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. :-)