Finally...some new news!

Apologies to those who have checked our blog and seen nothing new for several months.  We are still in Tavira, Portugal, but life got in the way, putting blog publishing on the backburner for a while.  Well, we are back with some big news...

We have bought an apartment!  No, not the apartment which is under construction.  That one is still on-going and will be the subject of future blog posts.  We have bought an existing apartment in Tavira and moved in during April.  Why?  Mainly because we decided to leave our rental (due to landlady problems), and the Tavira rental market is both expensive and not the greatest quality right now.  

So we chose to look into buying a transition apartment which we will live in until our under-construction apartment is completed (which could be 12-24 months).  Once it is done, we will probably sell this current apartment, having saved ourselves from paying months of rent! 

Coincidentally, when we were looking at apartments to buy in February, we came across this place which we had actually seen and visited before.  It was built by the same developer who is building our under-construction apartment.  We toured this building in October 2021, as the developer wanted to show us an example of his work.  The name of the development is Siesta, and it was a long-abandoned, former disco which our developer converted into 14 new apartments.  

Part of the attraction of this unit is that is a very similar size and layout to our under-construction apartment (two-bedroom, two bathroom with large terrace/patio), meaning that all of our furniture will be easily transferrable.  On top of that, the apartment had never been lived in.  The Siesta building was cleared for occupancy in January 2022, but the original buyers decided not to move to Portugal.  So we bought a basically new apartment, including the remaining four-year builder's warranty.  

The "bad" news of a brand new, empty apartment is that we are having to furnish it completely, as we really only brought clothes and personal belongings with us to Portugal.  Furnishing an empty living space isn't something we have done for decades, and doing so in a foreign country has proved to be an adventure (and will be the basis of future blog posts).  

For now, we're posting pictures of the empty apartment and the Siesta building to give you an idea of what we are working with in our new home.  More to come on our adventure in apartment ownership in Portugal!

This move has been a big transition for us and for the pets.  Ryder, at least, is enjoying the change.  More to come on our new apartment!

"Look at my new couch!"