Finnish class

I finally went to visit the Finnish class that they are having in the Faculty of Arts. I wanted to ask them if they'd want to meet up and practise Finnish with me, and I'd practise Portuguese. The students were very shy, but it's so cute to hear someone foreigner speaking Finnish. We talked a bit and then they practised a bit of grammar, and I found out that Finnish is ridiculously difficult. They were learning consonantal gradation (astevaihtelu). E.g. katto -> katolla. Where does the other t disappear? rikas -> rikkaalla. The s just changed into t? They must be a bit insane to be learning Finnish. Or desperately in love with Ville Valo.

Braga

On Saturday I went to Braga, the 2nd biggest city in Portugal. I wasn't expecting so much, because many people told me it wasn't that nice, but it was a very nice city indeed.

We went to see Bom Jesus, enough stairs but the view was amazing and we had coffee in the sunset and planned about staying there for a year and writing poems and painting pictures.

But then we just left and went to eat.

Here are some photos:

And then the best souvenier ever, found it on a market: Charlie Brown dictionaries. They're really good, you have the word in Portuguese then in English and then some sentences in Portuguese where the word is used. Too bad I only have three books out of 15 or so, the vocabulary will be a bit limited. To letters p, q, r, f, g, l and m.

Satuhäät 2

It worked! I watched the latest episode today, it was definitely worth the trouble.

And speaking about feedback, two courses that were in Portuguese are now in English. Gotta fight for your right.

Satuhäät

I wanted to watch my all-time favourite TV-show online. But they have changed the settings so that it's only watchable in Finland.

I wrote feedback to YLE asking if that was a mistake & they better explain me why they would do something this afwul to me.

Roundabouts

There is something about Portugal and roundabouts. In every roundabout there is some kind of statue. I'm starting to take pictures of them. If I was studying arts this would be a perfect school project.

Kevät

It was +20 degrees today, I went for a walk without a jacket, so cool! Everybody was telling me that from January to April it would just rain all the time. So far it has rained once this year, during the night.

We have a special guest visiting our crib this week, a 3-month old baby boy. He is so adorable. It's amazing how I cannot speak English to babies, the baby-talk I can only do in Finnish.

And now I'm going to see Dracula in the horror movie festival that is now happening in Porto. Sweet dreams for me afterwards.

Carnival 2

Today I went to Ovar, where one of the most famous carnival events in Portugal is organized. Some of my Portuguse friends don't really care about this parade, because they think that the Portuguese are just trying to be Brazilian with the samba stuff. In the parade, the samba schools compete and they really had put a lot of effort to their dresses and accessories (I guess they prepare for it the whole year). The parade was almost for three hours (!), here are some photos:

Because we were standing just next to the parade and obviously I look foreign, a couple of times we were dragged into the parade (do I look like I can dance samba??) and some participants came to ask where we were from (luckily no one asked if I was Chinese). And they were more than willing to pose for photos. These photos are btw mainly about the funny parts of the parade, to check the samba dancing women in their small outfits, you can do it here.

But take a look at the last photo. In the back of the round thing there was two guys pushing it and holding on to an iron thing that made the people on top move a bit forwards and backwards. When the last one was passing us, right in front of us, they accidentally let go on the iron thing (that was their only job!!) and the people on top playing fell down to the ground on their faces. I almost threw up and couldn't look because I was sure that the skull of the guy in the front was in pieces. Apparently it wasn't that bad, the guy was still conscious when he was taken away by the ambulance.

Eventually I recovered too and went to have dinner.

Carneval

The carneval is here! Even the homeless guy had a lot of balloons in his crib.

Special case

The class yesterday was in Portuguese as well. The professor said I could do the course self-studying.

I'm so tired of being a special case. I learned to read when I was six years old. I don't need to practice that, I want to go to classes!

Feedback time.

Friday I'm in pain

Hello. I survived the first schoolday of the year.

The bad news is that one of the classes is in Portuguese. The good news is that I'll have private classes for that course. Good save from the professor, I was just about to write feedback again.

Tomorrow at 9am the fun continues.

And I saw a guy dressed up as a sheriff roller-skating around in the campus.

Holiday: over

Tomorrow is the day my lectures will start again. Actually they started on Monday, but I was too tired to go. And there was a class on Wednesday, but I was busy. But tomorrow I'll go. From 8am to 8pm + hours of language course. Soft landing.

Ryanair...the reality

I hate that Ryanair is so cheap. Because it's so annoying. Their rules are ridicilous (=couldn't go shopping in Madrid, grrrr!) and the staff is rather unfriendly and ignorant.

I wish I was rich and could use other airlines.

But no matter how much I complain, I'll still fly with them. And stay in hostels.

Emilia went to Spain

I don't know what to think of hostels anymore. This was the first time when I was travelling that I hoped I was rich enough to stay in a hotel. Or at least afford a bed in a room with less people. I slept very poorly for four nights and had to even go and buy earplugs. Is it just that I'm getting old?

Well the good side of staying in a hostel is definitely that you meet people to hang out with, this time I was lucky with that as well. And I developed a theory about hostels: always stay in a mixed dorm, not in a room for women only. The risk is that there will be a snoring man in the room, but guys are normally more talkative and they travel alone more frequently, girls often come in pairs and they don't often ask other people to join them.

Of course this beautiful theory was ruined when I hung out most of the weekend with two very nice girls from Sweden and Australia, both travelling alone. It's the exception that proves the rule or something similar that they say.


I probably don't have to mention that I ate very well in Madrid, the tapas culture should take over the world. It's very nice when you order a drink and you get a small tapas with that. Like small pieces of ham. My goodness, how I love that salty, salty ham. I took two pictures in Madrid, there is ham in both of them.

Apart from eating we managed to get together with a friend that I didn't see for 12 years! That was super nice indeed.

Madrid

Me and my awful hair are off to Madrid tomorrow, yippii! Too bad Ryanair is limiting my willingness to buy shoes.

Portuguese class

I didn't know this many tenses of verbs exist. I think we are somewhere close to 10 now, and more is to come. Aiai, my head (with the awful haircut. It really is bad this time).

Electricity

Good news first: Portugal is investing a lot of money to renewable energy. It already counts for more or less 50% of the country's electricity generation. I'm liking that very much.

But the bad news: The electricity in Portugal is the most expenisive in Europe. Our electricty bill for 2 months was 530€. Yep.

Schedules

Today I woke up at 11am, went for a swim, took a nap and went to the language course. And I'm exhausted. How did I ever manage to work 8 hours a day?

dEUS

Yesterday I was planning to have a quiet night home, but suddenly that plan changed and I ended up seeing this band live. Both the band and the surroundings were amazing.

Hair!

I have never went back to a hairdresser to complain - until yesterday. It's still bad, but now there is hope that in 3-4 months it will be allright.

Kazakhstan

is huge. And unfortuntely that is all I know about that country.

Ups and downs

I have officially passed all my exams! Wo-hoo! And my grades were good, too (thank you, Taikakäsi).

If only the pierced freak in the hair saloon did not ruin my life with the Most Awful Haircut of the Year.