7: The Conímbriga Ruins

02/20/2011

Get ready for a picture-heavy post! 

I had to edit my date above when I realized that most people reading this blog probably don't put the date before the month... I'm getting used to Portugal very quickly.

This weekend Amy took a extremely long bus ride to Spain and most of our buddies were off around Portugal, so Tatiana and I decided to do a day trip to the Conímbriga ruins.  According to Rick Steves (Who, if you didn't know, is the best travel book author OF ALL TIME), these ruins are impressive and second only to those in Rome.  Of course, reading that description, my Ancient-Rome-ophile mind desperately needed to see these ruins, and conveniently, they were only a 20-minute bus ride away from Coimbra.

The clock at the Coimbra A station.  At noon.

Public transportation in Portugal is, to say the least, a little worse than what we might be used to in America.  In America, for instance, we like bus schedules that are readable, expect buses to be either frequent or on time (probably has something to do with every single public clock having a different, and usually incorrect, time), and don't have the previously described circuit system that will either make your travel time seven minutes or an hour and twenty.   At least in DC, our bus drivers tend to understand a round-a-bout and don't almost get into accidents in any and every round-a-bout they enter.  Well here in Portugal, we experienced a whole new problem with buses: the width of roads.  While a little comparable to the roads in Annapolis, European roads are actually ridiculously thin.  If you aren't on a highway, there is a definite chance that your vehicle will be merely inches away from another vehicle passing in an opposite direction. Our bus to the ruins actually had to stop in the street because one driver didn't parallel park close enough to the curb and the bus couldn't pass.  We sat there for twenty minutes as the bus driver (who, in a fun aside, resembled contemporary Alec Baldwin) and the people in a nearby cafe tried to get in touch with the driver, and the cars behind us honked and honked.  Only in Portugal.

Finally we got to the ruins, and while it drizzled every now and then, the sights were incredible.  For only 1,60 € we were able to see the entire facility (I love this Euro26 program!).  

The swastika design

 
First, as Rick Steve's suggested, we saved the museum for last and started on the ruins.  The first area was what used to be a house with the most beautiful mosaic floors I've ever seen.  I could not believe that it was that well preserved, though I'm sure some restoration had occurred.  This house is referred to as a Casa da Cruz suástica, or the House of the Swastika, because there is a hallway with the design in the mosaic.  Of course, for the ancient Romans, the symbol didn't have much to do with Hitler, but was more of a symbol for solar restoration.

The furnaces for the ladies' bath

Right next to this was a small bath facility which they are still excavating.  I love how excavators can identify for what each room was used.  

The House of Cantaber (it goes on)

Down a little hill was this HUGE area where Cantaber, the main aristocrat of Conímbriga, had built his home.  The area was massive, even for modern standards.  Next to this was a home that had later been converted into a cathedral, but unfortunately the ruins had been pretty badly destroyed and they didn't know much about the church or its layout.

The Forum (now)

The original stone under the new

The Forum (then)

Then there was the Forum, which was highly reconstructed but still really neat.  I'm sure that many of the original stones had fallen over, but where original stone remained, the builders let it show beneath the newer white brick.  I loved that they did that.  They had even placed a few pillars on the side to give the tourist a better idea of what it had looked like.  In the museum, later, they had built a miniature replica of the Forum and the temple behind it.  

Indigenous ruins

Underneath the temple, the excavators had found all these destroyed structures from the indigenous people that the Romans had probably killed and replaced.  Two kinds of ruins for one!

The view from the Termas do Sul

The other huge area was the Southern Bathhouse (As Termas do Sul), which they have also started to rebuild a little bit.  It was massive and beautiful, and it has an amazing view of the valley and the river.  I could only imagine how nice it must have been to go there as a Roman.  

The garden of the House of Fountains

No matter what era, there will be fish in Portugal.

We walked back through the ruins and went to the "main attraction" of the ruins, A casa dos repuxos, or the House of Fountains, which was under a protective structure.  I had been so impressed by the mosaics in the previous house, but these designs weren't just geometrical.  There were gods, animals, and people in these floors.  Amazing.  Apparently there was some sort of fountain show in the middle, where the facility had planted a garden and flowers, but Rick Steves told us not to waste the money (you're the best, Rick).  

The (mostly) completely intact kitchen ware.

After a huge buffet lunch at the museum restaurant and some inspiration for a couple new dinner ideas, we made our way to the small but fantastic museum.  Such a well laid-out and marvelous collection.  Many of the artifacts that they found in the ruins are now housed inside, and the huge wealth of things that were in amazing condition was so impressive.  They had whole huge clay bowls and scissors!  The scissors absolutely blew my mind.  This is why I love going to see ruins and learning about history: because no matter how many centuries separate you and the people you are learning about, there are those little things that remind you that human beings are still pretty damn similar.

The scissors.  Blew my mind.

My new stone lion friend.  You know, because I have a lot of stone lion friends.

After the ruins and buying a few postcards, we went outside and waited for the bus.  The driver had told us that he was returning at 5 PM, but no bus came until about 6:30 PM (I'm adopting the "T.I.A." phrase from "Blood Diamond."  T.I.P.  This is Portugal).  At least Tatiana and I had a good time taking pictures and generally being ridiculous in the parking lot.  There was also a tour bus of young European guys who tried yelling to us from their bus in several languages to figure out where we were from.  Of course, each thing they yelled was along the lines of, "I love you!  Marry me, gorgeous girls!"  When they drove away, one of the guys popped out of this window and sang, "Goodbye my lover!  Goodbye my friend!"  After ignoring them for nearly half an hour, we couldn't stop laughing and I blew him kisses right back.  I think you have the guts to pull out James Blunt songs, you definitely deserve that.


That night we got back, made taco meat, black beans, and guacamole and watched Jane Eyre Part 1.  I might be becoming a little more European, but some things never change.

6: Food, Fado, Fun

02/16/2011

I've got lots of pictures for you all today :)

The roof of the cafe/church.

FRIDAY (2/11/2011):

I mentioned before that we were planning on seeing a fado performance at a local cafe, and that was pretty amazing. Tatiana and I got to the cafe first, and this cafe was absolutely beautiful inside. It used to be a wing of the church, but the owners bought it and converted it (there was a lot of controversy... the whole story was in three different languages in our menus).  We were under the impression that we would eat dinner there, but apparently this country doesn't eat out past 4 pm and we had bifana... again. These sandwiches are basically all we eat other than pasta and rice (so cheap!) and despite their less than favorable appearance, those pork steaks are delicious.


The fado performance was amazing.  It was simply a singer, a guitarist, and another musician on a "Coimbra guitar," which is rounder and seemed a little higher pitched.  The singer was this very old man in this long dramatic cape, though several times I caught him dancing subtly to the music.  The guitarists were amazing, and their two instrumentals (sans singer) were my favorite songs.  I didn't understand much of the lyrics, but there was one song that I was able to find on YouTube afterward solely because it is about Coimbra.  We were basically the only ones there when we arrived in the cafe, but by ten, when the performance was scheduled to start, the entire cafe was brimming with people.  One of my professors was talking about fado and said, "I don't know what it is.  Its all very sad, but every Portuguese person just loves fado."  I  recorded quite a lot of the concert, so if you want any clips, I can definitely email you a few snippets.  I posted one of the instrumental songs on my Facebook as well.


SATURDAY & SUNDAY (2/12-13/2011):
Amy's boyfriend James visited this weekend (and was with us at the fado performance), but Tatiana and I were able to meet up with them a few times during the weekend.  I accompanied Tatiana to a few apartment for rent.  More cafes.  More pasta.  More loud Asian neighbors who seem to be destroying the pots, pans, plates, and each other at all hours of the day (at least that's what it sounds like). So much rain.

MONDAY:
New classes!  In addition to my language classes, I also attended the História Portuguesa class in the Intermediate level with Dan from West Point.  The professor promises to be delightful.  He was a history professor all the way: impeccable suit, awkward, and constantly made himself laugh at his strange jokes.  What more could you ask for?  Plus, he speaks very slowly.  I love him already.  We will definitely make my Mondays, where I have class non-stop from 9 AM to 6 PM (with an hour lunch break), a little more bearable.

TUESDAY:

Alex's Bar, 2/5/2011

More classes, yes, but it was Tuesday night that made it memorable.  Tuesdays and Thursdays are the big party nights in Coimbra.  Weekends here are dead because most of the students go home on the weekends to see their family and do their laundry, but Tuesdays and Thursdays are insane.  Despite my Germany buddy Ruben excusing himself last minute, we still had a fantastic night with Dan.  Because he had gone out the Thursday before, he lead us around to a few bars (including Alex's Bar!) and was a perfect gentlemen.  Hopefully the West Point girls and Felipe will be able to come out with us on Thursday.  I just wish I had remembered my camera!

WEDNESDAY:
Today, I luckily didn't have class until 2 PM, though the rest of my party group had to be up at the University for 11 AM classes.  Rough.  But I again had my history class again, accompanied with a giant book I had to buy for the class.  Seriously, that monster is about two inches thick and can stand up on its own.  For an English/Theater concentrator, this is new and different than my little paper-back novels.  But after I finish this particular post, I want to start reading it immediately.  We are picking up in the middle of Portuguese history in class (we'll cover the 15th to 20th centuries), but I definitely want to go over the beginnings of the country.  Plus, I missed out on learning about Dom Pedro I and Inês, Portugal's real-life Romeo and Juliet and one of my favorite romances... despite the exhuming and heart-ripping-out and such.

So basically it as far as events go.  But I would like to share a few things I've learned:

Gnomes love vinho verde.

1. I can now cook on a gas stove, as that is the only option in our dormitories.  I almost want to take driving lessons on a manual car now.  Almost.

2. I now know the difference between vinho verde and vinho branco.  In Portugal, most of the wine that looks like white wine (vinho branco) is actually vinho verde, "green wine," which is so named not for the color but because this kind of wine is not made to sit but to be drunk usually within the first year or so of its creation.  Vinho verde is a distinctly Portuguese kind of wine, so if you see it anywhere else, you can know that it is from Portugal.  It can be white or red in color, but I haven't noticed at red vinho verde yet.  I have also learned that it is delicious.

3. Coimbra is Portugal's third largest city.  This fact was a little sad to learn, especially when you are wandering these streets on a Friday night and there is literally NO ONE THERE.

4. I now know why Portuguese people flocked to the New England area: the weather both here and in Rhode Island has the same mentality: if you don't like it, just wait five minutes.  In walking between the Faculdade de Letras and my bus stop, I experienced perfect sunlight, rain, sleet, and basic dreariness.  All in a seven minute walk.

5. I have also learned that my prejudice against chouriço is completely unfounded.  It makes the best sandwiches and therefore has basically been a vital part of my lunches for the past few days.  I have been missing out for the past 20 years.  Thank God I came here and fully realized my Portuguese heritage.  Soon I'm going to be eating bacalhau and pastéis de nata like its my job (I've already started employment)

Sandwich with chouriço

Eating pastéis de nata

Also these cookies are delicious but their name escapes me... for now.

5: Classes Begin

02/11/2011


My dad recently told me that while he loved my blog, "the one thing that I believe would make your Blog better would be more positive news."  I was a total Debbie Downer in my last post, so let me say earnestly that I'm here today liven up the mood.


After my last post, I was obviously very distraught and uninspired.  But after I got back to my room and calmed down a bit, things definitely began to look up.  Basically I figured that if the classes were too easy, I would be able to test out after the first week, and if they were appropriate, I would stick with it and be able to review the bits of the language that I wasn't 100% on.  Ana Paula told me that I could definitely attend the Portuguese History class, which is one of the culture classes that is offered only in Intermediate, which was basically the only reason I wasn't able to get into the Intermediate level in the first place.  Plus, today I met a student who had studied at Coimbra last semester as well, and she was still in Beginner but spoke very well.  So, who knows how they separate these levels.  After experiencing my classes these last two days, I would be content with staying in my level or moving up.  We'll see how next week goes.


Anyway, after the test and the breakdown, we returned to the dorm and I watched the new How I Met Your Mother episode (ah, the miracle of the Internet).  We got in touch with the West Point students and, while the girls were planning on making dinner that night, Dan was all for coming out with us to find a restaurant close by.  But despite the copious amounts of banks, dentists, and clothing stores near our dorm, there are no real restaurants... even most of the cafes were closed.  The only place open for dinner was a Chinese restaurant...  But, Portuguese-Chinese food?  Well, there is a first time for everything.


It was strange trying to order Chinese food in a Portuguese restaurant, and thankfully the menu came in both Portuguese and English.  There was something strange though: while other places on the menu definitely included the word "cogumelos," or mushrooms, there were some dishes that were described as coming with "fungo chinês," or, well, Chinese fungus.  Curiosity almost got the better of me but in the end, I didn't order any fungo chinês... Next time, Kang Le.


There was no one in the restaurant when we arrived (this common trope is starting to convince me that Portuguese people don't eat anything except for pastries after 2 PM), and only a few parties showed up before we left, so the waiters were practically at our shoulders the entire time we were there.  They even took our plates away before asking us whether we were indeed finished or not, though thankfully we had devoured most of the food by then.  We then escaped the hovering waiters and returned to Polo III, where Ashleigh and Barbara were just finishing up dinner.  It was a party though: a few other people on their floor had also chipped in and they had all made a massive meal.  We stayed around and offered our quarts of ice cream to anyone to might like some and met Marta (Portuguese), Felipe (Dan's Brazilian roommate), and Otavio (Brazilian as well).  We were with them for quite a long time, speaking back and forth in English and Brazilian.  Felipe is a complete character, and he was excited to know that I was also a theater person, as he used to do modern dance.  Tatiana, Amy, and I were a little jealous that the West Point students had been roomed with Portuguese-speaking students, but hopefully we will be able to join a few of their dinner parties and befriend them as well.


Thursday morning marked the beginning of classes, and while I was planning on attending both the Intermediate and Elementary level of Portuguese, the classes were all at the same time so I stuck with my preassigned Elementary.  My first class Língua Portuguesa, in which we will do a lot of work with grammar and such.  The professor passed out a few magazine articles to read, and while I was a little frustrated with my partners, who basically refused to speak more than a sentence to me, but overall the class went very well.  


I also recognized someone in the class who I had not expect to be there: Ruben is from Germany and his speaking skills sounded fantastic when I met him on the day of the placement exam.  I thought he would definitely get into the Superior Level or at least Intermediate, but he was in class with me.  He recognized me as well and we realized that the our weaknesses were the other's strengths: he could speak and comprehend but wasn't very good at grammar and conjugation, and I can't form a coherent sentence in less than a minute but I could tell you the present subjunctive of "ver" in a moment (its veja, vejas, veja, vejamos, vejam, in case you didn't believe me).  We decided to be study buddies and try to move into Intermediate together.  We were both in Turmo 3, the highest level of Elementary, so we also had our Laboratório class together later in the afternoon.  Many of the foreign students drop this class because it doesn't count for any credits, but I think I'm going to stick with it.  It's basically its a classroom environment for practicing Portuguese and overcoming your own personal deficiencies with the language: we had the ability to practice speaking, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary... all in this first class.  I was glad to have some background with phonetics because the second half of the class was spelling out common sounds, and in the process I found out that I was saying the verb ending -am incorrectly, so that's good. 


During this class, however, we did an exercise where we wrote down our nationality, interests, qualities about our personality, etc. and then passed the papers around.  From the random new paper, you had to pick out its original owner, but this took forever because half the class is Chinese!  All these students are from Macau, where Portuguese and Chinese are the two official languages, and it was basically impossible to figure out who our person was when all it says is, "Sou chinesa.  Gosta de ler e comprar roupas."  There are also two Japanese students, German Ruben, myself and another older American woman, and a student from Bulgaria, Turkey, and Belgium, and Spain respectively.  Obviously we were all easily identified.  


After class, Ruben and I went to the bar/cafe in the Faculdade de Letras (Yes, their Humanities building has its own bar... Reasons why Portugal has a terrible economy but remains awesome #478) and "studied."  I put it in quotes not to denote an opposite or inappropriate meaning, but because our version of studying was basically just speaking in Portuguese together.  He would ask me questions about random things and I would have to respond with different verb tenses, vocabulary, etc.  Another boy in our level, Japanese Yugi (this spelling is guesstimated, but it sounds a lot like "Eugene" when he says it), invited himself into the study session, and while I can't understand a word he says with his very heavy Japanese accent, I'm sure he needed the practice just as much as I did.  After about an hour, we switched and I showed Ruben how to conjugate the present subjunctive and quizzed him on the irregular forms.  Hopefully we'll be able to study like this more often.  I felt much better about my speaking and pronunciation after that hour and a half.


After I took the bus back home, I realized how completely exhausted I was.  Amy had been sick earlier in the week, and despite my effort I realized I must be coming down with the same thing.  I was so disappointed because Tatiana and I were supposed to accompany the West Point students on a night on the town guided by Felipe, who was going to show them the popular bars and clubs in the area.  But after Tatiana and I made dinner (the stoves, again, proved to make things difficult, but our pasta came out delicious regardless), we realized that going out that night was not an option.  So we sent our apologies to Dan, put our pajamas on, and watched "Guess Who" before passing out earlier than usual.  That night, we also made our first attempt at doing laundry, though clothes are currently hanging all over the room since the drier takes almost two hours.  At least Tatiana finally has socks now! :)


Today was another day of classes, though my first and only class, Conversação, wasn't until 2 PM.  I slept in, got dressed, and then promptly got on the wrong bus.  The bus system in Coimbra doesn't have a northbound/southbound type of system like the ones in DC, but are simply a circuit.  There are places where the buses cross paths but are traveling the opposite way on the circuit, and I happened to catch the 29 on the same such route.  What is usually a seven-minute bus ride became about 40 minutes, but I arrived at the Praça da República just in time for lunch at one of the university's many cantinas with Tatiana, Dan, Felipe, Amy, and her boyfriend James, who is visiting for the weekend.  At least lunch was only 2.45 €!  


Now class is over and the weekend is just beginning.  However, most of the students go home on the weekends, so the city is pretty dead.  I'm hoping that Ruben and some other students abroad will be around this weekend, as the West Point students will be spending the next two days in Porto.  As for tonight, we are hoping to go to a cafe which has both free wifi and fadistas (performers of fado, the traditional music of Portugal).  This post has been rather devoid of pictures, so I hope I'll get some good ones tonight and this weekend.  


Isn't content Alex so much better to read?

4: Frustration and (Initial) Failure

02/7/2011

Today was the official beginning of our enrollment at the Universidade de Coimbra.  We met with our adviser Ana Paula Arnaut, who was surprisingly cool.  She told us happily that, “Portuguese people are very politically incorrect.  We laugh at all people: black people, yellow people, brown people, Jewish people, Catholic people.  Everyone.  So don’t be shocked when you hear someone say something.  That’s just how Portugal is.”  Now I know why Brown does not have a program to Portugal. 

After all the paperwork, we again took up residence at McDonalds and stayed there for four hours.  I took a break during that time and walked around the Praça da República, taking pictures and people watching.  Today, a lot of students were wearing their traditional uniforms (I guess in preparation for the beginning of classes), and a few of them were walking around the plaza with their capes.  We saw the uniforms all over the city and found a store that sells them but… unfortunately they are 200 Euros.  I guess we’ll just have to come back for our post-grad so it’s worth the money.

Later, as we were getting some other permits and red tape necessities done, we stopped in a little hole-in-the-wall camera shop because I needed more passport photos. The man reminded me very much of my grandfather in the way he spoke, and I was nervous that I wouldn’t understand him.  I was also confused because there was no place in the store to take passport photos, yet the service was clearly advertised.  But I understood him very well, and he lead me, Amy, and Tatiana to his “studio,” which was located up a back staircase and into what I figured was his actual home.  We took the pictures in this tiny room, where a little Polaroid mirror hung on the wall and a well-used hairbrush was available just in case.  I bought 12, as the second set of 6 only bumped the price from 6 Euros to 8 Euros, and every department in Coimbra seems to need my photo.  The pictures are ridiculous.  I was wearing a white scarf and a leather jacket, and I look like an old-time aviator.  I just need the googles.

Tonight we attempted to make dinner.  We bought a pan from this tiny little home goods store, then made a list and bought groceries at Pingo Doce, our local supermercado.  It took quite a long time to get the pan, the utensils, the food, and so by the time we finally got back to our dorm it was about 8:30 PM and we just could not figure out the gas stove.  We had almost given up and settled for just our salad and bread rolls with cheese when Amy’s roommate, who is an young Iranian woman studying for her masters in Mathematics, helped us get the stove going.  Our buddy Nasif also stopped by, but didn’t stay long.  Honestly, we probably didn’t need the distraction.  In the end, we had delicious chicken, rice and beans, and spinach salad.  It was a pretty late dinner, but definitely worth it.  We had a lot left over, so we definitely have at least lunch for tomorrow all set.  Saving money is nice.

02/9/2011

The last two days have been really rough.  Yesterday, Tuesday, I basically spent the entire day in a state of language frustration.  Almost immediately after I woke up, my cousin Joana texted me concerning her arriving in Coimbra to visit friends.  The previous times we had spoken, I had understood her pretty well.  That morning, however, she must have been using some sort of text speak or using colloquial phrases because I had to look up most of the messages in my dictionary.  I found out that she would be arriving around 3:30 PM.  I spent the day running errands around the city, and ended up having to pay quite a lot for my dormitory.  My bank account is seriously hurting right now.  So, broke and frustrated, I sat once again in McDonalds to check my email and wait for my cousin.  She showed up around 4 PM, and we ended up speaking to one another for an hour in broken Portuguese.  I felt so completely inadequate speaking to her.  I certainly wouldn’t blame it on her: I was frustrated and I cannot listen to the Portuguese language at all, and my limited ability plus the noise of McDonalds and the natural speed of Portuguese speakers made me feel like a completely idiot. She was so helpful and patient with me and was so friendly and nice, but when we finally left McDonalds, I was so upset and frustrated with myself that I was glad to be going back to the dorms.  I hope that, should I see her again at the end of the semester, I will be able to have a proper conversation in proper Portuguese.

Afterward the frustration continued as we started to study for our placement exam.  I felt like I knew nothing and kept beating myself up.  When we finally decided to go to bed that night, sleep was impossible: the room next door must have had five people in it laughing and screaming in Chinese all night.  I tried knocking on the wall a few times, but they would only be quiet for a minute or so and then the volume would escalate.  I finally fell asleep around 2 AM and woke up around 8 AM for our 9:30 language placement exam.  Apparently the Chinese students had been up really early that morning too, banging around in the kitchen and speaking right outside our dorm room.  When did they go to bed and how early did they get up?  Another day of frustration had begun.

A escada monumental.  Good.

We ended up taking the bus that morning, climbed up the escada monumental and getting to the Faculdade de Letras about half an hour early, studied outside, and then took the written portion of the exam.  After the exam, we went in search of the a bar inside the building to get breakfast and… lo!  There we other American undergraduate students there!   Three students from West Point were sitting a table away, and finally one of them came over to ask if we were American as well.  There is one guy, Dan, and two girls, Barbara and Ashley, who were very friendly and fun.  We exchanged numbers and hung around the bar until it was 11 AM and we had to go back for our spoken portion.  I was getting more and more nervous, and when Tatiana and I went in to speak to the instructors, we had already been waiting for half an hour.  Tatiana did fine, but my speaking and comprehension was horrible.  I was so nervous and they were so aggressive that I could actually feel my skill dipping back into freshman year POBS0100.  At the end, they were very straight-forward and told me that Tatiana was better than I was and that I should be in the Elementary Level.

I took the schedule of classes, walked out, and immediately began to cry in front of Amy, Tatiana, and our new friends from a MILITARY ACADEMY.  I felt so embarrassed but couldn’t stop, and they all tried to comfort me.  But the truth was: they were all in Intermediate, and I was the only American in Elementary.  I tried speaking to the women who tested me about moving up, but they not only laughed at my struggling with the language and request but also said that I would have to attend the first week as an Elementary student and then, after the first week, get my professors' approval to move up.  We went in search of Ana Paula, our advisor, and she recommended the same thing, plus attending the Intermediate classes at the same time and seeing how I did.  She then added up my hours and credits and the total was less than was necessary for both Brown and UWM and… I cried in front of my adviser as well.  I was so extremely frustrated and, again, completely embarrassed.  Nothing was going as planned, I had failed to get into Intermediate after five semesters of Portuguese, and my classes weren’t enough to transfer as an entire semester.  I just hope that I will be able to move up into Intermediate, where the classes include enough credits and hours.  This means that this weekend, I’m going to have to work really hard on my speaking and listening abilities. 

No more speaking in English.  I will do all I can to be in Intermediate classes by this time next week.  Wish me luck!  I’m going to really need it.

3: Arrival

02/6/2011

I finally have a good slice of time and an Internet connection, so its time for the very first post that I’m writing from Portugal.

Azulejos

This country is absolutely beautiful.  My program is through the University of Coimbra, which is one of the oldest schools in the world: founded in 1290 by the Pope, some of the buildings on campus are ancient and beautiful.  The Universidade Velha, the oldest part of the University, has a courtyard which looks over the entire city and the river.  One of the best views I’ve ever seen.   But honestly, the entire city of Coimbra is beautiful.  The houses are light colors with red roofs, black grates, and unkempt white-washed walls.  There is amazing tiles everywhere, decorating the outside of houses, the inside walls.  So many houses and buildings are bordered with these blue tile designs that are about as high as your shoulder.  These tiles are called “azulejos” and I wish the entire world could be covered in them.  But then again, I am a bit prone to exaggeration.

A gift store in the Porto airport

The trip here was crazy.  I was up for a day and a half straight and used every single modern mode of transportation other than a motorcycle.  Thursday: Drive to DC to get my visa at 9 AM; drive to Union Station; take a MARC train to BWI Airport, where my mom picked me up and brought me to the terminal; flight to Newark at 1:40 PM; Shuttle from terminal B to terminal C; flight to Porto with new friend Amy, another person in my program; flight from Porto to Lisbon at 7:40 AM (Portuguese time.  American time: 2:40 AM); Taxi from Lisbon airport to train station; Train to Coimbra B station; Taxi to Polo III, my home for the next five months.  So in all:

2 cars

2 taxis

3 airplanes

1 train

1 shuttle

My room!

I can’t sleep on planes, so by the time we got to Polo III, Amy and I were absolutely exhausted.  Carlos, who runs the dorm and who is basically a male House Mother, gave us our keys (we have about six to different locks all over the residence), but I was too tired to understand English, let alone Portuguese, so I found out what those keys were for much later in the day.  I emptied my luggage, took a shower, and crashed for two hours.  That night, Amy and I stumbled around the surrounding streets looking for some sort of grocery store or CVS-equivalent, but only found cafes, clothing stores, and an inappropriate amount of dentists (seriously, there must be a dentist on every street in this city).  It was in a gas station that we randomly ran into the third girl in our program, Tatiana, and her father Tony (who is Azorean) and his friend Mario (who currently lives in Lisbon).  Because the school hadn’t given us any information other than our residence (and our advisor here at the school was away the very weekend we were all arriving), Tony and Mario were our saviors.  Though they forced us to speak in Portuguese most of the time we were with them, they brought us out to dinner to a restaurant called “Dom Pedro’s.”  It was absolutely empty inside, but the two waiters were so happy to see us that we received the best service I’ve ever seen.  We ate there again on Sunday night.  I think Amy, Tatiana, and I have a “place.”  We’re already planning on going there for my birthday.  Cinco estrelas para Dom Pedro’s!

The next day (Saturday), we three decided to explore the city.  We went to a Universidade Velha, which is the oldest part of the school (as the name suggests).  When I visited with my family in 2008, this was my favorite place because of the library, which seriously resembles the Beauty and the Beast library.  But we found out that the ticket required to see the library and the other really neat sites at the Universidade Velha was half as expensive if you show them your student ID card, so we are going to go back when we have those.  We also went to the Botanical Gardens (o Jardim Botanico), which were beautiful and will be even better come Spring.  After the Gardens, we walked down the hill and ended up in the far East of the city and had to make our way all the way back near the center.  We found our way to Mondego Park, where a small row of restaurants overlook the river.  The cheapest was the “Irish Pub,” which plays music alternating between traditional Irish folk music and contemporary Irish musicians like U2.  Unfortunately the service was terrible: the first hour we sat waiting for a menu, and the second hour we sat waiting for the check.  Coimbra is giving Ireland a bad name.

After the longest lunch ever, walked Tatiana to her father’s hotel, and then Amy and I tried taking the bus back to our dorm and succeeded more or less (we got off two stops before we should have, but we got back just fine).  Later, Tatiana, her father, Mario, and their friend Helder (also Portuguese) picked us up for dinner.  We ended up eating right next door to the Irish Pub (awkward) in a restaurant called A Portuguesa (to see the busty mascot, you can probably just go to their website aportuguesa.pt).  It was much more expensive than Dom Pedro or the Irish Pub, so I felt bad when the men again got the check.  However, I did get to not only talk about Brown with Helder, who lived in Pawtucket when he came to America, but also got to try “peixe do sal,” which was delicious.  Basically, it is an entire fish cooked under five pounds of salt.  It sounds disgusting and completely unhealthy, but it is entirely the opposite.  The salt acts as a sort of buffer, and the fish cooks inside its own juices.  He let us all try some and I loved it.  Apparently it is a specialty in Nazare, so I hope I can order some when it gets warm enough for the beach.

That night, Amy, Tatiana and I decided to explore the dorm and figure out where the laundry rooms and such were, and ended up with a very fun and useful friend.  He is Nasif from Bangledesh, and he is working for his Masters degree in Polo II, another Coimbra building on the other side of the city (which makes his living in Polo III very inconvienent).  He spoke very good English but was excited to meet native speakers, so we sat down with him and spoke with him for a very long time about subjects ranging from religion to school to clubs in Coimbra.  Because we still had no information from the school and no Internet, he let us know a few tidbits about the bus route and such.  Hopefully we get to hang out with him again.  He was very funny and, despite having a propensity for saying “bus stoppages,” he cursed in English very well.

Praça da República

The next day, the very first thing we did was go down to the McDonalds at the Praça da República and use the wifi.  Neither Tatiana, Amy, nor myself had been on the Internet for days.  I wasn’t on long enough to write and post anything.  Notifications, messages, and emails tend to pile up when you don’t take care of them properly.  Then we met up with Tony and Mario and went to a shopping center (called Coimbra Shopping), got phones and room basics, then returned to the city and explored the northwestern area, found the Coimbra A train station, and sat at a café and had tea, coffee, and pastries.  We go to cafés quite a lot, and now I understand why Europeans are deemed stereotypically lazy.  But they just like their coffee!  Mario was so funny that day.  Apparently his girlfriend is a high school teacher, and one of her students, Jorge, is a young doctor in Coimbra.  He had been trying to set up Tatiana, but he set his sights on me.  He told me that Jorge was a “gatao,” a very attractive man, and that we should call him up as he was in the city.  I now refer to Jorge as meu marido futuro and meu amor da vida, and whenever we see a particularly strange or awkward young man, we pretend we have found him.  I wonder if we will ever meet this infamous Jorge while we are studying here.

As I mentioned earlier, we ended up going to Dom Pedro’s again for dinner.  The waiters were so happy to see us again that they kept giving us things after we had paid for our meal, like free almond liqueur, matches, and every number they could possibly have.  I even signed up for their Internet mailing list.  I have a feeling that I might be the only one receiving their specials.

Unfortunately that was Mario and Tony’s last night in Coimbra, which was sad.  I hated to see them go.  They were so nice and fun and such a help!  I hope we can visit with Mario when we go to Lisbon.  Tomorrow we meet with Ana Paula Arnaut, our completely absent advisor, at 9:30 in the morning.  Hopefully it will be a good start to a good week.