Do we really want to move? That’s the question we kept on asking ourselves when we tripped over boxes scattered all over our entire place, and this for months on end. Exciting? Uhm, yeah. It was like completing an exercise course. Course one: ow toe (kick a box). Course two: balance (avoid a box). Course three:  butterfly sit-ups (fall over a box). Course four: meditate (avoid looking at boxes). The other question was where does all this stuff come from? It’s amazing how much two people can collect over the years. Some things we forgot we had, others we didn’t even know we had, and then there were those that drew complete blanks, like seriously, did we really buy this? The whole preparing to move to another country process is not for sissies. Been there, done that, got the beer and the Weiss Wurst, but somehow this time it was, oh em gee, overwhelming. The last time was spontaneous and simple. Squeeze your whole lives into two suitcases, take your little child’s hand, say your good-byes, then sit in a plane for hours on end. This time there were a lot more decisions to be made. We had a new house to fill up. We were also keeping our current one indefinitely. Most of our furniture had to stay, but we tried to divide some other things between the two. There were lots of other things. Geez! 

The first thing we did when we bought our house in Portugal at the beginning of the year was contact a few removal companies to get some quotes. The first one was astronomical. Okay, there’s currently a crisis going on, but we only wanted to move a few stuff, not buy the truck. The second one we streamlined our take-with items, but this too was expensive, so we cancelled the others and decided that it might be better to just post some boxes. Lots and lots of boxes. We fortunately also had a car with a large boot space, so when we drove to Portugal in July, we packed everything delicate and personal in it. We did the same when we finally moved a few weeks ago. Oh, and the posting of boxes idea was absolutely super. They were collected directly from our house, and four days later they were delivered in Portugal. 

The last six weeks were the busiest. One still had a very busy full-time job, the other one was helping to unpack in another appartment, then there were farewell dinners and parties, and…and…and. We also used the opportunity to re-organise the cellar, sell some stuff and still find the time to breathe. By the time we left, we really needed a holiday lol.

But first we had to get to Portugal. We wanted to drive all the way. Oi. Oi. Oi. Four countries, three days, two stopovers. Crazy yes, but we needed our own vroom-vroom. This whole moving business added some serious kilometres to our tachometer. We first drove over during summer, then back again after two weeks, then a few weeks ago, finally to Portugal.