Vou matar as saudades, até já

Or, I'm going to visit what I've been missing, see you soon

It's not very long since I last wrote here, but now feels like a good time to post. Why, you may ask? Well, there is a simple answer - I'm leaving Lisbon for a few days. I'll be back soon, after 'killing my "saudades"'. I can see I'm going to have to explain better...

Winter in Lisbon isn't that bad

'Saudade' is an excellent Portuguese word for the feeling of missing something/someone. So, you can 'ter saudades de X' (miss X) and then 'matar as saudades' (take away that feeling by seeing the person/thing). And that's exactly what my trip back to England is for!

Rowing in front of the Torre de Belém (picture by Filipe)

So, to bring you up to date... Since my last post, I had a lovely weekend, and three good weekdays. On Saturday I went rowing, which was fun, then went on a sightseeing expedition with some of the rowers. We'd been planning something similar for a while because the rowers were convinced I hadn't seen much of Lisbon (regular readers might disagree...). Anyway, originally the rowers were all going to bring people with them (husbands, wives, friends etc.), but in the end they didn't - although I'd already invited Carly to come with me, so the two of us had a good chance to practise our Portuguese together with three rowers. 

We started off with an excellent lunch in the food court of the Mercado da Ribeira near Cais do Sodré. Carly and I had food from a Madeiran stall, which included 'bolo de caco' - a special type of bread, baked with chouriço and cheese inside, then reheated and spread with garlic butter inside. It was absolutely delicious. 

Enjoying our food! (Filipe's picture)

The Elevador - essentially, a funicular pretending to be a tram

The main sightseeing part of things took us through quite a lot of central Lisbon - we took the Elevador da Bica (upwards, of course), went into a few churches (most of whose names I can't now remember), climbed up to the castle (but didn't go in), and saw a few historic shops in Chiado, including the oldest bookshop in Europe. Oh, and of course there was a pastel da nata stop on the way, at the Manteigaria, which is renowned for its version of the speciality, and justifiably - they were very good.

Our day out - Filipe, Carly, Ana, Cristina

The famous pasteis de nata (photo by Filipe)

For the first time in ages, I began Sunday not by going to church. Instead I met Carly for breakfast at the Quiosque (yes, that says kiosk in Portuguese) in the Jardim das Amoreiras. It was a lovely way to start the day. We carried on to church, and stayed well into the afternoon, because there had been a baptism, so some of the Nigerian families had brought lots of food for everyone - great party atmosphere!

Breakfast! Oh, and Carly.

At the post-baptism party with Carly and Feyikemi (Feyikemi's photo)

Carly and I had a bit of a walk around the Rato/Estrela zone, then I met Janice and Sarah for a drink/snack at Tentadora, my favourite café - introducing the two Australians I know to each other, which seemed to go well! We all had a lot of fun. I wandered round Lisbon some more, partly with Janice, then met up with Carly and Jesse, who had been watching a football game. We went to another kiosk, this time on Avenida de Liberdade, for a quick drink. Jesse has gone back to his home university in Geneva, but will be back in Lisbon next month, so it was nice to say goodbye to him. Back at the flat, I had another quiet-ish evening, including a bit of Oxford-related work (or bureaucracy, depending on how you look at it). 

This week of work - hardly a week, as it has only been three days - has been fun. Sarah and I have had a few projects to work on together, and I've had some translation to do as well. We had another office birthday today as well, which livened things up. You can't complain about copious cake...

Another exciting development was that yesterday after work Sarah and I went to an Indonesian language class at the Indonesian embassy. Sarah had found out about it from a contact and asked me if I wanted to come along - obviously it was hard to say no! It's been a while since I began a new language (unless you count my online German learning, which is fun, but doesn't feel very academic), but it felt really good to be back in a classroom writing down vocabulary! I finished off the evening with a meal out with Carly, Kinsey and Janice at our usual restaurant - excellent food and company. What could be better?

Dinner with the girls (Carly's photo)

So, that's about it for now. I hope you enjoyed reading! Until next time.

A view down to Rossio