Changing apartments
We're literally moving on up, to the east side (81)
We moved! On Tuesday. So we’re kinda tired now ;-) And pretty happy it’s behind us. We had a few thoughts.
When we moved to Portugal, 9.5 months ago, we didn’t take much stuff.
When we moved this time, it kinda feels like that’s exploded.
Oh, plus a mattress from Molaflex, and bed frame from Pikolin.
This is our first double agent bed frame. It provides a lovely, supportive place for our mattress (apparently removing the need for a box spring) while also giving us much-needed storage for large, seasonal items like the Christmas tree and dehumidifier. It’ll be a busy bee.
If you’re very observant you might notice that a lot of these boxes look the same - the MooveIt boxes. Turns out it’s not easy to get used boxes in Portugal. In general we’ve found Portugal to be a bit greener than the US. We figured we’d just head to our local shops and ask for their boxes.
First up was our neighborhood Mini Preço, a beefed up corner store. We see many boxes go in full and empty ones leave. One recent night right before close, Amy headed in with a translation printed out, at the ready. The manager was right inside the door. She tried out the first sentence on her own, and got the standard blank look. She shame-facedly handed over the written out translation. He read it. An immediate no. They cannot give out boxes. They reuse them was the feeling given. Which is awesome! But, challenging for us.
A new business on the ground floor of our building, the wonderful and welcoming Georgian wine bar IF IF IF (Josie loves it - they’re pet friendly!), gladly gave us four IKEA boxes. We scored a few other, more sturdy, options in an alley outside a Samsonite luggage store. (They were waiting for the recycling truck and didn’t seem to mind being tasked to do their job one more time.) And then - *shudder* - we bought 20 boxes online.
Next up was finding someone to help move ‘em all. We could technically carry each one, but … the hills. It just wasn’t feasible. We reached out to a bunch of ads on Olx (our craigslist) and got back crickets. So we started trying actual companies. Ugh. That’s going to be expensive. The first response: two guys and a van, 65€ per hour, minimum 4 hours. We were thrilled. Until the second company came in with three guys and a van, 45€ an hour, minimum 4 hours. Total 180€, done and dusted. It would run us close to that to hire a U-Haul and pay for gas in the US. We were thrilled. Until we mentioned it to a friend who’s lived here a while. What??? she exclaimed. That’s ridiculous. 100€ should do it. We’re still happy. It’s inexpensive from our perspective.
The Day arrived and so did The Guys, pretty much spot on at 9 AM. Between them, they spoke about three words of English. Scott got two of their names but in the insanity of the day, forgot one of them. Guy #1, the legs of the operation, rang the doorbell and was working on propping the front door by the time Scott got downstairs (the fire extinguisher wasn't heavy enough). Guy #2 (Francisco) was the red shirt1 who was was given the task of Holding the Parking Place. Guy #3 seemed to be in charge (he drove the truck and took the cash) but did the least interacting with us, spending most of the time in the (unnecessarily large for our move) truck.
When they finally got the door propped (a small somethingorother inserted between the bottom of the door and the floor did the trick - yay physics!), they came upstairs and we established (through gestures, isto (this), and não (no)) that they were only to move the items you can see visible in the photo above. Nothing from any other room, no furniture. From there, things moved shockingly fast. To the point where Scott decided to take off for the new apartment around 15 minutes after they arrived as at least one of us needed to get there before they did in order to let them in.
Amy left a little after 9:30 as everything was out of the apartment and almost onto the truck by then.
Now, we’ve mentioned before that the distance between these apartments is about 750 meters, just under half a mile. Scott walked it in a little under 15 minutes. Amy arrived around 9:45.
Guys #2 and 3 appeared, on foot, just before 10. Here’s where we should mention that our new street is narrow. Very narrow. There are also metal poles planted every couple of meters in the sidewalks to keep vehicles off the curb. This street was not built with parking cars in mind. These movers were not on their first rodeo and were scouting the route before bringing the truck. The best place to park was currently occupied by, actually, another moving truck. There were conversations. The other moving truck pulled out a few moments later. Guy #2 stayed behind, apparently to make sure nobody else snagged the parking spot. Guy #3 disappeared to get the truck which, presumably, was being guarded by Guy #1. He left less than five minutes after 10.
Now, did we mention we can walk the distance between apartments in roughly 15 minutes? We did. Good. If we figure it took Guy #3 15 minutes to get back, we’d expect to see the truck around, what, 10:20? 10:25? Certainly no later than 10:30, right?
A little after 10:30, Scott and Guy #2 had an exchange of shrugs. At 10:45, Amy was asking if Scott should go find them. Where would we look? Scott went back to Guy #2 and there was some conversation the gist of which seemed to be, Truck is large, roads are not. So parking on the street was far from the only issue they had to deal with.
They showed up shortly thereafter and the unloading began.
One of the joys of moving into a new place is that things aren’t always quite right. In our case, we weren’t sure if the elevator would be working on move in day. Turns out it was. Turns out it didn’t matter because it’s too small to hold a person and boxes simultaneously so they didn’t bother to use it. Instead, Guy #1 hoofed the stairs. Repeatedly.
Our new building is a little odd. You enter and go down seven steps to the (tiny) elevator, then up nine steps to a landing, and switchback up nine more steps to our door. When you’re moving, stairs are a big deal. Fortunately we’re not talking couches, heavy wardrobes, and whatnot. (Yet.)
Guy #1 was terrific. He loved Josie and made sure to give her at least a pat every time he left the apartment (he was always holding boxes when he entered, or he assuredly would have greeted her then). At one point, Scott told him Josie’s name and he asked how old she was. Then he launched into a story that - given his repeated use of the words frango (chicken in the cooking and eating sense) and galinha (also chicken, more in the farm animal sense) along with multiple flexing gestures - seemed to be about a large, buff farm chicken. There’s a chance it was a pet of his when he was younger? It was beyond our level of Portuguese.
Not long after the chicken story, he dropped off a box and said, todos (all) and we were done. The entire operation - including the 45 minute 750-meter drive - took about two hours.
In the Land of Bureaucracy, getting power and water to our new apartment is also not a super easy task. In our case, it’s a new building so the utility cabinets are half empty.
Because there we literally do not have meters installed yet, we’ll need to be present whenever the companies are able to send technicians. We’ll detail that process in a different post.
At the moment, though, to quote a Steven Wright joke (told in a very different context), we’re still tired from the move.
And we need to unpack.
That’s all for now.
Love from Lisbon,
Amy & Scott
Gratuitous Star Trek reference. No, he didn’t actually die.
I had to go back to your previous entry about still having your rental apartment until June because no water, no power in your new home because you just moved in would have been a different level of torture. Thank goodness for the overlap! 😅
Congratulations! I am so happy for you and looking forward to hearing about how you settle in and make the apartment HOME.