business a few years ago. When I was pregnant with Sofia we went to their going out of business sale and stocked up. This Toys R Us also had a playground, so Sofia and Leo got tons of playground time today.
Later this week we want to go to Cascais. We went to the mall today, but didn’t actually see the city. Fingers crossed that we get good news about the apartment soon…
We have been in Sintra for a few days now. I wonder if we are going to like each city more than the last. We love Sintra, and the change of pace is much appreciated. We still go out everyday, but things feel easier- probably because Sintra is smaller and more compact than Lisbon. Sintra is equally as stunning.
A few days ago we went to the mall, Alegro Sintra. It’s big. I’m not even sure what we did, but we spent hours there and didn’t even see half of it. The kids playground there was different than ones we have seen before and the kids spent a bit of time there. That day was kind of rough because we realized how overwhelming it is trying to acclimate. Seeing all of the stores I realized that we don’t even know what stores we like in Portugal. We still don’t know which stores to go to for certain items. But we’re learning, and eventually we will figure out what stores we like and where to go for specific items.
View near our AirBnb
That was also the day that an employee at the mall got visibly irritated with me when I asked him if he speaks English. I get that it would be annoying to have all of these people moving here who don’t even speak the language, but we really are trying. We do need to learn some more Portuguese ASAP. Most people here are incredibly kind and helpful, but we have run into one or two who seem very upset that we’re here. I suppose it’s like that in every country. Kyle pointed out that it’s humbling and he’s right. Everything is harder because we don’t speak the language.
The apartment search is not going as well as I had hoped, so I’m a bit anxious about that. Our SEF appointment is December 21, so we absolutely need a lease by then. We still have time, but it seems like there is a high demand for apartments right now and not much supply. Every apartment that we have been interested in is already rented and no longer available. All we need is one apartment, so fingers crossed that one becomes available and we’re able to get it. Needing an apartment and trying to learn a new language are our biggest life stressors right now, so we are pretty damn lucky.
One of the many amazing views from Pena Palace
We have been seeing Pena Palace on YouTube videos for months because it’s always shown when anyone talks about Sintra. Every single time Sofia would see it she would say “I want to go there!” Well today we finally went! I knew the castle would be beautiful because I have seen so many pictures of it. Pictures don’t do it justice. I had no idea how spectacular the view would be, and from so many different places. There is a wall walk that walks halfway around a part of the castle. I was fairly terrified because I’m scared of heights and Sofia was with me, so I had her arm in a death grip so that she wouldn’t try to climb over the side. Even she seemed somewhat impressed with the views.
Pena Palace
We took bus 434 to the outside of the palace. There are ticket machines and you can buy tickets for just the park, or for the park and palace. If you want to go inside, buy park and palace. We didn’t want to go inside, so we just got the park tickets. You can also buy transfer tickets for 3 euro. The transfer ticket is needed to ride a separate bus to the top of the hill. We had no idea of this until later. When we walked in we saw a line of people waiting for the bus. We waited for 20+ minutes just to be told we needed additional tickets. So don’t wait in the bus line unless you paid for the transfer tickets. We walked up the hill to the palace. It really wasn’t so bad- the hills in Lisbon definitely helped to prepare us. There are lots of beautiful side trails and gardens which we skipped since we’re always on a bit of a timer with two young toddlers. We like to get things done before someone melts down- and it’s not always the toddlers that melt down 😆
Pena Palace
We loved visiting Pena Palace. It’s gorgeous there and I wish we had a bit more time and energy to explore the grounds. We’re hoping to go back in a few years when the kids are older and we can ditch the strollers. Today we left Sofia’s stroller behind to see how it went. We made it, but she was tired and asked to sit in the stroller a few times. I guess we’re still sticking with two strollers for a while longer.
Today we leave Lisbon and head for Sintra. We are ready. We have loved Lisbon and we will always have fond memories, but it has become exhausting. We have mostly been stuck at home the past three days due to rain, so we have been going a bit stir crazy. We feel really lucky that we got so many beautiful days when we first got here. We have figured out that the quickest way from our rental to the metro is down a big hill. Going down isn’t so bad of course, but the thought of climbing up that hill one more time makes us want to cry.
We’ve been having some bad luck with the metro lately too. At least half the time we take it there either isn’t an elevator, or the elevator is broken. That means a lot of carrying strollers and kids up and down stairs. The metro has served us well, but we are ready for a break. We love Lisbon, but we are not big city people and we’re ready for somewhere smaller and hopefully better suited for toddlers who want freedom.
Elevador da Gloria
A few days ago we took a trolley up a steep hill to a gorgeous view. I think the trolley is called Elevador da Gloria. The view from the top is the most beautiful we have seen. We found a playground and stopped at the botanical gardens and natural history museum on the way home.
On Saturday we were supposed to have a 4 hour break from the rain, so we decided to take the train to Cascais. We made it to the train station 10 minutes before the 10:00 train was scheduled to leave and we settled in for the 40 minute ride. Unfortunately 30 minutes later an announcement was made in Portuguese and everyone got off the train. The plus side is that we met a great couple from Florida (hi if you’re reading this! 😊) who told us that there was a problem with the train and the next one would come at 11. Unfortunately the one at 11 was cancelled, so at that point we just decided to do something else. The kids had been in their strollers for two hours and we were all ready to walk around.
Time Out
Time Out Market was right there, so we went to check it out. We knew it was essentially a big tourist trap, but I always think that touristy things are worth doing at least once. It was expensive, and really hard to find a place to sit and eat, but the food wasn’t bad and it was interesting waking around seeing what they have to offer. Now we have it out of our system and it’s not somewhere that we would go back to. I would have preferred Cascais, but at least we were able to do something with our short break from the rain. It started raining again, so we headed back to our rental.
We have started looking for a long term rental. I have researched quite a few places this past year- Braga, Porto, Coimbra, Setubal, Sintra, and a few others. I think we could be happy living in any of those places, but we have never quite been able to narrow it down. I’m very drawn to Braga for its beauty, walkability, and pedestrian only area, but the weather makes me nervous and it seems so far from all the other places I want to check out. I happened upon a website that mentioned Leiria and I started looking into it.
As soon as Kyle saw a YouTube video he said it felt like home and he wants to go there. So that’s where we’re looking for an apartment. Everyone we have talked to has said that Leiria is great for families, and right now whatever we can do to make life easier with two toddlers is a win. I think I could be happy for the next year or two pretty much anywhere in Portugal as long as there are some playgrounds and we can walk everywhere. I have zero interest in getting a car anytime soon. Our rental in Sintra is paid for through November, so hopefully our next move will be into a long term rental in Leiria. Until then, we are excited to see what Sintra is like. Like I said, we love Lisbon but it’s all that we know of Portugal so far. I’m excited to see some other parts of this country.
This has been a great week so far. We finally got our phones set up, so it has been great having working cell phones. We went to Vodafone and got a prepaid SIM card. One month of service cost 20 euro for two phones. We already have unlocked iphones, so we’re able to continue using those. Once we get an apartment we’ll get a phone contract. They offer budles, so we want to see what those are like before we commit. Now we just need to get ahold of Tmobile to cancel our US phones.
I can’t even remember everything we have done over the past few days. We went to the zoo a few days ago. It was big and we didn’t even see all of it in one visit. There is a really awesome ride there. You stand up in a cart type thing and go over the zoo and a bunch of cages. It’s a long ride, somewhere around 20 minutes maybe. The walls are nice and tall, so I didn’t have to worry about my kids falling or jumping out. I went with Sofia and Kyle took Leo. The ride goes over the lion cages, and gives some nice views of the city. I am deathly afraid of heights, but even I was able to enjoy the ride because it was so different than anything I have ever done.
Yesterday we went on one of those super touristy hop on hop off bus rides, although we were never able to hop off because the stops weren’t long enough 🤣 Kyle tried once, but the bus started moving again before he could even get to the stairs, It was a really nice break to be able to sit down for a while. The kids did good, though they did start to get restless. We all did at some point. The loop was just under two hours, which is more than we have sat for a while now. My butt hurt from sitting by the end. The tour made us realize just how little of Lisbon we have seen. We have come up with a plan for what to do for the rest of our time here, but we’ll see if we have the energy.
We are definitely starting to run out of steam. We’ve been in vacation mode since we got here, so we don’t really have a schedule and we’re running around all the time. It has been tons of fun, but we’re ready to slow things down a bit and get a routine going. We have already outgrown our Airbnb. It’s a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom. It’s in a great location, so the apartment size is, of course, on the smaller side. The biggest problem though is that there just isn’t any organization, so our things are just kind of laying around. We don’t have a pantry, so we have been putting our food on top of the stove, which obviously makes cooking a pain. We are making do though, and plan on enjoying our last week in Lisbon.
Tomorrow or Friday we want to go check out the Belem area. I loved it on the tour yesterday. We have been wanting to get pastel de natas from Pasteis de Belem, so we can kill two birds with one stone. I still want to check out Time Out market at some point, but we might run out of time for that. I really want to go to Cascais while the weather is still nice, and the kids would love that too. I know we can do that from Sintra, but there is a train from Lisbon and it seems easier. Hopefully we can fit that in this weekend. We’re running out of time in Lisbon, but I keep reminding myself that we’re going to live pretty close. It’s not like we’re going back to the states next week. We’re going a half hour away…
Yesterday we learned how to take the metro. It’s super easy and convenient. Today we decided to take a break from running errands and to just play tourist. I’m glad we did- we really needed the break.
We took the metro to the Praca do Comercio. We took the elevator from the metro up to ground level and when the elevator doors open it’s one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen. I have been wanting to go over there because it’s in so many videos and blog posts and is instantly recognizable. It was interesting being over there because it’s much more touristy than anywhere else we have been. The prices are higher and people speak English to us before we even get a chance to say anything. We’ve already gotten more used to being around locals.
We walked around the pedestrian only areas for a while and then took the metro back home. We stopped at a nearby grocery store to get a few more things. They sure do love their yogurt here, which is great since Leo loves yogurt too. We’re back at the rental with a few new toys and the kids are happy for the moment. I love going around Lisbon, but it’s nice having an easier day. Monday we’re going to see if we can go get Portuguese SIM cards for our phones.
The more we see of Lisbon the more we love it. It’s so beautiful here and I always feel safe so far. Sofia waves at everyone and they wave back, which delights her. People stop all the time and spend a minute or two talking to Leo. He gets shy and tries to hide behind me or Kyle. For the most part people are really friendly here. I know there is so much more of this country than just Lisbon. I’m excited to spend the next week in Lisbon and then getting to see more of the country.
Today has been our best day so far. We decided that our top priority today was to get a second stroller. We have been out so much that one stroller won’t cut it. We found a store that is a 21 minute walk and we set out. It took way longer than 21 minutes because Sofia had to walk and she is exhausted. She doesn’t seem to have caught up on sleep yet. The walk took us through some beautiful areas. It’s amazing how gorgeous this city is where ever you walk. We still haven’t been to the parts of Lisbon that are on postcards and in videos, but so much of this city is really stunning. My pictures never do it justice.
We passed a park and it was similar to the one by our house in the sense that it has a playground, fountain/bird bath, and a coffee kiosk. We let the kids play for a while. We met a woman from Nepal who has been here for two years. It was nice getting to meet someone else who isn’t from here.
We made it back to the apartment in time to get the kids a nap. I went to IKEA while they slept to check it out. It was huge. There were a few things I couldn’t find, so when I got home we set out to find them.
I’m in some Facebook expat groups and some have talked about El Corte Ingles. The way it sounded to me was that it’s a somewhat expensive store where Americans can find some things that they might not be able to find other places. Well, what we got was pure insanity. I’m not even sure it’s a store…it has 7 floors, but then also has negative floors. It’s like a massive department store, but with restaurants, a grocery store, and a movie theater. We weren’t at all prepared for everything that store (ginormous megaplex) has to offer. I did finally find some coffee filters and sugar at their grocery store. I haven’t been able to make coffee at home yet, but I think I finally can tomorrow.
El Corte Ingles DirectoryWe didn’t try these donuts but they look amazing
On the way home we decided to try one of the nearby restaurants. The food was amazing. The kids were pretty well behaved considering they had been in their strollers for a few hours. I have noticed that Portuguese kids seem to be well behaved while ours run around screaming, yelling, and banging on stuff. Everyone here is very nice to them though, and Sofia and Leo get tons of attention. They really do love kids here.
Today was better because we’re starting to adjust our expectations. We can’t have a to-do list and expect to make a ton of progress in one day. Today it took us about 4 hours to get a stroller. But we had fun doing it. We went on a beautiful walk, had fun at a park we had never seen, had some coffee, stopped for a snack. It made us realize that if we can accomplish one or two goals a day then we’re doing good.
Today is our second day in Portugal, but our first full day. And our first day with sleep. Kyle and I didn’t sleep at all on the plane, so yesterday was especially rough. Today felt a lot better. I can see why people fall in love with Lisbon, and we haven’t even done anything fun yet. Almost everything we have done has been errands. Tomorrow we have another day of errands, but one of these days we will go check out some of the touristy places and see some of the places I see in pictures. Yesterday was definitely overwhelming- first with trying to get all of our stuff and our kids through the airport. Kyle went back to the airport yesterday to pick up Bailey. We expected it to be hard, but it was so much more ridiculous than either of us ever anticipated. in the end he did get Bailey though. Bailey seemed much less traumatized than I expected. I know that’s a great thing, I just didn’t expect him to be so normal so quickly. He’s already adjusting to life in Portugal and he seems to enjoy it. We have a garden at our rental unit and we just leave the door open, so he can go outside whenever he wants. Kyle took him for three long walks today, which Bailey seemed to love.
There is a gorgeous park near our rental. I don’t know the name of the park, but I love it and will miss it when we leave. It’s only about a three minute walk from here. There is a small playground, a fountain where pigeons bathe themselves, and a coffee kiosk. There are always people sitting at the tables, talking and drinking espressos. The pictures I took of the park don’t do it justice.
Park by our rental
As part of our D7 visa process we had to open and fund a Portuguese bank account. We received the cards back in the US and I activated them through the app. When we got here they didn’t work. We tried using them at the multibanco machine, but that didn’t work either. We tried a different pin number and were able to get Kyle’s card to work, but the multibanco machine ate my card and spit out a message saying that the wrong pin was entered 3 times. So I guess if you put the wrong pin in too many times it just eats the card without warning. Good to know. Luckily I was able to go onto the app and deactivate my card. I already needed to go to the bank to change our address, so I guess now I’ll just have them send a new card. Until then we’ll just use Kyle’s card and I’ll use cash. I’m scared to put any more cards into the multibanco though, lol.
Exploring Lisboa
We went to a mall today called Amoreiras Shopping Center. We tried our fist pastel de nata there. I don’t like custard, so I expected not to like it much, but I actually really liked it. And it was just from a random bakery in the mall. I can’t wait to try one from Pasteis de Belem.
We did a lot of walking today and I love it. There are so many reasons we moved to Portugal, but one of them was to be forced to be healthier. I think that I’ll eat healthier here and I will definitely get a lot more exercise. The kids are also getting way more exercise. You might assume that they would sleep better, but they are currently in their room playing and running around, even though they are exhausted and had a few meltdowns today from being so tired. I know there are so many huge changes going on though. In a few weeks things will settle down. And then we will be moving again, lol. In a few weeks we will be staying in Sintra, which I’m really excited about. I like Lisbon a lot so far, but it’s so massive. Big cities already make me feel kind of overwhelmed, and moving to another country makes me feel a lot overwhelmed, so the two of those things together is pretty intense. I think Sintra will feel more manageable.
Lisbon
I feel a lot better with everything that we accomplish. Since we got Kyle’s bank card working at least we will have access to our money. We also made it to the grocery store today and got some basics, like toilet paper, fruit, and laundry detergent. I figured out how to do a load of laundry. I cooked a quesadilla for Leo, and then it took us literally 20+ minutes to figure out how to turn the stove off. It’s not like one we have ever seen before. I expect the first few weeks living here to be all about relearning things. We knew how to do laundry, cook, and buy stuff in the US, but now we have to learn how to do those things here. It’s really overwhelming at first, but once we learn something then we don’t have to learn again and everything gets easier and less overwhelming.
I do understand why people dream about moving abroad but don’t do it. It’s scary. And very overwhelming. I don’t regret it at all though. Like I said, we haven’t even gotten to do much fun stuff yet and I already love it here. I came to Lisbon knowing that big city life is not for me, and I still love it here. I’m excited to see Sintra, and I’m excited to see Coimbra. I do think Coimbra will be a good fit. Right now I want to live in a medium sized city that we can really get to know. I also want to find some pedestrian only places so the kids can have more freedom. I’m also excited to get to explore Lisbon more. Even though we won’t live here, this is somewhere that we will visit over and over again.
Well, we made it back to South Carolina two days ago. Whew, this humidity! I somehow forgot how humid it gets. It was nice getting to spend two weeks in the way cooler air of the Pacific Northwest. The flight home was so much better. Our first flight landed on time, so we had an hour and a half layover in Dallas. It still felt kind of cut short, but we had time to eat and stretch our legs a bit. We have all been pretty exhausted since we got home.
I go back to work today, in two hours. It will be fine. I’m feeling kind of sad though. I always feel kind of sad when vacation is over. It has been so nice getting to spend the past two weeks with my kids. I’ll miss getting to spend so much time with them. I really miss my parents too. Sofia has been asking to see them a lot today. She misses them too. Since having kids it has gotten so hard saying bye to my parents. It’s so nice spending time with them and the distance between us is hard. And it’s about to get way bigger.
On the plus side, we will be moving to Portugal soon. I still haven’t picked the exact date, but we’re really close to deciding. We got our passports back and my SEF appointment is December 20 in Setubal. Kyle, Sofia, and Leo have their appointments on December 21, also in Setubal. For that appointment the biggest thing we need is a lease. Originally we planned to find something to start January 1, 2022 but now it’s looking like we will aim for a start date of December. The travel date we listed on our D7 visa was October 13, and that might be the actual date we enter Portugal, or we might do a week later.
Kyle has already started selling some of our stuff. I’ve been going through the kid’s clothes to either sell or donate them. I still have all of their clothes, back to when they were both newborns. We have so much to do and not a ton of time to get it all done, but we should be fine. We’ve known this was coming and I began packing some things a few months ago. Now that we know that we’re actually going soon it’s time to get moving.
I still have to figure out my last day of work. I think that I might just stay for a while longer, and have my last day be 10 days prior to our move. That last paycheck will be helpful, and having our insurance for as long as possible means we won’t have to spend a ton on short term health insurance. We still have some decisions to make, but that’s the fun and easy part. We tried calling Lufthansa today to book Bailey’s flight, but after being on hold for a while we were told by a machine to leave a message. I definitely have some anxiety about Bailey’s travel- booking his flight will be a huge piece. Once we book his flight I will book ours and make the last decisions that I need to make.
I got the email this morning that our visas have been approved. We are so excited! I was really hoping to find out while we were on vacation and we did. I even brought our passports with us, just in case. We are going to mail them to DC to get our visas put in them.
There is still so much that we need to get done, but just knowing that we are moving to Portugal will make it all worth it. The biggest things are to finish what we need for the driver’s license exchange, and get Bailey ready to go. I requested our driving records from SC and FL, so those should be coming pretty soon. I think that from there I need to mail something to VFS DC to have them sign. I still need to figure that out some more. Bailey will probably be the most stressful part, but tons of people have moved pets with them, and we only have to do it once. We will probably just do it ourselves, but are still looking at the possibility of using a pet relocation service. They are so expensive though, and we will still have to do the majority of the work. I think that if we were able to get the visas on our own, we should be able to do this on our own too.
Eugene, OR
I’m still not sure of our move date. Once we get our visas back, we will know the date of our appointment in Portugal. We will need to find a lease before that appointment. I’m really hoping our appointment is not until January, but we’ll see. So far we have an AirBnb rental for the month of November, and we will figure things out from there. The rental is in Sintra, and I was really hoping to get to stay there. It is in walking distance to a bunch of stuff. Since walking is a major priority of mine in this new life, I think it’s fitting that our first place will be around so much stuff.
We are going to enjoy the rest of our vacation and then get back to work when we get home. Less than 2 months until the move! Woo-hoo!!
We’re still waiting to hear back about our visa applications. In the meantime, we flew to Oregon to visit my parents. Sofia and Leo had their first flights on Wednesday. it was a really long 8+ hour day. They did pretty well, though there were some meltdowns from all of us, lol. Once we boarded our first flight they told us that we would be delayed. We sat in the plane for an hour before takeoff. We came really close to missing our connecting flight in Denver. Trying to get to our gate in time was a pretty miserable experience and both of our suitcases broke. They lost some wheels. The doors were already closed by the time we made it, but that flight was delayed by about 10 minutes, which is why were were able to make it. 48 hours later and the memories are already fading since we have been having fun in Oregon.
Yesterday we checked out Amazon Park and today was Sofia and Leo’s first beach trip. We knew Sofia would love the beach. She loves the water and she has a lot of fun experiencing new things. At first Leo didn’t seem too into it, but I guess he was just checking things out because a few minutes later he was running all over the place and he ran right into the water. Sofia had a massive temper tantrum when we left. I’m pretty sure she wants to move to the beach.
The beach was right next to a town called Florence. I really liked it there. It had a really cute, walkable downtown area. We got lunch and then walked around a little bit. Eugene has been really hot. The day we got here it was in the hundreds, and it has been in the upper 90s ever since. The AirBnb we’re in doesn’t have air conditioning, so we have been pretty miserable in the rental. Florence and the beach were significantly cooler, so we’re really hoping to make it up there at least one or two more times before we leave.
Our property management company has been bugging us everyday that we have been here so far. I told them I was on vacation and asked if we could talk to them when we get back, but they’re pretty persistent. They sent an email saying that they won’t be renewing our lease, and all of the things we need to do to get our deposit back. We’re pretty sure our landlord is going to try to sell the house again. We never planned on renewing our lease, but it’s still kind of nerve wracking. As of October 31, we don’t have a place to live. We have an Airbnb rental in Sintra, Portugal starting on November 1. I’m really hoping we make it there by then. I know we have to be patient and just wait for word from the embassy, but we’re definitely ready to start planning and putting things into motion. We’re still hopeful that we will hear back from them in the next few weeks.
Growing Up Expat 