That evening Iva, with a support of Paulina and me, prepared Czech dish called knedliki. She served them with chicken and as a salad prepared cucumbers with yogurth (in polish: mizeria, in turkish: cacık). As you see below we had a big variety of people with different eating habits: a vegetarian, non-pork eaters and also a person who eats mostly junk food. Despite of that, everybody enjoyed the dinner and we have to repeat it!
After having a coffee we've moved to the Camara Municipal - the main square, where crowd of students gathered for the Monumental Serenata. During the Serenata fado and historical songs were performed. However, I was personally positively distracted by the general atmosphere and students dressed in traditional outfits. The picture below shows me and my classmates (from the right: Nelson, Simon, me, Armando and Filipe). As you see, two of them are wearing praxe and two of them not.
Praxe is a traditional outfit of portuguese student and its history reaches 14th century. It consists of a long jacket, trousers, black tie and vest and of the long coat which has many patches on it.
The patches on each student's coat are different. Those that you may see at Armando's coat symbolize his university, his faculty and his favourite football team.
Nelson has a patch of his faculty and many patches of cities that his friends come from. Interesting rule is that the number of patches must be odd (1,3,5,7...101).
Felipe, who studies biochemistry, has not only patches with his country, city or faculty but also favourite bakery, his parents, valentine's day. He told me that it is also common to wear a round black hat with the whole praxe.
Inseparable and main part of Queima are music concerts and even if you are not paying attention to what the band is playing it is still fun. The biggest stars so far this year were Rita Red Shoes and Blasted Mechanism. The week is not over yet!
One interesting tradition about the cloak is asking your friends to make a small rip on the brim, as a token of your friendship. I don't think that tradition still exists in Vila Real... (not since they adopted a new outfit)
ReplyDeleteWhat does "Mizeria" means? Apart from the z/s difference* and the lack of accent mark, it looks a lot like the Portuguese word "miséria" (which means misery or extreme poverty...)
ReplyDelete:-/
* actually there is no difference, as in this case the 's' in pronounced as /z/...
Oh, Maria, "volleyball club"? It's THE GLORIOSO and best known by football...
ReplyDeleteOh, Professor, I'm sooo sorry but in the picture it looked more like a volleyball to me... :)
ReplyDelete:)
ReplyDeleteA very old foot ball
As old as the wheel...
They're probably better at volleyball. :P
ReplyDeleteActually, the symbol includes an orange old-style foot ball (inside the red/white shield) and bicycle wheel (the white circle that surrounds the shield). That's because Sport Lisboa e Benfica originated from the merging of Sport Lisboa (football club) and Grupo Sport Benfica (cycling club).
ReplyDeletekurde mery cherry, pozazdrościć ci tych facetów tam bo u mnie to nawet nie ma na kogo popatrzeć :( trzeba będzie na piątym roku do portugalii wyjechać :]
ReplyDelete