Seeking etiquette advice
There are situations here that we've not dealt with before
Living in such close quarters to so many people has generated a lot of new experiences for us. We’ve learned to navigate most of them but a few scenarios still have us searching for answers. We’d love to hear what you think …
The patio across the street
Directly across the street from our bathroom (and, to a lesser but still significant degree, our bedroom) is a short-term stay … hotel-ish. The official Portuguese term is Alojamente Local, or AL. It’s an Airbnb-type place.
The ALers come, they generally stay for couple of days - four or five is about the max we’ve noticed - and they leave. Some of them make extensive use of the outdoor patio, which looks directly into our bathroom, although the view is partially obscured by a plant screen.
Our bathroom is tiny, but well-laid out.1 They even squeezed in a neat-o all-glass shower stall. They were certainly working to optimize the view, since the sink and vanity are a little lower than normal.
We can’t speak for any of you, but we’re not always fully dressed when we shower. And stepping out of the stall puts you within arms’ reach of the sink. Meanwhile, it’s not unusual for the patio to suddenly fill as people move outside for breakfast. It has happened on more than one occasion that one or the other of us has been in the altogether in front of an open window in view of the breakfast club.
There probably isn’t a lot we can do about the patio, but we can choose how to adapt to it. One of us2 is a lot more comfortable … letting it all hang out there than the other, on the viewpoint that hey, they aren’t permanent neighbors and we’ll never meet them. Plus, plant screen. The other of us is less so.
The bigger question is how do we leave this window when we have guests in our home?3 First, this is one of the two showpiece views this apartment boasts, and a solid reason we bought it. Also, these are the main windows that provide cross ventilation for the entire apartment. Do we close the windows and lower the shade whenever we expect company?
There are, of course, decals you can stick on a window, but the one of us who fell in love with this view is not in favor of anything that permanently alters it.
And even if we do decide to close the windows before we hop in the shower and pull the shade down at night, keeping the window blocked 24/7 is not an option. That air circulation is a big reason we bought this apartment.
Where do we draw the line?
Questions for your consideration
Is it our responsibility to ensure the folks across the way don’t get more of a view than they bargained for?
If so, how should we do that?
How do we manage the situation for our own guests?
Or maybe we should just hang on and hope that a wave of recent reviews for the AL solves the problem for us …4
Narrow sidewalks
Brief story from Scott:
One day, I was walking Josie on a particularly narrow sidewalk not far from our home. Josie hunched and I bent over to clean up.5 When I arose, I made eye contact with a young woman. We were close enough to do a fish bump.
Sounds fine, right? Perfectly normal?
Oh wait …
did I mention she was on her couch watching TV and I’m standing outside her living room window holding a bag of dog poop?
Sounds a li’l less fine now, dunit?
This was not an isolated incident.
The sidewalks here can be super narrow and if you live on piso 06 you, too, could find yourself within poking distance of passers-by. (And it’s not just people. Some of the streets are narrow enough that side mirrors from passing vehicles nearly brush the walls of houses as they go by.)
Some of these apartments are pretty small; one room, even. Additionally, the lack of screens in windows here adds a surprising level of intimacy to these scenes.
Amy once had this happen:
I was walking Josie one day (honestly, we do more than walk her) ….
Josie was investigating the latest messages left behind by her neighborhood companions and considering a response. As I turned to head forward, and thereby encourage Josie’s forward movement, eyes swept across the open window of one of the very small apartments.
A desk was right up against the window. A guy was seated there. Studying, it seemed. Our eyes made contact.
Beyond him, sprawled on a bed, in a nightgown, was a woman.
These are things we’re not accustomed to.7
All this raises questions about how to handle these potentially awkward situations. The simplest solution is probably just to avert your eyes, switch it up and look the other way. But sometimes you just can’t help it.
If we thought there was a good chance we’d share a common language, tossing off a quick joke might be a way to go.8 But there’s at least a fair chance that would simply make an already awkward situation worse as we struggle to be understood.
Has anyone else experience situations like this? Any suggestions for us?
Tattoos
Tattoos are everywhere in Lisbon. And by everywhere, we mean everywhere. On roughly three out of every five people and on every conceivable part of those people.9 And the art is often both gorgeous and intricate.
Which means we want to look at it.
And, c’mon, you don’t literally put art permanently on your body if it doesn’t mean something to you … if you don’t want people to see it … right?
But there’s only so long one can stare at, say, a shoulder on the Metro before the authorities get involved.
So what’s the deal? How does this work?
We’d love to hear from people about this …
If you answered yes to the above please feel free to answer any/all of the following:
Do you want people (including strangers) to look at your tattoos?
Do people stare at them?
What do/would you think about that?
Do you want to tell the story of your tattoos?
How well do you need to know someone before talking about your tattoos with them?
Has anyone you don’t know ever asked you about your tattoo(s)?
What do/would you think about that?
Have you ever seen a tattoo that you want to ask its … umm … owner(?) about?
Is it rude to ask someone about their tattoos?
How well do you need to know someone before asking about their tattoos?
Have you ever asked a stranger to tell you about their tattoos?
If so, what was the response?
We know many of you have lived or currently live in metropolitan areas. We’re still new at this. We just want to be happy little salmon, swimming with the rest of the run. How do you manage these potentially awkward situations in your day-to-day lives? Please chime in! (And even if you’ve never had something like this happen to you, we’d love to know how you’d handle it if it did …)
That’s all for now.
Love from Lisbon,
Scott & Amy
As long as you don’t plan on storing anything in it.
This would be the one of us who grew up in the boonies. You couldn’t see any houses from ours, and it was well-set back from the road. We didn’t have a single shade in the house.
While we have yet to have a guest actually shower in our apartment, at the right angle it’s possible for a person across the way to see someone sitting on our toilet. We’ve got to believe at least some of the folks who come here for, say, a game night, aren’t going to be entirely comfortable with that.
Which raises an entirely different question: Will multiple reviews mentioning the phrase “ugly naked guy” scare people off or just shift the demographic to people who love the TV show Friends?
Because we’re responsible dog owners.
Also called the R/C, or rés do chão here
We had a giant picture window on the front of our house in St. Louis … but it was a good 18 meters (20 yards) from the sidewalk. We’re used to the spacious lawns of US suburbia.
“Please pass the peanuts,” would be one possibility.
Ok, fine, we haven’t seen a face tattoo. Yet.
you can hang a thin curtain, in front of the window, that still lets in the light and can let you see out, but from a distance others cannot see in
How about a small curtain for the bottom half of the bathroom window, so that it blocks the line of sight to the loo, but still lets you enjoy the view while brushing teeth?