My Unforgettable Year in Portugal

I am here from almost a month, and I like it more and more..it´s true that in the first days it was more difficult for me, until I got used to, but afterwards I realised that I like it...I really like it and I feel great here.

Panorama from St. Jorge Castle

River Tejo - seen from the castle

Last week was a very full one...on Wednesday we went out with the AIESEC-ers and not only, at dinner...I met very nice people. After the dinner we went to a typical Brazilian bar with live music...it was a guy with a guitar that was singing a slow Brazilian samba; strange, because I knew that samba is the quickest from the latino dances. We went out to Bairro Alto, a picturesque quarter, with narrow and steep little streets, where Lisbon´s nightlife is concentrated. Here the people use to stay on the streets and talk, drink, especially when it´s warm outside, but also now we saw a lot of people on the streets of Bairro. We had a great time, and the people were very friendly and funny.

Somewhere in Lisbon

Lisbon palmtrees


In Praça do Comércio


With Ovidiu, still in Praça do Comércio

So I´ll go on..on Friday I went to the Christmas dinner organized by the company, in a restaurant under the bridge 25 Abril, the second bridge of Lisbon (together with bridge Vasco da Gamma) - so similar with the one of San Francisco...there was a wonderfull view...if you looked up, you were seeing the lightened bridge over the wide Tejo river...I had a great time, I met more colleagues from the company, from other departments, I danced, this was very nice: I danced latino :-)..I missed it so much..

Avenida da Liberdade, an important avenue of Lisbon - with many lights and decorations in the Christmas time

Praça dos Restauradores

In Restauradores

The newest train station of Lisbon - still not used

An interesting thing - PCP...

A parenthesis...
I found surprising at the beginning when I saw posters and banners with the PCP (Portuguese Communist Party) here in Portugal. But when I found out how it was the communism here, I understood why they don´t hate it as we do. They had just one year of communist regime, in ´74-´75, after many years of fascism, a milder communism than in Romania. Thus, not having the time to know it, they couldn´t hate it. Now PCP is the third political party in Portugal.

And as the full week didn´t end yet...the next day in the morning, on Saturday we went to Porto, as it was the IRW (International Reception Weekend)...on Saturday evening we participated at the dinner of AIESEC Portugal, it was their National Congress. It was interesting, I didn´t go until then at a National Congress. On Sunday we visited Porto, a great city, with an incredible atmosphere, not necesarily more beautiful than Lisbon, but different. I´ll go there again for sure...