Rally das Tascas

The next event organized by the ESN was a bar rally. We bought vouchers for free shots at several bars in Oporto. It started near the reitoria and went down to the river (Ribeira). Some bars at the Ribeira I had already known from last year when I went out w/ the guys from Vila Nova de Gaia (friends of Sílvio, but he didn't go w/ us).
I got to know another German but one that wasn't included in the 33 German ERASMUS students. I call him "der deutscher Römer". He's a guy who started his architecture studies in Rome, he called me clever when I knew that Italy in winter isn't so warm cos there are no heatings in the appartments. (Why's that clever... I remember last winter in Sílvio's house... wasn't warm, no, eventhough outside it was 14ºC)
I got home too late and on the next day, Friday, I had "Industrial Computation" at 8:30am. I actually went there... I had slept 2.5h... I slipped on the stone stairs in the entrance hall of my faculty... and had this really big blue spot on my left knee. Also I nearly fell asleep during the lecture. 30mins before its end (total time 2h) I just decided to go home and take a nap. I still had to go to the faculty of Arts to inscribe for the Portuguese diagnosis test next Thursday.
Damn, was I wasted...
Some pics I took during the Rally.

Mau-Mau / Bad-Bad

While walking downtown I talked to friends of Vinícius (the Brazilian from my "Industrial Computation" class I chatted up in the faculty's dining hall). Guilherme (his grand(grand?)father was Japanese), João (Bahia) and Lucas (São Paulo, his granddad is German, Lucas is one of the many blonde Brazilians), they were fun to talk to.
Suddenly the mass didn't walk any further, I was really hungry, but we didn't know what would happen or why nothing was happening. There was this Belgian guy who spoke like a Brazilian and later on turned out not to be an ERASMUS student but someone who after his ERASMUS year decided to stay in Portugal (he learnt his Portuguese from Brazilians).
Afterall there was no restaurant (I wondered how all these hundreds of ppl would fit into a restaurants anyways), we were standing in front of a club called "Mau-Mau". In German that's a children's card game, in Portuguese "mau" actually means "bad" or "mean". The club was beautiful, we got wine for free - but where was the food?!
Only really late we got soups, and even later some bread and salad. Damn, we were hungry!! More food! Where was it?!!
Eventually they served some kinds of noodle salads... only in small quantaties... the hungry mass jumped on the waiters and in a few minutes the noodles were gone. Later one more - gone in a few minutes.
I saw a guy who only had pure noodles on his plate. I asked whether he was vegetarian. He answered "No, I'm not, but there's nothing else." I said "Bist Du Deutsch?" (=Are you German), 100 points, it was a physics student from Würzburg. (These accents really give them away)
Another good organization :(. The "dinner" was frustrating.
I really got along well w/ Lucas, Brazilians are surely more open than Portuguese ppl. All of a sudden he was talking to a crazy Belgian guy who had kicked him in the ass. He wanted to catch his attention as a female friend of him wanted to get to know Lucas. He wasn't interested in the blonde girl. "I have a g/f in Brazil!". Lucas was quite unbelieving that that dude had kicked him in the ass *LOL*.
When the party started to get "hotter" Lucas was really having fun w/ the girls... so much as for the g/f :p.
Some pics from their photosite:

http://enoisemportugal.gigafoto.com.br/?id_foto=3485927

http://www.enoisemportugal.gigafoto.com.br/?id_foto=3485865

http://www.enoisemportugal.gigafoto.com.br/?id_foto=3485763

the welcoming

Today there should have been the ERASMUS student welcoming at the rectoriate at 3pm so I went to the "Automatic Control" tutorial at 8:30am (tutorials in Portugal are obligatory) instead of the 2:30pm class where I'm registered, then at 2:30pm told my teacher that I had already attended in the morning, then I took the metro (paid extra) to go to the rectoriate. When I arrived there was nothing! But I met Görkem who told me they was a misunderstanding and the welcoming was only at 5:00pm.
The ERASMUS Student Network (ESN) had told some students the wrong time. Only yesterday though I had talked to a girl from ESN and she didn't tell me anything about it, she actually said 3pm... (well, we're in Portugal...)
I walked w/ Görkem who wanted to go to his faculty (faculty of pharmacy), they have beautiful glass work inside of the main hall. I then went home and took a shower, I was 5min late for the welcoming then and was surprised that the doors were already closed (punctual?!), I had to sit on the stairs. A woman presented the University of Oporto w/ a confusing power point presentation (her English was confusing too). When the two ladies of the Foreign Relations Office were presented everybody loudly clapped there hands and JUBELTEN.
The presented some institutions and showed a film on Oporto in Portuguese, at the end they gave us plastic bags w/ information on the university, the city, a small flask of port wine, a basecap and this ORDNER in all the colours of the faculties that I always wanted to have!!
There was a line for the Brazilian students (most studentes came from Brazil, about 125) and another line for the ERASMUS students (33 from Germany). You had to say your country, faculty and name to receive the presents. Rita Sinde asked me whether I was Brazilian (I get mistaken for that sometimes since there's a Japanese minority in Brazil).
It turned out later I'm the only German student at the faculty of engineering.
A jet black haired girl asked Adriano about the content of the bags (since he already had one) before standing in line.
She said "Is it wors it?" I thought she must be German from her accent (and she was, strike!)
I think until today (15/10/05) I guessed at least 5 Germans correctly from their accent speaking English (or Portuguese), ha!
At night there should be a dinner and afterwards a party. So now after the welcoming we were standing in the court without anything to do... there wasn't enough time to go home in the meanwhile and it was a hell of a long time to wait. (Well organized, guys...). I chatted a bit w/ a Swedish and a Finnish Portuguese student, when we finally started to walk to get our dinner I made friends w/ some Brazilians. (... see next entry)