sábado, 14 de novembro de 2009

07th Nov: North/ South

Yesterday night it took me a bit longer than I thought to finish (re)packing and taking a shower, but at least in the morning everything went smoothly. I went to the train station, caught a ticket checker in the train :P, manage to take all my luggage without paying for the [5 kg] extra weight and buy more Norwegian chocolate bears in the duty free :)

The flight to Palma de Mallorca was ok, though a bit bumpy at the arrival – lots of clouds, you know. When I got there I swear I was starting to feel like I was melting!!! Went again to the bathroom, loose some of the clothes I had and I manage to wait a bit better. Then flight back to Lisbon, in a strange felling of just moving from one place to another, but not really the “I’m going back home! :D” feeling I sometimes had in the past. After all, the whole trip was me moving from one [temporary] home back to another. But it felt good to recognise the landscape when we were getting near to Lisbon :)

The weather here was not as warm as in Palma and it was a bit cloudy. My mum was waiting for me at the airport! Wow, don’t really remember the last time that had happened lol Anyway, back home, unpacking, telling some stories, doing laundry, getting strengths back, EATING FISH AND FRUIT :D, .... By the time I was done with everything, it was time to leave. The night still had a surprise to be kept – and after all that had been the reason for me to get here so soon [to break a bad habit of more than 3 years now] :P So there I went, driving again after more than 2 months...

06th Nov: 1 (last) day, 2 countries :)

The day started with me waking up with Gwen packing... and then falling asleep again. And waking up again with Xavier packing and leaving :P I decided to get up, got dressed, had breakfast and left for Malmö.
When I got to the train station I went to the wrong track and only noticed when the train was coming – so I rushed up and down the stairs to get to the right track on time. But it was the previous train! :P So I still had to wait for my train :)

Malmö is a nice small city, with *a lot* of parks. I started my trip going West [and now I remember Annie Fox’s “Into the West” song :P] to the castle side, just to find out I was about 1h too early :P It only opened at noon, so I didn’t manage to see the Nelson Mandela exposition :( I went to see the gardens around instead and bought lunch – a kebab – nearby :) Then I went to the “posh square” [Davidshallstorg], to another park [Pildamms] and the multicultural, alternative square [Möllevångstorget]. You can easily get when you’re getting near cuz all restaurants and supermarkets turn into non-Nordic stuff [Arab, Polish, American, Italian, ...] and you can also smell it too :) Time was passing by, so I head back to the train station passing by St Johannes church, Gustav Adof’s Torg, a stop at a shop, Lilla Torg [The Little Square], Stortorget [The Big Square] and St Petri church.

There was a train leaving at 14h59, so I took it, but I got on-board in the 1st class wagon. I didn’t know which way it was to the 2nd class and the advice I got from the passengers there was just to take an empty seat somewhere there and just enjoy the ride – which I did :) There was a Check man next to me and we started by talking about Cph, but went to Prague and finally a “long” [as long as the small trip could provide] conversation about what to see in Portugal and the best time to enjoy it, since he wants to go there for some time now :) I recommended September, with Lisbon, Sintra, Costa Vicentina and Porto & Douro – with vindimas included.

When I go to Cph I went looking for a Post office, which was not that easy, but I managed to send my last postcards. Then I went to MacDonald’s to have a MacFlurry [a crime, I know, but it was cheap and I wanted an ice-cream] and then just strolling around the city while I was trying to reach Ruben. When I was about to give up and go home, he called me and we met later. It was the first time I went to Baresso Café :P and we had a very nice talk :)

Afterwards I headed home and got into the computer. I heard the door open and I was thinking “Wtf?!” – the door can be open from the outside – since I was supposed to be the only person here... but it ended up being Gwen, who had an airport adventure and was back in Cph instead of Iasi.

The night ended with me trying to book a flight to Madeira in February, getting a flight later than I should cuz I have a concert in that day and trying to fix everything! :P And, of course, unpacking and repacking again, hopping to fit everything into the number of allowed bags :P Wish me luck for tomorrow!

sexta-feira, 6 de novembro de 2009

05th Nov: A day in Cph... and many train & metro rides :P

First day of the post-Århus time. No, I’m not being emotional, it’s just that this time here almost doesn’t feel like it’s part of the time before. It’s really like doing tourism in a normal “crash-at-a-BESTie” way (ensures a good talk, free sleeping place and usually remembering some old times).

The morning started quite early, with Ruben calling me. I don’t really remember much, except turning off the sound of the mobile and continue to sleep :P I finally got up after 10 am and took a shower :) Radu was leaving around lunch time but he was still going to the city to see the Round Tower (Randutaarn) and so I went with him (first metro ride of the day :P).

The tower is peculiar because in most of the way up… you walk :) Really, there are no stairs, it’s a continuous ramp, with only 2/ 3 levels connected with stairs really in the top. It was nice and it was also my first view of Cph – from above. On the way back to the metro I stopped at a store to buy a chocolate croissant and a chocolate milk [yeah, I’d would have gotten smth less sweet if I had more to choose from :P), aka I had breakfast. Since we left right after I took the shower, I had no time to eat anything at home.

Anyway, second ride in the metro to get home and we were back home. The initial plans were for Xavier to go with Radu to the airport, but he stayed home to prepare lunch and I went instead – two more rides (return also counts :P), this time in the train. Back at home, pasta for lunch :) Xavier was initially going with me to the town again, but as he still had some arrangements to do, I went alone after lunch by metro :P

As Ivo had told me he had to use 2 days to close his account, I went straight to DSB to buy the Cph – Malmö return ticket [I’m going there tomorrow, though I’m only meeting Pantoja in Lisbon cuz he’s leaving at 7am from Malmö :P] and then to Danske Bank. I actually had no problems, the lady gave me all the money I had left [not much :P] and said the account would be automatically closed tomorrow, when the train ticket payment would be processes – so yes, the only money left was the train ticket one.

By the time I left the bank sun had already set and the light was diminishing :P [and it was before 5 pm]. I went looking for a post office to get some stamps for the last postcards, but no luck :P I did manage to find some interesting souvenirs, so I got to know the whole shopping street lol I also went to Tivoli Gardens’ area, saw the outside of many buildings and ended up arranging drinks/ dinner for tomorrow with Ruben – a classmate I haven’t seen for 2 years :) Before going home I decided to walk from the Central train station – which is not that central, Nørreport is much better – to the cafés and boats channel, called Nyhavn [= new harbour].

After all that walk I finally went home by metro (again…). Gwen was already home and I spent the rest of the evening there. Also brushed up my French watching “Les Inconnus” in YouTube :)

Final remark: during the morning and early afternoon it wasn’t raining, but I (re)started while I was walking in the chopping street and continued till I got home [and then I don’t know, and I didn’t care :P].

Bisous!

04th Nov: The End

Hej!

These are my last minutes in Århus, while I’m in the train to Copenhagen. Of course my last train ride couldn’t be normal – there’s already a delay of 7 minutes and there was a warning smth was else was going on lol I’m truly glad I have enough time to reach Cph and that the ride to the airport on Saturday is going to be much shorter :) [and with more options]. Ups, and now the train has left, so I’ll see my last images of the city that welcomed care of me for 2 months.

Ok, back to writing :) As I said, I spend the night washing the bathroom – smth like 1,5h rubbing tiles and all the bathrooms spaces. I decided to get some sleep around 4 am and put my alarm clock for 7.15 am, but I was so nervous about the cleaning and so tired, that my sleep was very light... and that meant that I woke up many times with the wind and, at times, with the alarms (of the cars?) going off. When the alarm rang I got up and started to clean the room again – took the big luggage downstairs and cleaned the dust, washed the window, vacuumed the floor. After all this it was already 9.15 and I finished dressing [I changed the upper part] and finished packing all the little things. By 9.40 all my stuff was downstairs and I had passed the “moist cloth” in the bathroom again to really leave it shinny and clean :) Inês came by and gave me the laundry card “envelope” and I gave her the last bag in exchange. I took the paper to recycle and the garbage too and by 9.50 I was all ready, with the room locked.

I had breakfast and took the computer out and was waiting for the inspection in the living room. He got there around 11.15 and I mentally crossed my fingers ;) All and all, it went well – he asked me to vacuum the mattress, clean the lower part of the bed and the lamp [so I didn’t have to pay for those cleanings] and the only thing that I have to pay for is the cleaning of the kitchen cupboard and the bathroom floor. Well... I actually scrubbed the whole floor, but since he didn’t say anything about the table and didn’t charge me to clean the curtains [which he tore :P], I was ok with that.

Went back downstairs and was chatting with Alex for about 1h, including a trip t the shop to get some liquids for the train trip. And I realised.... IT WAS SNOWING! :D I was soooooo happy! Ok, it was the kind of snow that melts as soon as it hits a surface, but still, snow :) Back home I made lunch and left for the bus. I met Joana on the bus station, so we were also chatting on the way to the city centre. Finally got to the train station, bought the ticket [with reservation – a *very* good move, since the whole train is packed and moving around with the bags would not have been nice.

Now it’s time to relax and enjoy the train trip. In other words, time to finally see “Angels & Demons” :P See you later!

§§§

Well, I’ve heard a lot of people saying the book is a nice to read for the fans of the type and, adding to that the critics that the film is nowhere close to the book, I can only imagine the book must really make the reader eager to read and read with all the twists going on. As for the film, it’s pretty ok for a train ride - not sure I’d recommended it, but in the absence of other options... :P

§§§

And before I closed the computer, there was still (plenty) of time for “Le Maison en Cubes” – very nice to see and only 12 minutes. And after the computer was closed there was even time for a short nap :P

Got to Ørestad and met Xavier and Radu, a Moldavian who had been doing a project in Grenoble and was now in Cph visiting the city [and Malmö too – they had just arrived from there]. We all went home and the rest of the evening was spent there, with some cider, Danish snaps and a Grenoble drink, along with two salmon toasts :) And then I finally went to sleep.

quarta-feira, 4 de novembro de 2009

03rd Nov: wind, rain, Aros, social benches... packing, goodbyes... and no cleaning (yet!)

This is probably the last post written from my room :( It’s 2.00am and I’m running out of excuses to start the deep cleaning of the bathroom, so afterwards I already know what to do :P

This morning I decided to start the packing process – it was strange to take everything from their places and (try to) put it in the bags. Taking the Portuguese flag of the wall was the strangest, cuz that was one of the first things I put when I got here. Now there is only a white wall...

After packing and breakfast, I went to the city. Finally went to Frederiks Allé to take a photo of the paintings there and then headed to Aros, the art museum. It had some pretty cool expositions there and I was happy I went there before leaving :) Afterwards I had a lunch with Michael, but by the time I left the museum it was windy and rainy :s not the best weather, but the lunch was great :) After the lunch I went in my quest for the last social benches I was missing – and number 4 is still missing in action! :P The rain and the wind made me give up about seeing a little bit more of the city and I just went to the supermarket to get the stuff to clean the room.

Got home and I restarted my cleanings. Inês came by at a certain point and then when she left, I decided upon a plan: take a shower, clean the bathroom, clean the rest of the room. Well, I had a Skype meeting before the shower. My parents called right after the shower. Runa came by just after I got dressed. And then I went to Inês to give her the stuff I had left from here. Did you notice how the bathroom was never cleaned in all this time :P After I went to Inês’s I also went to Laura’s to say goodbye, only to discover in 10 minutes there would be a birthday cake and I was invited to stay :) It was a nice way to finish my stay here ;) Around a quarter to one I came back to the room and decided to clean all the papers still around – so my desk, shelf and table look normal. Well... almost :s I found out my table is broken, must have been from a bag hitting it without me noticing. That’s gonna be expensive tomorrow :s :s :s

Now that the desk is cleaned, the post is written and uploaded, it’s time to finally face the bathroom. And then wake up early in the morning to clean the windows, vacuum and take care of the dust.

Hej hej

terça-feira, 3 de novembro de 2009

02nd Nov: sleeping, laptop, goodbyes... and no packing :P

First non-working Monday of the month :D and trying to sleep a little bit longer... still, have in mind that I keep the tendency to wake up with the sunrise.

Anyway, got up a bit late, found out my bank was taking money from me, tried to fix things and replied e-mails. And wrote a lot of posts! :P Eventually I managed to finish all this and took a shower and went downstairs for breakfast... around 1.30 pm!! :D How, that felt so un-Danish :P

In the afternoon I had a “Danish hot dog” (following Morten’s indications) on the way to meet Inês and Diogo. Goodbye time in two places: Café Gemmestedet and Fair Bar. Great spots! I’m sorry didn’t try them sooner :( Anyway, it also included a quest for another social bench, which we didn’t find :/

The afternoon ended with a sprint to the bus stop to catch it, giving the pumpkin and spinaches to Inês and making dinner – yeap, pasta :P Then back up to the room and a lot more laptop (mails, posts, chats). And no packing XD Well, tomorrow will be an interesting day with a lot to happen eheh

Beijinhos!

segunda-feira, 2 de novembro de 2009

31st Oct, 1st Nov: The First & the Last

Ending one month, starting another. First weekend after the internship is over, last weekend in Denmark. First visit to Aalborg, last trip to visit a new city.
First official training sessions delivered by me! First time trying Xmas beer ;) First time (in a few days) sleeping the whole night and not waking up with the sunrise. First time (in a looooong time) ice skating again. First time writing this from a train :P

After this introduction, I must say I truly loved this weekend – even including the little sleep on Friday night, the getting up early on Saturday to catch the bus to the city centre, miss the train for a couples of minutes and then wait 45 minutes for the next :P

There were not many people in the training, but it was still cool – for the first official time, I liked it a lot and I do think it helped them too :) After a day talking, my throat was a bit soar, but half light and candle light dinner with great company and wine (and homemade lasagne) made me forget about it. Oh… yeah… cannot forget Toms turtles in the end :D

Saturday night was Halloween night, but I was soooo tired that I just wanted to get some sleep and that’s what we did. It felt great to sleep a whole night through and not wake up with the sun rise ;) Morten and Maria are great hosts – Sunday started with an amazing [Danish] breakfast and then off to the uni again to talk about LECs [and how Dennis was late :P]. After “work” we said goodbye to Lars and to XXX on the way to see the city: Aalborg is not so big, but was nice to walk around and know the “bar street”, even if only by day – well, with the leftovers from the night before and remembering Bairro Alto in the crewed nights, I could get a feeling of the place by night ;) – and included getting some fruit covered with chocolate and nuts with strawberry-flavoured glacé cover or smth like that, traditional in Xmas time around here. After the city tour we headed home, were we had tea and ate the nuts and then… WE WENT ICE SKATING!!! :D I was sooooooooo happy eheh Amazingly (or not, considering I never surfed as an example), Morten had never done it before, so it was a great experienced to the three of us :) I felt down once – guess it’s my destiny :P – but it wasn’t my fault! A guy came across me and lost his balance and grabbed my arm, of course the result was that he managed to stay up but I lost my balance and went with my knee and hand to the ice :P

After the ice skating time we went to get my stuff and their home and we went to the train station. Of course the train adventures continue and this time was no different – the 20.59 train was cancelled due to bad weather and the 21.15 train was delayed 30-35 minutes because there were too many leafs in the train track…. Well, no problem in waiting a bit as long as we get there safe and sound :)


PS – I guess getting train adventures is becoming normal :P The train was supposed to take ~1h30, but in the end it took double the time because of the weather and the leafs in the tracks... at a certain point I was really starting to worry because of the buses, but I managed to reach the bus station 5 minutes before the last one came... Then, finally home!!

26th – 30th: The last working week [and the first goodbyes]

A week so equal and yet so different to some many others before. Because it was the last.
On Monday we went through the project presentation structure and making our designs in AutoCAD. We also found out Piort was not going to be there anymore this week, so it was the first goodbye we had – and without notice :P And Monday was the first of many days when we stayed there a bit later to make sure everything was done on time :)

Tuesday at work was still about designs, reports and presentation. Good home with still AutoCAD homework and with a goodbye dinner to prepare :P My bike wasn’t working [the seat was always going down] so Mike and me borrowed the bikes from Tudor to go and buy the food at Bilka. On the way back I went back to the room and Michael took over the cooking coordination. Not everyone was in the dinner, but the people who actually talk to each other were – and, though it might sound bad :P I think that really made it a true goodbye dinner, even more real and cosy. Runa, Maggie, Alex, Tudor, Mike, Michael, Kamil [our “homeless” ;)] – I’m going to miss them all!

Wednesday was a “normal” day, with work and finalising the project presentation – which started at work and ended at home :P Thursday was the presentation of the project, which went well :) and we got 3 ‘gifts’: a Aarhus Kommune pen, a photo book of Aarhus :D and a recommendation letter :D :D !! Next was focusing on finishing the report, which again started at work and ended at home. Well, the computer didn’t like AutoCAD and other programs to run at the same time, so part of the time wasn’t really working, was just waiting for it to “unfroze” :P but in the end we managed to have a nice report done :)

Friday morning was the time to burn the CD with files, while Ivo had his room inspection. Then we cycled to work – good thing it was downhill, otherwise I have no clue how I’d use the bike lol It was a very relaxed trip there with stops on the way to take photos and with Føtex as a final destination to buy the cakes for lunch – we decided to offer then as desert and not have a party, as we don’t really know all that well the people, but we still wanted to make a small gesture for goodbye :) I walked all the way up with the bike and the cakes and by the time we were there, it was time to go to the canteen and leave the cakes. We had a small notice paper to say goodbye and it was really cool to have a lot of people talking to us during the lunch/ post-lunch time to say thank you for the cakes and to know how our experience was and what we’d be doing next ;)

Back home, it was time for me to go back to preparing the trainings – an interactive preparation with discussions with Tania via gtalk ;) [which was very cool] – and a break for about 1/2h to join Ivo in his goodbye party. I took my last Pimm’s with me, since it fit the context :) Afterwards they went to join the bar party and I went back to my room to finish everything and prepare all the details for the weekend :D

24th & 25th October: BEST weekends rule!!

Well, actually this weekend started on Friday night, when Dário arrive to the city. 20 minutes sooner than expected cuz the bus leave 15 minutes sooner than schedule from the airport :P Since there was no point in going to the dorms and then going back to the city, we just head to the Latin Quarter to find Sidebar and stayed there – and I had a great cocktail, with ice cream, mint liqueur and Oreos among other things I don’t remember :P [no, that was not the reason!! The ingredients were in Danish and I didn’t really get what they were].

On Saturday we went to Odense to meet Onur – who I hadn’t seen in about 2 ½ years… It was a great relaxed afternoon in a small city, in great company. It included having lunch at Sunset Boulevard (sandwiches plus french fries with oreganos), a visit to Hans Christian Andersen museum and strolling around the city knowing stories about some places from a “local” :) We even met some Dutch guys who were studying in Århus but had gone to Odense to spend the weekend eheh

Back to Århus we had lasagne for dinner, with extra-extra salad :P The night ended in Social Club, with Ivo and his roommates – at least for part of the time, as they stayed in a room with a DJ with awful music transitions, not to mention jumping from style to style [and playing “I’m Yours” in a disco at 1 a.m. was just *strange* for us], and we moved back to the hip-hop/ techno room. I must say that room has a lot of potential of entertainment, as it was very funny to watch some of the “moves” going there. Guys trying to get girls and vice-versa and the truly top part of seeing a girl going to such an extreme she was actually dumped – but like, it was the biggest turn down we had ever seen [ok, it was also the biggest “offer” we had ever seen too lol and probably the same for the guy who turned her down and his friend]. We headed for the bus stop before 4 am [new time] and we found out the buses were still running in the old time when it didn’t came :P Result: we had to take a taxi home.

Sunday was a relaxed day, spent around Århus and with the first [and likely the last] visit to MacDonald’s here :P This time the bus didn’t leave 15 minutes earlier, but as we didn’t want to risk it, we went to the bus stop quite earlier. And then I headed back home.
An interesting fact: they had foreseen rain for the weekend, but it didn’t rain up to the moment the airport bus left :P And Sunday afternoon was a very sunny one!!

20th – 23rd: stairs, counting and normality

The week after Norway was my last cleaning task week – I had to take care of the stairs, so that’s what I did on Tuesday :) It was also the day to do the last counting, so we were finally free from it! :D

The rest of the week was pretty normal – work, checking trolleys’ prices :P, trying to get some sleep, etc. I don’t really know how, but I managed to still go home to sleep late almost every night, the “sleeping” part was not as big as I’d like lol

And then Friday ended with the beginning of a great weekend: Dário got here! Check more on the next post ;)

17th – 19th Oct: All the (Nor)way!

After the adventures from Friday, Saturday started with getting up and finally getting to know the other ppl! It was really funny to be again with an international group, even though you can’t really compare IAESTE and BEST ;)

Moving on, breakfast was very good, with a lot to choose from [including brown cheese :P], and with pocket lunch to be done by us ;) We eventually left, late of course, to see the city. Trondheim is not that big, but it’s really nice and even though the initial “city rally” turned into a simple walk around the city, it was great. One of the highlights was that I went to look for a Sissel CD and found the “Northern Lights” concert for about 25 €... way too expensive :( but they gave a great news when I asked if they had anything else from her – they had her “Det Best” CD and *on sale* :D So I got her CD for less than 12 € in Norway :P Oh, yeah, I also had my biggest bun ever here in the library café eheh

The tour in Trondheim finished with a boat ride to the island by the city – the boat could only take 10 ppl at a time, so we split into 2 groups and I was on the 1st one going there. It is a really nice place and we had lunch there. By the time we had seen it all, taken a lot of pics and finished eating the next group came. It was also the time where the cold was starting to be felt because of the growing wind :P so it really was the perfect time to get back to the city ;) We went back to the school were we were sleeping and I went for a shower and then I helped with dinner – a traditional soup with small meatballs, which base is sold in big buckets and we only had to cook the carrots (which I managed to convince to peel first :P) in small pieces and the potatoes. Well, I actually liked the soup in the end – smth that Ivo doesn’t recall cuz we was sleeping all the dinner time lol Saturday night ended in the Student Society, where they had concerts in the context of the “UKA” (?) festival going on. It was a dancing night that ended at 2 am – the hours at which all bars and discos close in Trondheim :P

Sunday was about getting breakfast – and I was happy I was one of the first to get to the table cuz food was disappearing and by the end of the meal there was no milk, yellow cheese (*) or bread left :P – and packing our stuff. In the morning we went to the Archbishop museum and got to know a little bit of the history of the city by the guide (a very friendly and smiling lady – but really smiling all the time). Next we moved to the cathedral – Nimandos – where the other guide (and old lady, not so smiling :P) told us the story of the building. The IAESTE Trondheim weekend ended with pizza lunch in the TV tower rotating restaurant! It was pretty cool cuz the scenery that you’re seeing is always changing and you get a nice view from the city and surrounding form that height.

After lunch we had some of the goodbyes and headed to the city centre. I eventually met Monica and we spent a couple of hours talking – it was a really nice time and probably the longest time we had ever spent talking in a row up until then ;) – and then met Ivo to head to the bus station.

On the way to the bus station my trolley, which was already missing one of the handles and one side of the “pulling handle” – l both broken on the bumpy train travel to the Cph airport – finally said goodbye to the “pulling handle” (aka it broke completely). It was one of those cartoon moments where I was taking the trolley and at a certain time I just had part of the handle in my hand and the trolley was laying in the middle of the road. Anyway, we managed to get to the bus station on time to get the night bus to Oslo – ok, not so perfect to sleep as a normal, cosy bed, but still pretty good ;)

Monday was spent in Oslo, which was also a very nice city – and the weather was great! We got the Oslo Pass to use the public transportation without problems and to see the Museums, so, after paying to use the toilet in the train station :P [nothing is for free over there!!], we headed to the Statue park. It was nice and the most memorable moment was when we met a group of “sporty mummies” ;) They were running around one of the squares and the funny thing was that they’d run once, check on their babies, run again, check on the babies, .... Well, most of them at least :P One must be too afraid to leave the baby while she was going for the round and was running with the baby car!!

After the statues we headed to a small peninsula where there are a lot of Museums. We checked the Viking one, the “Folks Museum” where they had a lot of old houses, the Maritime museum and we had a great view of the city. This part also included missing some buses (or bus stops :P) and walking a bit, but the weather was so great it wasn’t really a problem :) Oh... and we had a great view of the islands and the fjord of Oslo from there :)

Back to the city, we went to find the Portuguese Embassy, close to the Royal Palace. It was so unidentified I actually passed by it and didn’t notice!! Ok, security measure and so on, but they could at least have a small plaque saying it was the embassy :P The Spanish one, on the other hand, was very easy to spot – an I must say it is somehow funny to see an embassy with a big flag in the ground level and then see the clothes drying in the balcony on the 1st floor just above it eheh After the embassies we headed to the university area looking for a cheaper place to eat smth and we ended up in “Texas Burger”. Well, it wasn’t that expensive, but for Oslo, it was a pretty good deal :P The rest of the afternoon was spent watching the City Hall [which had free-to-use toilets :P ], the “river side” and the Opera House. Then back to the train station and to more adventures...

In the Oslo Pass guide there was an information saying we could use it to go to the airport, only needing to buy the extra route from the end of Oslo network to the airport, and so we did. And then we noticed we’d arrive (if the train wouldn’t be late...) 10 minutes before the check in closed. Since we didn’t know how long it would take to reach the check in from the airport train station and since we had had already plenty with adventures with trains, we ended up buying the express train ticket, not included in the Oslo Pass, but which was only about 20 NOK more expensive than the extra route we got :/ but at least we managed to arrive to the airport on time [and they we applied for a ticket refund – but we haven’t received the money yet :P]

And the weekend was almost over and I though not much could happen. Right. I was wrong.

To start before the airplane left we were asked to distribute better, because the weight was not balanced – and if you remember my relationship with airplanes, I basically use them cuz they are practical in some situations, but they’re really not one of my major loves in live :P Hearing this didn’t help that much, but I did my best to sleep the whole flight lol

Got to Aalborg airport and we thought “well, now we’re finally in Denmark, almost home!”. Again, wrong lol We though there was a train from the airport, but no, we had to wait around 45 minutes for the bus to take us to the train station. Got there 5 minutes before the train to Aarhus was leaving, but we took around 4 minutes to find out where the track was and where to buy the tickets. And we got to the train track just in time to see the train woman look around, get in the train, close the doors and leave. AND SHE SAW US!! $%#&&#%!$#”

“Ok, let’s see when’s the next train... in one hour... ok. Oh, we’re not going to make it on time for the last bus!”. Yeah, you guessed it right – we got to Aarhus after the last bus had left, so we had to take the taxi, which was not so expensive. Then, finally home. And sleep. And getting up in the morning to go to work :)


PS – Did the “brown cheese” got you thinking?... Well, they also have “red cheese”, which I tried in the library café, but it was sweeter and I wasn’t such a fan :P Anyway, for brown cheese check this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunost


PPS – BEST shows us a lot of Europe and what each country has, so I got some Bamsemums (Nidar's soft marshmallow bears, covered with milk chocolate) before leaving! Oh, I missed them! :D

domingo, 25 de outubro de 2009

16th Nov: Getting to Norway! :D

Nothing is as funny unless you have some nice stories to go with it, right? :P

The weekend actually started on Thursday night, with me working late on the laptop in order to leave it with Runa before going. As a result, I went to bed without packing and I had to do it on Friday morning when I woke up.

Got to work and then i decided to try to activate my Lebara roaming... just to find out I needed my CPR number... and that they’d give me the answer in 5 days!!!! Of course when we were less than 24h to go to leave, that implied going home after lunch to get my portuguese sim card, with a small pit stop in the camera services to pick up my camera :D All this travelling was a bit stressing and mostly time consuming :/ and during the next 2 weeks I’m working a bit later to make up for the time outside work :P

After all this, I thought the rest of the trip would be smother, but the adventure was only about to start! We got to the train station on time and bought the tickets. Got in the train and the journey start. So far so good. But then we stopped somewhere and we had to wait for smth, losing the buffer time we had. We started our journey again and in the stop before Copenhagen, another stop... one of the tracks leading to Copenhagen was not in use and all the trains had to wait to pass one at a time. We didn’t had that much buffer time by then and when the train driver said ppl in a hurry could take the local train to Copenhagen leaving in 5 minutes, we went for it! In the middle of all this, the handle of my luggage broke! :P but we got in the train. We finally arrive to Copenhagen Nord and went for the metro, but the one to the airport was 5 min away... and then we found out it took around 15 minutes to get to the airport... and we had 10 minutes to check in our luggage! XP Of course we didn’t made it on time, but at least we had done the online check in and had some [little] extra time to get to the boarding gate. We managed to pass security with some luck :P and then went to the plane – Norway, here we go!!! :D

It wasn’t a jet plane, but a smaller one. When the trip started it was shacking a bit, but it normalised shortly after – and I was glad for it :P We got to Trondheim and we caught the bus to the city. When we got out I wasn’t cold – after all I had my [new] jacket, my gloves and my beanie on – but I saw some girls in tank tops and guys in shorts and t-shirt... ok, i know nordic ppl are more used to the cold but THAT was way too much! :P

By the time we got to the school were we were staying [a kindergarten ;)] it was pass midnight and I decided not to head to the downtown to join the others. I’ll explain: in Trondheim all bars and discos close at 2 am and you pay to GET IN [smth like 100 – 150 NOK, about 12 – 15 EUR] plus all the consumption inside. And drinks are even more expensive there than in Denmark. So it was better to enjoy the ciders in the school and then get some rest.

PS - By the time we got to Norway, my luggage had broken one of the "pulling handle" metal connections too :P

12th – 15th Nov: The first “normal” weekdays

So, I’m back to posts, but this time with a little change – no more counting days, it’s just easier to mention dates :)

These weekdays (Mon – Thur) were rather normal – I mean, as much normal as it can get, not working anymore when I get home :P I don’t really remember anything special, except for the window shopping which ended up in me getting a new [warm and water-proof] jacket :D and bike episode on Wednesday eheh

About the bike episode... In the morning we had an appointment in the water treatment centre near our place, so we went there by bike. The actual water and waste water treatment facilities that we visited were near our work, so we were left there to go straight to lunch :) If you noticed the “we went by bike”, you can wonder what happened to them... well, they stayed in the meeting point near our place. After work I went to the down town to do some more window shopping and I did buy the jacket cuz I needed a warmer jacket [mine was way to fit for Southern weather lol]. With all this, I only got back to the water treatment centre around 6pm. The only person there was the security guard, who didn’t speak much English – it was a funny thing to use gestures, sounds and pedalling movements [and showing the padlock keys :P] to show I had my bike inside and I needed to go and get it. Well, eventually we understood each other and I went home cycling :)

PS - During this week I had company; Michael's fish stayed with me while he was on vacations ;)

PPS - Called the camera services on Tuesday... and the camera was still being fixed, in Germany :( Tried again on Thrusday and I found out it had just arrived to Copenhagen! :D They shipped to Aarhus so it would be there the next day, on Friday ;)

segunda-feira, 12 de outubro de 2009

[Days 39 and 40] A weekend at home

Hello!

Neglecting a lot of things during the past two weeks made my "To Do" list grew :P Of course some of the things included making a backup of the thesis and organising everything so I can send them home - and doing this felt really good :D - but also included some other basic things like major clothe washing and vacuuming the floor :P Ok, it wasn't all work and I did finally get to see a few things I had (films and series) - the couch is really nice to sit there with a blanket watching movies eheh

With all the things I was doing, I missed the match between Portugal and Hungary :P including the trip to see it elsewhere (where there was a party afterwards). I ended up not going cuz it was still 1h away with 2 buses and my energy levels were still in "recovery phase" - I've been hitting the bed quite early, little after midnight every day :P Anyway, next weekend has a lot of partying ensured and I have more plans for the week too :)

Beijinhos

Nuxa

PS - And today I have supermarket + movies for the after work period

sábado, 10 de outubro de 2009

[Day 38] In a way, a new "first day" :)

Hello!

Thursday ended with me sending all the stuff to Lisbon and Friday started with me checking my e-mails (at 7.00 am)... and receiving the news everything was printed and ready to go - a great way to start the day :D

During the morning we went to the Incineration plant of Århus - a really nice "field trip". I still don't have a camera :( so I gotta use links to show you the outside - it really looks nice, considering its function :P And according to what we were told, the "smoke" you see is almost only water, they use a lot of different filters and chemical processes to clean the smoke before it's released into the environment.



The incineration plant is on the North part of the city and we're working almost on the South part, so we took the bus back. We had to change lines in the city centre and we decided to make a "pit-stop" in the shop to buy bus tickets (Ivo) and the Kulturnat ticket (me). Afterwards we went to the bus stop and caught 5... just to find out we took the "wrong" one, as this was changing directions. We got out and tried to get another bus... which was also going the wrong way XD After two bad choices, we walked back to the main road and tried to catch another bus. This time it was the right bus... but the wrong bus stop (it didn't stop there)! The three of us (Piort was with us too) then decided to just walk all the way to work :P We got there at 01.05 pm, when the canteen closed at 01.00 pm, but we asked the lady if we could still have lunch - she was really nice and waited for us to eat :)

After work I came home, and enjoyed my first afternoon with no plans and no work :) I found out Michael and Runa were going to the town too, so after dinner the three of us and Alex went to Kulturnat. It was a really pleasant evening, with stories about the city, alternative bars and discos, huge ice-creams, art galleries and me being used as part of a multimedia art piece :P, "special benches" and more stories with the bus on the way home eheh Alex had his camera, which I "borrowed" for the evening and I'll send some pics when I get them :)

Beijinhos!

PS - I had (portuguese) soup for dinner!! THANK YOU INÊS :D She came over and gave me some of the one she had made - and trust me, after over one month without eating any soup, this one was just delicious ;)

quinta-feira, 8 de outubro de 2009

[Days 23 to 37] Lot's of work... and FFFFREEEEEEEDDDDOOOOOMMMMM!!!!

As you might have noticed (or not... :P) I've been pretty quite the past two weeks. Or, more accurately, I haven't spammed you during that time with my adventures lol

Cutting the crap, the past two weeks had:
- thesis
- a Tuga dinner - where my camera was broken :(((
- a trip to the local Canon repair service to fix the camera (will be back in 1 week, after a trip to Germany to be fixed)
- thesis
- a BD party and I finally managed to dance a bit :D
- thesis
- work 7/7 = no weekends :/
- a weekend devoted to finishing the thesis... while it was windy and rainy outside, to abnormal standards really
- a lot of car/ bikes countings.... including one with corrupted data that will have to be repeated :P
- thesis
- a lot of banana yogurt with chocolate chips (also know as emergency food when there's no time for cooking nor will to do the dishes :P)
- oh... did i mention thesis? :P

Last Monday I had the day off (cuz my colleague was not here) to finish my thesis and so I did :D BUT there was this very annoying thing called summarising-all-you-did-in-10 pages, that did took a looooooong time, more then I had expected lol Anyway, I'm happy to have my Iparanga scream, my Mel Gibson moment and write FFFFFFFFFFFFFFRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM! :D All files have been sent to Lisbon, my dad is taking care of the printing process - actually my thesis shouls be printed by now, only the CDs and the extended abstracts were left for tomorrow :P

Now it's time to slow down, to sleep, to rest my ankle (which decided to swell today, so i feel as if i'm wearing 3 or 4 thick shocks on my foot :/ ) and to not think more for the rest of the night :P Tomorrow is a day to figure out how to spend the weekend :), to get some time to check mails (my unread counting is going off the charts :P) and to pack everything i have here from the thesis... and shipped it back to Lisbon.

Beijinhos



And let's start a new time in life :)

quinta-feira, 24 de setembro de 2009

[Day 22] Observations

Looking at cars and pushing buttons can be 'fun' for the first minutes, but after some hours doing it, with wind and sometimes a little rain it looses part of the charm! :P Result? You start to observe the cars and the world around you, and reflect about your own stuff too.

So, after this inspired beginning, today's mail is actually very simple and it's only to share those things that "got me thinking"...

=> There's a cafe without toilets
It's true!!! Well, actually there is one cafe, but also the 7-11 shops don't have toilets either. The last ones don't have tables either, so in a cold morning after standing 1h30 hours outside we can get a warm drink, but if you want it cheap, you can't stay inside; if you don't mind paying a little more, you can stay inside. But either way there's no toilet, so think about that when planning your next moves (and the amount of liquid you'll be drinking) :P

=> Guys wear short hair
Ok, pretty normal I guess. But really, I barely see any guy without short hair - let's say McGuyver would be already in the frontier of not being short hair. The two exceptions to the rule would be one of my housemates - has ear-long curly hair - and a guy that was passing by us in one of the counting days - his hair was butt-long, almost reaching the legs (and I'm not exaggerating, it really was the longest hair I have ever seen live).

=> Boxers & jeans
There is a considerable number of guys here that use the jeans lower enough to let boxers be visible. Ok, back home too. But back home they don't cycle! :P The result of someone following that fashion line and cycling at the same time is that the boxers became even more visible when they are sitting on the bike. And if you're behind them, it's an impossible mission to see the road and not see the boxers... yes, I'm talking specially in the cases where boxers are very strange (there's really no other word for it :P), or a colour totally not matching the rest of the clothing, or... white and so thin they actually do tend to get a little transparent. The only solution I've found do far is to loose speed and get some space and clear vision :P

=> Guys wear more tight jeans here too
The proportion of guys wearing tight jeans here is also higher than back in Portugal. Don't know why. And don't ask me what I prefer - the observation is purely an observation, like saying that they have more blue-eyed people here or that they wear more "Summer clothes" in this temperature than we would. No story behind.


Ok, going to have a glass of milk, see an episode of Bones and... sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!! Tomorrow I'm up early again, but at least I get more 1/2h sleep than these 3 days :P

quarta-feira, 23 de setembro de 2009

[Day 21] A happy day! :D




Well... not exactly a happy, happy day, more like a very, very happy ending of the day eheh

What makes me this happy... smth with 69 pages and 63 references - the first draft of my thesis with the 4 main chapters in a single file! :D I still gotta cut a bit here, add a bit there, check some maps.... and write the conclusion and critic chapter. BUT I'M HAPPY :D It's great to see everything in place and starting to really give the feeling it's almost on the way to be finished eheh

Now that you know how the day ended, I'll share my morning. Today we didn't have car coutings, only bike coutnings, which can are made in the afternoon.... but I still woke up at 6.20 cuz I forgot to change the alarm last night :P Anyway, it was good cuz I had time to shower, have a nice breakfast and...not go to work :P Since I had the double cleaning yesterday, I wanted to make sure they were going to check it before anyone would walk on the floor so I went to the caretakers office to explain it had been vacuumed twice in 2 days. Of course I wasn't just gonna to that, I also put into actions what we had said in the weekend - the vacuum cleaner needed a new "tube" cuz this one was bended and much of the suction strength was lost in that spot. And since I was going there anyway, I also took care of the lamps (= light bulbs) that were not working. Ok, short explanation: inside the room we are responsible for the stuff, so if a lamp 'dies', we need to buy a new one ourselves, but for the common area the caretaker gives us new ones for free. Anyway, I guess most ppl don't do that, cuz they were smiling when I was talking to them. Yes, cuz the caretaker is one, the inspector is another and I had to see a third one about the vacuum and the lamps. I don't know if you can get the feeling from the map in Picasa, but it takes smth like 2-3 min to get to the caretakers office from our house - nothing much, mainly for me, but now add up to that a vacuum cleaner. Yes... I had to take it there to be fixed :P Already told my housemates that someone[else] needs to go and get it back :P

When I was finally done with everything, I went to catch the bus to work, but I saw one arriving and I ran in. I thought it was a little strange it was leaving before the schedule hour, but thought maybe it was a delayed one... until I started seeing unusual surroundings some 20 min later! :P In the bus stop near the dorms we have 2 buses: number 15 (the one I take) and number 90. This lat one was, of course, he one I took. I really didn't thing about checking the number cuz 90 only leaves every now and then and 15 it's like 3 - 4 times an hour. Still, the whole thing was not a disaster - I got of the bus, changed directions, asked what was the bus to the city centre and got there, to catch 15 to work :)

When I got to work we had fun changing the room eheh Didn't tell you yet, but our new tables arrived yesterday! :D They are super cool, you can lower them pressing a button and it's really funny. Ok, better than that, they are much bigger than the temporary ones, so it's much simpler to rearrange the space in order to have papers + keyboard + mouse + tea cup... all in safety :)

The afternoon was pretty normal - after lunch we headed to town to count bikes - and got the usual "what the hell are these doing?" look from ppl passing by us :P The came home, finished the chapter, send it and glued everything :D Oh, yeah... we got the payment papers... we're not going to get as much as we thought, so next month will mean developing an even more creative saving money method :P

Beijinhos! Now it's time to go to sleep cuz tomorrow it's 'counting cars' day again :P

terça-feira, 22 de setembro de 2009

[Days 18 to 20] Cleanings...

Hej!

Sunday I didn't go to the beach - I went to buy some groceries in the morning and manage to escape the afternoon rain :P So now you understand why beach was out of option lol



Monday I went to work and in the afternoon I did the living room cleanings - at first I stared at the place and thought "where do i start?..." than I decided it was better to change into action than just thoughts and went for a top-to-bottom approach [pretty handy in cleaning situations] and started by the balcony. About 1h30 later I was done with the whole living room and some of my housemates even said the living room looked really nice and clean :D I was happy and hoping I'd not get a 'red mark' in the inspection :P and went to my room.


Tuesday = Little sleep + countings in the rain + countings with wind + riding back home in the rain + finding out i had to vacuum the carpets AGAIN


Well, that pretty much says it all about today. Yesterday I was working till late and today I got up even earlier than usual - at 7am we were already riding in direction to our dear intersection, where we started the countings at 7.30. Despite the rain, we manage to be dry because we found a protected spot to count the cars. At 9.00 the first counting finished and we decided to go for a cup of coffee to warm up, but almost everything was open only from 10-11 am on... We finally found a place where we could both get a warm drink and stay inside and only left it before the lunch countings, from 11 to 12. After that we ride to work to have lunch in the canteen - nothing special here, except for the part where our work in in a hilly part and that means cycling up... and today with the bonus of having wind against us :P After lunch both me and Ivo were totally sleepy, but we manage to get trough with coffee and at 15 we were back in the intersection for the last counting of the day. We didn't get rain, but we got a lot of wind, which meant that the 'real fell' temperature was lower... and we didn't miss the rain for that long, cuz it started raining tight after we finished counting and all the way back home - yes, by bike :P

On the way home I stoped in Lidl to get some fruit and vegetables and by the time I got home I just felt like taking a shower and taking a looooooong nap. That would have been so nice!... but the inspection paper was clear: I needed to vacuum the carpet floor AGAIN. Some of you might have seen me cleaning, so you know I take care of it pretty well, so what went wrong with this picture?... House parties... Yeap, Last night about 10 ppl came over and stayed in the living room. I saw them when I went to get a cup of milk around midnight and I fear for this outcome. I asked them to clean up afterwards - and the tables were actually clean - but the floor had the usual marks of use. So my "shower + nap" marvelous combination was substituted by a "second go at vacuuming the floor of the living room + balcony". I wasn't about to let this pass that easily, so I already left a suggestion for everyone in the house: no gathering in the living room on Mondays and Tuesdays evenings - cuz the 'inspections' are on Monday and Tuesday mornings, so all the work one has done can go down the drain with means another cleaning or worst - a [cleaning] bill to pay.

Well this is about it and now I'll finish two pages to send to Lisbon, copy paste everything into a single document to print tomorrow and finally go to sleep :D Tomorrow gotta get up early again to talk with the caretaker at 7.30 am :P oh god.. this is going to be a hard week lol [but there's a glance of a free concert on Friday ;) ]

Beijinhos


PS - Yeap, no pics of me cleaning... yesterday I was focused on the cleaning and today I was so pissed off I didn't even thing about it lol

PPS - Gotta share this with you... I GOT PISTACHIO TURKISH DELIGHTS! :D My favourites as you might know [if you don't, it's just cuz you don't remember lol well, can't blame you for not storing unimportant info like this in your memory eheh] Just found out on Sunday there's a shop near the bus stop - went there on Monday to check it out and there they were... Lokoum for 25 krones [not that expensive - and anyway it's not like i'm going to buy them again that soon :P]



PPPS - I'm taking the bus tomorrow... I'd rather get to work and back home with my clothes dry... you should have seem the people at City Vest [the mall where Lidl is] - all dressed up in dry clothes, of course - looking at me when I got there! Due to the bike ride in the rain, my hair, the frontal part of the jeans and the upper part of the jacket were all wet, so I was not a 'sight for dry clothes' LOL

sábado, 19 de setembro de 2009

[Days 13 to 17] Is this a sign it's time to go weekly or smth? :P

Hello!

Well, we can almost say 'long time no see'! :P It's been 4 days since I wrote you and that last day had just been "an ordinary" day itself.

Well, let's see what remarkable stuff happened this half-week: on Wednesday (day 14) we had a common dinner :D Ok, I didn't touch my thesis that evening, but it was really great to just be with the ppl, talking and getting to know each other. After dinner three of us ended up in a discussion about equal opportunities, utopias and chasing your dreams/ believes [with Eastern vcs Western world and the US in the middle lol]. It was a very nice evening indeed ;)

On the job the most outstanding detail was that we actually started to get info for our project and started developing draft ideas :) Next week will be doing traffic counts to get updated data - the available one is from 99 :P - and start developing further our ideas based on that data.

The weather is still good here :D and today I had a plan to hit the beach with a book i have here, but ended up spending the morning with e-mail and doing the laundry - yeah... I guess I'll dedicate my weekend morning to laundry cuz it's the only time when I can put the clothes outside to dry with direct sun lol the rope is also not so long [though Ivo offered some of the rope left over from his balcony, so I might double the available space :P]. Maybe tomorrow, we'll see.

I'm just gonna share two more things with you :)

1) sunrise is good, but sunset is better! :P I'm waking up everyday between 6.30 and 7.00 because of the clarity lol Well, at least on week days it makes it easier to get up - and since I get up quite early, I take the bus and thus take the computer with me, with allows to have music at work and - most important - a processor that actually works at a normal speed. Trust me, if I already complain my computer is getting old and getting slower, the computers at work sometimes just freeze :P Anyway, we got AutoCAD in them this week ;)

2) Monday is my cleaning day in the house! the living room is on me :P I'll try to take some pics so you can laugh a bit eheh And talking about pics, you can check the link to Picasa - I finally gave up and downloaded the program, so I uploaded more photos to the album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/anarelvapereira/MyTimeInAarhusAndAround


Beijinhos

PS - I miss having a pillow! :(

terça-feira, 15 de setembro de 2009

[Day 12] An ordinary day...

Hello!

It's time to go to sleep, but since this was an ordinary day, it's quick to write you :)

Got up early as usual, went to the caretaker office to find out how the lease ending works (for the room - we need to give notice 6 weeks before leaving) and then went to work by bike with Ivo. Friday was a bad day to get things going, but everybody was busy today too, so we remained without much work to do :( Tomorrow we have a meeting, hopefully it will get us started :)

On the way home I stopped in Lidl - so my number of visited supermarket is increasing lol which is good since I'm finding out where to get the cheaper stuff. I came to terms with myself and my money-spending aversion and ended up buying a bottle of olive oil - using sunflower oil *is* too strange :P By the time I got home I had never seen the kitchen so full of people at the same time lol I let it quiet down a little bit and went to get myself smth to eat when I could move more freely inside ;) Then I spent the afternoon in the computer... and I'm closing it now.

Sweet dreams!

[Day 10 and 11] The second weekend here

Hey!

My window is facing East and I get the sunrise everyday, so I wake up early and get a shiny welcome every morning - pretty nice, unless you'd actually want to sleep a little more :P Anyway, on Saturday I decided to take the time (and the sun) to wash my bed linen. I decided to give it a try in my WC instead of going to the laundry for two reasons: 1) didn't really felt like paying for it; 2) only had handwashing powder and I didn't feel like trying to use it on washing machines - which my mum confirmed to be a good solution, as it makes much more foam and can ruin the machine lol. Well, I manage to wash it and to put it to try and during that time a wasp got into my room. The damn thing was not that bright and couldn't find its was out... I gave up trying to put it out myself and after stopping hearing it, I though it was gone and decided to head for Bilka. Got milk, yogurts, fruit, the new lamp (light bulb)... and machine washing gel :) Got back home and I discovered the wasp was still in there!! I guess it was running out of energy, cuz it was laying in the floor and so I killed it (sorry animal lovers). I went down to try to make my semi-complex food - cooking meat :P I didn't have wine, so I used cider instead XD Well, I still have to improve the cooking here lol About my food regime, I'll go light on the food at home during the week, since I get a pretty good lunch at work. On the weekends I'll try to make smth a littler more "solid" and to prevent meat from being in the fridge for too long (like it happened now) I'll just buy it on saturday morning.

After lunch I went back to the room and passed a little time trying to put the new light bulb in the lamp - which should have been smth kinda of funny to watch, since I had to be on my toes to reach it :P Afterwards I went to Ivo to the "hill" nearby and check the city view from there. I have pics, but I'll send them later. Then I went back home to work and I was planing to join a party later on, but I was so tired I feel asleep and only wake up the next day :P

On Sunday morning I got up early (again) and went to town - I took a "5 historical walks" from the tourist shop so I'd have an idea where to go. I went to check the "Women's Museum", which was different, but could be improved (well, at least with student price it was cheap :P). The funniest part was actually the Childhood floor and not the women's history floor, in my opinion... I strolled around the downtown area and I liked it a lot! Had a the good part of getting to know the streets a little better, which can be quite handy when we're dealing with traffic and city plans eheh There are a lot of people jogging, both in the city and near the dorms, and on Sunday I also saw parents - kids jogging and cycling together :)

When I got home I prepared a snack and I was talking with him an Michael about stuff - and found out this was a busy weekend in terms of lack of security :s Some cars got broken into, some bikes were stolen, there were troubles in the bus and the driver called the police, the "bus house" near our bus stop had a broken window... and someone even tried to get into one of our house rooms, while the person was inside :/ Well, this was the not so nice side of it, breaking the "Nordic security reputation" :P but in the end it's sums up to just having to follow the same basic security rules everywhere in the world.

No pics today and I might not even add pics until the end of the week, considering I tend to spend a ,ot of time with them - time that I have to prioritize to my thesis now :P

Beijinhos

sábado, 12 de setembro de 2009

[Day 9] No money spent today! :P

A short post to end the day - which has, as the highest point, the fact that I didn't spend any money today ;)

I woke up early and decided to take the bus instead of the bike cuz it was kinda of cold. I managed to take the bus at 7h35 and get to work before 8h30 - would be good to this everyday (and leave early in the afternoon too), but i'll see how that works. Like I said yesterday, we joined the weekly meeting, with tea, bread and cakes :) Pretty cool atmosphere, even though they spoke Danish most of the time - there was an exception where we spoke about out projects, in English of course :P Jesper talked with us about the action plan we have and we tried to meet people who could give us info, but everybody was busy :P After lunch we had no data or info to work with, so the afternoon assignment was "find the best way to get to Norway" (*) :P [which, hopefully, we managed to achieve]. I took the bus home and Ivo went to the university for a social event there.

(*) IAESTE Norway has a programme to visit Trondheim and we'll probably join, since we both know ppl there and we'll try to spend a day in Oslo to get to know the city. Since my initial plans were to visit Norway in early November, I might just stay here and visit Denmark instead ;)

While there was still light, I worked in the room, but then I found out my lamp is out and I need to get a new one :P I still wanted to work on the thesis, so I came to the common room to continue reading, taking notes and writing. I brought my phones cuz some of the ppl were watching tv, so there was no problem for me.

The day only has two more things to share: Dane, a friend from SC 2005, is now in Lisbon staying at my place with my parents ;) Well, nothing new, considering it's no the first time my friends go over there while I'm gone lol Also today my first visitor is confirmed: Dário is coming here in the end of October :)

That's it for today, now it's time to finish work cuz it's getting cold :P See you tomorrow!

sexta-feira, 11 de setembro de 2009

[Day 7 & 8] One week here!

Hej!

Yesterday you had a break, today you get 2-in-1 :)

My life yesterday was pretty normal - got the bus to work and met Ivo there. We went to talk with our boss and had another session of information about Aarhus and the plans here - they really have great things :D The rest of the morning was spent in our room, installing all the needed programmes in the computer (Firefox+add-ons :P, Adobe Reader, etc, etc). After lunch we went to the city with our boss, who showed us 'in-situ' what had been done - for me it worked both as a get-to-known-the-work-done and also as a tour around the city centre :) I'm sending some pics so you can check how it looks like - we had good weather to walk around eheh

After work I came straight home, hoping to get news from Lisbon. Well, they hadn't arrived by then and I spend a lot of time in the computer - don't ask me doing what, cuz I just know I barely managed to get some work done, I was too "static" :P When the time came to check the Portuguese game, I was trying to get links to work, but didn't manage... until the 2nd half :P I was also checking the summary in Record online, so I know Pepe had scored. With all the trouble finding links, I found out there's another BESTie in Aarhus from Vienna, so we said we'd meet sometime lol

After the game I had great news from Lisbon: I am allowed to submit my thesis by the 9th October! :D I was sooooooo happy eheh After this I was almost ready to go to sleep when Ivo showed me a trip to Trondheim IAESTE Norway is organising - so we spent quite a lot of time checking flights, buses and trains to make up a budget - and eventually decided to go to sleep without a final result cuz it was late :P


Today I got up and met Ivo at 8am to cycle to work - it's mostly downhill so it was better :P As usual, we met Jesper (the boss) for a cup of tea and a discussion about we'd do. Assignment for the day: to come up with a workplan, detailing all the info and data we need, software, what we want do to, etc, etc We spent the morning around it and showed it to him after lunch. When we were done with work we went to fix our bikes before leaving - they have a garage prepared for it :D and getting the seat in the right position was a BIG help ;) We went downtown to meet Trine, who had Ivo's papers, and then headed to the Bazar. There I managed to make my mobile "universal" :P for 100 DKK (instead of the 300-400 DKK I'd have spend getting a new mobile) and a danish number. We also strolled around to check the prices and we're going there again for sure to get food, as it's cheaper then some supermarkets around and it's quite close by bike.

After I got home I wanted to work on the thesis, but I was so tired that after checking the mail, I decided to take a little rest - and ended up taking a nap :P I woke up just on time to get a shower and meet the others for the concert tonight. I though, being Denmark, this would start more on time... but I was wrong! :P It was supposed to start at 10pm, but actually started after 10.30pm. It was a nice concert and I tried some different ways of taking photos with the camera eheh

I was supposed to work on the thesis now, but ended up writing this... and now it's time to get some sleep - Jesper invited us to join the department on their weekly meeting, where they discussed what will be done the following week, "with egg rolls, cakes and tea" :) Have I already told you that it's amazing to be working here? ;)

I say goodbye sharing some more photos. Tomorrow I'll probably come home after work, but I want to take a morning or afternoon off in the weekend to go to the city again and explore a bit more - and then you'll get more photos.

PS - In the concert I discovered we are 7 portuguese in Skjoldhøjkollegiet - me, Diogo, Inês, Margarida, Francisco, Joana + someone I didn't meet. From these 6, 3 are from Lisbon, 2 from Porto and 1 from Évora :)

PPS - There an interesting history about Aarhus City Hall, but I'm running ut of time and energy,so I'll just leave you with these links:

PPPS (= post-post-post scriptum :P) - After attaching the photos, I feel like I have to say a few things: we have our own tea mugs and we drink tea (or coffee with milk for me, after lunch) at work. We have a very nice canteen, which looses some of the impact in a photo taken without proper light :P Besides considering bus 15 my friend, I also consider the bike my friend :) After trying this morning, as the way to work is almost all downhill, we can get to work in a pretty "normal" way, we don't need to shower there (mandatory on the return - uphill - home :P)


terça-feira, 8 de setembro de 2009

[Day 6] GMT vs CET time :P

Hello!

So, about today.... got up earlier than the alarm clock rang and I was amazed that I was ready 1h before the right time... or so I thought :P What had happened? I put my watch on and I was checking the time on it, not realising it was still with Lisbon's time! Fortunately Ivo called me right on time for me to grab my stuff and run out of the room in time to catch the bus :P

Day at work was pretty calm - we "stole" some tables and took them to our room, while ours don't arrive (they are expected in 2 weeks ;) ), we had a talk about Aarhus organisational system and how [urban and traffic] planning is done here and we had lunch. In the afternoon we went to the city with a senior engineer (?) who showed us some of the constructions going on and then our final place to visit was the square we'll be working on :D No pics cuz when I run out in the morning I forgot to take the camera with me :P

After that Ivo stayed in town to get a mobile sim card and met a friend and I came back home. I was really sleepy and, most of all, wanted to get some news from Lisbon. Well, thanks to Nikki ;) I managed to know I'm not the only one in this situation and I sent an e-mail to the thesis' responsible. Now it's time to cross fingers and pray...

The rest of the time was spend in the internet, in the thesis and... washing clothes by hand :D Oh! I met another Danish guy living here, who loves Portugal ;) We talked for some time and I guess we'll be talking more in the future lol

Beijinhos


PS - I might get my first guest to Aarhus confirmed soon! :D

segunda-feira, 7 de setembro de 2009

[Day 5] First day at work... and bad news from Lisbon :s

A note: I still don't have a Danish cellphone, and my portuguese one, for an unknown reason, decides not to work form time to time (doesn't get network connection even though it has almost perfect signal).

First day :D Ok, getting to work was a bit bumpy, as Niels (IAESTE guy) was talking to me and Ivo, but settling different things with each one :P With me we were supposed to leave the bus, with Ivo he would hop in. Anyway, this wasn't too critical and we did manage to get to work - it takes about 45 minutes by bus from here :)

We met our boss - who seems really friendly and, of course, told us his first name (Jasper) - and talked to us about what we'll be doing in the next few days and our project. We'll get to know al the technical departments of the Municipality :D and our project is great: we have to find a solution for a square in town, one of the critical spots right now ;) We spent part of the morning there, we got a bike each [borrowed from the department] and even had lunch there in the canteen! It works like a buffet and a medium plate cost 23 kr [around 3 euros] or 210 kr for a 10-cuppon set. The food was really good, so we'll be having lunch there and having lighter meals at home in the evening.

Since we had the bikes, we decided to ride home - which takes about 30-40 minutes. Nothing wrong there, expect for the part where my seat was slowly getting lower and I couldn't make the "full movement" with my knee. Result? A really bad pain :s I gotta find a way to get the seat up again and to tight it better, so this time it actually doesn't move :P On the way home I went to Bilka, the big supermarket around, and got some power to wash my clothes :D Washing adventures are going to start soon lol

After all the travels I came home, took a shower and came to the computer... to get bad news :( Apparently there's an administrative problem and I gotta find out how to solve it in order to be able to submit my thesis on time. I spent a great deal of time around this and didn't actually touched my thesis, so now I'll go and make dinner and then I'll spend the night working on it.

Tomorrow work starts more seriously :D I still think I'll take the bus there instead of the bike - i) i gotta a bus pass anyway, so I might as well use it; ii) cycling for over 1/2h makes you a little sweaty :P and even though they have showers there, I don't feel like taking 2 showers a day [hey! i'm totally up for a daily shower, but let's not push it, ok?]

No photos today, I'll take some photos tomorrow - and show my room there, the plaque with our names :D, the canteen and so on :)

Beijinhos!


PS - Yeah, right... I finally come to terms about updating my weather forecast: it is now officially giving me Aarhus forecast and no longer Lisbon's :P

domingo, 6 de setembro de 2009

[Day 4] And I'm no longer an IKEA virgin! :P

Oh well, the subject is not my fault XD

Ok, so as you can imagine, I went to IKEA today, for the first time in my life :P I met Ivo before 10 am and we got there around 11.30 am or smth alike. Neither of us had ever been to IKEA, so we were discovering how everything worked... and of course we had to start in style :P For those who were lucky enough to live without IKEA, there are some arrows on the floor to show the directions ppl should take (it makes and internal circuit, to make sure ppl pass through every thematic area and buy more stuff :P) and we didn't notice them, so went in the opposite direction eheh We were in the 1st floor and split, since we were looking for different things. Half an hour later we met and Ivo asked me if I had seen the ground floor... which of course I hadn't :P Basically the 1st floor were the set of spaces (kitchen, room, living room, bathroom, etc), all put together nicely, and the small stuff (decoration, trash bins, boxes, etc) were in the ground floor. We made a lunch break before heading down, to escape the longer queues later on. I had the kid's lunch (pasta with bolognesa sauce, for 19 kr :D) and we decided to try the desert, which we called "radioactive cake" :P Well, it was different, but good. After lunch we head down and after another half an hour we were done. I got two paper boxes (the kind that you use when you're moving) cuz the other were expensive (and not easy to carry back to Lisbon) and these ones at least *might* be handy in 2 months. I also got a polar blanket for 25 kr (around 3 euros) so I can study with my window open.... yeah, you'd reply "but then you can just close the window!" and I reply "true, but I do like to get some oxygen in my room and I can't stand to being in a room without air circulation at least once a day" lol I also took the chance to get shampoo and air conditioner from IKEA, which are much cheaper than the other ones I had seen in the supermarket :P and the same applies to the alarm clock I got, for about 1 euro :) [but without battery lol gotta buy a AA battery soon].

We came back and I came to my room to go back to the thesis - and found out the dorm's internet "takes a break" on sundays, as it apparently goes down every now and again on the holy day :P

Not much more to say about today, except it (almost) didn't rain! :D It was actually sunny outside eheh I took some photos to proof it :P

Tomorrow works start - can't wait for that! ;)

Beijinhos



sábado, 5 de setembro de 2009

[Day 3] A weekend to relax, see the match and share some initial observations

Hello!

So today was a calmer day - I was working till late last night, but manage to get up rather early (comparing to what i was expecting :P). checked the e-mail, had breakfast and head to town to get my bus pass. Denmark, Denmark... they *really* don't know what cheap is :P My monthly pass was little over 45€! (which would be enough for 2 month of combine Metro + Carris pass in Lisbon...). Anyway, the lady was really nice and when she saw my name, she asked if it was really all those names or smth was extra XD I said it was all 5 of them and she asked me to pronounce my name, since she didn't know how to do it correctly and then she laughed when I explain Relva means grass and Pereira pear tree :P

After getting the bus pass I decided not to head to IKEA today and I went to check the mall they have. It has a lot of shops for clothes, decoration, and the usual mall stuff, and it also has a supermarket. I decided to go in to check the prices and I bough some food, as well as 4 other important things: white paste to put stuff on the wall without nails, a piece of gift wrap paper that reminds me of a painted rainbow :) and bed linen (mattress sheet + upper sheet with pillow case). By the time I was done I went back home, cuz it was already lunch time, heated the rice left from dinner - thanks for the tupperware idea, it is handy to have them ;) - and eat it with tuna, tomatoes and apple.

After lunch I came back to my room and I finally manage to have some more colour - gotta admit I was looking for a cheap solution, but never though I could actually work out smth this cheap :D I cut a big piece of the wrap paper and put in front of the desk and I also hold the flag with the paste (I had tried with tape, but it fell down). I also tried the bed linen to see if it fit the bed and now I'll exchange the pink of my sleeping bag for the light green of the bed upper cover :) I just gotta find out the best way to wash them before using them :P

And finally I wanted to share a couple of things from the initial observations:
=> First, the weather is really windy and rainy :P No sun what-so-ever! (That's also part of the reason I decided to go for some more colour in my room) Well, that's not really news, I know, but I have to complain a little bit while I'm not totally used to it. On the other side, the weather and the fact everything tends to be expensive are probably the really not-good things around here.
=> Buses run on time :D and it's funny cuz you have to get in in the backdoor and leave the bus through the front door :) There's an automatic ticket machine in the bus and each 2 zone on board ticket costs 18 kr :s - that's why i was really happy to have the bus pass from today on :) I think there's a big muslim community here cuz there's a part of the bus route (bus nº 15) where a lot of muslim ppl get in and out of the bus. It's easy to tell them apart cuz most Danish ppl are blond and many of them use shorts/ skirts with this weather and cold :P and then there are a lot of international students speaking smth other then Danish among themselves ;)
=> They don't buy fruit and vegetable per weight, they by it per piece! Amazing :P And then they have promos like "It's 10 kr a piece, but if you take 10 it's 80 kr total".
=> "Self-observation": with the travels to get food, the wind and the getting inside getting outside I'm also starting to walk in the rain without protecting my head and I guess one of two things will happen: either I get a cold or I get immune to it :P

[Note: up till here was writing after lunch, to help me resume the writing rhythm :P the following part is from the end of the night.]

Back online, after work and after the match... shit, I felt like we were jinxed :s Anyway, I saw the game with the other 2 portuguese I met here, some of their "housemates" and with Ivo - my Croatian colleague, who got here at the hour of the match. After the match we came to our side of the dormitories (even doors are on one side, odd doors on another) and on the way back I noticed it wasn't raining! :D Actually the sky didn't have that many clouds - of course this had to happen at night and not when the sun was up :P - and I took some pics to test the night mode of the camera.

Now I already had smth to eat and I'm going back to work. Tomorrow I might go to IKEA with Ivo, since he needs stuff for his room and we can eat there for an affordable price :P

Beijinhos!



sexta-feira, 4 de setembro de 2009

[Day 2] Getting into the new reality :)

Hello again :)

Well, day two isn't totally over, but I don't think I'll be doing that much more, so here is what I've been up to today. To start with, last night I decided to sleep as much as my body wanted tonight - and I had plans to turn off the alarm clock :P I was so tired I feel asleep before doing so, so at 7 smth (local hour) I woke up, turned it off, turned off any other sounds the mobile could have and went back to sleep :D

I woke up after 11 am, which is quite amazing for me :P I went to check the email and later on I went down to have breakfast. Yesterday I hadn't bought much, so I basically had the cheese and crackers I took from the plane :P and a yogurt. I went to the city centre to take care of bureaucratic stuff and I managed to get to the wrong place - fortunately I noticed it was wrong and went back to the (right) bus stop, where Laura and I met again! We went to the centre together and met Niels, the IAESTE guy who was going to help me. He said I didn't need the CPR, so in the end we were going there to help Laura. Afterwards was the time to get the bus pass... but I forgot to take my photos with me in the morning :P (I'm going there tomorrow morning to take care of that, cuz each bus ride is 18 kr :s)

Once we were done with the city centre, we two took the bus back "home" and we had lunch at Laura's - I didn't have any food, so she invited me. After the break and getting some energies again, I went to Aldi (similar to Lidl for the portuguese folks reading this) to get the basic stuff I was missing (food, tooth paste, toilet paper, etc). Of course I was lucky enough to get rain on the way there and on the way back (which is 5-10 min by foot each direction).

Back home I started to put things away and then I noticed with all the "basic stuff" I had forgotten to buy more non-basic things to be able to make dinner lol While I was in the kitchen putting my things in the fridge I was telling Tudor (Romanian) it must hve been designed for Danish ppl, cuz the sink is abnormally high for someone my size and I can't reach the last shelf in my cupboard :P He laughed and then offer to trade his cupboard for mine - which is a rather win-win situation, since he is tall and he has problems reaching his lower cupboard eheh Then we were talking about dinner and I didn't feel like going back in the rain to get food, so he told me to help myself with his food. I went for rice and sausages (well, not much to choose from in the meat side) and Camil, the Turkish guy, taught me how to prepare them (they were "muslim sausages", without pork meat). Of course the basic stuff I bought included apples and tomatoes, so I had those to go with dinner, as well as some carrots with are part of the "common food" :D Does that sound strange? Well, it's not and I'll get to that later ;) After dinner I went with Laura to meet Diogo, her Portuguese colleague and I also met Inês, another Portuguese whom he knows. We didn't talk much, cuz they were on their way to a birthday party and I came back to my place.

So about eh place I'm staying... I must really say that I had a really great impression yesterday, but I'm loving it even more today! some of the people are really nice and helpful and there's an amazing spirit here - a lot of nationalities means we're most of the time speaking English, so no "what the hell are they saying" moments and it's also easier to get into the conversation ourselves. The kitchen has cupboards for each room and a fridge for each pair of rooms, but everything else is pretty much shared - which doesn't stop at kitchen "tools", but also includes two drawers of "common food" :D It's basically food that lasts long and my carrots for today's dinner came from there :)


Finally, the photos of today:

=> I took 2 pics of the view I have form my room - I can't complain about having lots of green to see everyday :D
=> A pic relating to the Denmark - Portugal match tomorrow (guess it's smth about bets, but I'm not sure)
=> A pic showing the Danish walk in the streets exactly the same whether it's raining lightly or not raining at all - I barely saw any umbrellas today and I'm starting to do the same as they do, just walk in the (light) rain. I foresee one of two results: either I get a cold or I get immunity :P
=> The entry to my "house", nº 60 (and that human figure fully dressed it's me :P)
=> Last but not least, 3 pics from the dorms taken during the night - during the day I was busy carrying the stuff I bought, so no pics, but I'll take some during the time I'll spend here


Now it's time to go back to my thesis :) And tomorrow i'll get up early - I'll head to town early to get a bus pass and then might go to IKEA (my first time in my life :P though some of my roommates had troubles believing it...).

Beijinhos!






[Day 1] The beginning...

Ok, this was day 1! :D Got up at 6.30 am to take a shower, review the last minute things and head to the airport. There was a queue due to road problems (not to be discussed now :P), but I managed to get to the airport on time. The problem? The weight lol My suitcase was about 22-23 kgs and my (old) sleeping bag is about 1,5 kg. Too much weight, but the man let me take the sleeping bag by hand. In the mean time I had left my dad with the hand suitcase i the car :P not on purpose, but just cuz I was really running to be able to do the check in. Well, I went back, said goodbye and head to the huuuuuuge security queue. I had to be inspected by the police, but eventually managed to get the h*** out of there and head to the boarding gate. The ticket said gate 16, but when I passed through the electronic board I decided to check... and the new gate was nº 2... Went there, still huge queue - apparently it was already the 3rd gate the flight had and by the time we were supposed to be taking off, we were still getting on the bus to get to the plane. Well, all this confusion helped me in getting all my luggage in the plane without paying extra for it lol

The trip was ok (I slept most of the time) and when I got to Copenhagen around 1pm GMT, with a "beautiful" white-and-grey sky. Since it was lunch time and I knew the next train ride would take more then 3 hours, I went ot Burger King to get smth to eat (for an affordable price - yeap, affordable is the maximum I can use, this "cheap" is an unknown concept around here :P). Afterwards, took the [expensive] train to Aarhus and also managed to sleep most of the trip here. On the train station I met a girl from IAESTE who took me to the dorms by bus. On the bus I met a Romanian girl from AISEC Bucharest and I guess we'll be seeing each other around, since she's also staying in the dorms :)

Now the dorms.... it's not like the apartment building we usually have in Lisbon, it's more like a cluster of "houses" with a common living room and kitchen and 12 rooms divided in two "floors" - the division is only felt in the room access area, cuz we have an inside balcony to access the upper floor, but the living room doesn't have the separation. My room (with private WC), a bed, a desk, a "working" chair, wardrobe, two kind of "bed-side tables" and a "sitting" chair. After putting my stuff i the right place, it feels a bit better and tomorrow I'll go to IKEA to get a few things missing - like the stuff to hang the clothes on the wardrobe :P The ppl leaving here are nice, the Norwegian girl borrowed me her internet cable so I could access it now :) There also a brazilian guy, so I'll be speaking portuguese during this period :D

Well, nothing more to say about today, there are some pics in attachment and I'll share more tomorrow :)

Beijinhos!