Coimbra II

I took a warm shower in the students' residence. At home there was currently only cold water (I got used to it by now. IHR SEID ALLES WARMDUSCHER!!!) [coimbra_stadt01.JPG]Romy had promised me to show me around town a bit. We had breakfast in one of the big shopping centres. We wondered what the plural form of galão is, whether it's galões {condição -> condições} or galãos {mão -> mãos} (or even galães {cão -> cães}??). Later, in front of the university building, we accessed the internet via WLAN/wireless/sem-fios (had to write a happy b-day e-mail for Melanie) which resulted in us getting late to meet the others who wanted to go to some of the beaches. While one Austrian girl and her German buddy decided to take the train to Aveiro (she would only arrive at 17:00/5pm), Romy, Verena, Serena and me (all of us from Germany) shared a taxi to the praia fluvial (Flussstrand/river beach). You could see were the forest fires had been. The weather was rather chilly but after a snack on our towels at the bank, Romy, Serena and me actually went swimming in the cold river water (WARMDUSCHER!!).Serena showed me how to make flat stones jump on water – I always wanted to know how to do that!At night we went to see the Norwegian and the Italian girls' new appartment. Well not new... actually old, and they had had to clean it 2 days, remove all the abandoned objects (panties and otherugly things...), get rid of the funghi in the fridge (YUCK) etc. But in the end they had a very cute place to stay in. We were very hungry. Instead of lunch we had only had cookies and it was past 22:00/10pm already. I was getting really annoyed w/ the indecisiveness of the group (well, you can't call that group DYNAMICS...). The Norwegian girl was literally fed-up w/ Bacalhau and the others didn't want to have Portuguese food either. Someone suggested Saudi-Arabian, we went to a Pakistan-Indian restaurant though. I'm not used to such high prices since in Berlin it's very cheap to eat Indian food, it was delicious though! Afterwards we returned to the girls' place and after midnight congratulated Romy on her 24th b-day. The night ended in a very very cheap bar.

Coimbra I

During the day I tried to get the signatures for my ERASMUS Learning Agreement on campus which of course didn't work out as usual. In the secretary I found out that different from the German system I had to already choose which courses I wanted to write exams in this semester. What a confusion. Romy wanted to come to Oporto this Friday to enrole in the Foreign Relations Office even if it meant to play truant in the Coimbra Portuguese language course. I had promised her to fetch her from the railway station. Instead of São Bento this time I told her to get off at Campanhã station b/c there was the bus 38 that went right from my faculty to Campanhã. From Campanhã we took bus 34 (?) to Boavista and had some fine sandwiches in the Cidade do Porto Shopping Centre. I told her what had happened w/ my family and it was surely good to „desabafar“. After that I accompanied her to the Foreign Relations Office. It took a whole while until she returned from her enrolement. She had insisted on speaking Portuguese instead of English and also decided to take the bed in the double room, university residence, that after all isn't close to her faculty cos they moved to the university pole where my faculty is situated. Romy wanted to buy a bikini and already had her train ticket for 20:05 (8:05 pm) back to Coimbra. We always said that one day I would visit her there. So I thought: Why shouldn't I just go w/ her that evening? Fortunately Romy is a perfect opportunity to live my whims and spontaneous ideas to do this or that. While Romy was looking for a bikini in Cidade do Porto I quickly went home to get some things packed. I enjoyed going by train to Coimbra, when we arrived at night, the city was so beautiful!


While some days ago, being kinda blue, the beauty of Oporto City didn't reach my heart, now w/ company and exploring a totally new place (never been to Coimbra before) I was so amazed! We walked to the students' residence where we met friends of hers, other ERASMUS students from Italy, Norway and Romania. They were intending to go to a Reggae Concert and invited us to join them. Romy quickly changed her shoes in her bedroom and then we walked through Coimbra, always running into other ERASMUS students. In the end we didn't find the reggae concert and went to a Brazilian party in a club. Since parties in Portugal start really late (and end really early, i.e. 7am) we were just sitting around sipping at incredibly cheap drinks for a whole while. But eventually there was a Brazilian band playing/singing or there was disco music from a DJ. It was good to dance samba again!

new hope, new starts...?

Today finally I enroled... partly. Tomorrow morning I gotta go to my faculty FEUP (engineering) to really enrole, today I only received permission I guess. I can also get my student's card tomorrow.
It was quite crowded this time, and there were other foreign students (a French guy w/ his Asian g/f among others), well, only today I talked to Rita Sinde, the young woman (she SEEMED a bit too young for the job) was Teresa. Rita also complimented me on my Portuguese (I didn't say much though), wow she's a very attractive dynamic woman. Anyways...
I had three rooms to see but the first one: she didn't send me the address via SMS... The 2nd one was Joana's friend (thx Joana!) wow what an apartment... one living room, two bedrooms and 3 (!!) bathrooms on 2 floors, washing machine, dish cleaner, tumble dryer...
She's a sweet girl, her name's Ana Luisa, her b-day is 2 days after mine, arquitecure students in the 2nd yr., her style is partly extravagant hahaha but sometimes I'm like that as well.
She said 200€/month including everything (also has central heating) and we can get highspeed internet and share the costs. Sounds really good. (Close to the metro station of Francos)
Miguel knows her... what a coincidence, they had a course together in uni.
After we spent some time at her place chatting she brought me to the street where I should see another room. The girl didn't show up, didn't attend her cellphone. Only when I was on my way home she sent me an SMS.
My mom on the phone right away told me she has had a good feeling about me having a good place. Ha.... fate maybe -?.....
Later at night 8:30pm when I was cooking my cellphone rang (errr... can you say "rang" when it's a melody...). The sister of one of Miguel's friends had a room to offer. But time to show it only in that instant. But I was cooking! And in Gaia! It would have took me 1h to get to Porto at night...
I think tomorrow I will just go to my faculty and then meet Ana Luisa to settle things...