We survived our first week! I’m not going to lie – it was questionable at times. We managed to land in Europe right when the contintent was going through a major heat wave. And we don’t have air conditioning. Needless to say, it was hot, hot, hot.

One of the choices we had to make when we decided to make this journey was whether or not we wanted to ship our personal items and furniture from Chicago or if we wanted to just buy everything once we got to Lisbon. We didn’t have much furniture in Chicago that meant a lot to us. Plus, given that we had not yet seen our Portuguese apartment in person yet, we didn’t know what would work and what wouldn’t. And the expense of shipping was daunting. Instead, we packed all our personal belongings into 7 large checked bags and planned to make a number of large purchases once we arrived.

I don’t know about you, but it has been a LONG time since I have had to set up an entire house. It seems so basic when you first think about it – bed, sheets, dresser, couch, and table. But then you step into an IKEA and within the first 30 seconds, you are immediately overwhelmed with the enormity of all the things, big and small, that you need to make a place feel like home. Towels, bathmats, mattress pads, pots, pans, silverware, pillows, decorations, chairs, plugs, storage. Ugh. Just thinking about it again sends me into a panic.

After a minor freakout (who are we kidding? It was pretty major), we realized that we had to accept that there would be multiple IKEA visits and that we needed to do this in stages. We thought about what we wanted and needed first – a place to sleep and a place so sit. So we started there. Luckily, we had a guy who would pick up our treasures from IKEA and deliver them to our 6th floor apartment – which is really the 8th floor because you enter the building on floor -1. Elevator you ask? Yes! We wouldn’t rent a place on the 6th floor without an elevator! But because this building is so old, the elevator is a tiny rectangle that only fits three people. In otherwords, no furniture was coming up that way. God bless our guy.

So after week one, we are halfway set up. We are missing big items like a couch but at least we all have a place to sleep. Once we get everything set up, we will show some before and after pictures.

Wins this week? I managed to order (and have delivered) 4 mattresses from a woman who spoke no English. Obviously, my Portuguese is pretty nonexsistent. But thanks to my years of Duolingo Spanish and Google translate, we were able to make it work!!

Challenges? Half of our appliances are missing in action! The first thing we did when we got here was head to Worten’s to purchase a fridge, dishwasher, washing machine, TV, and A/C unit (appliances do not normally come with the units here unless you are renting them fully furnished). Delivery was set for the following Friday but all that showed up was the TV and the washing machine. We did learn that we got a tiny bit scammed… the delivery person refused to walk up the stairs with the washing machine without being paid. When we mentioned this to Worten’s, they said that was absolutely unacceptable and the delivery person shouldn’t have asked for money (and, since they did, we should have asked for a receipt. Oops). Anyway, the rest of our items were nowhere to be found and after eventually heading back to the store, we found out that they were picked up and just never delivered. Hmmm… they are supposed to be here today but I am sure you can understand that we are not holding out breath.

True American moment? I hunted down and bought a portable ice maker. Had to do it. And we are so in love with it that it’s literally the first thing we turn on in the morning. Highly recommend in this heat!

From the beginning on our relationship, Ron and I have talked about moving abroad some day. We figured that we would talk about it more seriously once the girls were older and off to college, once we were ready to retire. Then COVID hit, and like many people, we began to reevaluate our priorities. We discovered we liked the freedom that went with not having to be in a particular place at a particular time. We enjoyed spending all that time with our family (even if it did become a bit much every once in a while). We then turned our conversations to retiring early, thinking we maybe we could get the life we wanted just a little bit sooner. Could we actually make it happen? We figured the least we could do was try. So, we made some changes in our financial planning, selling personal property, buying rental units, budgeting (although now it’s called a spending plan, apparently, because no one likes the B word). It seemed possible!

Once life began to return to normal, we discovered that we now didn’t love our normal and that there were a lot of things we weren’t happy with. We were frustrated with the girls’ schooling and had begun to apply to private schools in Chicago. Then Uvalde crushed our hearts and the Roe decision had us concerned about raising girls in a country where their healthcare decisions were political fodder. We went to Portugal for spring break in 2022 and started to wonder if we couldn’t make our dream to move abroad happen now.

It suddenly all made sense. The girls could get an amazing education both in and out of the classroom. We could offer them some freedom that we were scared to allow them in the US. And maybe, just maybe, we could live a life where we didn’t automatically scour a room for the closest exit in case a gunman decided to appear.

This last year and a half has been full of so many things. There were big feelings and lots of tears (from everyone). There was more stress than we’ve ever felt. There were lots of trips as we tried to cram in all our favorite things before we left. We spent much of the year collecting necessary documents, mentally preparing for the move, and trying to convince L what an exciting adventure this will be (we’re still working on this last one). We also spent some time convincing Emily to join us in this new phase (spoiler alert – she said yes!!). Are we nervous? Scared? Excited? Unsure? Absolutely yes to everything. But at no point in this whole process have we thought to ourselves, “this is a bad idea.” We feel fortunate in our confidence that this is the right decision for us as a family, at this time.

Will we come crawling back in 3 months? Totally a possibility. Will we call it after a year? Perhaps. Will the move be permanent? Who knows. But we are so excited to jump in with both feet – to spend time together as a family, traveling and being immersed in new cultures. Here’s to our new adventure in Lisbon, Portugal. Nos deseje sorte!