Friday, May 26, 2006

Imaginarius Santa Maria da Feira

20/05/05 -
I had asked Julião whether he'd go to see Imaginarius - International Festival of Street Theater - in his hometown Santa Maria da Feira.
He fetched me in Espinho, the casino/beach city some kilometers near Santa Maria da Feira.
Due to some hazzles we got there really late and we didn't see much of the theater, yet it was amazing. All people whether young or old came to Europarque to see the festival. There was a huge tend of "spiderwebs" that people could crawl under and there was a French Funk Band w/ a female African singer.

The atmosphere was cheerful and harmonic... seem like all people in Santa Maria da Feira are as positive as is Julião. Every minute he would run into someone he knew. A friend of him working in a bar even gave us two drinks and we didn't have to pay anything.
At the concert I got to know some of his best friends Sarinha (Sara), Ana and Renato.
I took to them a lot! Very kind people.
Renato even spoke a few things in German and guessed my Asian part correctly and when I gave him credit for it he felt kind of embarrassed and said he knew from my jacket - which was a pretext... my jacket is from Zara, a European brand.
His girlfriend Ana looks like Nicole Kidman. When I told Julião he said he never realized that. When it was getting chilly she put a black scarf around her head, now her piercing light eyes and the very red lips were even more underlined.
Sarinha is a 2nd year med student, behave in a very cute yet not annoying way.

In Renato's car I had to translate some lyrics of Rammstein for them (Ich will kein Engel sein).
When Julião drove me home all the way from Santa Maria da Feira to Oporto it was already past 3am. He borrowed me two cool CDs... Blasted Mechanism (some weird Portuguese band :) and gotan project (Belgian modern tango influenced music).

I always enjoy Julião's presence a lot, such a cheerful and vibrant guy.


[photos]

Monday, May 22, 2006

Queima das Fitas #4

Also went to see The Gift (Portuguese electronic?pop band, singing in English) and DaWeasel (Portuguese hiphop, very good!) on Thursday 11th May, this time I actually found the correct shuttle bus!!! :P

Bought the ticket for Thursday on the very same day. Romy had asked me to buy her a ticket for Friday. First my bank card (multibanco) let me down but then I could buy the ticket for Thursday for myself and the ticket for Friday for Romy.
Ricardo told me he'd go there w/ his girfriend on Friday but when I decided to go with them there were no more tickets (for students).
When I tried to find out when and how to meet Romy to hand over her ticket she told me she's still tired from yesterday (she went to the Queima in Coimbra) and her friends wouldn't go. She told me to keep the ticket (which she hadn't paid yet).
We nearly missed all of the first concert "Fingertips"... some kind of Portuguese HIM (singing in English), then it was Melanie C...
The concert I liked least on the Queima... She sang all these new pseudo-rock songs that no one knew, the well-known old hits only at the end, the song that is currently in the charts in the encoure (!! how sad is that)...

After the concert we ate pão com chouriço - yum! :D
By the way Ricardo and his g/f are anti-alcoholics.


Queima #3 - Cortejo

Queima das Fitas: "The Burning of the Stripes"...

Every faculty of the Universidade do Porto and every private university or polytechnic has its own colour or bicolor. The stripes can be bound to the student's bag in his/her 4th (=second last ) year... in the 5th (=last) year the stripes will be burned which symbolizes the end of the course.
Tuesday was the day of the Cortejo (pageant/Umzug). Every faculty (/polytechnic, private university) has its own car in the Cortejo and they start in order of the foundation of the faculty.
So the first one is medicine, second sciences, third engineering (80 years old), 4th arts, etc.
There is a big rivalry between all the faculties and most of all between the faculties of one course from the Universidade do Porto (state university) and the corresponding courses from the private university or polytechnic.
The Cortejo starts at the REITORIA of the Universidade do Porto and ends down-town in front of the town hall where the finalists are introduced to the mayor and the finally caloiros* become "real" students.

Since there are so many private universities (at least 4 that I can think of) and polytechnics along the state university and its faculties the last car might pass the mayor only after midnight.

*:: for more info read the comments in the photo album!

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photos are here::

Cortejo

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