Containers and Gratitude
Our stuff is coming! And there is much to be thankful for.
First up... Our stuff...
Okay, so this news is actually several weeks old. But my ADHD driven procrastination has been in full tilt these past few weeks. But it is still worth writing about nonetheless. As I type this our forty foot long shipping container with nearly all our worldly goods sitting on a gigantic container ship just off shore in Rotterdam. As best we can tell, after this stop, it will be (allegedly) making its way to us here in Portugal. Woo! Hoo!
Allow me to briefly go back to July when we moved out of our apartment. We originally planned to ship a twenty foot container to Porto. Before we could get the actual container, we had to first move our stuff into two PODs which were to go into storage until we had everything in order to load the container. Long story short, I ‘misunderestimated’ the volume of our crap and it turned out that a twenty foot container was not going to be enough. This caused my arrival to Porto to be delayed by a few days as I worked out the logistics of transferring our things from a smaller POD to a larger one. We ultimately ended up with two sixteen foot PODS, one very full, the other about three-quarters full.
Fast forward to September(LINK) when we traveled back to Newark, NJ to get our D7 Visa's stamped into our passports. After our very smooth visit to the consulate, we walked the half mile over to Portugalia, the company who is shipping our goods across the ocean. This is when we upgraded from our originally planned twenty foot container to a forty footer, and finalized our plans to move our stuff, signed a contract, and made a deposit on the move.
It took a few weeks to get everything in order. We had to get an Atestado1 from our local municipality stating that we lived in our apartment. And, Portugalia worked on our behalf with the consulate to obtain our Certificado de Bagagem (baggage certificate) which is required to enable us to import our household goods duty-free and without being charged VAT tax.
Finally, by early October, I was able to arrange the drop off of the two sixteen foot PODs to Portugalia, and they then transferred our stuff from the PODs to the container. Because we did not need the full forty feet, they started by loading the boxes floor to ceiling at the rear, and then built a temporary wall to prevent shifting. Then they filled the rest of the space with our furniture. I don't know how many of the forty feet we needed, but I know there was plenty of empty space when it was done. This was wrapped up by the middle of October.
Then it was just a matter of time waiting for a spot on a ship headed to Terminal de Contentores de Leixões, which is the container port in Matosinhos, just outside of Porto. The ship left Newark at the beginning of November, then went down to a port in Charleston, South Carolina, where more containers were swapped out, and then finally headed across the ocean for Antwerp, Belgium. As of this morning, the ship was sitting in the English Channel about 150km from Antwerp. According to the tracker, it is not expected to arrive until Wednesday. I am assuming it is awaiting a spot at the port. [EDIT: The ship stopped at Antwerp, then to Rotterdam where it is now. I wrote the section nearly a week ago and forgot to update it before posting it live.]
From there, my best understanding is that it will travel from Antwerp Rotterdam to Matosinhos. How long that will take is unknown. My best guess is that our stuff will arrive in Portugal in early [EDIT: more likely mid to late] December. Once it is here, and it has passed through customs, it will need to be transferred from the container to a couple of trucks to then bring to our apartment building. My hope is that we may have our stuff in about three weeks. I'd say Woo Hoo here, but until it is here, I am not celebrating. It IS Portugal after all.
So, once our stuff is here, it should be a simple thing to just unload the truck right? Well.... Sorta... The movers will be unloading the truck, and using the elevators to bring our stuff up. However, as is typical in pretty much any European country, our three elevators are small. The two larger ones have about 1.25 square meters (13.25 sq ft) of floor space, and are less than 2 meters tall (78"). Not a lot of space... And the third elevator has about 25% less floor space. To add to this, the doors are only about 65cm wide (26").
Fortunately, all of our boxes and furniture should fit into them with the exception of three things. Our sofa, a large chair, and my very large steel and glass display cabinet. Those will have to be carried up thirteen flights of stairs to get them to our apartment. The sofa is 226cm (89") long, the chair is much wider than the elevator door, and the steel and glass cabinet is 213cm (84") tall and weighs over 135kg (about 300lbs). I already feel terrible about the movers having to move these things up all those stairs. Especially the steel and glass cabinet. I am planning to offer the movers some extra euros in cash if they get these items up to our apartment unscathed.
Fingers crossed all will go well. I will do a post about how the actual move went, and will also offer my thoughts about our experience with Portugalia after they have completed their work. Of course, once our stuff is in the apartment, there will be unpacking and more unpacking. Furniture aside, we have over fifteen boxes of books, more than forty pieces of framed art of varying sizes, and I packed up about sixty boxes of art supplies in addition to the work tables and related storage files going in the studio.
Gratitude and Thankfulness...
Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day in the US. I have to say that Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays in America. It is about one thing... No, not turkey, but gratitude. Yes, its origins are problematic with regard to how the indigenous people of North America weretreated, I am not going to argue that. But for me, in the context of our modern world, it is a day when we can step back and reflect on all that we have to be thankful for. It is inclusive of everyone, regardless of race, religion, sex, or any other defining group.
I spent too many years of my life living in a 'glass half empty' world, and with a lot of effort on my part (as well as help from therapy) I have become much more optimistic and I work very hard at living in a 'glass half full' world. It is not always this way, but I strive for it, and achieve it most of the time. I somehow learned in my 30s that… The more grateful I am for what I have, the more I have to be grateful for.
And I have so much to be grateful for in my life today. I am most grateful for my husband, his love, and our ability to make this huge life changing move to Portugal. Yes, I have serious concerns about where the US and the world are headed in the coming new year and beyond, but I am optimistic that the pendulum will indeed swing back in the direction of justice and equality for all2.
This being our first Thanksgiving in Portugal, we opted to join a couple of dozen Americans and a few locals at a private Thanksgiving meal prepared at a local restaurant. It was a lovely evening… Good food, good wine, and good company.
One More Thing…
Before I wrap this up, I haven’t really written much about our apartment since we signed our lease back in February. It’s honestly one of the nicest places either of us have lived, and we feel incredibly fortunate that we are here. As such, I have given thought to doing an apartment tour video of our place before all our stuff is here. Let me know by choosing an option below or in the comments if that is something you would like to see. (Poll is open for one week.)
An atestedo is a document obtained from our local municipality which confirms that we live at our address. This is required for various things from applying for our SNS (health) number to updating our address at the bank.
I am indeed optimistic that things will get better in the future, but I also think that it will be a long time before we get there, and the likelihood of tumultuous times in the next several years is very likely. I also have faith that the youth of today will push back and make a better world than we have today. Fingers crossed...
I’d love to see two video tours! One before, one after!
Can you share approximately how much it cost to ship your goods?
First of all, I’m with Laurie and I hope we can get a before and an after video 😁
Secondly, in Spain they have this lift thing that they use to get large furnishings into and out of apartments- I do think it’s expensive to rent (through your movers), but that might be an option instead of the stairs? Unless you’re on a floor higher than these things can reach, of course. (I think my friends who live on the 17th floor said they could go up to the 14th…so they could not benefit from it themselves)