Year One in Portugal

7 December 2025

Today is, of course, Pearl Harbor Day. 84 years ago. The population of people who can remember it, ever dwindling.

One year ago today, our little family of four arrived in Faro, Portugal, to live. I can’t speak about the 84 years, but the ONE year, F L E W  by.

Christmas decorations in Faro

We were almost completely clueless about what it was going to be like. I think my expectations were somewhat curtailed by the effort of getting here. That effort mentally drained me more than I even realized until a month after we got here. At that time, I could tell that I was still in need of downtime to recover.

I couldn’t completely relax because there were still bureaucratic things to deal with. Also, the stuff we shipped from Charlotte didn’t actually arrive at our apartment until JUNE 6, 2024.

That’s SIX MONTHS after we arrived. We thought we’d have it sometime in March. I could only remember some of what was coming. The decision-making around downsizing was brutal. It became so chaotic, we could barely remember what we shipped. I think we’ll have another round of it before we move again.

Move again. That is likely to be September of 2026. There are a lot of good things about this apartment, but there are also things that I don’t feel like living with any longer than that.

Mini-split in sunroom

Here’s my list

• Indoor temperature control. There are two “mini-splits”. I’ll add a picture in case you don’t know this term. It’s two units that can blow warm or cool air. The problem is where they are located. Both of them are in the area of the apartment we call the “sunroom” or “solarium”. Neither of them helps with bedrooms or the main living area. It’s quite stupid (IMHO). I survived the summer heat pretty well. But I DO NOT LIKE TO BE COLD. I CAME HERE TO NOT BE COLD. Right at this moment. I am cold. I have on a long-sleeved shirt with a sweatshirt on top of that. It’s not even all that cold. Daytime highs in the 60s. Nighttime lows in the 50s. But I’m cold. And I will likely stay cold until May.
  

• NOISE. The apartment building is on a major street. The Portuguese have a strong preference for roundabouts over streetlights. Where we are is like the straight-aways at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Motorcycles and cars with no muffler love to just take off here. Often, we have to pause talking or the TV because we can’t hear over these assholes. Because of where the mini-splits are, in the warm months, we have the doors open most of the time. We have our wonderful outdoor furniture on the terrace, but I get chased in because of the noise. AAARRRGGGG. I’ve had enough.
  

• Location-Greenspace. This is not a great place for taking the dogs out/walking them. There is some grass in front of our building. However,

  • Sometimes Lola and/or Bitsy refuse to walk on it. I assume it is well-used and also

  • Many people around here don’t pick up their dog’s poop

  • There are more unleashed dogs than we’re used to.
    

• Location-Greenspace. There are some nice little parks in the city, but we just aren’t near any.
  

• Location-places to eat, other conveniences. This area is lousy with apartment buildings. You’d kind of think there would be a lot of coffee shops, if not full-on restaurants, around here. One expectation I had was that we would become “regulars” at a local coffee shop. There’s one really small one just around the corner. But, it’s REALLY small, dark inside, and outside never is in sunshine. Not what I had in mind. There’s a mall about a 15-minute walk away. Also, not really what I had in mind. I wanted a 5-minute walk max to a nice local coffee shop. Not an option here. Restaurants are even more scarce in our immediate area. And the stuff we would want to show people who come to visit is also a fair walk or an Uber ride away.
  

• Location – conveniences. Two things ARE convenient. There are two pharmacies close by, and the veterinary clinic/emergency veterinary hospital is within walking distance.

  Or shopping cart distance. Oh, and Scott has an electric bicycle. So he can ride it to a grocery store and do our shopping. He has 2 baskets on it.
  

  

  Bitsy had vestibular syndrome, causing ataxia. We had to take her to the vet this way.

  
  

• Location – BEACH. I would like to be closer to, and perhaps able to see the beach, or at least the Ria Formosa.
  

• Apartment itself – I really want to try to have a dryer. I don’t mind hanging stuff to dry that much, except:

  • When we’re having a lot of rain

  • I’m tired of “crunchy” clothes and towels. Also, the washing machine doesn’t get as much dog hair off stuff as a dryer does. I need the shrinkage of my jeans that you get from a dryer, even though it’s temporary.

  • The huge terrace is not as great as we thought it would be – noise, WIND. Pickleball really doesn’t work both because of the wind and because of how easy it is for the ball to go over the edge, where it can land on people, cars, stuff.
    

Bottom line, I just don’t feel like this is an apartment I want to live in long term. Therefore, I can’t really feel settled in. And I’m not comfortable getting rid of more stuff since I don’t feel like I know what I might need/want in the next place.

I didn’t realize I had so much to say about our apartment! I intended to talk about the culture and experiences outside the apartment. I’ll try to do that this week.

I think Scott is happier in this apartment than I am. EXCEPT, the parking space we’re allotted, and he uses for the Trike, is in the basement of the building. There are no electrical outlets down there, so he can’t really work on anything. He attempted to set the space up more as a working space and someone complained and he had to undo it. He also lost the fob that opens the outside door into the basement. If he IS outside, he has to come in, go down in the elevator and open the outside door from down there.

PEACE OUT Y'ALL