Até a próxima

Or, until next time

I'm now back at home in sunny England - and in fact have been for a couple of weeks now. Before 2014 comes to an end, I thought I would bring the blog up to date with my last week in Lisbon. Never fear - all being well, there will be more to come when I return to Lisbon in mid-January.

I last posted on Thursday the 4th. Friday was a normal day at work, followed by a meal out with the friendly people from my rowing squad at a restaurant in Santos, an area I haven't been to much. There was plenty of delicious food and it was nice to spend time with the rowers outside the club for a while.

Parque Eduardo VII

I was back with the rowers down at the club on Saturday for a final session. We managed to get the boat out despite the pontoon still being unusable, and had a good row in the sunshine followed by coffee at a nearby café. I had quite a relaxed afternoon and evening, which was nice. One reason it was so quiet was that Carly was feeling under the weather, so we put our plans on hold. On Sunday I went to church and read the lesson in Carly's place. From January I'll be on the rota in my own right, which makes me feel more part of the scene. It was the first service with a new locum, who in fact is right at home in Lisbon because he was the vicar at St George's for 10 years.

After the service I spent a long time looking round a craft fair in the Estrela garden, mainly looking for Christmas presents, before wandering around the nearby streets - very peaceful, and the beautiful weather helped. I met Carly, who was on her feet again, and we had an exciting trip to the police station to report that her phone had been stolen. We weren't the only people there for that reason - several other people came in about their phones while we were there. It definitely made me think a bit harder about looking after my valuables in the street - and in fact later on, as we were walking home, someone tried to snatch Carly's bag, driving home the point that you can't be too careful.

You can't argue with that view

After another relaxing evening, Monday brought deep joy in the form of a bank holiday. I met up with Carly and Feyikemi to go to the Christmas market in Campo Pequeno, which was again full of interesting stalls with a thousand and one things for sale. After a lot of wandering round, we left and went to a café near the Gulbenkian Foundation for lunch, which was very nice. Carly and I said goodbye to Feyikemi, then walked round the Gulbenkian gardens for a bit. I headed home for a while then went out again to have dinner with Sofia, who was home from Oxford for the vacation. Her whole family and a few other guests were also there, and it was a lovely occasion.

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday at work concluding my project - it seems to have gone pretty well. On Tuesday evening I had a last dinner at home with Luísa and Elena, and on Wednesday it was the office Christmas dinner, which was suitably foody - I almost lost count of the number of courses, all of which were delicious.

"Cutting-edge street art"

That just left Thursday, which passed remarkably quickly. I got up at a reasonable time and packed pretty much everything within two or three hours. I then met Carly for one final Portuguese meal, a farewell lunch at an excellent (and good value) restaurant near her flat. I had a few errands to get done, and to cut a long story short, ended up down by the river. To make sure I had plenty of time to get to the airport, I decided to get the metro, but there was a signalling failure and no metros were running. I couldn't find any buses either, or even a taxi, so just walked/ran (quite a long way) up to Marquês de Pombal, where I finally found a taxi. The driver was extremely helpful and kind, and agreed to wait by my flat while I grabbed my suitcases, before taking me to the airport. Of course, I actually ended up there with hours to spare; check-in was very quick, my bags were the right weight, and my flight was delayed. I made full use of the free wifi and skyped Stephen at length before the plane set off. Soon I was back in chilly England, and was met by my lovely family.

The rest of my holiday is strictly outside the remit of this blog, but all being well, I will be back in a couple of weeks with news of my return to Lisbon.

Feliz Ano Novo!

Anda cá!

Or, a small child talking to animals

I've had another fun week and a half since last updating the blog with my normal diary-type entries. So, if you're interested in the round-up, here goes!

I still love this view

Things have kept to their pattern of weekdays at work, and evenings and the weekend for fun things. To summarise the former: work has carried on being work-y. I'm coming to the end of my business-planning project, so it's satisfying to feel like I'm completing something useful. The Christmas lights have also been put up and turned on outside the office windows, which is fun, and good compensation for staying at my desk until after dark most days.

Rua da Escola Politécnica at dusk, with lights. A bit hard to photograph...

Aside from that, interesting things have occurred. I've had a few rowing sessions, some on the water and some inside, either tank or erg. One reason we haven't been able to get out on the river as much as we'd like is that the bridge down to the club's pontoon somehow broke, probably in high winds. Getting boats on the water is a bit of a logistical challenge, albeit one we overcame yesterday with a daring descent down a very slippery slipway. 

It's a bit hard to tell what's going on here. Suffice it to say, it shouldn't look like this.

The weekend brought sunshine, and I spent a fair amount of Saturday (post-rowing) wandering through the city streets. I enjoyed sitting in a small garden near the Ancient Arts Museum, doing a bit of people-watching (and listening... always good for the language skills!). I watched a small boy encouraging first a cat, then a little fly to play with him - 'Anda cá! Anda cá, bichinho! Anda cá!' (Come here, little animal!) Another high point of this walk was discovering a second hand bookshop that prominently advertised the fact that its prices were in euros - but even that thirteen-year-old sign seemed to be more modern than most of the rest of the shop.

I also finally managed to eat Pão de Deus, a deliciously sweet confection of bread and coconut that various people had recommended me. It completely lived up to high expectations, and I remembered to photograph it (or rather, the remaining half of it).

What's that you say? Half-eaten food makes bad photos?

Later in the day I met Carly in the Parque Eduardo and we ended up wandering down to Rossio for a while too, before heading our separate ways for the evening. We spent most of Sunday together anyhow. Church was a little chaotic - three baptisms and a burial, as well as it being Advent Sunday and the last service with the lovely locums, Ian and Caroline. There was lunch in the hall afterwards, which was a treat, as always. Carly and I then went out aiming to do some shopping, an aim that wasn't really fulfilled. We walked down to the Baixa, and met Carly's friend Lauren there briefly, before getting the metro up to Columbo, the biggest shopping centre in Europe. It was pretty impressive, in an overwhelming way - full of people, slightly too warm, and noisy. I don't think I'll be heading back too frequently. Fortunately Carly's presence made it all bearable! In any case, a relaxing evening at home worked wonders before the start of the next week, especially skyping my family. 

Carly in Christmas-y Columbo

Monday evening brought another trip to the boat club, as did Wednesday (yesterday). But yesterday evening was particularly exciting for another reason - Laura, the rowing researcher, invited me to her flat for dinner, and then to a dance performance at her faculty, the Faculdade de Motricidade Humana. Her friend's girlfriend was in the show, which was being given by the second-year students from the dance degree programme. It was really impressive - contemporary style, with lots of solo pieces - and it was great to see a small glimpse of Portuguese university life.

Today was another normal work day, but in the evening I had another adventure, going to a book club at a wonderful bookshop in Campo de Ourique, the Livraria Ler. I hadn't actually read the book being discussed (long story: I had been reading the wrong one, because they'd changed their minds about which it was going to be), which was Eça de Queirós' Contos (short stories), but everyone made me very welcome even so. I also managed to purchase some set texts for next year's work, which can't be a bad thing. So I now have a nice stack of books to squeeze into my suitcase next week.

Bonus photo for getting to the end

Thank you for reading, everyone! Until next time.

Public transport in Lisbon: 7 tips, plus a bonus

Hello! This post is something a bit different from my normal descriptions of life in Lisbon, aiming to introduce you to the wonderful world of public transport in the city. I hope it will be useful to anyone planning a visit to this beautiful place.

Yes, it's a tram, of the traditional sort

So, without further ado:

1. There's no good substitute for planning ahead. The public transport system (known to Lisbonites simply as 'transportes') covers the city really well, but it can be difficult to work out routes on the go, as information at stops can be confusing - that is, assuming you manage to find the stop in the first place! Having a look at the metro (underground) map and the bus/tram network map will go a long way to help you with this. Likewise the suburban train routes, if you're heading further out of the city.

2. If you're waiting at the stop for a bus or tram, you need to make a clear signal that you want to get on, i.e. stick your arm out into the road. If you are facing the wrong way and don't notice the bus approaching (and therefore don't make a signal), it will drive straight past you, leaving you to wait for the next one. Yes, this has happened to me - but it's a mistake you only make once!

3. There are often helpful signs telling you how long you have to wait for a bus/tram. These are generally accurate, but can be completely wrong, especially if the weather's bad and the traffic's busy. Some stops (e.g. ones where only one route stops) do not have them at all.
The metro has a similar system, which is nearly always accurate to within 20 seconds. Yay, efficiency.

This was at about 6am, hence the '76 minutes' until the 738 arrived.

4. There are lots of different ticket options. This could get complicated, so take a deep breath and bear with me. The main types of ticket are:

• Lisboa Viva. A card valid for 6 years for the individual whose name and photo appear on it. To get it, you have to fill in a form and pay a fee (€7 to get it in 10 working days, or €12 if you want it within 1 working day). The card must be topped up with a monthly pass, costing from around €36, or more to include train travel as well as metros/buses/trams. Only worth doing if you are living in Lisbon for a long time, and using more than €36 of public transport (excluding trains) a month.
• Viva Viagem and 7 Colinas cards. These are purchased for an initial fee of €0.50 and can either be topped up with a day pass (€6 - only worth getting if you're making more than 4 journeys in 24 hours), or used for 'zapping' (pay as you go credit). Zapping can be either for a certain number of journeys, or a certain amount of credit. €5, €10 or €15 are the standard top-up amounts at machines, but if you ask at a desk, they can put a specific amount of credit on. You also receive a 'bonus' depending on how much you add, up to an extra €1.15 for €15. For zapping, each journey costs €1.25, whether it's on a bus, metro or tram. Zapping credit can also be used on suburban trains, at very reasonable prices.
  The two cards do exactly the same things, the only difference seems to be that 7 Colinas is sold in shops (e.g. newsagents), and Viva Viagem is sold by the machines in metro stations. They can be used for up to a year after the date of purchase.
Bonus tip: The system in Porto is pretty similar. The Andante card is basically the same as Viva Viagem and 7 Colinas.

5. There are two different types of trams: the traditional sort, pictured above, and the new 'supertrams'. They can use the same lines, but they operate on different routes. The 12E, 18E, 25E and 28E are the traditional sort. The 15E is the modern sort.

An example of a 15E, closely followed by a bus, in case you couldn't recognise it.

6. On the subject of different route numbers - I don't really know how the system works, although bus routes are three digits, 7**. Tram routes are **E.

7. Watch out for strikes. They happen alarmingly frequently (to a British mind). The helpful website Há Greve? (slogan: see if you'll manage to get to work) can tell you whether there are any strikes planned for the next few days.

Have fun! If you have any questions, just ask me in the comments and I'll do my best to answer.

Dia de mau tempo

Or, one of the most fascinating news stories ever

Yes, it's official - heavy rain made the headlines. 

I have twelve whole days to catch up on - time is unbelievable. On a related note, I'll be back in England in less than three weeks! Best to crack on with the blog while I've actually persuaded myself to start writing. 

In brief, the rest of the week when I last posted (Wednesday 12th) onwards was fairly standard office life, interspersed with interesting evenings including skyping a lot of people (hello people!), going running (only because the river was too rough to row on), and swimming. I was partly trying to save energy for the weekend, because I knew it was going to be super busy and fun.

Overexcited much?

After getting up pretty early (around 6) on Saturday morning, I met Carly at the metro for the start of our epic journey up to Porto. We had a fairly smooth journey, except an unexplained half-hour delay, on an Alfa Pendular (high-speed) train from Lisbon Oriente station to Porto Campanhã. After getting the metro into the centre of town, we left our bags at the Hotel do Norte (which turned out to be pretty good, considering the extremely reasonable price) and went off exploring. 

We made it!

We saw the first of many beautiful churches - could hardly miss this one, the Capela das Almas/Capela de Santa Catarina, since it was right opposite the hotel - before heading to the Mercado de Bolhão, which felt very Portuguese, with lots of proper fruit and veg stalls, and this gem.

So many sausages

And some more touristy merchandise.

We wandered around a bit further, dodging a shower in the Portuguese way, in a café, before meeting Clare and Bea, Oxford friends doing their year abroad thing in Porto. They were lovely enough to look after us throughout the weekend, between the two of them. We all went for lunch and Carly and I were introduced to the francesinha, a Porto speciality that we'd never eaten before (Carly because she'd never been to Porto before, and me because I hadn't eaten it on my previous visit, a day trip last summer). The four of us then went to a 'flea market' (actually a massive car boot sale) in a multi-storey car park, which was quite an experience! Clare got the star buy, a beautiful leather handbag for €0.50. Later on we walked through the city and down the Rua das Flores to the riverside, where we said goodbye to Clare, then the three who were left walked back up again, stopping for chestnuts from a street vendor. We ended up having a very long chat in another café before saying goodnight.

Autumn colours - this still hasn't happened in Lisbon

And more

After a good night's sleep, Carly and I began the day with another café trip for breakfast, before doing more of our touristy things. We walked up the Torre dos Clérigos - cue huge numbers of photos - and wandered more, seeing more of the aforementioned beautiful churches, as well as a pet market with loads of birds, some rabbits, and even the odd kitten!

The city looks great from this high up

Don't look down!

Spot the rowers.

We met Sandra, Carly's local friend, for lunch in yet another café, where Clare joined us. We walked across the lower tier of the impressive Dom Luís I bridge to Vila Nova de Gaia, where we had a guided tour of the Sandeman port lodge.

Known for being one of the more 'commercial' lodges, with its instantly recognisable trademark, the Don

We definitely benefited from having Clare, a port lodge expert after several months as a guide, on hand to add extra information. (For the record, Bea had also been working in the industry - maybe Oxford does give students a taste for port!) We enjoyed trying a white and a ruby, a great treat. Sandra said her goodbyes before yet another café break, after which we walked back to Porto, this time over the top tier of the bridge. 

The aforementioned bridge

A View from the Bridge

We visited the Cathedral, then picked up some supplies for the journey home (it really is normal to organise your life around food, promise...). After we'd said goodbye to Clare, we picked up our stuff, and headed to the station, arriving very early again, giving us time for writing postcards. The train journey was fine, but I discovered that tilting trains in the dark are really not much fun if you occasionally feel travel sick. No harm done! I got home in time to skype Stephen before getting some rest ready for the next working week.

Everything went pretty well in the office this week too - not much to report. One exception is that it got cold enough for the radiators to come on. This was extremely exciting as I'd been under the impression there was no central heating, and had pretty much taken to wearing a scarf and coat at my desk. Apparently a common complaint among British expats here is that they feel colder in Portugal than in the UK in winter, because proper heating isn't a priority - it's just too mild most of the year. I sympathise, although I expect many of you reading don't!

The only blue sky we saw in Porto. It lasted about 5 minutes.

Another piece of news is that a different company has offered me an internship for the spring, meaning I can stay in Lisbon, which has really improved the look of my year abroad plans (yay!). To briefly sum up the rest of the week - Monday evening brought a rowing session, and on Tuesday evening I watched some of the Portugal v. Argentina match on TV (can definitely claim I was getting in touch with local culture...). On Wednesday evening the weather was no good for rowing (I'm pretty sure that was the 'dia de mau tempo' in the headlines) so we were treated to an erg and core session, real winter training mode (and surprisingly enjoyable...). I was still feeling sporty on Thursday evening so went swimming and ended up doing, among other things, 1km continuous crawl... Stephen may joke that I'm preparing for a triathlon, but I don't think it'll happen too soon.

The start of the weekend, Friday night, brought more happiness as I went out for dinner with Bea, down from Porto to visit family friends, and Lizzie, another Oxford Portugueser who I've somehow not seen all autumn despite us being in the same city most of the time! We had some very delicious tapas and a good long chat. Getting home around midnight left me with about 5 1/2 hours' sleep before an extremely early start for Saturday's adventure. 

Clue: there were kittens! Okay, that's a rubbish clue. There were boats too.

I was heading to Avis, a lake in the Alentejo, with people from my rowing club, including Laura, a Dutch friend who has possibly The Best Job In The World as she is a rowing researcher! She'd asked me if I wanted to help out as an assistant on her experiment, which was super exciting. I'm not sure if her research is secret, but I don't think she'll mind me writing that it is to do with the effects of crew synchronisation on performance, and that it involves loads of exciting high-tech equipment. Everything seemed to go well, and we managed to squeeze in a quick paddle in a double scull as well - such a joy on a beautiful lake in the sunshine. It was great to be out in the countryside away from the hustle of the city for a while. 

A very small part of the lake.

A video! How cool is that?

Today I slept for ages, just making it to church in time, where I unexpectedly found Carly, who I thought was in the Algarve - turns out her trip's been postponed. After the service we enjoyed our normal cup of coffee in the church hall (so English) then, with some rain-related difficulties, caught a bus down to Alfama to visit the Museu do Fado. For anyone who doesn't know, fado is a traditional style of Portuguese music, and I would say it's worth googling. One fadista (singer), Carlos do Carmo, was awarded a Latin Grammy earlier this week... I think... I heard it on the Portuguese news... so it was a topical time to go to the museum. It was full of interesting displays, and we got to listen to loads and loads of recorded fado. We had a bite to eat before wandering back up to our respective homes.

Anway, that brings the blog up to date! As ever, thank you for reading.

Não, é uma coelha!

Or, this only makes sense in a very particular context (see below)

I can hardly believe I've got more than 10 days of fun and games to bring you all up to date on - time really does fly here. November has begun particularly happily as I've had lots of lovely visitors from England. Both my parents were here last weekend, and my mother stayed until Friday morning, and on Friday evening Stephen arrived to stay until Sunday lunchtime. A great way to prolong my 21st birthday celebrations!

Last weekend began well with another trip to the rowing club on Saturday. I had thought I'd be competing in a 6k head race (rowing time trial, for those unfamiliar with the lingo) in the morning but it turned out that not enough people from my group were interested, so it didn't happen. It's understandable really - we are the 'leisure' section! After a suitably relaxed training session I found my parents, who had come down to the river to watch, and we made our way by train to Cascais. Rather than me introducing them to my favourite places, it was a case of them showing me round, as I'm unfamiliar with Cascais. We saw lots of interesting things, including: 

A nice beach for a picnic

A bike hire shop WITH A TANDEM

The Mouth of Hell (Boca do Inferno) aka cool geographical feature

And a pleasant park with many peacocks!

That was my very lazy way of summarising Saturday afternoon, anyway. We also visited a very old fort (from memory, from the 16th century) which was full of interesting historical facts. Once back in Lisbon, we spent most of Saturday evening eating incredibly large amounts of delicious food in Stop do Bairro, an excellent restaurant in Campo de Ourique that has been a family favourite for many years. 

Sunday morning brought another meal at a family favourite - breakfast at A Tentadora, a lovely café in Campo de Ourique which I think I have mentioned before... perfect pastries. We then went on to church, which was good - quite funny for my parents to meet people they remember from 20+ years ago who now know me too. We had a fun afternoon, taking a trip on the tram (route 28) and visiting the Panteão - very similar to the Basílica de Estrela, and with equally good views. We went back to Estrela (area where the church is) to meet Rosa, one of my parent's old friends from when they lived here, which was great. We had a look round a wonderful market of interesting handmade objects, clothes, art, and so forth, before having a quick drink from the 'quiosque' (yes, that's the Portuguese way of writing kiosk!). She introduced me to a tea I'd never drunk before, called Lucia Lima - something new everyday.

So many pictures

I never get tired of views like this 

We had a relaxed evening including dinner at the hotel where my parents were staying, before I went home to rest up a bit before a new working week. We reconvened bright and early the next morning for breakfast before my father had to head for the airport - duty (aka business) calls...

The rest of my week was more or less typical during the working hours, but more interesting before and afterwards, including pastry-based breakfasts with my mother, and exciting meals out in the evening. [P.S. (added 23-11-14) When I wrote this, I forgot to mention that my mother also took me to the cinema to see Os Maias, a film based on the famous novel by Eça de Queirós. It was very Portuguese! And good fun.] One of these [meals out] was at a Madeiran restaurant, another at an Italian, and on Wednesday - my birthday - we were invited to my godfather's house, for a joint birthday celebration. A bit of context - he is Portuguese, and was a colleague of my father's. I was born after my parents had moved back to England, and they decided to make him my godfather partly because we share a birthday.

Birthday cake! (see below)

Anyway, he lives in Carnaxide, quite a way out of central Lisbon. To cut a very long story short, there was a slight misunderstanding with a taxi driver which meant getting there took us twice as long (and twice as many taxis) as we would have hoped... Anyway, we arrived in one piece, and had a lovely evening with the godfather and his family - wife, three daughters, their families, a selection of his wife's siblings (she is one of nine!) and various others, including Ozzy, the dog. It was a lovely occasion, with lots of birthday cake with candles like sparklers, and much general excitement, not only on the part of the little ones present.

On Thursday there was another special dinner, this time with my friend Carly and my mother. We found a good restaurant quite near where we all live/were staying, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. Carly mentioned it in her blog here, in case anyone can't get enough of English people blogging about life in Lisbon!

I had another early breakfast on Friday to say goodbye to my mãe (mother) before she flew out too. This meant I could get into work a bit early, and then leave a bit early, so I was able to take my work things home and still comfortably get to the airport in time to meet Stephen after his flight. The wonders of international travel - spending time with family one week, and boyfriend the next, even though we live in different countries.

Cultural activities included

We had a great weekend (well, 40-odd hours) - managed to fit in an awful lot considering the time-frame. On Saturday we visited the Gulbenkian Foundation, or more specifically, its park and museum. There are various other bits we didn't see, like a modern art gallery and a special exhibition. But the standard museum was full of more than enough fascinating artefacts to keep us occupied! We'd intended to then head for a miradouro on the other side of the city, but having dived into the nearest pastelaria for lunch when it began to pour with rain, we 're-evaluated' and instead went to pester Carly at her flat - no, really she kindly invited us in, and we all had a good chat. Stephen and I then went to wander in the shops of the Baixa, including Pollux, a department store that we found bizarrely interesting. I've found it bizarrely interesting from a young age, in fact, but we can ignore that. We found some dinner (not the most inspiring meal ever) before going back to our hotel for a quiet evening in, with champagne, courtesy of my parents, and a board game, courtesy of Sophie, a dear friend in Oxford. Can't complain!

Expert photography by Stephen, of course

Sunday brought a trip to the Estufa Fria, which I mentioned very briefly here. Essentially it's a very, very big set of greenhouses full of interesting plants - technically only half is the Estufa Fria, the other half is the Estufa Quente (cold and warm greenhouses respectively). We had a lovely wander round before the inevitably emotional trip to the airport.

Books, so many books. Also Christmas decorations.

I did my best to distract myself for the rest of Sunday afternoon, hanging around the Oriente/Parque das Nações area. I had a look round this fabulous book fair, resisting the temptation to buy out-of-date linguistics textbooks in Portuguese, then sat by the river, and watched life go by.

The picture below sums up one of my most hilarious experiences so far (you'll need to read this paragraph for the explanation of the title). I was sitting on a bench with an older Portuguese couple, and our attention was drawn to a man who appeared to be walking his pet rabbit on a lead. The Portuguese couple discussed at some length whether it was really a rabbit, or actually a dog. At several points the man walked over, looked at the animal, then returned to the bench, noting that it really did look like a rabbit. Eventually he went up to the pet's owner, and asked 'É um coelho?' (Is it a [male/unspecified] rabbit?) to which the indignant response was 'Não, é uma coelha!' (No, it's a [female] rabbit!). Oh, the joys of a language with grammatical genders... To be honest this response was slightly predictable given the rabbit was wearing a pink ribbon between its ears; sadly this isn't visible in my photo.

The famous coelha

Soon afterwards Carly arrived, and we went to the railway station to purchase tickets for our trip to Porto next weekend. Very exciting! We did some shopping (only window shopping in my case) in the Vasco da Gama centre, which is huge, and had a quick juice on the balcony, with great views out towards the river, before getting the metro home. It was only as we were on the way back at around 6pm that I realised I'd completely forgotten to have lunch... busy times... I did manage to remember to eat food once I got home, and otherwise spent a relaxing evening in the flat, including some time on skype.

Apparently this sculpture is really spiky

Yesterday (Monday) was a standard day at the office, followed by an erg (rowing machine session) at the rowing club - as it was far too rainy and windy to go out on the water - then dinner and an early night. Today (Tuesday) was a little bit different. For a start, Lilit (one of my best colleague-friends) and I had lunch outside by the Miradouro São Pedro de Alcântara, in the sunshine, which was a particular treat for November. Not only that, but today was Dia de São Martinho, which meant this evening we had a little office party with the traditional chestnuts (cooked two ways - roasted, and boiled with erva doce, which I think is aniseed) and jeropiga, a sweet wine. Great fun!

 As ever, thank you for reading. Do leave a comment if you're so inclined :-)

Aproveita da água, tá calminha

Or, rowing speak

Hello dear readers! I feel like I have a lot to catch up on, and not very much time - I'm soon heading off to the airport to meet my parents, who are visiting me here. That's just the first of a few exciting visits (sneak peek into future blog posts...): next weekend Stephen's coming over, and the following one I will hopefully be in Porto, visiting other Oxford year-abroaders, and taking Lisbon friends with me.

So, what have I been up to in the last ten days? Mainly more of the same - work, rowing, swimming, and some extra fun things in the evenings and weekends. I guess my diary-style blog is keeping people interested (over 60 of you, thanks everyone!) but at some stage I might start writing something more interesting. Who knows? Not this week, at least!

People, I met Fernando Pessoa in a café!

I caught up with a few people on skype/google hangouts including the massive achievement of reuniting all four members of the Thomas family from around the world. Okay, I was the only one not in England, but still, it sounds impressive. Seeing as the other three members of the family have all had birthdays in the last 2 1/2 weeks, it was nice to have us all together.

I had a surprise invitation to dinner at Sofia's family's house last Friday, which was really good fun - they're so hospitable and kind to me. It was funny to hear Sofia's news from Merton via her parents, and compare it to what I'd heard from Ed (my brother) and my friends at Merton. Freshers' Week took its toll, by all accounts...

That was just the start of a great weekend. I spent Saturday morning rowing, then met Carly and Camila on the beach at Carcavelos for a relaxing afternoon and early evening. Can't think of many better ways to spend time in October! By the time I got home I was ready for a chilled couple of hours before bed. 

Enjoying that late-October sunshine

Sunday brought more excitement - church, then lunch at the Padaria Portuguesa (a chain of amazing bakery/cake shops) and some sight-seeing. Five of us were there for lunch (Carly, Feyikemi, Chris, Susana and me) but everyone else had things to do afterwards so just it was just Carly and me 'pretending' to be (aka shamelessly being) tourists. 

I have about a million photos from the Basílica... here's a taster

I loved going up to the roof of the Basílica de Estrela - amazing views across the city and down into the church itself from the dome! I had to do a bit of shopping (read: last-minute present-buying) so ended up dragging Carly round the whole of the Baixa, up Avenida de Liberdade, and round El Corte Ingles... For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of Lisbon, that means A Long Way. I tried to make up for it by providing coffee and a cake, which seems to have worked as we're still on speaking terms!

Definitely worth climbing all those stairs

Monday and Wednesday brought more rowing (in the dark! shock horror!), as well as finally doing my sports medical exam, which was a bit of a joke really. The extremely thorough form was filled in very quickly by the two doctors, who mainly relied on asking me, 'Are you healthy?' and getting me to report my own height and weight - not the most accurate method seeing as I haven't weighed myself in at least two months... It seems typical of the Portuguese attitude to bureaucracy, more on that at a later date (maybe). Still, I passed, meaning that I'm now able to carry on rowing and can benefit from some insurance. So that's good, I suppose.

View of the Tejo from near the rowing club on Saturday - speaks for itself!

On Thursday I had another meal out: dinner with Carly and Feyikemi. This is in addition to having lunch out every day of the week... including the famous monthly work sushi outing, strategically timed slightly after payday. Anyway, dinner was particularly good, and I took Carly's advice of going for fish, cooked in the amazingly simple and delicious Portuguese way - grilled with lots of garlic. No regrets there. (Also, still no food photos. It disappeared very quickly - although I think Carly might have some pictures...)

For anyone wondering, the rowing speak above means (approximately) 'make the most of the water, it's nice and calm'. It actually was! Once it gets dark, the river tends to get a lot calmer. I'm sure there are reasons why, but I don't know... can anyone enlighten me? You'd still notice the waves if you came across them on the Isis, but compared to some of the sea-like conditions we've had, it's a complete luxury. With a warm breeze, some Portuguese banter (I occasionally understand the jokes...) and the perfect view of the bridge apparently lit by fairy lights, it makes for a great way to spend an evening.

Excellent boathouse decorations from the ANL

Anyway, apologies for the generally rushed nature of this post, but I have to leave now! I'll write again soon. :-)

Tempo de praia

Or, beach weather

It's not that I'm obsessed with the meteorological situation, but hearing about it being 8ºC in Oxford a few days before it got to 28ºC here was definitely one interesting feature of the last couple of weeks. We've recently had loads of sunshine and enough warmth to make me wonder why on earth I got out my winter coat at the beginning of October... it's been relegated to the back of my wardrobe again now!

Blue sky - no complaints

Of course, the only logical course of action was to make the most of the weekend, since I spent the previous one mainly sleeping, and most of the week sitting at my desk in the office. On Saturday we had a great rowing session with about four times the number of people who are normally there, although the ratio of 1 woman: 4 men remained constant, which meant I went out in a women's four (after a tank session). It was a fun way to spend the morning.

In the afternoon I went over to Carly's, with a stop at everyone's favourite supermarket, Minipreço, to pick up some provisions. Carly was hosting an amazing multinational bring-something-to-eat dinner and I vaguely helped her make a traditional bread-and-butter-pudding (her dish) and also cooked some vegetables (mine). Although vegetables are clearly not specific to the UK, I would argue that eating large quantities of vegetables is apparently a foreign concept to the Portuguese, with the exception of soup, and therefore it was a completely appropriate contribution. (Also I miss vegetables. Chips for lunch every day does not count.) The party went on all evening and I met lots of fun people from various corners of the world, and was sad to go home at about midnight (although also sleepy, which was why I decided not to continue to the bars of Bairro Alto with some more experienced party-goers).

The same, but different: St George's, the Church of England's outpost in Lisbon

Sunday brought another trip to church in Estrela, followed by a lovely visit to the beach, again with Carly. We got the train from Cais do Sodré, and had a brief peek in the modernised market as well -- it has all kinds of shops and restaurants, and seemed somewhere worth coming back to.

Carly in the market

For this beach excursion we went to Carcavelos - although the stretch of sand is much longer than at Estoril, it was also much more crowded, possibly because everyone was taking advantage of the unexpected heat, and possibly because it's well-known as the place to go for surfing. The waves were pretty impressive so the reputation is understandable! Carly and I enjoyed swimming, successfully avoiding collisions with surfboards, picnicked, and generally soaked up the rays (factor 50 sun cream permitting).

Golden sand, big waves, and lots of surfers!

And a beautiful walk back home through Lisbon at night (apologies for the bad photo)

Otherwise, life has gone on as normal - lots of hours in the office, lunches at the tasca, dinners with Luísa and Elena, and various rowing and swimming adventures. I even ended up going running once - out of character, but we were a person short at the rowing club, so there was no alternative... I also had the added excitement of going out for coffee with two Oxford tutors (separately) - funny that they should both be in Lisbon, but logical considering they work on Portuguese language and literature... I've also enjoyed catching up with friends and family - the wonders of skype, google hangouts, facebook and email mean that, even far from home, it's hard to be too lonely.

Thank you for reading :-)