Vila Real - exploring #3

Yesterday's on-foot trip with Poli... :)


"There are sheeps... and there are wolves... and there are also black sheeps. Black sheeps always win."

Carnaval in Portugal

Carnaval is basicaly, as everybody know, the celebration that takes place usually in roman catholic societies before the time of 40-day lent which ends during easter holidays. It's parts are usually a colorful parade of funny dressed people and other kinds of parties.
Since previous week children were hanging around the city dressed in costumes.
My top 3 were:
1) child dressed in blue... with a car-shaped box around the waist... omg! it was a girl dressed as a police car!
2) girl in pink fluffy elephant outfit
3) little Batman... tiny actually. perhaps 1 meter tall!

Actually I should mention 2 more unforgetable costumes... On Saturday Daniel and I went for a mountain hiking (due to the lack of the routes we had to walk along normal roads and trial motorbikes paths that smelled like sh... like burned tires) and while passing through the small village where the time stopped hehe suddenly Spiderman and Snow White came out on the street. They were both as small as Batman. The mountain area disappointed us with loads of trash everywhere but we really liked the stream that was passing by.

On Monday night Erasmus students had a Carnaval dinner all together in "Transmontano" restaurant. Most of them had put on costumes, some of them didn't. My flatmates and I didn't coz we already look like a basketball team...

We had typical portuguese dishes for dinner:
- bacalau com natas which tasted like spanish tortilla de patatas with fish
- carne de porco a alentejana - "alentejo" style pork meat
- arroz and batatas (rice and potatoes)
I didn't enjoy the meal as much as I expected (perhaps I was not hungry enough).
The thing that everybody tasted and liked (except one person that drank water) was obviously Sangria.

Luckily, on the next Daniel took me for lunch to the typical portuguese restaurant - "Restaurante 22" that serves portuguese dishes and this time I loved everything we ate. The potatoes were sooo delicious that Daniel had to make a biiiig sacrifice and eat rice.
The nicest thing about restaurants in Vila Real is that when you're leaving, the staff is always smiling friendly so that it really makes you want to come back :)

Portugal's national drink

The national drink is nothing else than coffee.
It is served everywhere, any time and drank by everybody.

Did you know that Portugal was responsible for introducing coffee production to Brazil?!?!

My favourite one is galao - a bica (Portuguese espresso) with hot milk, tapped from a canister and sprayed into the tall glass in which it is served.

I've found out how significant it is from the great expert of portuguese culture - Prof. Ze Mario:
Zé Mario: back
sorry I went for coffee
me: um galao?
Zé Mario: (this is a very important portuguese habit)
=)
galão is with milk some people drink it for breakfast
I don't
but the expressos is the important thing
and our new trend, is the nespresso
me: nes? :)
Zé Mario: these awesome machines that take a coffee really quickly
that you can have at home
and you have a huge variety of coffee
I have one, of course :P
http://www.nespresso.com
the "nes" comes from nestle
a spanish brand
George Clooney is their marketing face
me: hehe
so everybody has a coffee machine at home?:D
Zé Mario: usually, yes
or we buy at a coffee shop
me: how many coffes do you drink per day?
Zé Mario: there's people who drink a lot
I don't drink more than 2/3 a day
cause more than that is bad for your health
you'll see. our coffees are excellent
that and our bread.

I have to admit, that since I'm in Portugal together with Iva, my Czech flatmate, we try to cultivate local traditions. Due to that, we go out for a coffee to the nearby Pastelaria (a shop with cakes, bread and coffee) every afternoon. Iva usually orders "meio de leite" and I ask for "um galão". Afterwards we're choosing the sweet litte pastries, every time different ones...

picture by Sangorrin 2009

Vila Real - exploring #2

Last weekend Daniel paid me a visit in VR. The town seemed to be depopulated and the weather was perfect.

We had a funny adventure with looking for the restaurant serving francesinha which my erasmus incoming res. recommended. When we've finally found it, the door was completly locked. While deciding not to give up and standing on the corner of Avenido 1 de Maio and Rua Miguel Bombarda one guy came out to us to invite to his restaurant - 'Retrio da Marginal'. As soon as we've entered the place, it seemed to be like entering the time machine. For me the place looked like polish 'milky bars', popular over 20 years ago during communist times. Obviously we were not in Poland and the main reason, why it couldn't be milky bar, was the fact that they had Coca-Cola there. Anyway, we went on... There was one guy sitting by the bar and another one by the table. The owner kept on saying sth to us and pointing the end of the room so we moved forward... Actually I didn't know what was happening but then I saw sth like a kitchen window and a cooking lady... Then a small corridor appeared and "Sala de jantar" written above it. It was clear, the most representative part of the restaurant was still ahead of us. We've passed the corridor and there it was. Hudge dinning room with loads of tables and next to two of them an old couple and a family dinning. After taking a sit, the owner and the waiter served us very politely with everything we wanted.
Francesinha was good and the french fries were like home made - Bom apetite!

(This is one of over 30 posts, which I accidentally deleted one day in January. Luckily, I was able to recover them thanks to the backup done by DanielSan! It's a pity that the comments are gone but someting is better than nothing.)

Vila Real - exploring #1

Igreja de Bom Jesus do Calvário

(This is one of over 30 posts, which I accidentally deleted one day in January. Luckily, I was able to recover them thanks to the backup done by DanielSan! It's a pity that the comments are gone but someting is better than nothing.)

... and my beautiful flatmates - Iva (Czech Rep.) & Paulina (Poland)

River Corga and Dolce Vita - shopping mall

Loads of silver cars are characteristic for Portugal

Vila Real

Vila Real is not a very big city where I'm doing my Erasmus.
It is located between the rivers Corgo and Cabril. What's more the Marão and the Alvão mountains surround the town. Those who have experienced the Bieszczady mountains (Poland) can try to imagine Bieszczady and the city with 25000 inhabitants among them.
This is it. Vila Real.

View from my window (one of two)

I've arrived here on Sunday afternoon, after having exquisite portuguese lunch prepared by Ze Mario's mother. The way from Amarante was extremly foggy, thanks to the GPS I didn't have a feeling that the car is gonna fall into the abyss in a second. In this point, I should mention that Ze Mario drives very carefully, although he says that portuguese people are famous for being crazy drivers.

Vila Real welcomed us with even more fog and rain.
As soon as we've found the building, where I was going to stay for the next few months, we went to its owner to ask for the key and short explanation about the apartment. Well, finally there were 3 keys and a very long explanation in portuguese which included all the details about fishing season in Portugal and things like 'how to open the window", "how to hang laundry" or "how to sit down on a chair". So, after this speech that could compete with Fidel Castro's, it turned out that my home mates were in Dolce Vita, which is a nearby shopping center. I was in a desparate need of the heater in my room, so it was quite a good opportunity to buy one and also to get the Vodafone card. In Dolce Vita, Ze Mario easily recognized 2 non-portuguese girls - Iva and Maruška and we all got back to our hudge Ice Castle.
While spending the first evening in my new room I took off the gloves after 4 hours of having the heating on and the jacket one hour later. The night was $%#@^* cold but without my sleeping-bag it could be much worse...

(This is one of over 30 posts, which I accidentally deleted one day in January. Luckily, I was able to recover them thanks to the backup done by DanielSan! It's a pity that the comments are gone but someting is better than nothing.)

Porto - different places

After having a yummy francesinha, Ze Mario took me for a tour around Porto.

My top 3 sights were:

1. Livraria Lello
I swear, this bookshop was so amazing that i was unable to push the button to take the picture... Finally I took one.... Ze Mario told me that it is one of the top 10 best bookshops in the world and it definetly deserves its 3rd place! Read more about it at bookstore guide and take a look here.

2. São Bento railway station with azulejos (blue tiles) and its tunel disappearing in the mountain between the old houses


3. Narrow streets hidden among the buildings along the river

I was also like the Rua Escura - Dark Street, which can be as dangerous as it's name...

... and funny yellow trams...

... and a lovely tea-shop "Rota do Chá".

One more thing, on that day I've drank 3 portuguese nespressos.
(If you don't know what it is, you should find out!)
According to Ze Mario's parents it doesn't mean that I'm a coffee freak yet.
Freaks start from 5 per day ;)

(This is one of over 30 posts, which I accidentally deleted one day in January. Luckily, I was able to recover them thanks to the backup done by DanielSan! It's a pity that the comments are gone but someting is better than nothing.)

Porto - Francesinha & Fish

Francesinha, literally a little french girl, is a traditional sandwich from Porto.
It consists of few pieces of bread, different kinds of meat between bread layers, melted cheese and of the top secret recipe sauce tomato and beer based. All those ingredients made this dish really tasty during Saturday almoço (lunch).
Eu comi como um abade (I was full after eating like an abbot)!

Francesinha, Super Bock beer and Carla

Carla told me that in Portugal everything is about fish...
After a while I've asked her how to say 'COOL' in portuguese...
...and guess what?
It's FIXE (pronounced FEESHE)!!!

(This is one of over 30 posts, which I accidentally deleted one day in January. Luckily, I was able to recover them thanks to the backup done by DanielSan! It's a pity that the comments are gone but someting is better than nothing.)

Portuguese peppers

before going to the supermarket
Carla: Can you buy pepper? Pimient...
Ze Mario: But I thought we have.
Carla: No... we don't have.
2 hours later
Carla: Did you buy what I asked you for?
Ze Mario: Yeah it's there.
Carla: Oh no! I wanted pimiento. We have a lot of pimienta! :))
o pimento
a pimenta

Estou confusa... (I'm confused...)

WAW-ZRH-OPO

I left Warszawa early friday morning on the 6th of February and flew to Porto with a short stop in Zurich...

As soon as the plane started reaching Porto airport, it went very low above the buildings giving a scary feeling of crashing down for about 15 minutes. The view was impressive. The mountains, the ocean, the colors... Finally, we've landed at the best airport in Europe at 15:30 - 30 minutes before the scheduled time. I've picked up my luggage (which was half wet - especially the sleeping-bag) and went out to the arrivals hall to wait for my great friend - Ze Mario, who took care of me, together with his amazing girlfriend - Carla, at the beggining of my portuguese adventure. Thanks to them I was not like an Englishman in New York during my first hours in Portugal. Well... maybe I was... a bit ;)

We've spent the first night on playing the boardgames - Neuroshima Hex (a polish game I brought for Ze Mario who is a big fan of boardgames) and Funkenschlag/Power Grid. I didn't like the first one too much, oficially because of not very handsome characters, but I really liked the second one - Funkenschlag, which is about building powerplants on the boards with maps of different regions of the world. We've played on the map of Poland and I've ALMOST won! ;)