today in class

i just got out of my conversation and composition class. the teacher in that class is really ridiculous and you are often put on teh spot and have to answer questions which really are too simple to be answered or discussed about. but it is a class that is really focused on improving our normal, day to day, portuguese so talking is beneficial. today we were talking about stress (for the entire 2 hour class period) and she was asking what things make us stressed out. i decided that since a lot of small things make me stressed out this would be a good oportunity for my first time talking out of my own free will. i started saying how a lot of small things make me stressed out in normal activities but that it usually doesnt last for long so its okay. i said this MUCH less eloquently in portuguese and had to stop a lot to think. then she asked me what and i realized that a lot of the thigns that make me upset would sound ridiculous in front of a lot of people who dont know me, not the mention how foolish i already sounded speaking. so then i was like umm....i dont know cracks in the street (i did know how to say this so it came out more like lines in the road) and then paused a long time and said i was just superstitious. then my friends in the class started chiming in with other things. it was somewhat ridiculous but was way more amusing to me then embarrassing.

i moved!

on thursday we moved out of the dorms and into an apartment! its really really awesome because we are about a 3 minute walk from out building on campus. the apartment is very big and smells like shit. we havent found out what is causing the smell but we have tried hard. i also bought 2 birds yesterday. they are loud. last night we had people over for dinner which was fun but a little hectic because we didnt have enough plates, chairs, table space, cups, silverwear or food. we did have enough wine though.

da beach

yesterday it was a very nice day here in coimbra. it was a rare sunny day and very warm also. unfortunately on mondays we have 6 hours of class. we had a 3 hour break between our first two classes and after carly finding out that someone had taken money from her paypal account i said i would skip our next class to sit with her while she was trying to figure things out. i am a very nice friend and will make large sacrifices, such as missing class, to support people, you see. then! to our surpise we found out from caleb and lauren, who were going to class, that class was canceled! we decided to take this opportunity and go to the ocean! we decided to go to figeira de foz which is the closest city by on the beach-about an hour away. the round trip was only 3.60 euros which was awesome. we got there around 5 and stayed for the sunset. it was one of the best times ive had here and one of the best times ive had anywhere in a long time. it was just really fun and peaceful and the waves were huge and i waded in a little and got wet. i also collected lots of shells.

weird things about portugal/portugal makes me stupid

-every beverage here tastes like metal. it is seriously ridiculous. i have had numerous wines, beers, diet coke and waters that taste like metal. i also have a fear of lead poisoning and this does not make me feel better. also sometimes the food tastes metalic but people tell me it is just me who tastes this.
-we went to the store the other day and i was excited because i bought some butter. i bought butter in a box rather than in little tubs, which is how most of the butter comes, because i wanted a real stick o' butter. when i got home i realized that i had not in fact bought 4 sticks of butter but rather 20 individual servings of butter like you get at a restaurant. i laughed at myself because it is the typical "im a foreigner and dont really understand what is going on" thing to do. then i decided to put my little container of butter in the microwave because, as some of you know, i do not like hard butter. i put it in and immediately it started sparking because i neglected to remove the foil cover. i am generally very careful about not microwaving metal because i find the effect scary but, honestly, because i am in a foreign country-i. am. stupid.
-some other funny foreigner things we have done here: bought fabric softener and washed our clothes with it thinking it was soap; tried to see if we could rent rooms (to live in for the rest of the year) at a hotel; played cards for 2 hours at a bar only to find it is illegal to play cards in public areas in portugal; walked into mens bathrooms countless times; stolen someones cart at the supermarket in front of them; etc. dont even get me started on some of the grammatical mistakes i have made that are embarrassing. i suppose it is humbling and good for me-but for now it is mainly embarrassing and amusing.

porto

this weekend we had monday and tuesday off for carnaval so carly lauren and i went to porto. porto is a very cool city and we wish that we went to school there rather than in coimbra. the first night we got tehre we went down to the river where there are a lot of restaurants. they are all pretty much the same because the only food they really have here is fish potatoes and omelets for us vegetarians. the man at the restaurant was really friendly and was joking around with us (and i think about us). he then gave us this card for a bar we he wanted us to go after dinner. he then took us there himself and told the bar owner we were his friends. the owner (a portuguese guy who was about our age) told us that he wanted his bar to feel liek we were in our own homes. unfortunately the bar did not really achieve this goal-probably because of the stobe lights, techno and metal seats. the other other people in the bar were the owners brother, a family with a small child and a college student doing their homework. he then told us "because we were friends with the owner of the restaurant" our minimum would only be 3 euros. we realized we had been duped. then the guy sat down at our tabele and began to play gyspy songs on his guitar. it was very awkward, especially when he told us how he wrote one song about his girlfriend who died 6 years ago. all this time there was music going on in the background that he was yelling at his brother to turn down. we would have rather listened to the other music. then they whipped out the karaoke machine-which the portuguese love-and began to sing enrique iglesias and do the electric slide.
after that we went to another bar. it was weird and they were playing the island on tv. we took a cab home from there with the most asshole cab driver ever. he was whipping around corners and going super fast. carly asked, in perfectly understandable portuguese, what kind of music was playing on the radio because she liked it and he ignored her. then he was driving so fast that she had to grab onto his seat and he yelled at her for shaking his seat too much. when we got out of the cab he thought i had slammed my door and he got out and was yelling at us from the street.
all in all it was a very good trip with a lot of fun/weird portuguese things.

valentines day

so last night me and a big group of people decided to go out to dinner because we are all single and wanted to do something. we went to this indian restaurant where we had made reservations for 7:45. we got there a little late but then they made us wait until 8:30 to be seated. we were all very hungy at this point. then we ordered. a little over an hour later we got our food-now very very hungry and kinda pissed off because we had been completely ignored and they forgot to bring us our bread. right as the food arrived the cieling above caleb, who was sitting at the end of the table next to me, began the leak a lot. the server continued to bring out our food and only said oh it is raining in here in portuguese. of course, it was not raining outside and the celing of the restaurant was not the roof of the building so it was probably a bath or toilet overflowing. caleb stood up and got his food and moved over and was standing somewhere else were it wasnt raining. then the ceiling there started "raining" also and harder where it had been before getting me and carly and elsa wet as well. our plates were covered in water and our wine classes were half wine half water. still no one said anything so we just got our stuff and moved to a different tabel while the rest of the restaurant gave us very cold stares-probably for making a "big deal" of it. right as it started raining a baby started crying. there was also a phone that had been continuously ringing to the tune of a nutcracker song. we went over to the other table and just laughed a lot because it was so ridiculous. we contemplated just walking out and refusing to pay but we knew it would kinda screw over the other people at we were with. after that we thought some gelato was in order. then we danced the night and our cares away at via da latina. all in all an okay valentines day.

classes

i started classes yesterday. i had six hours of class yesterday and six hours today. it is a lot. classes are all in portuguese which is rough, as is the fact that we are being thrown into a already existing class and dont understand the language/subject matter/what the teacher wants of us. that said its not too bad. its funny taking classes with all my friends and us having the same schedules. my comp/con teacher is supposed to be very mean but she seemed nice to us. also my history teacher reminds me of one of those very tall skinny bugs. tonight i am going to go out with some brasilians and italians-should be pretty fun even tho i have 9 o'clock class tomorrow.