Obrigada por tudo

Finally im home and thanx to the universiade in Korea the adjusting from leaving Portugal was made sooo much easier. But the purpose of this post is to express my gratitude. This has been the best year of my life, by far. I had always had the idea of going abroad but never had the courage, until it started forcing on my chest. And that timing led me to Portugal.. I couldnt be happier.

It has been the ride of a lifetime. My memorybanks are filled with the most amazing keepsakes.

But the best part of all of it is it wasnt just the 4 months, it gave me friends for life! Friends I want to keep in contact with and get together with, no matter what it takes. The group we have is worth making an effort for! I had never felt this much love and belonging as I did with you and my heart is just filled with content. There is no point in thinking what we cant have again, it is incredible thinking back to all the things we did together and all that we will doooo. I cant wait spending time with my erasmus family again!!

What is for sure is no party will ever be as great as it was with you. And the goodbye presents i got from you made me undescribably happy. I felt as it was my birthday. It might be a little late but thank you for that amazing goodbye party! And thankyouthankyouthankyou for all the moments, all the emotions and the happiness you gave me. Another thankyouu for all the nice words I can read over and over again from my harrypoter book hihihi. 

Now lets keep calm and kick the post-erasmus depression in the bum. 

Back to the future

The last days were so fast and busy. I didnt feel stressed but apparently I was, since i managed to finally, in those 4 months, get sick in Portugal. I spent a lot of time in my room, behind my desk, putting together entries for our bookies, something for my girls to try to put into words how much they mean to me. But i have to say, it was a hard task, which is the reason why it took me 3 days to fill Christinas and Sarkas books :) There are not enough words in the english vocabulary to describe what i feel. And since I am not good at expressing myself live, is why I needed them entries to be as close to perfection as possible. I am very good at expressing myself live without words though, through tears, I think everyone knows that now :D Tying up the loose ends for ...... leaving is always nervewrecking, but at least it took my mind off of actually thinking about the fact that i soon have to leave this magnificent place and extraordianry people behind. I didn´t really have time to sink into those sad thoughts, I was simply enjoying every single moment I had still to enjoy. So now a little about the last days.

A little project of mine was to create something to wear with pride and just be reminded of our amazing time together - a t-shirt. It was a thought we came up with Luis, designed it with Stefano and printed with the girls and the outcome, in my opinion, is perfect :) Something simple, yet with a deep meaning to us! But ofcourse, as it usually is with getting things done in Portugal, it took some corrections, to have it finally the way it was supposed to be. Nothing we hadnt got used to by then :D

When we estonians celebrate jaanipäev, the portuguese have their festa do são joão do porto, which is the biggest street festival I had ever seen!!!!! The evening started out with us making a birthday surprise to Martina and occupying a wagon in the Viana-Porto train to celebrate her big day all together! An awesome idea organized by her other half, Giorgi! Once we arrived, the fiesta was already going strong. Everyone had their beepy hammers and were slamming anyone who crossed their path. We couldnt be any lousier then every other person in Porto, so we needed to find us some hammers. Who decided to snatch one, who wanted to get a cheap one. So I went to negotiate the terms of the buying deal, but my skills werent appareantly good enough cuz i needed some portuguese backup :D Gotten our war-tools, we dived into the crowd and started blending in with our colorful hitting machines and incredible blocking moves. The atmosphere was soooo cool cuz everybody was hitting everybody and then laughing like little kids, and the little kids had the most fun cuz they were just surrounded by little and big kids! So we went to foz, the riverside, where there was music and ofc kizomba playing, and people waiting for the highlight of the night - the fireworks. But the wait was the best part ofcourse, having fun with my people - what more could you ask for. Ok i was really missing wine or cider,cuz the only thing they were selling on the streets was beer (okok some harder stuff also). We also lit up our chinese lanterns and everyone made a wish and sent it to the skies. The second lantern aaallllmost didnt make it, but then tadaaaa, it took off with our wishes! And then, when the clock hit midnight, it began. Without a doubt the craziest fireworks ever!! And theyre saying that Portugal is also experiencing some financial difficulties.. it was 20 minutes of nonstop, over the top crazy pyromancy. And during that 1/3 of an hour, when everyone is staring into the sky, silent with just loud grunts and no words, you start thinking.. this is it. Our last time together on the streets of fking amazing Portugal. That released a big emotionburst for šari and christina and myself. Endless flow of tears in that awesome setting, and for some reason we chose to take crying selfies???? huh.. :D But with the fireworks also our tearworks stopped and we were partying on the streets until the first train..which was exhausting and also not enough, cuz it so happened that we missed the first train. And there we were, in Campanhã, all of the Viana erasmus people, crazy tired and dreaming of turning in. It was a painful ending to an unforgettable night!

My flight home was on saturday afternoon, so the best time to say goodbye to everyone and have a big last celebration of being awesome together, was on friday. Before that I needed to have everything packed, accounts closed, gifts bought and party organised! The theme of the party was THE OLYMPIC GAMES, with some relation to my next destination (not the real thing though), but mainly because its a great theme to have with cool (and comfy) outfits and games to play! As the evening came closer, my nerves got tighter and tighter. I was soo scared of the party. Knowing myself, I was certain that I was going to break down and cry endlessly, because saying goodbye to Anna and Luis was so draining. Now I had to say farewell to everybody! There was even no point in wearing any makeup :D So finally the partyy started, it was very calm at first, just us eating our healthy sporty snacks.. haha gotcha! It was actually chips and liquer :) Oh but the sangria, the girls had prepared as a surprise, had fruit in it, so yes, healty. As all the people I hold dear, where gathering in to the resi, the mood was growing and growingg until it was time for the event of the night – dont-know-whats-it-called-game. We made teams of 4 and by choice of fate our team was OUR TEAM, all of us girls from our clan. And bitches from hell..with love were killing it out there. The game was drinking a cup of biiir and then fliping the cup over and by that passing the relaystick to the next teammember. We crushed our opponents in the semifinal and the final was a closeclose match, with our anchor, the 1-hit-striker Khany bringing us the victoryyy. Marti and Giorgi had made some experimental jello-shots, which were awesome!

Then the girls came to me with our beloved continente bag and asked me the most important question of our time – queres um saco? Sim, obrigada!!!! And there was something inside the bag, but before i had the chance to have a look, they brought another something to me, something so special and awesome and unforgettable and just perfect. A cake, cuz i love cakes, but it wasn´t just any cake, it was a DINOSAUR CAKE!!!! It is hands down the best best most unexpected surprise i could ask for. The cake had big colorful dinosaur toys on it. It is sooo funny cuz when I was thinking what to get as little tokens of appreciation to the girls, I had the same idea, but then I chose a bit more practical way and got them bracelets. But the dinosaurs really hit the spot, cuz my love for them really blossomed here in Portugal. There.. im still used to speaking as if im there. Since i had my dino, everyone took their own pretty little reptile and the whole night we were posing with them:D:D But there was also my conti bag..in which there was the sweetest collagebook of our times together. I can´t describe how happy this made me. When I was looking through it, most of the time i couldn´t even see cuz my eyes were drowning in water. Then Tiago gave me a bag with something inside. It was a framed picture of us at the Vaca das cordas party, this is actually one of my fav pics!!!!!!! And then Pedro came with a kizomba mix cd he had made for me and I just couldnt believe it. You guys have no idea what this means to me!!!!!! I have never felt more loved and a part of a group as I do with you.

 It was so funny that when my lovely kizomba was playing, J´a decidi, to be exact, and I was singing along to the lyrics – que nao quero mais ficar aqui, then pedro was everytime asking me you dont want to stay here??? (Since that is the direct translation of the sentence). helll nooooo, i dont want to sair! As much friggin fun it was at the resi dancing to kizomba, we had to visit our second living room for the last time all together. Friday nights are Bella nights and we had centro all to ourselves. DJ Kitten ofcourse didn´t play any kizomba for us, not even after asking really nicely with our dinos, but Ricardo had already warned me about that :D And Ricky also brought out the BIGGEST most epicest bucket of brainfeezer anyone had ever seen!!! And then.. at 5 when centro closed, we got to have a kizomba afterparty :)))) but i think because of the cleaning ladies we couldnt crank up the volume and it was rily quiet:D After that another afterparty was supposed to take place at the resi, but Chissy and I decided to go on to ON, no actually we were just spending some last moments together at praca de republica and crying and taking red-eyed selfies :D

Finally, after 2 hours of sleep I still had some last minute packing to do..a lot actually. Lisa was helping me with everything and if it hadnt been for her help, i would still have half of my stuff in Viana. You would think that after packing everything and being go-ready, the room would be pretty much like it was, when you arrived. Nope. I was messy-melissa until the very end. I was still recieving messages – do you need this, do you need that, after I had long left. But the morning went so fast, too fast. Saying goodbye was fast – everything just too fast. Thank youuu Tiago and Pedro for helping me transport my ugly luggage to the bus station and I was soooo happy that Christina came with me to the airport!! It made my wait and my luggage-problems so much easier to handle. So what exactly happened with my luggage.. as it turned out, it didnt weigh ~20 kg as I had expected. It was 33+, which isnt even allowed by regulations so I had to leave behind a bottle of alvarinho :(( In the airport I finally got to read all the entries to my harrypotter book, which I had been dying to skim through, but didnt want to cause any extra tearing when I was still among the people I wanted to spend lucid moments with and not cry over every moment :D And then I boarded the aircraft which flew me away from the land that had become so dear to me, and to a land that kept me away from my homeland for another half a day due to airport scheduling problems. To put into understandable words, the first flight was delayed so the second plane departured without me on board, had to spend the night in a hotel, met some estonians along the way, but it was amazing to finally get home, even though it was just for a day..

So the last week of my stay here in Portugal..I had already written it longlong ago, when I was still there, but just got around to posting it now. After my returning from the Acores, we have just been spending time together with the erasmus-posse. On the day of my return there was a nice surprise waiting for me - finally a theme party I can participate in! And the theme - 90s. But finding an outfit at that hour was a bit of a tougher task. For my luck my incredible boyfriend had left his incredible jeans that fit me incredibly, here. šarka was the one responsible for decorating centro and what a magnificent job she did, Centro had never looked more 90sh! (I guess). They were shopping for the decor at the place that has everything and anything you might ever need - loja de chinesa aka the chinese shop. And the best thing she got for the party, well it might have been a little off topic, were 2 badminton rackets and a plastic shuttlecock!! Imagine our faces with Christina when we saw those at Centro. Immediately we ran outside to have a friendly match but uhm what can you expect from 2 euro chinese shop rackets.. not much. With the power we have in our arms every shot made the shuttle hide its head in between the strings and playing soft babybadminton is not the way we roll :D But šarka and Ricky you really made us happy there for a bunch of seconds!!

So the weekend began and we started our day by going to a different beach nearby, Afife. It is actually cheaper to go there by train then it is to go to our usual choice of beach, praia de cabadelo, to which, with the scorching hot weather, we always go by boat. And dannnggg, that praia is soo much more nicer!! Cabadelo is way too windy for us not-windsports-doers. There are usually 2 choices, either you fry in the sun in a windyshady place and its too hot, or you want to take a dip in the water and once you reach the shore, its so windy that you get nippy and want to go back to the laying spot. But Afife treated us really well- except for the hot sand and the even hotter planks on the way to the beach- those really did their best to burn my soles, but my secret weapon was my fast feet. Not this time, plankway.. Since it was international surf day - woohoo - we got to do some free surfing with the same club that we usually go surfing with, but with different coaches. I had neglected my surfdevelopment, the passion had kinda wandered away inch by inch every time I had to mount a longboard. But this time I asked for a shortboard and my request didnt get denied cuz I was one of the few who had some experience in the surfing field. For most it was the first try. It was really good that there were so many coaches in the water so everyone got a good lesson. But the current was soo strong, too strong to fully enjoy, it kept pulling us to the side where it was way too deep. Still it was aaawsum to get back on the saddle! They were also shooting for a promovideo, there was even a drone flying around. After the surfing the hard part began.. chillin. It was over 30 degrees and to me, a northerner, that is a heavy burden, especially to carry it for 5+ hours - we were waiting for the train to come pick us up (on its one way lane btw).

In the evening we visited the medieval fair taking place here on the streets of Viana. The vibe from that was really nice - foodstands with simple food from back in the day, people dressed in medieval costumes selling their goods, streets filled with people and all that topped with the warm summer air. There were some marching bands scamming the grounds and a theatrical piece performed with firespitters, sangria and beer being sold in especially made ceramic cups - it was an experience of its own! I bought a few rings, which were impossible to pick out from all the beautiful pieces there were on display, and I even got to practice asking for a discount in portuguese, thats something useful i´d say.

Since the start of the end of June has began, there is one (or many) tough things we have to face, and that is saying goodbye to the people that have grown soo dear to us. Yet another byebye-gettogether (+birthday) bash was taking place this weekend and this time one of the heroes of the night was my hero of this half-year, my guide-friend Luis, who was returning to his hometown Lisboa. The whole night I felt soo nostalgic and sentimental. Though one of the most important ones to me, Anna, already left, saying bye to Luis was another level of extremely hard. To be friends with someone like him is a privilege and not having him around is going to take some getting used to. I am just so grateful that he was assigned as my Erasmus buddy. But now it is his turn to do his Erasmus and I will most definitely be visiting him in Bordeaux, France- the wine-capital of the world! And thanks to Luis, I will be taking home a lot better wines then I would be, if I had chosen them on my own :D

The second day of my first weekend back and last full weekend was the day of the (swimming) pool party volume 2! Like the first time, we gathered in the resi parking lot, and just like the first time, we went by mcdonalds to grab a frappé. Traditions are meant to be kept :D Though we were at the same place with nearly the same people, the party was completely different. When the first time we were just mesmerized by how great a party can be, then this time we really felt more and more as a whole. We were all having fun in the pool, cuz it was the best place to be with a heat of 35 degrees. Ofcourse, racket sport enthusiasts, as we are with Christina, we needed to play tennis. Bruno even had to get more balls, because...drumroll please..the remaining balls from the last party weren´t merely enough to cover the probable losses from the upcoming party. Bright yellow balls were flying in every direction and though they are bright and yellow, it´s still not so easy to track them down.

 Ricky had even got a gopro for this special occasion and fun in the pool just got its capital letters! And masterchefs Stefano and Lina made the highlight of the day by preparing us the most amazing burgers ever, in gigantic quantities. Om nomnomnom grunt grunt nomnom and some mainstream playing on the background was all you could hear for a couple of minutes. I just feel that the kizomba part was awfully short :) Right now there is just so much content in my heart that I dont even get sad thinking about all the lasts I´m experiencing. OK, liar, ofc I get sad thinking about not having all my friends in the same place again. And to end this entry, a biiiig thankyou to Bruno who has organised so many amazing events for us!!!

Comigo tu vais ficar

Now it is time to speed up my writingprocesses - blogwise and projectwise. It has been a while due to being so busy and lazy at the same time. So a few weeks ago I had a visitor coming from my homeland dearest and the guest was my neighbour dearest, Janet! I was so looking forward to having her here, I really missed our stupidsilly hangouts. With my fellow erasmusans we had been planning a trip to Spain, Cies Isles out in the coast of Vigo and we had a hard time finding a date which would be suitable for all, and it was soo important for me to have the trip when Janet was here, so I tried pushing and pushing it. And then out of the blue - the guy who organises the Erasmus events announced the date of the trip to be at the perfect time - the weekend I was entertaining my guestiebestie :) The trip started the best way possible, all of the gang in a big bus heading to Spain - just like back in the day with your class on a fieldtrip. Only organising something with this many people, something is bound to go wrong.. one of the Barcelos eramus girls felt a little sick so our departure was delayed enough for us to miss the ferry to the islands and it cost us around an hour on the island. The Cíes Islands are an archipelago (cluster of islands) which are also a nature reserve and a part of the Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park. So every one of us got their own (queres um) saco aka a plastic bag to take all their trash with them once leaving the island. There are no bins on the island, so everyone is responsible for preserving the island in its pure form. Finally the ferry came back for us, since we had missed the first embarkation. 

The ride was unexpectedly cold, as I love to travel extralight, I often leave out necessesary jackets etc stuff that would help me not freeze. And ofcourse we seated ourselves on the upside (:D) so the wind could really enjoy bullying us. Even the clouds made a big grinny-figure just to laugh at us. No, not really. Finally the ferryboatie arrived at the destination and we could start discovering the island. The first glance at the island was already impressive! We started our hike to the lighthouse at the other end of the island in the horizontal-vertical direction. Luckily the weather was just perfect for scamming through the island. We passed a walkway which was surrounded by a beautiful rocky bay on one side and a salt-lake on the other. And the ascending began. The sights were absolutely mesmerizing - beautiful blue waters, boats floating on the sea, heights with amazing views down on a neighbouring island and on the greenery of that island. Once reaching the mountain top with the lighthouse we rewarded ourselves with some cookies, yum. And after that it was time to go back down to the beach. Since the isles reminded me a little of my alltime favourite Jurassic Park, I thought it would be a sin to leave my dino behind.. Dinos adoption to my family was a compelte surprise, and now he is a true travel companion of mine. So I took some shots of him in the wilderness:D:D

But the beach was really the wildest wilderness of them all. We found a spot to enjoy the sun and have a little snack and all that other stuff you do at the beach. And then Diogo informs us that ´you have to be careful of the seagulls, they like to steal your food, even from the bags.´ OH BOZE. They really were circling around us the whole time. And the worse was when someone took out anything edible. Christina offered everybody her cookies, not the usual canela bolachas from Continente, but a new, cheaper version. I got to take a bite of it, when the noise of humangous wings flapping behind me scared me so much, that my hands first reaction was to throw the cookie far away and save myself from a fate worst then death (now i´m just quoting HP). I was so ashamed.. it wasnt even my cookie that I just sacrificed. And the gullie stormed to eat it.. nasty bird. Its flockbuddies weren´t any humbler than him, one of them tried to sneaksteal food from šarkas bag, it got it open already when someone noticed the sucker and schooed it away. Other than that the beach was incredible! Another spot with crystalclear, lightblue water, though it was supercold, even us, the tempered surfing girls, didn´t want to take a dip. The boats floating on the water made it just into an idyllic sight.

The next day was the day of the long-awaited pool party at Brunos house. After arriving in Ponte de Lima, the crimescene of awesomeness, we ran straight to the tennis court. Yes you heard(read) me right, a tennis court. And we stayed there for over an hour, funfunfuninthesun! And when it was time for us to jump in the pool, it was just perfect! Funfunfuninthewater now! Playing catch or dog or whaatever, diving from the board, maybe slipping..ssh(!) The feeling I got from being there is truly undescribable, but I´ll still try to paint you a picture. An exceptional group of people all together at a yard that is so full of activities that even my granny couldnt stay idle. Tennis, some faulty badminton, volleyballey, football, ballgames in the pool, then real pool, darts, farts(maybe..), dancinnngg to kizomba, everything you could possibly need was there. And then just being there, going from person to person, enjoying the company in a place where you can really mingle. On top of it all snacks and cocktails to enjoy. When the sun was setting, everybody was dancing to kizomba, cause I had my kizomba-partner with me (ANNA), demanding to them kizomba tunes. šarka had gone around telling everybody that at 10 sharp we gather at the pool. So we took some lousy quality photos but great quality jumps into the pool and did some wife-boxxing or whats it now :) Luis is really like a fish in the water, at first I couldnt get on his back anyhow but then he invented a technique which only took him like 2 seconds to have me fightready on his shoulders.

The drive back home was really..sad in a way. It had been such an amazing day, even overwhelmingly awesome and it made me and my co-passengers so sentimental, driving in the dark, all those fresh memories spinning through our heads, trying to come down from that cloud we were still floating on. And arriving in front of the resi made me think that its so nice to be home, crash into my bed and rest for the upcoming week. It´s home.