We're Here!

And it just feels right...

This past week has been a total blur. I remember individual events, but they all tend to run together. Ultimately, I am typing this from the balcony of our apartment in Porto (the pics are of our view from last night). After my move debacle with the movers Saturday before last, we quickly switched gears and Yoav left for Porto with Bixby on Tuesday evening as planned while I stayed behind to wrap up the details of the move.

Our view looking directly south. The tall building in the center is a hotel and is also the tallest building in Porto.

I can't speak to Yoav's experience during those days, but I am sure they were just as chaotic as mine. I managed to wrap up the packing, haul things to thrift stores, return things for refunds at stores before it was too late, ride 30 plus miles to Delaware to swap from an 8' Pod to a 16' pod, clean the apartment, and sell the car - all by Friday at noon.

When we looked at rebooking my flight, the Friday night flight was $400 more than the Saturday night flight, so it was an easy choice to extend my trip by one more day, which turned out to be the perfect opportunity to spend my final day in one of my happy places, New York City.

I took a bus to NYC on Friday evening, stayed at my in-laws place in Morningside Heights, and spent most of the day on Saturday walking. And walking, and walking. My daily morning walk was from 123rd Street down to 86th street on Broadway and back up West End Avenue. Then I met up with an old friend in St Nicolas park for a walk about with his adorable dogs. Then I walked down to Central Park at 110th street where I proceeded to walk, north to south, all the way through the park to 59th street. By the time I had dinner and took a black car to Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) for my flight, I had managed to walk 29,359 steps (15 miles) for the day.

Now I lived in Manhattan for ten years, and have traveled in and out of New York City for more than twenty years, yet somehow I have managed to avoid flying into or out of EWR until now. Based on my experience this past Saturday night, would love it if I never needed to fly through EWR again... Of course that is a pipe dream... The only direct flights in and out of the New York area to Porto are from EWR.

I arrived safe and sound and completely exhausted (and only 2 hours late) on Sunday morning. My phone had zero service when I arrived so I had to rely on sketchy free airport WiFi to send a text to Yoav to let him know I was here. It worked fine except that after getting my luggage and heading to get a cab, the WiFi vanished, leaving no communication between us. Fortunately, I knew where I was going, and he knew to come downstairs with the dog and wait for me.

Our view looking east. The large church on the left is Igreja Matriz do Bonfim, the namesake for our neighborhood.

And then I finally got to see the apartment I had so longed to see.

WOW.. Just WOW... Although the bedrooms are bit smaller than I had hoped, the apartment is on many levels one of the nicest places I have ever lived, and more than I expected. More to come on the apartment. If you read my post about finding this place way back in February, you will already know some of the details.

As with my last post, I am keeping this one fairly short. Lots to write about once I have settled in a bit.

One final thing…. My publication name up to the point as been “An American (Almost) in Porto”… The “Almost” has been officially removed. Woo Hoo!!!

Stay tuned…