Lisbon Area

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.