City vs. Village
Nearly as soon as we arrived here (now 24 days ago), Junior and I hit the ground exploring neighborhoods in Lisbon and villages outside of Lisbon, connecting with realtors, and researching online for apartments and homes to rent. In Portugal, there's no MLS system, no Trulia or Zillow--no centralized system for listings (and certainly no standard expectations of what information is provided). Usually it's hard to even see good pictures of a property. So the whole process is rather confusing and quite frustrating. It's a free market with no contracts, and so owners who want to sell or rent usually list with multiple agencies. This means we find the same house on numerous websites (you might think it improves your chances of finding more/better pictures, but it doesn't!). Within an agency, a client is restricted to one agent only. If the agent who happens to answer your email request about a property isn't responsive, that's just too bad because you're tied to that agent. In our case, agents sent initial responses and then never followed up, some told us days or weeks later that the property was actually no longer available (rented through a different agency and they are the last to know), one got sick and just disappeared, and another got fired from the agency and never passed along our inquiries.
All that said, we also found agents who were very helpful and prompt. Working with those agents, we've visited apartments in Lisbon and houses outside of Lisbon. In all of our explorations (usually during the kids' nap time while they were passed out in their car seats), we narrowed our Lisbon search to just 4 neighborhoods and our beach-village search to just one town.
What makes this decision so hard is that I'm a country girl at heart and Junior is a city boy at heart. We intersect at plenty of points, but my love of grass and outdoor space isn't met with the same enthusiasm when it comes to giving up all that a city has to offer. And where my country heart diverges from the norm is that I love the coziness and closeness of a city--the shared spaces and shared energy of people living and interacting in such close proximity. So the houses we've seen outside of the city just feel way too big and cold to me. I fear I'll feel isolated and enclosed within the walls of our beautiful garden, rather than taking my kids to bike or scoot the winding paths of the beautiful city garden just around the corner where they will play with other kids and I will have the chance to talk to other parents. Maybe even make friends.
Renting bike cars in the Estrela Garden
The turning point came for me this past week. I met a mom originally from Paris who'd just arrived in Lisbon from London 10 days ago with her husband and three kids. They were also apartment hunting and struggling with the process. Our daughters bounced and bonded over having the exact same pair of underwear and asked us if we could do a play date. We exchanged numbers and information about dance studios. Then we found a gym with a baby class for Lucas and a gymnastics class for Léoni. We just showed up with no registration, and the man sent us right up to the studios and told us to go in and participate. Léoni had to do her class without either Junior or I, and she still loved every bit of it (and is now doing gymnastics on every piece of furniture in the house). Lucas smiled all through his class. Now we'll register and spend our Saturday mornings there. Saturday afternoon we found a stable in the city with a pony that Léoni can ride. And then we found the dance studio and signed Léoni up for a "pre-Flamenco" class. Other than the stable, we can walk to everything else.
And so we put in a bid on an apartment in the city (yep, you have to write a proposal even to rent!). I feel certain we will have a lot to learn and I will have adjustments to make, but if I'm going to stay at home with the kids for now, I think we'll also enjoy our walking, our park time, the opportunity to be social with other kids, and the many classes and activities that the city has to offer. Anyhow, the country isn't going anywhere.
