First day of the rest of my life.

Once upon a time... - usually fairy tales in English start with these words. Meanwhile, in my mother-tongue, the most common beginning is: Za górami, za lasami..., which literally means: Behind the mountains, behind the forests....

Five months ago I went to Portugal for my Erasmus at the University of Behind the Mountains (Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro) and a true fairy tale begun. There were times when it felt as if we were characters of "The Snow Queen" - Iva and I used to call our flat "Ice Castle", or as if we were princesses from "The 101 Nights", while being surrounded by people speaking so many different languages. However, for most of the time it was rather like "Around the World in 80 days" but in this case "Around Portugal in 150 days". Every day was different, just like different were sunsets behind the ranges of Alvão and Marão mountains with windmills at their tops. I've been watching those sunsets from my window or from the kitchen window almost every evening while my friends were rolling cigarettes next to me.

It seems to be the end of desperate looking for a rainbow in the sky, spontaneous walks to Espontânea on Fridays and Saturdays, drinking Turkish coffee and fortune telling too late to fall asleep afterwards, giving missed calls to the numbers, which since we all left Portugal nobody will ever answer again.

Perhaps one day, we will have a coffee together again, in the shopping center of as dreamy name as Dolce Vita, while being served by the waiter that looks like Rocky Balboa.

Don't ever tell anybody anything.
If you do, you start missing everybody.
J.D. Salinger - "The Catcher in the Rye"