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 :)