AndrewsBlog

Friday, Nathalie was here in Lisbon. We visited the city and saw some wonderful places (I should do this more often).

We started walking to the castelo, but stopped at this amazing miradouro. I don’t know the name, but it is a really nice one. They have couches, chill lounge music and a breath-taking view of Lisbon. You can see where it is on this google map.

We spend some time there chilling & relaxing before we climbed the streets up to the castle. From the castle I took this picture of the miradouro.

Castelo de São Jorge

Great news when we bought our tickets to see the castle: It’s free for students studying in Lisbon and 50% off for other students. We started by walking around in the little town inside the castle walls. There are some beautiful narrow streets with cats and old ladies standing by the windows.

As you can see I took some really nice pictures of Nathalie here. The light was great and she’s so beautiful with her “Portuguese” tan.

From the walls we saw even more breath-taking views than earlier. You could see Praça de Figeuira and Praça de Comercio, as well as an amazing overview of Lisbon with the 25 de Abril bridge.

A guy was playing medieval music on his guitar creating this medieval atmosphere in the castle. I could imagine knights and kings living here.

Just outside the castle a german man was making Tibetan influenced Mandala necklaces. In Tibetan Buddhism Mandala is a term used for a representation of the cosmos. The necklace has 5 (or 6) folded positions which represent a state in the creation of the cosmos. Jewelry with a deeper meaning. We liked it.

Belém

It was already late when we hurried to the other side of the city to see Belém. Belém is a parish of Lisbon famous as the place from which many of the great Portuguese explorers set off on their voyages of discovery. Too bad we were too late to enter the Jerónimos Monastery, the Padrão dos Descobrimentos and the Torre de Belém. We will have to come back some day to see these from the inside.

We had a nice time in the park surrounding the tower.

We saw a beautiful sunset. It’s amazing to see that the colours of everything around you change when the sun is going down. Lovely. Near the Tower there is a controversial monument in memory of the combatants of the Colonial war.

I had a great time today with my darling visiting the city I’ve been living in for the past month. I saw some interesting sights and breath-taking views. I also learned a lot by writing this blogpost and researching stuff on Wikipedia.

Please take a look at the other pictures I didn’t post in this entry on the usual Flickr set.

It’s been almost a week since my last blogpost, sorry about that. I’ve been quiet busy the last couple of days. So I’ll give you all a little update.

Friday: 1st erasmus party

Last friday was the first erasmus party, which i think every erasmus student in Lisbon attended. The place was so packed and hot it was like the concert room of the Vooruit in Gent.

Before going to the party we had a nice warming up at our apartment. There must have been about 25 people in our kitchen. We invited a couple of friends and had a good time. I’ve uploaded my photos on flickr.

We left to the party after midnight. People had to wait an eternity to get this erasmus-lisboa card which in the end wasn’t even mandatory. After that my memories are a bit blurry (i blame the whisky)

Lovely weekend with my darling

This weekend Nathalie was here in Lisbon. It was great to see and be with her again! We went to Carcavelos beach on sunday. I forced myself to stay in the sun to get a little tan. (Nathalie is so tanned from sitting in the sun in Coimbra, so I had to catch up a little). She’s starting to look like a portugeese chick. Quiet hot if I may say so. It was a beautiful day without clouds on a big sandy beach. I had a wonderful time with mi daarling!

I was sad that I had to say goodbye to her monday, 2 weeks until I see her again. Then I’ll go to Coimbra and visit the city and maybe go to Porto too. Thanks for coming liefje! Aai miss joe allreddie & sorry van de voetbal-distractie!

University work

With all this relaxing I almost forgot we have to got to classes on mondays & wednesdays. We have this exciting assignment for the product innovation course: we need to conceive a new product or innovate an existing one. That’s basically what we’ll be doing for the whole semester. So monday we had to come up with 5 new product ideas. I’ve heard some really funny stuff and some ideas with potential. Mine were quiet crazy too: A cocktail mixing machine, a self heating spoon for easy ice-cream serving, using your cellphone as a key, ..

Costa da Caparica: surf paradise

Tuesday Alec convinced me to go with him and Sascha to Costa da Caparica (usually called Costa Caipirinha). I liked how we were driving by the palm-tree streets in a car full of sand with cuban music.

Costa da Caparica is a nice beach. The waves were nice and there were a lot of other surfers. While Alec, Sascha and his german friends were surfing (or at least trying to) I took some nice pictures of crazy guys riding the waves.

We had a tosta mista (croque monsieur) at the beach bar before we headed back to the university for Sascha’s class. Going to the beach in the morning before you start working is nice. I am really starting to enjoy the lifestyle here.

2nd erasmus party @ Mercado

That night, after a few 2 euro caipirinha’s from our usual warming up bar, we went to take a look at the 2nd erasmus party. It was in a smaller bar than the first party, which was nice. This party was much more fun! After a few drinks I somewhat forgot I had to give a presentation in class the next day.

Don’t worry, the presentation went quiet alright today. Time to get some sleep now

Classes started

Classes started this Monday. We’re following some nice courses. I guess Product Innovation is my favourite. It’s a creative course heavily influenced by the MIT university.

Master courses at Nova are very open and practically oriented. We’re also attending Analysis of Industry and Competition, Logistics and Supply Chain Management and International Business (if our home university approves).

New cultures

It’s very interesting to meet and talk to people from other cultures. We’ve met some nice German guys (like Sascha and Thore) , eastern european people (we’re living with Polish, Slovian, Czechian and Slovakian people) and Swedish lads (Per Anders is a funny guy with a horde of female swedish friends).

Today we were watching the Champions Leagues games in a Spanish bar down our street and met a lovely Scottish couple. Extremely friendly people who offered us a fine scottish whisky I couldn’t refuse.