Marco de Canavezes

So I told you I made friends w/ this half-German-half-Portuguese from 4th year electrotechnics (automation). I like Mark for being funny, laid-back, generous, his taste in music and how we can make jokes about Portuguese things. He says he doesn't really feel home neither in Germany nor in Portugal. I found him to be pretty German in many respects, but not too much... kinda a good mixture, ha! I guess it's also good to talk to another person of mixed background. The shadow side to this friendship... I talk too much German and don't talk so much Portuguese (besides in shops, or ordering in cafés). In the first week of uni I nearly spent all my time w/ him cos he was like "Okay, so what you wanna do now? Wanna go there? If you have to do something, I can bring you, I wait and afterwards we can have a coffee! Come along to my girlfriend's house!"To be honest his girlfriend Diana, who was also pretty stressed out w/ 8h internship (Praktikum) in a hotel and 8h work in a café, got a bit bitchy once. I'm not romantically interested in Mark, mind you, and *he* was really eager on spending a lot of time w/ *me*. For the weekend he asked whether I'd like to go w/ them to "Marco". Diana's mother (they are from Ecuador) married a Portuguese man about 8 yrs ago and has a house in a rural area where they produce wine. I was greatful for the opportunity! So we took Diana's (21) middle sister Viki (23) and Marciano, the Portuguese water dog, and went to Marco de Canavezes by car, 1h45min to the North. (Actually the house is beyond this town)There the oldest sister (25) and the mother were already waiting for us. They were all nice, also the three dogs that seemed to be little bears (quite big), they were totally tame and sweet... but not to Marciano (which means Martian/Marsianer, by the way), we always had to seperate them from him so he didn't get slaughtered. They all talked more or less flawed Portuguese, when they didn't start chatting in Spanish (Mark's fluent in Spanish, too). Unfortunately the mother thought talking to me in idiot's Portuguese would help me (nah... on the contrary, I prefer complete and gramatically correct sentences).The house dates back to about 1700 but is partially modernized. I got my own room in a seperate building where normally Europeans on rural tourism stay. On the next day we should collect walnuts.