Only in Portugal...

Here's a list, mostly I noticed these and wrote them but some other AFSers also contributed. 


The Ambulances only put on the flashing lights, not sirens and drive normally through traffic.


Are stop signs timelessly ignored(maybe it's because they're all in English? Nah, Portuguese just don't want to slow down)

Traffic lights don't really exist, only round-abouts where people fight to get enter and exit

There are over 1,000 ways to cook Bacalhau, and it's everywhere

Electrical plugs look like this

Buying 5 cases of non refrigerated milk at a time and storing it in the garage




You know the Pingo Doce commercial by heart

You park on the sidewalk, even asking the person standing there to please move away.


You think that you can catch a cold with a draft or by sitting in the spring sun. Cold drinks are also thought to bring on the dreadful "gripe". And don't let anyone have a shower after eating as something terrible could happen to them.


You think Brazilians speak incorrect Portuguese and will not read a book written in Brazilian Portuguese.


You think that 2am is too early to go to bed and that 11am is to early to get out of bed.


Your parents make you eat 3 servings of dinner at each sitting otherwise they think you don't like the cooking.


50% of all the girls you know are named Rita, Inês, Sara, or Maria


You know you've been here a while when you taste your salad and think "this needs more salt"




When your throat hurts and your host mom says its because you drank cold juice that morning


When it's forbidden to take a shower 3 hours or less after eating a meal


Ham and cheese sandwiches are a staple


Not to mention rice and orange soup

I can't really think of any more for now, but I think that's enough.

Money, so they say is the root of all evil today

So as some of you might have heard on the news, Portugal's in the middle of a huge financial crisis, the unemployment rate for people under the age of 30 is 23%, and 12% for the overall population. Not to mention the fact that the Portuguese people's way of proactive let's fix this attitude is actually to stop working and protest everything that bothers them about life and essentially doesn't help anything. The Portuguese public deficit is 93% of the country's GDP. The Portuguese prime minister resigned after his budget was rejected by the EU again and the EU audited Portugal's budget. Now, the European Union is bailing out Portugal's economy for 80 billion euros(115 billion dollars).

The minimum wage in Portugal isn't done by hour, it's done by month. Since you can't work more than 40 hours a week in Portugal, this salary is for a standard full time employee with 35 hours a week. The minimum wage is 485€ per month, about $686, or $8,232 per year. Just because it's minimum wage doesn't mean it's only young students serving coffee on weekends. This is a very large part of the population that LIVES off $8,232 per year. The average salary, which is what I'd say adults in a nuclear family make, is 894€ per month, making their annual salary $15,180. But since in almost all Portuguese families, both parents work, their combined household salary for the year is $30,060 per year. These aren't even bad jobs either, these are good jobs, managers, accountants, therapists, IT, etc.

Anyway the currency in Portugal is the Euro, Portugal is in Europe, but it's actually fairly cheap when compared to other European countries which are jaw-droppingly expensive. For example I can get a Portuguese Meat Pastry and an iced tea for 1.40€($1.98) in a café, versus 10 euros($14.15) that I paid for the same thing in the German airport during my layover to Hungary. And it's even cheaper if you go to the supermarket called Continente, it's like Super Target. You can buy a two liter bottle of coke for 52¢($0.73). It's really hard to believe that people live here with such little money, because while things like food and housing are relatively cheap, other things such as elecriticity, gasoline($8 a gallon here, stop complaining about $4), trains, and water bills are a vacuum to the wallet.

The euro notes and coins are really cool looking and I think it'd be cool if American money was colorful like this.

1€(1 Euro)=100 Eurocents

We have coins for 1¢, 2¢, 5¢, 20¢, 50¢, 1€, 2€, and then notes for 5€, 10€, 20€, and 50€.  However I've never seen a 100€, 200€, or 500€ note. 

If you look at this map of GDP per capita in Europe you'll see Portugal(bottom left) having a lot less money than the rest of Western Europe(Including Spain who is Portugal's rival).

Anyway just a small post about money and Portugal's economic situation, hopefully it'll all get better soon!

Férias da Páscoa: Part 2

First I want to apologize for not updating in a really long time, I'm going to start updating at least twice a week for the rest of my exchange.

So after I got back from Hungary I was really tired, I spent a whole day sleeping. The next day I went to Porto for the day, and the day after I slept in late and packed for my Lisbon trip. I left Viana at 8:00am on a bus for Porto, where I then had to get off and get on the metro, where I was robbed by a homeless man who grabbed me and made me give him everything in my pockets.(Only had 2 euros thank god), then he told me that if I ever have a problem and want anyone beat up that I should call him. Yeah it was pretty freaky. So I took the metro about 7 stops to the train station where I bought my ticket for Lisbon and got on a 3 hour train to Lisbon. I stayed with an AFS volunteer in Lisbon. That night I went to the Damian Marley concert(Bob Marley's son) with another american AFSer. I don't really like hip hop or raggae but I had fun.  Friday the AFS volunteer I was staying with took me on a big tour of Lisbon by foot. We went to a museum about Azulejo tiles which decorate so many Lisbon buildings. They were introduced to Portugal by the Moors in the 15th century.

After we went all around the city and saw tons of things including Castelo de São Jorge(Saint George's Castle), Praça do Cómercio(square), the Baixa(downtown), Rossio(Square).

Azulejo

Azulejo

Azulejo

Azulejo

Graça, Lsoa

Castelo de São Jorge

A Baixa, Lisboa

A Baixa, Lisboa

Praça do Comércio

Castelo de São Jorge

This looks like Harry Potter haha

Praça do Comércio

Graça, Lisboa

Graça, Lisboa

Graça, Lisboa

Friday night was another American AFSer Reyna's birthday party. We went to the Bairro Alto at night, which is a neighborhood in Lisbon that is full of restaurants, clubs, bands, and lounges. After about midnight the streets get filled with people and it's really cool, so much music and people. I had a lot of fun.

Bairro Alto

Saturday day I went to Cascais and Boca de Inferno(Mouth of Hell). Cascais/Estoril are uber-rich beach towns about 20 miles west of Lisbon. It's really nice and full of restaurants, bars, people, and beach. It's also home to Casino Estoril. It's the largest casino in Europe, and has a reputation for being a gathering spot for spies during WWII. This led Casino Royal to inspire the book Casino Royale(James Bond).

Beach near Cabo da Roca

Boca de Inferno

Boca de Inferno

Cascais

Cascais

Cascais

Cascais

I got to know two Brazilians pretty well that are friends of Reyna's here in Portugal, so for the next few days of my Lisbon trip(Saturday night through Monday) I took the train everyday from Estoril(where I was staying) into Lisbon to meet them.

Sintra

I went back to Viana on Monday night, I went to Porto for a day and slept for a day and then I went with my host family, Emilia, Guilherme, Simão, and Rita(from Serra da Estrela trip) to Sintra. Sintra is a small town northwest of Lisbon. It has a microclimate where it's full of big trees and tons of green vegetation, it also rains a lot more there and gets colder. Sintra is famous for being the home of Palácio da Pena castle, while I didn't get to see it I'm going back in June so I'll get the chance then. We spent Easter Sunday there. While my host family didn't really do anything special for Easter, we did drive all around Sintra including to Azenha do Mar and Cabo da Roca(Westernmost point in continental Europe). Also we did attempt to dye eggs. My mom sent me the paas packet in the mail so I had the dyes. The only problem was that I didn't think to specify that the eggs had to be white eggs. So we actually dyed brown eggs. I thought it wouldn't work at all but it did, it just took a lot more time to dye and the eggs finished really dark and not pastel like. But we had fun anyway.

Sintra

Sintra

Sintra

Sintra

Sintra

Sintra

Azenhas do Mar

Azenhas do Mar

Azenhas do Mar

Cabo da Roca

Cabo da Roca

Cabo da Roca

Cabo da Roca

Cabo da Roca

Cabo da Roca

Cabo da Roca

Lisbon Aquarium

Lisbon Aquarium

Barracuda 

Lisbon Aquarium

Lisbon

Lisbon

Me

Inês and I

Pedro, Guilherme, and Rita

Pedro, Guilherme, and Rita

Inês, Me, and Pedro

finished easter eggs

Rita

Host mom Ângela with the funfetti box cake I made that my aunt sent me

Monday was April 25th or the anniversary of the Carnation Revolution, where military coup overthrew the dictatorship of Portugal in 1974.

All together I was only in Viana for 3 days during my 3 week long Easter break, I was really really tired after travelling so much, but school started again and my same old routine picked up. And it hasn't rained for a while!)