Let me begin
by saying Praise the Lord, I THINK that last Monday was the last time that Michael and I will have to pack up our stuff and move to a new location.  Although we have had our new apartment since April, we had been staying in our temporary, furnished apartment so that we could better host Michael’s family during their visit.   By 8pm on Monday, April 30^th however, we had to be OUT of there, so we spent the days after his family left in a frenzy running around trying to buy appliances, rent furniture and move our stuff over to our new place.  (Thankfully we have some incredible friends here who pitched in and made the move a breeze!)

Buying appliances was kind of an interesting experience.  I searched all of the stores online (Extra, Casa Biaha, Ponto Frio, Carre Four…) and made a list of the ideal appliances and their lowest prices online.  It’s important to do your research, but it’s best to buy in person so that you can negotiate.  So, we took my list to our nearby Ponto Frio to try our luck.  The selection is more limited in stores but they had enough to work with, so we ended up buying our fridge, stove, dishwasher and washing machine there and I think we netted out getting about 15% off the lowest online prices!  Michael was a star negotiator, 100% in Portuguese.  At this point, all of our appliances have been delivered but the fridge is the only thing that’s functional since the manufacturers have to come actually install the other items.  We think we’ll have the stove and dishwasher running later today and the washing machine…sometime soon thereafter.  We hope.

Amazingly, the furniture rental turned out to be pretty simple.  We heard of two companies to rent from – John Richards and Interiors – and went with John Richards since Michael has a coworker who is renting with them and had a positive experience.  We selected the items we needed online and on Monday afternoon it was all delivered.  In an effort to be economical, we only rented dishes and cooking supplies, sheets, towels, a bed, sofa and a coffee table.  So, right now our apartment is pretty empty.  We have no TV, no chairs, no table, no dressers…and as of right now, we still have no Internet!  They were supposed to install it last Saturday but there was some strange issue with the cables and now the Internet company is in touch with our landlord and we’re hoping it gets solved by Monday.  Also, we still have a little more work to do to the apartment as we need to buy some kitchen cabinets, we’re having some closets redone, etc.

Although a little unusual, we are making the most of our current situation by eating lots of cereal, ice cream and PB&Js (your options are limited when you only have a fridge!), playing card games and speed boggle, and having contests to see who can slide the farthest in their socks across our floors.  If you have on the right socks you can get pretty far.  🙂  Of course we are looking forward to having a stove and furniture and TV and Internet…but for now we’re having fun.

Oh, and an update on our stuff: our sea shipment landed in Brazil April 26^th and is going through the customs process – estimated to clear by June 1!  This is great news for us and means that we may only be renting furniture for the month of May and soon we’ll see our things again and get to really settle in here.  Oh to settle in…