Saturday

There were these big demonstrations all ove Portugal on Saturday. Apparently the biggest one since 1974 (yeah, I still need to do my homework about the dictatorship) Anyway, the demonstration was big in Porto as well, but very calm and peaceful.

The cuts that the government has been making that directly affects a normal person are becoming ridiculous. Earlier they took away 2 annual holiday days. Then one salary (they used to get 14 salaries a year, a bit like our holiday salary) was taken away. Now they increased the social security payment from 11% to 18%, at the same time increasing the income taxes. That is another loss of at least one month's salary. The price of electricity is so much more than in Finland, VAT increased and things are generally getting more expensive. The unemployment rate has reached a new record. And these are just things that I am aware of. No wonder the people are fed up.

I'm hoping for a revolution.

But actually, people take it calmly. They realize that for years the country has lived in a level that it cannot support, but now it's a really shitty situation when all the savings come at once and it's the regular people who are the target of all the savings. Many friends of mine are actually planning to leave the country as soon as they graduate, or even go do the internship abroad. I'm one of the few who would really like to stay here.

So I was a bit down after going to the demonstration. But then, just some hours after that there was this happening in the centre with 40 bands playing around the city, the streets PACKED with happy people dancing in the streets.

Gotta love this country.