A Big Catch Up!

Week 8
Day 50 - I managed to get up early and go to my lecture in the morning. Out of 6 English people who were supposed to be there, I was the only one! This week kicked off with a big party to celebrate 3 of my housemates' birthdays. We had a big house party and didn't stop til around 5am.

Day 51 - nothing... ermm.. sat erm.. cleaned lol

Day 52 - I stayed in bed until it was time to get Mel from the airport. When on the metro, it suddenly decided that it was no longer going to the airport but to somewhere else instead. Oh joy. Everyone in panic about missing their flights etc. Brilliant! Oh and I was late picking Mel up! Eventually we had a walk around, bought some alcohol and had a Halloween Party :)

Day 53 - After waking up late afternoon, we decided to get the metro to the beach. When I got caught illegally we decided to come home. In the end we just went out, had a nice meal and then got drunk again!

Day 54 - Again we did nothing until it was time to get Mel back to the airport! She came all the way to Portugal, drank a lot and slept most of the time!

Day 55 - I actually managed to get up in time for my 8.30am lecture today. However, this was all I managed to do! In the evening the house was cooked a nice meal by Thaddeus and then the day of travelling began!

Day 56 - At 4.30am My Taxi arrived to take me to the airport. When I got there, not even the passport control men had arrived yet! Oh, and when I got to England Mel hadn't even got up yet to give me a lift (I got a Mcdonalds for it though) so I ended up getting a coach to London and then the Underground to my train to Nottingham and then I got a bus to Gedling. That's Taxi, Plane, Coach, Train, Bus. wow :)

When I got to my front door I rang the bell and Kirsty came to answer. However, she couldn't actually open the door and so it all became very anti-climatic while she searched for a key. We went up to Grandad's and I just sat there waiting for when Mum came home from work! At first she thought it was a normal scene until she realised that I shouldn't be in the country! Oh and I was reunited with my son. See below!

Weeks 9 to 13!
So I haven't even looked at my blog since I went home! Since going home lots of things have happened so here's a quick summary of the best / the things I can remember!

I had a lovely evening with Aurélie, her boyfriend Hugo and André where French was the language of choice. Yes, still no Portuguese but it was great for my French!

Breiner had its first official party! The theme was Kitsch.. whatever that is. We each made a profit of around €20 each which was nice. However, I was selling cocktails for the first 2 hours.. mainly to myself.. and so after finishing work all I can remember is waking up with Charlotte taking my shoes off!

Another great night out was had at Armazém do Chá, a nice bar downstairs and great club upstairs with different rooms. We started in a place across the road and were raving to classic tunes such as Come on Eileen and Eye of the Tiger. Everyone always manages to get sufficiently drunk in this place and ends up being chucked out! Another night was had here with Francesca's home friends. I was ill but forced to come out as Francesca had told her friends how fun I was!

I had a trip to the cinema with Ali and Francesca to see the new Harry Potter film. It was the day of the strike and so first of all we had to wait for the metro. The metro came at the time the film started which was a problem. 1.because we missed the film and 2. because the next one started at midnight and there was no way of getting home! Despite this we still went ahead with it! We had to wait 3 hours for the film and when it had finished we had to walk around Porto in the freezing cold until we found a taxi. I enjoyed it!

My room has been completely revamped! The shelves are now near the door so, should someone like Charlotte walk in without knocking, I have time to not be naked. I also spent an entire night making a collage from magazines to cover the back of the shelves :)

We had a leaving meal for the Belgians. It was really nice, although I'm not exactly sure what it was! Then everyone went out although I was pulled away to go and get ice cream with André and old Breiner friends. While we were out we bumped into Suzi and Joao!!! I haven't seen them in so long! We had a really good night!

The next day I got up and went out for breakfast and then spent the rest of the day walking around Porto and taking photos. It was the 11th December and the temperature outside was 20 degrees! I had a walk down Santa Caterina, a big shopping place, and then walked down to Aliados and up.. I have no idea where I went but I just kept walking and ended up at Palácio de Cristal where I took lots of photos of the gardens. I met so many English families on holiday! When I got back everyone was sat outside enjoying the weather and I returned to my post at the nosey window to spy on them all!

That evening was the Breiner Sexy Christmas party. Unfortunately, I was very ill but I had bought an outfit and needed to show it off so I popped down for half an hour and rocked it out on the dance floor with a cuppa! The party was a huge success with everyone earning €71 profit!!

There are plenty of things I've missed! Nights in Contagiate, random fun times, girly meals, cinema trips, December beach trips, Primark occasions, Artemis in the kitchen and much, much more but you would be reading for hours!

Weeks 6 and 7 :)

Week 6

Another not so eventful week! Had a really good night with the Breiners and then they all went home and I was caught by my Portuguese crew and had an amazing night dancing to Mambo #5 and other such classics. The highlight of the week was a day trip to Aveiro with Ania and Charlotte. We agreed to leave at 12pm and so when Charlotte didn't surface by around half past we decided to leave without her and ended up meeting her at the station. When we arrived in Aveiro we walked and walked trying to find out why it was called the Venice of Portugal... then we found a canal so we settled for this. A brilliant bus tour and a boat trip along the canals took up a good few hours before we decided to come back and go out for a meal.

Week 7

Day 43 - Waking up at half 7 in the morning is hard enough without turning up for the lecture only to be told the teacher is ill. Which would have been lovely had I not had another 2 hour lecture afterwards and so ended up sitting in the university like a lemon for 2 hours. The second lecture was pretty decent although I was asked to comment on a poem and gave a rather vacant look before the teacher moved on. I would have done the same in England though. In the evening I had been given a mission to round the troops for a weekend of outdoor activities.

Eventually we all managed to get on the bus down to Campidouro where we would be staying for the weekend. That evening we were treated to Bolognaise, snacks and alcohol in front of a fire with a few renditions on the guitar. Francesca got drunk and ended up crying on me... and we all slept in bunk beds in a small building by the river.

Day 44 - Getting up relatively early, we had a walk down to the little beach by the river. The camp is in the middle of a forest kind of place with the river running through it. We sat and had breakfast outside and sunbathed for a while until it was time for paintball action! The outfits were quiet large for the women but gave away a little too much for the men. With our guns and helmets ready we were split into teams and tried to come up with tactics. These tactics didn't go too well. The paintball area was like a valley with steep hills which u could slide down and crawl along the floor like in films. Well.. that's what I did anyway! I managed to kill a few people in the first game. The second game I had no real idea of what I was supposed to be doing and so when Ali finally shot me 3 times in the same place I was pretty glad to be walking away. After paintballing a few of us headed down to the beach to canoe and swim. I got in fully clothed and then realised I had a white t-shirt on. Big mistake. The day ended with a fire, a BBQ, lots of alcohol, me getting drunk and crying on Francesca, more music and more laughs.

Day 45 - We all got up quite late and had a bite to eat before heading out on a walk along the river and then up some sort of mountain (big hill). Me and Ali did the old naming sticks game and took it all rather seriously. I will miss Dave. We were fed and sent on our way back to Breiner, all pretty sad because we'd had such a good weekend.

Day 46 - I decided not to go to the lecture. Ali came home and said that he thought the guy must still be ill because he wasnt there... but actually he just went to the wrong room!

Day 47 - I went to a lecture!!!! Wow I know. And it was quite good. Anyway. After recovering from getting up I socialised in the kitchen before going for a walk through the park to a wine bar. I had a Rose Port cocktail thing and we sat outside and looked over the river. I love Porto too much!! In the evening we had a dinner party to thank the people that helped out over the weekend and have a look at the photos. We headed out to bar 77 for some drinks and some table football and then to a little club at the end of my road which I had never seen before. It was so small and so close and so cool! A little reggae evening, lots of dancing A LOT of drinking. My god. I was so drunk that I was having a really deep conversation about men with my beer bottle. He's called Cristal Pilsener. Yeah. I know. But he's a good listener.

Day 48- I got up at around 4pm. I gathered the girls. I took them to Primark. I spent up. I came home. This, although quite simple, was a very successful day.

Day 49 - I ended this week by going to a Graffiti party :) We all got a free white shirt and a free pen and went mad, writing endless rude comments and confessing our undying love for each other all over each other's shirts. Great :)

Weeks 4 and 5

Week 4 - I really can't remember what I've done this week. Pretty much just getting into the swing of lectures. Friday was a killer with 4 hours in a row! I must have done nothing else!  Monday was Ribeira night again, however, Tuesday was a kind of bank holiday which meant everyone could go out Monday night. The whole of Porto turned up at Ribeira and it ended up taking an hour to get a drink. On tuesday night I went to a Portuguese Culture evening with the most famous Fado singer around. Everyone was talking over her and so at the end  she was behind me and I turned and said sorry that everyone was talking. She said ohh no don't worry. It was only when I was telling this story to a Portuguese person when they told me how famous she was!! For the rest of the week I walked around Porto, posted letters, walked along the bridge. Oh, and it rained a lot.

Week 5
Day 29 - Friday, yes my weeks start on Friday and end on Thursday if you hadn't yet realised, was a very busy day! I started the day at 7.30am when I got up for my lecture and I went to bed shortly after. Then me and the girls ventured to Primark. I spent the least at €47 with everyone else almost doubling that. When I got home it was straight out to the football match. Portugal vs. Denmark and a great match it was too! I have never been to an international football match and I got really into it. We saw 4 goals so we got our money's worth. The metro was like rush hour in London.

Day 30 - We decided when we got up that there was going to be a small Breiner House party in the evening.
By small I mean that in the end the police came and gave us a written warning. It was a good night, filled with bottles of black vodka. In the end I went out with a load of Portuguese people and stood there desperately trying to understand any of the conversation. Fail. I spoke a little bit but understanding is really impossible.

Day 31 - A month since I arrived in Porto. What did I do to celebrate? Slept half the day and did a bit of
shopping...

Day 32 - Another missed lecture due to bad headache. When I eventually got up I went out for lunch with
Charlotte and we walked around trying to find something to do but everywhere was shut... we had lunch
at 6pm..  In the end we came home and found the internet was yet again cut off. So I had a lonely walk
down to Sao Bento, a train and metro station where I got the metro over the brigde in the dark. It is the most
amazing view. It's so romantic. There was an old guy with his phone playing ...'You are not aloneeeeeeee I am here with you....' Which was weird. Very weird. And he was alone.

Day 33 - Today I had a dose of 3 biscuits before the lecture and ended up giggling uncontrollably at everything that was said and at the fact that my legs were sweating? In the evening I went to watch a free film with some housemates. The film was called Jaime. A Portuguese film about a poor boy living in Porto. It was a really good film, one to laugh and cry at!

Day 34 - Made it to my lecture on 2 hours sleep. I just can't sleep anymore. Not at night anyway. No matter how tired I am. Tomorrow should be a fun day. Charlotte and I have planned a tourist day which should be cool.We plan to definitely leave by 12pm so we can have a long day around Porto.

Day 35 - After leaving at 1.15pm we went straight for a an old tram which took us to the tram museum. I was in my element of course. We then got the tram back up to the centre of town and climbed the Torre dos Clérigos. I couldn't breathe. We then moved on to the Palácio da Bolsa which was stunning inside. The tour was in French and English which was great. There was a really annoying guy though who kept going ahead of everyone else and listening to the English and talking over the French... I think he was German. They also put on a little wine tasting after the tour. ;) The next stop was Sé Cathedral which was equally nice and then had a walk across the bridge, again. In the evening we went to a small tapas restaurant and ordered far too much food.

Hakuna Matata é tão fácil dizer!

Day 15 - This week started with a girlie trip to primark in search of clothes for the Pimps and Ho's party... After well over an hour in primark our outfits were finally complete and it was time to go back to get ready for a night out. Drunk again.

Day 16 - I should really start getting up before 2pm so that I actually have something to write about in this blog! The pimp's and ho's party, however, was very successful and the pimps definitely won on the costume front!

Day 17 -  I drank a lot of tea and prepared for a horrible week of lectures :(

Day 18 -  Getting up at half 7 hurt but the lecture was in fact quite interesting. All about the history of the Portuguese flag from what I understood.. and from the pictures of the stages of the Portuguese flag in front of me. In the evening a few of us went out to try the traditional dish 'Francesinha.' I had a bolognaise. Purely due to the fact that a Francesinha is filled with cheese. I did try someone's though and apart from the cheese it was very nice!

Day 19 - So. Monday hurt. This half 7 wake-up more than hurt. Wow. Pro plus helped slightly but at least I made it and I actually enjoyed learning about the history of the Portuguese language. I managed to finally sort my life out and all while Charlotte was still in bed!

Day 20 -  Lecture missed. Maybe next week. I couldn't do it! haha In the evening we went to a mini house party and I was shown up to an outdoor balcony that looked over the whole of the city, right over the river and all lit up. It looked amazing! I love Porto it's beautiful!

Day 21 - As I did nothing today but a little food shopping and listen to Portuguese Lion King album on spotify, I thought I would explain a few things.

Everytime I make a cup of tea someone in the room from whatever country will say "but it's not 5 'o' clock." Apparently, us English only drink tea at 5pm.

When we first arrived in Porto there were loads of Happy Potter looking people walking around. All in suits all wearing the same thing including shoes! And many of them carried spoons. When I found out that J. K. Rowling actually lived here and got the idea for Harry Potter from these creepy Second year students there to sort out the first years, the whole thing became rather creepy. Also, I don't think you're supposed to look them in the eye.

Oh and Black vodka is amazing.

The Second Week in Porto

Day 8 - Not a very exciting day. Slept until late and carried out a few more uni tasks. In the evening my new housemates and I sat and had a few drinks before heading out to a bar to drink a bit more. I have never been this drunk before. wow. 

Day 9 - This was the day of the BBQ. After doing practically nothing all day, at 7pm it was time for cooking your own food on the BBQ and drinking some more. I stuck to sangría. Hmm.. At around 1pm, it was time to go to our first Erasmus party. However, after standing in the queue for half an hour without moving we made the group decision to leave and head to a bar instead!!!

Day 10 -  Started the same as it had done since I moved in here. Charlotte runs into my room and shouts morning!!!! I don't need an alarm. After I sat up in bed and tried to open my eyes she came back in my room and said that we were going to the beach and I had to get ready now. I didn't have a choice in the matter. The beach was nice. Lovely and warm and the sea was.. well not as cold as France but with huge waves. I have never swallowed that much sea water. Bleugh. We finished the day with a trip to Pizza Hut. The entire menu was in English. Great.

Day 11 - Monday morning and my first full Portuguese lecture was thrust upon me. The lecturer started by making everyone introduce themselves to the class.. Everyone was fine except for the tense looking English crew at the back, frantically trying to remember the first lesson of Portuguese.. "Hello my name is.. I am from.. studying... and I don't speak much Portuguese." However, after mastering the introduction and the lecturer pointing out that English people are generally quite poor at languages, we were just left to listen to two hours of Portuguese. I wrote a page of scrambled notes on Positivism.

That night we celebrated our achievements at Riveira. A regular Monday night affair with buckets of alcohol at €5 a time.. buy one get one free of course. €2.50 for what's in the picture below and it went straight to my head.

Day 12 - I am finally home. Portugal I love you. Primark in Portugal :D YAY So I kept seeing Primark bags around and then made it my mission to find it. So i went on google and found it instantly so it wasn't a very long mission but nevertheless successful.  After thinking about trying a Portuguese Francesinha for tea, me and Charlotte both had burgers and finished the meal with a huge waffle with ice cream and lots of other wonderful things. When I asked for mine "sem chantilly" I was looked at as if I was English or something and he asked twice to make sure it was really what I wanted. Yes. I do not want cream!

In the evening it was time to say farewell to a new friend. It was Kamil's last night and everyone loves him! We had a lecture in the morning but thought it best we stay to say goodbye.. it's only fair.

Day 13 - Weekly shop was in order for this day after missing another lecture. For tea I had chicken in roasted veg and potatos. Yumm. Then after planning to head to the cinema we all suddenly decided that we'd do this the next day and that we'd actually go to our fav bar Piolho and fill up on Capirinhas. My housemates all went home and left me there with my ex housemates whom I'd bumped into. It was a nice evening but drinking every night had definitely started to take its toll.

Day 14 - Did absolutely nothing today but talk to my lovely housemates. Everyone is really nice and it's like one huge family. There's going to be a house meeting soon and outdoor weekends including paintballing and canoeing to come :)

In other news I made a cracking bolognaise!! I was well impressed!!! Maybe I should study though..

Reggae Reggae

Day 5 - This was another day of not doing much. We went to the international office to register and my Macedonian housemates were there too. They never said a word to me. Wow. However, meeting up with a fellow Nottingham University student did remind me that there were four of us in total. The 4th was supposed to be on my plane... I never saw her..?? Where was Lucy?!?!?
My Brazilian housemates arrived and they are absolutely lovely. Unfortunately, my room isn't. It's far away from uni, very small, no window and noisey too. I had asked to live in the same place as Charlotte but apparently there was no space left.

Day 6 - After having planned to go to the 8.30am lecture and waking up more towards 8.35am we decided to go back to sleep before moving Charlotte's things into her new room. When we got there, the landlord said ".. and this can be your room Lindsay." WHAT?!!?!?!? You mean there is a free room in the party house where everyone wants to be, where I get a huge room, 2 beds and can do pretty much what I want with it, along with students from all around the world so I can practice all my languages????? Yes.

Oh.. but then.. then I had to tell the lovely housemates that I would be leaving. They understood though. It was heartbreaking!!

We all sat outside drinking, playing guitar and such like when at around 2am someone said we we're going out! Same place as last time but more people! A reggae room where you went in for a dance and came out stoned. You couldn't see the person standing next to you for smoke. Guess who we found. Lucy. She had actually missed the flight!!!!  Glad she was alive still..

Before I came to Porto I broke my sunglasses and so I went on a mission to find them. On this day, having found some the day before and planned to spend some time on the beach, the sun decided not to burn me any more. It decided to rain instead. And so.. this is me trying my new sunglasses on... in the dark.

Day 7 - A really good night out and only a slight cough to wake up to from all the fumes! My first night in my new and final room for the next errrmm.. 5 ish months. After waking up at around 12pm and doing nothing til 4pm, I decided to venture out solo without my partner in crime and went straight back to the shops to buy things to deck out my room and do my first weekly shop, Porto style.

And I end this blog post on a plea. My room is very, very large. If you have seen my living room at home then it is bigger than that by a long way. This means that there are many walls that need to be covered. If you would like to send me things to put on my walls.. that you have made yourself or something personal then get in touch so I can give you all my new address :) xxxx

Valida é Obrigatório

The Brazilians said at around 11pm that they would come and pick me up in half an hour to go down to a local fair. At 12.30am... giving up and starting to get make-up off for the night, the door bell rang and I was expected to be ready and pleased to see them.

Aside from the concert stage and the firework sesh it was pretty much a small-scale Goose Fair with stalls, food vans and a couple of rides. I had a huge burger.. it had a burger, carrots, mushrooms, lettuce, ham and chips inside it.

The whole thing didn't shut down until 2am and then I was walked back to my flat..... where the Brazilian gang, (15 of them and then me), said that we were actually going into town, (yes at 2am), for a few beers. Now, as you know it takes a lot to get me out in Nottingham, so when i crawled in at 7 in the morning, after having consumed a reasonable amount of beer and hanging in a room full of chain smokers who expected you to be a master of every traditional Brazilian dance (and if you had no idea you were frowned upon), I thought it best I go straight to bed :S

Day 3 - Getting up at 2pm was nice, although quite necessary, and I had a nice meal with Charlotte after waving her mum off at the airport. Charlotte then came back to mine as she can't move into hers until Wednesday and after struggling with the internet for a few hours it was definitely time for bed.

Day 4 - We had a major to do list. Go and get breakfast at the cafe? Successful! Except for the poor Portuguese attempts and them not understanding 'normal' when I was asked what tea I wanted. Apparently, to them that's green tea. Negro. Chá negro in future. I asked for milk.. I didn't get any.. it's because I'm English.

Go into town and get passport photos? Check! Not your average photo machine, no, just an old man with a camera who gives you a comb and a sink to get ready before sitting you down and directing you in different positions. Really never took a passport photo that seriously before and for €5 for 6 photos.. bargain!
Go into university and register? Done. Very nice people at uni. Nice building but quite old. Got my timetables and I seem to start at 8.30am almost everyday. (But finish at 10am ;))

Go shopping? Yes! NorteShopping. I cracked out an "Onde está o NorteShopping?" Before a very nice man practically laughed and said "It's that way." Very big place filled with everything English that you could ever need. Oh. But we had chinese for tea. Yet to do something typically Portuguese...

However, finishing everything on our to do list resulted in mass blisters on feet and sweating of epic proportions. If that wasn't enough the lights suddenly went in the flat. Flicking all switches available, we decided to find neighbours to help. We listened through a door and heard lots of people and so we knocked.. but no one came. As we went down the stairs the door banged... we came back but it was shut... we went down  again and it happened again.. this repeated itself until we found nice neighbours who pointed out that us 4 girls (all in pyjamas) had failed to flick the one switch we'd needed to. We settled back down to our laptops and the neighbours we had first tried were now playing knock-a-door-run with us. Great.

Settling in to the Portuguese way of life!

The day began trying to make sure everything was packed and then saying goodbye to everyone. I met mum in town and she took me for my last Mcdonalds, for the third time, (I've also had one in Portugal today).

At the airport there was a lot of waiting to be done. I started thinking about the programme Airline that I'd watched the night before and someone was taking their test to be an air hostess. Sure enough on the plane a nice lady called Bergona was new to the crew. After having rammed the food trolley into the back of my chair and forgetting to give me any change I was pleased to see that she remembered to do the toilet check at least.

On landing I tentatively gave an "obrigada" to the custom's bloke who looked at me as if I was English. Buying a metro card was my next hurdle. Trying to find somewhere to put a €20 note in to a machine that doesn't accept notes was challenging until a nice woman came and pointed out that I was English and suggested I moved to a different machine.

After having dropped my case on the escalator and actually breaking the metal wiring on it I made it onto a train and into my hotel. Failing to understand the free internet system that you had to pay for and finding a note from my sisters that said "the llamas will miss you," I decided to have a bath. The plug didn't fit quite right into the the hole but I was determined to have that bath! Eventually, I sat in the bath and held the plug down with my big toe. I gave up with that day. Bed


The next day began more possitively. A nice buffet breakfast with watered down orange juice, lots of butter and not so much bread. However, I finally worked out the internet system ten minutes before I had to check-out.


I got the keys to my flat from Eduardo. He's Brazilian and he was complaining about how hot it was. I dumped all my stuff on the floor and left again. Straight on a bus to ikea. A wonderful place. Ikea, cinema, h&m, Zara, Claire's accessories, Mcdonalds, Burger King and Pizza Hut... I really started to enjoy and embrace the portuguese culture.

I met up with Charlotte and her mum bought me a hot dog! :D After that I returned to the flat with goodies from Ikea and from the supermarket and started to write this blog. Now I am off to party Portuguese style... hopefully..

The Night Before the Beginning...

It's been on its way for years now and yet it still hasn't hit me. The first day of my year abroad is tomorrow! It all begins in Portugal, where I will be studing Portuguese at the University of Porto until the end of January. Then I move off to Marseille to teach English in a lycée until July where, finally, I will be in Spain... somewhere... doing something... no.. I have no idea yet. :|

Today was my last day in Nottingham. I had  a meal in Tamatanga, my favourite restaurant in the world ever, with Ruth and then 4 hours later and still stuffed, I had a buffet in May Sum with the family! (Still managed 3 plates and a pudding.. quite hungry now actually.) After all this food I still had to come home and pack.. pack my life into 20kg of luggage. Pretty easy really.. apart from having to leave 10 out of 11 pairs of heels behind. :(

I still have 3 nail orders to complete before I leave tomorrow and I have just found out that my webcam is dead and therefore an emergency trip to curry's is in order tomorrow morning :)

It's weird saying goodbye. I said goodbye to Ruth, who I hadn't seen in a year.. hmmm.. and I've hugged people that I've never hugged before too!!!

Well anyway, the presents and card received for going away will encourage me to travel for long periods of time in the future. Nottingham tea towel, Nottingham lace sewing kit, (well posh), some euros and a couple of naughty bits. ;)

I hope you enjoy my blog about what I get up to over the year! It won't be interesting, cleverly written or witty in any way...it will be factual.. and the main aim being... getting out of having to tell everyone the same thing over and over and over again :) x