Friends and Fado

Last night I went to dinner and a Fado show with my friend Joana, the Portuguese girl. Her boyfriend Steve had flown in from London for the weekend and we went to Bairro Alto to see a Fado.

I'm sure many of you are like, huh? Fado?? well..

Fado is traditional Portuguese music that is very heartfelt, melancholy but melodic, depressing but beautiful. I will try to post a song on here and some pics at some point. I got a CD from one of the singers (or rather Steve bought it and then Joana chatted up the singer and had him sign it for me lol). Joana was explaining to me that Fado is really about the Portuguese word saudade, a word that no other language has, but describes the empty feeling of loss, sadness, missing someone/thing, etc.

Anyway, Fado is pretty neat for various reasons. We were all crammed into this tiny little room packed with people. Then two older guys with a guitar and some other bigger guitar start planning, and this old man starts singing. The songs usually all end with a repeat of the last verse where everyone joins in singing and then goes wild with applause! haha And then if anyone at the place, or hanging in the windows, wants to sing, they pretty much can get up and sing a little Fado and people love it.

We also ate a little sample of prossuto (mehhh spelled something like that, the smoked ham), quiejo (cheese), and chouriço, (sausage) which they cook with these little clay grill bowls. They have this super potent alcohol in the bottom of the bowl that they bring right to your table, and then they light it on fire and cook the chouriço. Apparently it is 'ready' when the flame goes out because the grease from the sausage (mmmm) drips into the alcohol haha and tada. delish chourço!!! reminds me of the good ol' choripan days!!

Anyway, during our munching we, along with all types of crazy hooligans, watched some Portuguese soccer games for the Portugal cup. the two big Lisbon teams- Benfica and Sporting- were each playing someone else and each went into penalty kicks, making for an exciting evening. I still have to pick a team... but I am thinking Sporting! (haha Joni knows whyyyy ;))

So after the dinner and the Fado, we wandered around Bairro Alto, which is a fun neighborhood packed with little odd restaurants, bars, and people. Had quite a fun night out with new friends, probably too fun considering that I got about 3 hours of sleep before having to wake up, shower, and head to the embassy this morning. EEEEK.

Foto Albums

I fixed the link in "Foto Albums' section there on the right side. Now you should be able to see all the pics I have taken and posted on facebook in their entirety!!
But for those lazy clickers don't worry, I will post my faves in the actual blog postings. Aren't you lucky!

Here are some from the beach:

Hospitality Seminar

Today was a long long day in which we got to see the ins and outs of being in the public affairs section of the embassy. The embassy organized this Hospitality Seminar to promote and discuss tourism in Portugal. Apparently they had previously organized a similar seminar treating education that didn't turn out so hot so everyone in the office was running around like crazy trying to ensure that the operations were all in order and underway in a semi-timely manner.

The seminar was held at arguably one of the nicest hotels in Lisbon, the Hotel Palacio Pestana. It is this huge old palace (duh) that had tons of gardens wiuth a spa, pool, etc, 5 star treatment, beautiful and restored old buildings, and is simply magnificent. Apparently it is also host to one of Lisbon's top chefs, who opened various hotspots around town before becoming the head guy at the hotel, and who catered the event. (Right is a picture of the Palace, that I didn't take , but gives you an idea- very beautiful architecture and great restoration.) I was able o explore some durinf the lunch and found that in the old Paalce they even have this beautiful Chapel, not to mention everything else you could want at a 5star hotel.


Anyway, back to the reason we were there. So for this Seminar they had a bunch of hoteliers and people interested in promoting Portugal as a tourism destination. To begin the Ambassador gave a little welcome- which I didn't see since I was busy trying to herd people in fromchain smoking and sipping on their bicas [espressos]. followed by various presentations. First there were three American speakers. The first is of the Hyatt people who explained in depth, much too much, the different Hyatt Brands... an architect who focuses on sustainable development projects, and a professor at London Biz School who is service industry crazy. After these fools, we attended a buffet lunch, then headed back in to listen to the most boring panel of Portuguese mumbo jumbo for two hours. I really couldn't tell you all that was going on- various key actors in the Portuguese tourism community jabbered and jabbered while half of the audience snoozed away. I tried listening and translating for awhile but then become so sleepy I had to occupy myself by people watching to stay awake. I had the lovely job of passing out headsets for people who needed translations of the speeches as well as running artuonf with a microphone during the Q&A sessions after each speaker.

Oh the life of an intern.

I don't see myself applying for any jobs in OPA anytime soon (OPA as in the office of Public Affairs), although it definitely was interesting being one of the behind the scenes people who try to make everything work and keep everyone happly. And luckily, things all seemed to go quite smoothly.

So my Portuguese is off and on.. but I guess for the most part it is improving. Although today a few people who for some odd reason thought I knew what the hell was going on and would ask me things I had no idea how to answer and hardly understood, thus making me feel stupid and stumbling and then sending them to someone else before bursting into tears. (Okay I exaggerate a bit but it was scary). So conquering the Portuguese continues.

Weekend 2

So my internet decided that it wanted to stop working for some unknown reason. I tried everything I could think of, rebooted the computer, ran diagnostics, rebooted the modem, unplugged it for about a day, unplugged everything, including the cable, replugged everything... alas all to no avail. so we randomly found this signal that turns on for about a half hour around this time (hahaha so ghetto!) and we don't have to hang out of the window too much. But I am quite pissed. I tried calling some help number but it was disconnected (of course) and then I realized I have no clue about any of our account information... So I am going to have to bitch to someone tomorrow at work and get this in order!

This weekend has been fun- on Friday we went out dancing with people at work and to celebrate the despidida of this woman Inga, who is headed off to live in a trailer in the middle of Egypt somewhere. (Sounds liek a fun post, eh!?!?) So it was fun but also strange. I am definitely the youngest person, with the Marines being the second youngest so it's quite different from going out with my own friends and such.... We have also done some exploring in different places in Lisboa. Today we decided to venture to the beach and it was BEAUTIFUL. I will post pics soon, but don't want to waste my precious Internet time fussing with them for now.

This upcoming week is starting off busy- the embassy is hosting some hospitality seminar to promote tourism in which all the public affairs office is scrambling around like crazy trying to get things in order. Being interns, we have the pleasure of tagging along and trying to make sure things get done promptly, people have rides, pay and are sitting in the right seats, and basically playing bitch to whoever needs anything (ahh the life of an intern, gotta love it). I also have a Portuguese lesson after all this hospitality fuss.

This weekend we found a quaint little place to eat dinner in Bairro Alto where they had some live Fado singers. Fado is.. interesting. I think I want to attend another show at one of the more flashy touristy places- this week I think I will be doing that with Joni (my Portuguese friend) and her boyfriend who will be visiting from England. We have also been exploring, and walking everyyywheree, which I love and is really a great workout, especially with all these hills here and the cobblestone streets.

In other news... Hmm, I got nothing. I am itching to go shopping for fall clothes and maybe some more work outfits... and there seems to be a Zara around every corner tempting me!!! My roommate and I also spent a good amount of time perusing H&M and were finally kicked out by the security guard (for the store had closed 20 minutes ago apparently) and left empty handed. I'm sure that won't last too much longer though. But I have to realize this isn't vacation! Til now it has felt like a big fun vacation and I have been spending more money than I should... but I suppose c'est la vie.. right??

One thing I have noticed: many of the girls here will have this one long braid/dreadlocks hanging out from the bottom of their hair. .. when I first saw one I was like hmm... cute?? But I continue to see various girls with cute normal hair.. but a ratty tail hanging down the back... also in hair the mullet has officially died for the most part here. When I was in spain you couldn't get away from the euromullet!!!!! But now... *Tear.
UPDATE: **** A note about the dreadlock a.k.a. rasta- apparently you can BUY these things and they are all the rage now in Europe. I might have to check it out!! hahah [This is all according to my Lisboeta friend Joni].

Well, you should all pray that I can get my internet up and running soon at the apartment.. thanks! Hope all is well for everyone... This upcoming weekend we are thinking about taking a daytrip to neighboring Sintra, which I have heard is beautiful. More about that and other thimngs soon! beijinhos

First Week Experiences

There has been so much going on I haven't updated in a few days.

Work has been going really well- I have gotten to do a lot of neat things, including meeting some very important people in the Portuguese Ministry of External Affairs, translated some Portuguese docs into English, attended some meetings with one of the political officers in the embassy, started my Portuguese lessons, gotten a new roommate, and tomorrow I will be meeting with the Ambassador.

It's all very exciting. After the fiasco on the first day with almost being late and showing up a mess, I think I have made up for it somewhat... Everyone is extremely nice (as I have been saying) and have began to give me a real inside perspective into embassy life. I started my portuguese classes today, which are one on one with this guy José who is amazing, and it was great. José told me my Portuguese really isn't thaaaaat bad (haaa understatement!!) but I just need to start talking and practicing. It was great though because I know I will be feeling more confident by the end of my time here. Otherwise, I haven't been speaking too much portuguese all in all, but I do a lot of listening. Baby steps....

Having another intern in the house is also great- especially after the crazy women who kept calling the apartment the other night repeatedly, insisting that I was sleeping with her boyfriend, it's always great to have someone to hang out with and such. She arrived on Wednesday morning, and I got to go get her at the airport, showed her to the apartment, then we walked around some, went to dinner, and have been having a good time.

They have horrible horrible horrible drivers here. Yesterday I saw this bus nut turn sharply enough onto this little street, so he decided to back up, right into this car with a woman who was honking her horn continuously throughout the entire time. While she was honking and cursing out the window she definitely could have backed up some and avoided the whole thing all together, but instead she watched as the bus came bumping into her. You will also see people hanging halfway out of the window yelling at someone for driving like shit while they are just blocking the way and creating more disasters.

I also figured out how to use our euro washing machine; instead of different names for the cycles- you know, delicate, normal, hot, cold, etc- it just has these very odd pictures. These vary from a swirl, a big swirl, a swirl with a showerhead, a hand with a cup, a feather, some weird triangle arrow thing, some blob?? and what not. So I ran it on the swirl shower thinking that would do the trick- it rinsed my clothes but didn't add in the soap. I tried another, which did the same, and then finally just threw in some soap (its like a cabinet style washing machine so I cant just dump in the soap!) and tried some triangle thing and it seemed to work. The dryer luckily had better graphics. So whatever, I am an idiot who can't work a washing machine! haha

There have been lots of other things of course but I am drawing a blank on any other funny things that have happened so I guess I will end this worthless post here and continue when I can actually think of some interesting things to stay. Pelo menos I want you all to know I am good and things are getting better and better.

OH and as I was writing this I heard loud noises from outside the apt, which is typical since we live next to lots of bars and clubs, but it sounded like gunfire or backfire from a car. But when I look out, down the street seriously like 3 blocks they are having a fireworks show over the river! I have no idea why but who doesn't like fireworks?? Ah, lovely evening.

My First Day Semi-Fiasco

Ahh my first day of work at the Embassy. It started off with a classic Alana story.
In my instruction packet, they told me that for my first day (and first day only unfortunately), the embassy was providing me a driver to pick me up at my apartment at 7:30AM, take me to the embassy, and take me home in the evening.
Sweet deal right?
So I was excited/nervous for my first day. I also have been staying up late and sleeping in late this passed week, thus getting up late and thus again causing me to hate my life having to get up at 6:30 to get ready. I tossed and turned last night, trying to sleep, but not being able to do so til it was probably 3:00AM and then only sleeping lightly, probably due to the nerves. I had set my alarm for 6:18, thinking I would snooze for a bit and then get up, shower off from my day walking around and going to the beach! (which I will talk about later/next time) and get all my stuff and be ready for my first big day.Yeah, except when I awoke in a fright and peered at my alarm: 7:26AM.
SHIT SHIT SHIT was my first reaction. I seriously threw myself out of bed and ran to the window to make sure the driver wasn't there yet; I thn ran to the shower, and semi rinsed my body off in freeeeeezing cold water (here at least I was thankful that I hadn't actually gone swimming at the beach so my hair wasn't THAT gross), threw on some clothes, ran to the window again, ran back to the bathroom to put on some concealer, ran to get my shit and then ran downstairs.
It was 7:33AM. And no driver in sight.
So I was worrying some trying to catch my breath... 7:40 passes and nothing. I call my boss and of course no answer. I keep waiting in agony... and still no driver in sight. At 7:50, after calling my boss another 36 times to no avail, I decided to get a cab and hopefully get there at (or at least close to) my strict starting time of 8:00AM.
In the cab I was fuming, about how seems to run right with these embassy people!, rararar!!, when I get a call from my boss.
"Oh I am so sorry I forgot to tell you I couldn't get you a driver!!!!" [This point was written explicitly in my instructions from there, which I had received a week prior.] "I can get you one at 10, is that okay!!!
SIGH. I seriously nearly died... but instead I maintained enough composure to explain that I was already on my way. She then met me at the gate and everything was super. But SHIT. What a hectic morning!!! I especially found it funny that throughout the day I kept finding sand in my hair.. hahahaha. Yes, I really know how to make a great first impression don't I?

Well from there on the rest of my day was great. The people at the embassy are all super nice and incredibly intelligent. I am going to be splitting my time in the Political/Economic section and the Management section. I started out today in the Pol/Econ, under this woman Dana, who I had gone to dinner with this weekend and who is super amazing. She helped me feel right at home and has some neat projects for me to work on
I started out with a tour of the property and had a great day getting acquainted with the embassy property: There is a gym, a tennis court, a cafeteria with relatively cheap and delicious meals prepared by the cooks Fernando and Fernanda (cute!), the NEX grocery store where I bought American groceries at American prices!, and even an old Chapel. The site is impressive, very pretty, and pretty much has everything you could ever need. I was introduced to a gazillion people today and I couldn't tell you more than one or two of their names.. I took a computer course to make sure that I wouldn't leak any secret information!!! and I got my own little office for the time being on the Pol/Econ floor.

I am super tired but resisting napping so I don't repeat the fiasco tomorrow. Tomorrow I also need to leave by 7:15 in order to take the Metro no fancy driver for me, but at least I KNOW this information this time. ;0)

A Few Things

It's a beautiful Saturday afternoon! I woke up not too long ago (so shoot me! I had a late night! which I will talk about in a bit) and thought I would update on what is going on and thing I have noticed.

First off, I wanted to write about the Portuguese. I thought that knowing Spanish and having taken 2 classes at the UofA would have put me and my Portuguese at a pretty decent level, somewhere like intermediate right? I mean, I can read it and write it pretty well but speaking has always been the most difficult part. And I heard Portugal portuguese is very different accent wise, but I never thought it would be this different!
So I have started to figure out the differences.
First off, when you have an 's' in or at the end of a word, you slush it together. Example: Santos (my barrio) is pronounced San-tush. Super. So a lot of the time they will be blabbering away and all I hear is this: SHSHshs vusudhSHS SHshSH. you get the idea.
The tonality is also very similar to Russian (this is what my new Portuguese friend Joni told me). So compared to Brazilian portuguese, the accent is a lot harsher sounding.
Also in Brazilian you would pronounce a word like noite (night) as noiche. Here they say Noit. so it sounds kinda more French?
All of this is making me tired just thinking about it and trying to explain it, haha.

So what else? Well...

In any big city its typical to see beggars on the street. In Buenos Aires, the beggars in the subway would often be trying to sell you things, little books, hair clips, etc, and often were children. One time, we even saw some live performers acting in the middle of the train. Here, so far I have noticed that all of the beggars in the subway are blind. I was riding around the other day and I came across not one but THREE blind beggars, shouting in the subway asking for ajuda por favor! Interesting..

All of the cabs here are an offwhite color and Mercedes Benz. Ballin'! So far I have only taken one once so far, but they are just as crazy as in any other city, yelling out the window and taking the tiny corners at high speeds. Its also nice there is a queue of cabs right down the street from my apt, since I live quite close to a bunch of bars and such. So hopefully I won't have to do much cab searching at night!

Last night I met up with the girl I was going to be renting a room from until the embassy apartment was ready (which turned out unneccesary but she seems really nice). So went to Baixa Chiado, one of the best places to go out at night (and not that far from where I live). There were all sorts of people out and abut, old and young, getting coffees, going to bars, walking around, shopping, etc. We went to a café that is famous for coffees, and had some bicas. Bicas is the word they use for a tiney tiny espresso shot which they usially mix with sugar and drink all the time. From there we went to a nearby bar that overlooked the city and the Rio Tejo. The weather was a bit cool but beautiful. I tried the Portuguese beer, Superboch, and we chatted til going to meet some of Joni's friends at a restaurant nearby. So far all the people I have met are super nice and really want to try to communicate with me. We had a fun evening, chatting and going to a couple of bars near my house. I ended up being a block away around 330 and decided to call it a night before the group headed to another club. There will be plenty of time for that! haha

Today I have been pretty worthless, but I am going to dinner with this woman Dana and her friend, who both work at the embassy. Exciting to finally get to know some embassy people! Again, they seem super friendly and more than happy to take me out with them.

Tomorrow I made plans with Katia's friend Patricia, (who has been so helpful and kind!), to see another part of the country outside Lisbon. She lives in Estoril, where apparently Europe's largest Casino resides. She said if it is nice we can go to the beach (score!) and I will get to know more people and see more things! I am planning on taking the train there, which is about 40 minutes or so, so I'll update on that and include pics soon!