8: New Month, New Apartment!

3/1/2011

So much has happened since my last blog post!  I wouldn’t know where to start if time weren’t linear.

SO EXCITED AMID THE MESS

I'm sure I've mentioned several times in this blog that my roommate, Tatiana, had been searching for a room closer to campus for some time.  While Amy and I would have liked to live off campus if such an availability arose, most of the advertisements around the city were for single rooms and we were content to stay in Polo III.  However, last Monday Tatiana heard back from a landlord regarding a place with two rooms available and, though Amy was still in Spain, we figured we figured it wouldn't hurt to check the place out.  So, eagerly awaiting Amy's return, we met with the nicest man I've met so far and absolutely loved the place (and its very cheap rent).  The landlord, whose name we still do not know and therefore affectionately call Senhor Senhorio (Mr. Landlord), is the most delightful little man in the world and so incredibly obliging.  When we told him about a potential third roommate, he not only seemed open to the idea but allowed us to change the larger room into a double.  He also promised to drive all the way to Porto to get us a second bed frame and mattress from another one of his locations.  After speaking to Amy, and showing her the apartment the next day, we decided that this was it.  This was our new apartment.

The most Portuguese shopping cart in the world.

The rest of the week passed: classes, going out at night, etc.  Throughout the week we started to plan what exactly we needed for the apartment.  Amy and I volunteered to take the double room since it was Tatiana that had been doing all the work finding rooms and talking to landlords.  This weekend we began the huge process of moving everything from our residence hall to the apartment.  I don’t know how we accumulated so much extra stuff over the course of the one month that we were here but it seemed as though we had so much more!  However, we enlisted the help from Dan who used his amazing military strength to help us with our first wave of suitcases over to the apartment on Saturday.  Unfortunately only the larger room was available, as the former tenant had until Sunday to move out of the smaller room, so we moved everything into one room and then went to Dolce Vita, the curiously Italian-named mall in Coimbra, to go to the giant supermarket there and buy cleaning supplies for the terrifying prospect of cleaning the common areas.

Of course, the entire floor is not just us.  The apartment has five rooms in total, so we have three roommates.  One of them is Victor, who isn’t around much and only rents the room to sleep when he’s in town working.  The other two are more permanent: Helder, who lives right next to Amy and I, is Portuguese and tends to stay in his room and play his guitar... and then there is Santiago, a Spanish model (or least should be) who is very friendly and seemed excited for us to move in.  He seems to want more interactive roommates with whom he could practice his English.  He lives across the hall from us and makes a point to greet us whenever we were around this weekend.  He’s very friendly and that is all I will say for now. :)

The kitchen

Post-clean.  Really.

Sunday was marked by excessive amounts of cleaning.  We arrived in the afternoon and tackled the kitchen and bathroom.  After straight use by four men for who knows how long, you can imagine the state of things.  I think I killed at least five spiders and countless ants as I scrubbed the stove and pantry and Tatiana cleaned the fridge, microwave, and the huge pile of boxes and bags on top of both machines.  Poor Amy was left alone to tackle the bathroom, but she cleaned it so well that she literally changed the color of the shower, toilet, and walls.  We still have to scrub the floor, but after we left the apartment, those areas were beautiful.  Santiago even popped over and tried to help, but after he swept the floor I think he realized how intense we were and left us to destroy every place that mold had even thought about growing.  Having a Portuguese mother definitely prepared me for such intensive cleaning.  No such thing as “clean enough," right Mom?

Look at that PRISTINE toilet, thanks to Amy.

After cleaning, we returned to Dolce Vita and bought things like sheets, pillows, utensils, and rugs for the rooms, kitchen, and bathroom.  These boys will definitely feel that feminine touch in this apartment.

So sad and masculine.

Can you spot the feminine touches?  (Hint: rug, food in the pantry, multi-colored cups, cooking utensil Lazy Susan, the color pink, and general colorfulness)

The next day, the last day of February, we only had class at 2 PM, so we brought the rest of the bags from our rooms into the apartment and, after History and Literature, we went to check out at the Office of Alojamentos.  However, when we were finally able to meet with Rosario Gomes, she informed us that since we had not notified them two weeks earlier we would have to pay the entire rent for the month of March… even though we would not have keys to a room for any amount of time during this month.  We were obviously extremely upset and went right back to Polo III to speak to the director, Carlos, who informed us that he knew of no such rule, and after we called our program director Ana Paula, who also told us that she was not aware of such a rule.  Obviously my personal political views began to flare and, through the haze of anti-bureaucratic anger, I announced my personal decision to fight the ridiculously unfair and unknown rule as hard as I could and refuse to pay such a fee.  After speaking to each of our parents, my friends agreed and we officially turned in our keys.  I'm sure more drama will ensue, so I will keep you all updated.  I've always wanted to sue someone... (haha).

The window between the kitchen and the bathroom.  Soon there will be an American flag painted up there.

We spent the night grocery shopping, cleaning, and unpacking.  We ended up having dinner at McDonalds with Dan (and I won 10 free digital prints from Snapfish in their Monopoly sweepstakes!  What a night!) and then spent our very first night in our new place.  Now, on Tuesday night, the room is still a rather messy (as the pictures below indicate) and, while my bed still has no legs, Senhor Senhorio promised to fix it.  Tatiana was finally able to get into her room and has been cleaning it all day and Amy and I have been trying to do laundry with the washer, which has no words in either English or Portuguese on any of the knobs or buttons, so that’s been interesting.  At least our drier is nice and simple: three clotheslines outside our window.

View from my new room.

My little corner... color-coordinated, of course.

The room (still being unpacked!)

To summarize: the apartment is a bit of a dump, but its my dump and I love it.  Plus it came with a space heater!

Favorite part of our new room!

The space heater...

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.