2026-03-30 IKEA DAY

As we mentioned, we are in Porto. We are a few steps away from a Metro station, so since we were both feeling better, we ventured out to Matosinhos where the Mar Shopping is which houses the IKEA, large Auchon (another grocery store chain). This is a short 30 min metro ride after which you traverse the tracks and pick up any number of buses that take you the final 10 mins to Mar Shopping.

We took a turn around the 210 stores located in the multilevel shopping center which included a cinema and just about every other store you would want in a mall. Then we set about storming the castle...

We had a grand time taking our time and just browsing the IKEA. We stopped about midway through and had a soda and soft serve which revived us for the second half of the store. We found what we needed and decided to Uber home, rather than ride the metro, since we had some boxes. We met a lovely couple who had just moved to Matisinhos from CA and that they loved it here.

Above is our haul which includes trash bins for the kitchen and bath, bowls, steak knives, kitchen towel,  organizational items along with a coat rack and a shelf for the kitchen.

Stacey abhors a coat rack, but we needed one to also house our umbrellas, grocery bags and hats. We found this one that looks like a cactus and called off the search.

Here is the 'before and after' of the left - we can still open the drawers all the way and we weren't standing in front of them when we opened them anyway.

and the 'before and after' of the right. They do recycle here, it's not all-in-one, so one needs to be able to separate trash (lixo), glass (vidro), paper (papel) and plastic/metal (plastico e metal). The trash and recycling bins sit across the street from the church, so it's a short walk.

Some of you asked what we took as items that made it feel like home.  Here are a few:

Kat made Stacey a ring holder and gave her the Virginia Beach sand and they have sat on her side of the sink for  years.

We did bring one potato head - Mashter Yoda - some pics, our wedding dia de los muertos from our 10th anniversary trip to Zihuatanejo and Ixtapa, our rocks from our travels and other personal items people have gifted/made us. We received a light up Jack Skellington string of lights and felt this was the best place for those as well.

One of the niftiest gadgets from the IKEA haul was this napkin holder.  IKEA even finds a way to have you 'craft' it yourself.