Our apartment in Gueifães February 2010

This week we have been studying language related to where you live, the rooms in your home, and what you do and use in your daily activities. So I’ll give you a bit of a tour of where we live. Ring the bell for 4 D, which means go to the right once you reach the top floor. Not accessible due to 2 steps as you enter. The elevator has a maximum capacity of 4 squished people. The 2 locks on the door are formidible, with deadbolts that go into the floor and the lintel.

The entrance hall has 4 doors; small bathroom, kitchen and living/dining room to the left, smaller hall to the right. The rooms have a ceiling about 10 ft high, and there are 12 doors, which are very helpful when you have a heater on; and the 2 bedrooms facing south have large sliding doors to the balcony, or varanda, that faces the street, and the church bells. Like our neighbours, we lower the shutters on these doors after dark. In the picture below, you can see that our hosts use the second bedroom as a study/library; you can see our computer on the desk.

There is a complete bathroom, meaning with sink, toilet, tub and shower (literally thing that rains) next to our bedroom to the right. To the left of our apartment door is an incomplete bathroom, with just a toilet, bidet and sink.

A veranda goes along the north side of the apartment facing a small farmer’s field; and is enclosed with a washing machine. We finally figured out the hours with a cheaper tarif for electricity: 2a-6a (meaning Mon-Friday. Segunda-feira, or Monday, is the second day of the week, get it?) from 00- 07, and more time on the weekend. Since laundry takes about 2 hours, depending on how warm you want the water to heat up, it’s worth staying up until midnight to put a load in. Then in the morning I hang up the clothes on the lines strung up outside, very carefully so as not to drop them 5 stories, if it’s not raining. If it is, there is a drying rack for them inside. Both the kitchen and living room have doors that open onto this veranda. We hope to spend more time in the living/dining room once it warms up, though we have tried to understand some television. No Olympics for us, as the priority here is soccer, which is shown in every restaurant or café we’ve seen.

The kitchen has a tiny but very useful pantry where we keep our groceries. The stove has 3 gas burners, 1 electric burner, and an electric oven. In spite of my earlier fears of lighting the burners, I really enjoy cooking on gas, and only use the electric burner when the butane gas tank runs out. At the moment we eat all our meals on the little table in the kitchen. After burning the toast yet again, we decided to find a timer, but that was an expedition. The dish drying rack in the kitchen hangs on the wall, which I think is very clever as it makes good use of the limited counter space, and the dishes drip onto the stainless counter.

The bathrooms, verandas, and kitchen floor have ceramic tiles, and the walls are covered with typical Portuguese ornate tiles. The other rooms have hardwood floors, with lots of carpets and mats.