4 months in: organizing our lives

It is now mid-June, almost four months of living in Lisbon, and we’ve been focused on the next level of organization. Putting down roots, both literal ones and figurative ones.

As for the literal roots, we’ve been researching how to care for orange and papaya trees, and a rambling rose bush. As a busy professor, spouse, mom, pet owner, friend, and commuter, I always joked that I didn’t allow any plants into my home that needed attention. I love plants – especially flowers – and I always found ways to grow them with relative ease. I carefully chose annuals in the summer that I could plant and occasionally water to brighten our patios, knowing that only a few would make it indoors over the winter. I planted hundreds of bulbs in large beds in trenches, and they just bloomed. Inside, I had jade plants, an orchid or two, and a few other green plants that needed occasional water. I never fertilized any of them.

Here, we inherited some fussy plants – ones that need a lot of attention. I almost killed our papaya tree from a lack of attention. Ditto a rambling rose bush. Numerous deep waterings and fertilizer have yielded more green leaves and fewer yellow ones on the papaya, and a few small fruits. We’ll see. The rambling rose looked dead when we arrived. But when I began trimming it, many of the branches were clearly alive. Still, I was going to cut it down. But I uploaded some photos to Claude AI and was informed that it was a living rambling rose. It has some shoots that look living, but no buds let alone flowers. Maybe the goal this year is just to keep it alive.

The orange tree seems to be thriving. It had just begun to blossom in late February. Now, the branches are full of fruits that are about 2.5 inches in diameter. Research tells me it should bear edible fruit around November.

In mid-April, we went to a plant store – Horto Campo Grande, which is conveniently located on a Metro stop on the line closest to us. We bought a beautiful vine called a Mandevilla Diamantina for the back patio, 2 hibiscus for my office balcony, and some impatiens and cone flowers for pots in the front yard.

We didn’t think through the fact that we would be gone for two weeks in May, on our trip to Alaska. Our neighbor offered to water over the fences front and back. So the orange tree, Mandevilla Diamantina vine, and the two flower pots nearest his house were fine. The two pots away from his house and the papaya tree were distressed. But, I’ve brought them back.

Last week, I added some flowering baskets to the back patio – petunias, bellflowers, and oxalis, plus herbs for cooking. Other than letting one petunia get too close to our new grill, thus suffering smoke and heat damage, they are thriving.

We’ve now completed all of the furniture we intend to buy for a while, except for a guest-room bed which we will acquire before our son visits in August. Paul has installed all of the first-floor lights, and all of the bathrooms, but is taking a break before launching in on the rest upstairs. Until then, there is adequate lighting in all the rooms upstairs.

The living room and dining room furniture have all arrived. In the living room, we bought a purple light fixture, so I used some purple fabric I had bought in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from Antakesuma Batik in Central Market to cover two large cushions. We had ordered a living room chair that took 3 months to arrive, and we had forgotten that we ordered it in a brick red color! Yikes! But, I had a tunic I had made from reddish-brown batik from the same store, and it was now way too big. So I repurposed it into a cushion for that chair, and they kind of look like they match.

I bought a sewing machine and cabinet, which I put in my office. I hung some pictures around the house. We bought patio furniture and a grill. We bought a coatrack - sounds like a small thing, but we had a hard time actually getting one! We ordered one from the same furniture store where we got the dining room furniture but they didn't bring it. They couldn't find it. After a month, we got a refund. Then we ordered one on Amazon ES and they kept saying they were trying to deliver it but we were home. (We had accidentally turned off the doorbell). I had to walk up to a drop-off point and pick it up. But it is very nice! After four years of watching almost no television, we bought a TV - a really nice one. We binge-watched both seasons of Severance (highly recommend) and are now on Season Two of Foundation. We like Sci-Fi! So now we’re pretty settled into our home, and will greatly slow down the purchases.

Then there is the settling in that involves understanding what you miss and where you can get it - sometimes in surprising places. After Paul had a lot of trouble finding Japanese sauces and noodles to his liking, we found an Asian grocery and food court called Supermercado Oriental Amanhecer. After seeing only Portuguese wines at most of the stores, with a small international selection at El Corte Ingles, Paul found a terrific wine store that specializes in French wines. We’re getting to know a little bit about Portuguese wines. We bought a wine cooler, ordered a case of Pinot Noir from New Zealand, and I’ve learned to make Sangria. So we’re set in the wine department! I wanted to make poppy seed cake. I couldn't find poppy seeds in any of the half-dozen groceries I frequent, even though spices are abundant. I wanted to eat oatmeal, and couldn't find that either. Thanks to a tip from a Portuguese friend, I found both at Celeiro, a sort of natural foods/health food/supplement store. I wanted to eat my cereal with a spoon that felt comfortably-sized for me. In most of the world, spoons are either bigger than our spoons at home or smaller. I found a "regular" sized one in Alaska at a second-hand shop. (Later, I discovered more of them at one of the many Chinese-owned dry goods stores. So I bought 3 more).

Paul bought me something totally European at an antique shop. Two framed 17th-century, hand-colored sheets of music, in their original frames. They also included a book about this type of music. Research suggests we got a very good deal. I think they are wonderful.

Another, important, layer of organization is arranging language classes. We start this coming Monday, June 15. We’ll be in a course at Saudade Language School, which is a 20-minute walk from our house. We’re taking an intensive course – 3 hours daily, M-F, for two weeks. After that, we’ll see.

We met with our immigration lawyer to prepare for our initial AIMA appointments. AIMA is the acronym for the Portuguese immigration office. Portugal is notorious for somewhat confusing and slow bureaucracy. While in theory we should have had those initial appointments within 4 months of arrival (coinciding with the 4-month temporary resident visa), our appointments are set for mid-September. We are fine to stay in Portugal, but the visa expired June 6 and we cannot leave now until we get the residence permits. We opted to hire the attorney to go with us, because the rules keep changing. For example, last fall we only needed to submit our lease. Now, we have to get a certified statement from the landlord to go with it. We think we can ward against last-minute changes by having our attorney advising us and going with us. So we met with the attorney, who was very helpful. We are now obtaining additional documents we will need. Once we have the resident permits, we can only be absent from Portugal 6 consecutive months out of the following 24 months, or 8 non-consecutive months. We can travel freely in Schengen Zone without regard to the 90/180 day rule, but that will not count for the living in Portugal requirement. So we have to plan our travel carefully. We are hoping to return to Japan in the fall of 2027. We hope to visit France. And, we need to return to the USA to arrange to ship a few items over here.

We got local insurance (MGEN) and scheduled doctor appointments, which are also next week. We need to establish a doctor-patient relationship and renew our regular medications. We chose MGEN because they cover people no matter how old (a lot of insurance doesn’t cover folk over 70, and we are 68 & 69). Also, MGEN covers pre-existing conditions after the first year. After we get our resident permits, we will also be added to national health insurance here. But we’re not too concerned about the cost. Like so many other countries, routine medical care and medications are relatively inexpensive.

Paul has spent a lot of time organizing his computer equipment and learning how it all works. This has involved a lot of frustration for him, but it mostly works now, I think.

We’ve had some visitors, which I’ll write about in another post. We had a great trip to Alaska and Vancouver, which I’ll write about in another post. There have been some interesting June events, which I will also post about later. But for now, I’ll just end by saying, I'm starting to feel a bit more settled. Paul says he still feels overwhelmed. Maybe by the end of the summer, it will feel more balanced.