Saudade

The word saudade has no direct translation in english, it can be described close with the words miss, or longing, but also it means to delight in knowing someone,place,thing. Saudade has these lingering sentiments of positive feelings as well as a sadness. Like smiling goodbye to a close friend who is moving to a different state for college(like all of my friends), and a tear roll downs your cheek. Inside your happy this person is going where they are called to be but at the same time you will miss their physical presence in your life.

This is probably one of my favorite portuguese words, saudade. It explains how I feel at the moment. I miss home and I wish I could be there, but at the same time I am very happy and feel bless for this opportunity to study abroad in Portugal. I am living and breathing everyday in Europe by myself, I came here knowing my program director via emails. I can count how many times I've seen her on one hand, and I've been here for about 2 months and some days now. So I basically came here with no one, an open mind, two big suitcases, and my portuguese phrase book. I must admit there are days when it's really refreshing to realize how much I am growing and how humble I am by this experience. I have met so many amazing people here in Portugal as well as other parts of Europe. They have really helped shape my experience to a positive one. Relationships. simple yet complicated. sometimes you have to let old friends go, for your own personal growth. (don't tolerate the apple in the barrel to be your life) relationships are so important in life, what would life be without them?Just like communication, I surprise myself sometimes when I speak portuguese or when someone talks to me in portuguese and I actually understand everything that they said. I get this big smile on my face and I nod my head with excitement.

But I will also admit there days that are hard for me. The days I wish I could just "jump" home just for a few hours, smell my mothers cooking, hear the school bells at Henry, hear the two dogs near my house bark at the neighbors walking on the sidewalk. I miss sleeping in my own bed. I miss my friends laughter, I can't remember the last time we were all together. Time has divided us but memories keep us together. I even miss my crazy first wave family. "where theres a will theres a Willie Ney," I miss long rehearsals, I miss memorizing lines and performing. I miss just bust and even the first wave checkins with Kahaema. I miss fleeing to Katrina for understanding, helping me remember education cannot come in the way of my learning and/or my growth as a woman. (shell woman). I miss state street with all those badger fans in red,lol. I miss everyone at FOL church, Pastor Gee's sermons were always real and deep. "Don't half way pray to God, he doesn't give you a half way blessing" so true!

Some of the FW family, when we were on our way to England for CTW. Man that experience was amazing, I still think about it.

I miss family dinners, the time you get to see everyone in the family at one time other than at a funeral. I miss that; setting the table, cooking, eating, everyone full and laying around. I'm laughing at the thought of all of us full sitting on the couch. We even play games together:Pictionary, Gestures, and Scrabble...ahh I miss that. But I'm sure there not missing the Scrabble champ Leslie to much..me being away gives them time to practice. lol

Last years Thanksgiving. Man I miss all that food oh ya and my family too..lol

Eu saudade minha familia. ->I miss(bittersweet) my family.

Eu saudade meus amigos.-> I miss(bittersweet) my friends.

Lutada

So the end of October there was a four day festival called "Lutada." They have this tradition here were the freshmen are called "collouidos," the one thing I think it is the closest to in the US is fraternity and sorority but in public, not divided by sex but by what school they are housed in(science, pharmacy, letters, etc.), and its basically all month long until "Lutada" but they are still called collouido not by their real name.

When I first witness this tradition it was strange because they poured beer over this girl head in my residence halls. Then when my classes started as I walked to class I would see more and more "activities" taking place. Making them sing songs in public, act out plays, tie an upper-classmens shoe, hold hands and walked down the stairs together, wear pajamas all day, play tag, basically they did what ever their group leader would say or another upper-classmen(which usually is a person with a harry potter cap on which is called a toga but I prefer to call it harry potter clothes.lol) anyways i went to two events, the first one was basically tons of students drinking and acting crazy on the street. it started at 12am till 7am, it smelled so bad, after about 15 minutes of people watching, i headed home. the other event I cant remember the name but this one was during the day 4pm till i have no idea. The collouidos dressed up in different costumes and there was basically a chaotic parade with tons of stoping and chants. Also the upper-classmens were eating on some kind of vegetable that i dont know the name of, the same vegetable that a rabbit would eat. And the colluidos had buckets of candy or silly things like an empty can of shoe string, they tried to sell while there. Not sure what they did with the money but it was only like cents and they didn't seem at all serious about selling. I posted photos and videos below so you all can witness what I did.

My friends and I

Snapping a few pics of the collouidos in action

The beginning of the parade

the warriors

a man screaming on a bus stop

superheros

more students

the vegetable they were eating

Did I mention they collect patches here?

(brought me back to my childhood memories at camp voyager I use to love canoeing and archery..lol)

Visit to an Igreja

Today I went to visit a Igreja=church with my friend Fellipe. Igreja de baptista- Baptist church. Felippe pastor in brazil told him about this church because the pastor is also Brazilian. Service started at 11:00am but we had arrived a little early and there was some sort of bible study going on. After that the culto=service began with a song and then welcomed the visitors. The people who were visiting for the first time were asked to stand up and share their name, where they are from, and what brought them to Coimbra? I was a little nervous about speaking but I said “ Ola bom dia, meu nome Leslie Thomas, sou Americana e estou estudante aqui em Coimbra.” Good morning my name is Leslie Thomas, I am American and a student studying here in Coimbra. There were other Americans there as well, from Texas that came to do missionary work, The pastor brought them up and they talked for a little bit just about why they came here and one of the guys expressed that he had been wanting to come here and share the word of God.

After that we sang a few more songs and prayed and then the pastor came up and before he preaches he showed a video. He explained that the video was in English which is good for the Americans who cant speak Portuguese because his sermon is about the same theme as the song, forgiveness=Perdão. The song was very beautiful and powerful. I was thinking in my head I should create a dance to this song and share. Maybe. After the song the pastor began to preach about forgiveness, he started with questions what is forgiveness? He quotes some scripture and began to elaborate on the meaning. He also asked and addresses these questions as well: Who needs forgiveness? And why do we forgive? It was a special moment for me being in the church and listening because I could understand parts of his sermon. To listen in another language someone talk about Jesus was beautiful. It reminded me the power of language and also how important it is to communicate. For example what if I met someone who didn’t speak English and wanted to know about the Lord, I would I be able to talk to them? What would I be able to tell them? Deus é amor=god is love. There was still many parts that I didn’t understand, especially when he prayed. He spoke very fast and soft which made it difficult to hear and understand. But just being there felt good. Sometimes its alright not to understand everything, but to feel.

I feel motivated to study more Portuguese today. I feel inspired to try harder at learning grammar. My biggest problem with the language is grammatical errors. I remember how to make the word in the past and present, the problems is within past and present there is indicative, subjunctive, present perfect, past perfect, pluperfect simple(I don’t know what is is in English) and future. And that’s not even all the tenses that exist. Furthermore when people talk they usually don’t speak grammatically correct so I am learning how to speak well but I cant write what I speak because ite incorrect. Learning two things at once, but of course I am able to speak better than I can write..lol eu preciso fechado meu baco a vezes e só ler=I need to shut my mouth sometimes and just read. Lol

Trip to Viana do Castelo and a surprise visit to Spain

So this past weekend, Sept 17-19 My program facilitator Ana Paula and I took the train from Coimbra to Porto. Once arriving in Porto her boyfriend picked us up, for he was joining us on this program trip(right??) and we drove to different parts of Viana do castelo. Viana do castelo is a very traditional city. We seen traditional shops that sold traditional outfits.

The Museum of traje-which is the traditional clothing worn by the woman of Viana do Castelo (inside the museum there are tons of different tradition costumes worn by the women during special festivals. For a wedding the bride and groom wear all black with white trimming. Also on the last floor there was hand made gold that was worth over 5 million euros=very expensive

During festivals woman wear colorful hand-embroidered costumes plus 20 pounds of gold jewelry around there neck!

Outside the Museum

The ocean was beautiful

Praça de Republic, common place where shops and restaurants are located

The view

Inside the church

A church that dates back to 16th and 17th century

The city is really up north and on the coast so often times we stopped to see the scene. The scene was the same: waves, the sound of the sea, and a sense of tranquility. After a day of traveling we headed to the hotel, got settled in, and we met back up to have dinner together.

For dinner we ate at a place called Ol Magel. I order facana which is a type of fish that came with salad and rice. The keep the head on the fish here, I wasn’t scared because I was so hungry..lol plus I grew up my fishing and eating fish because my mother loves to fish.

My dinner

The next day we went to visit another small town Fortaleza. We just walked around and took pictured of the view. It felt like we were visiting an old castle. I enjoyed the whole trip away from Coimbra surprisingly. I told myself to make the most of the trip even though it would be me and my program director and her boyfriend. Her boyfriend was pretty cool, he cracked tons of jokes but everyone they had to break them down because I didn’t understand any of it.

Fortaleza reminded me of a castle

The streets and in the background you see the one way entrance

Smiling with the view

Another view

For lunch we drove like 15 more minutes and we were in Spain. It was my first time in Spain and I was really happy about visiting two countries in one day. We visited a city called Tui and another city name Baiona, both were also on the coast. We had lunch at a place call Xamon, it was really small in the side but had tons of tables outside the restaurant. There were tons of people there, it must have been really popular. I kept saying obrigada but I meant to say gracias, I almost forgot we were in a totally different country where they spoke Spanish. The power of languages and communication, it amazes me every time I travel. One minute I was hearing Portuguese from Ana Paula and her boyfriend and the next minute I was hearing Spanish. I ordered a tortilla com queso and jamon ( that’s ham and cheese something) I thought I was going to receive like an actually flour tortilla shell with cheese and ham, to my surprise I received basically an omelet with ham and cheese. It was so GOOD!

Welcome to Spain

'

The city of Baiona

The restaurant in Spain, hanging pig legs

Information about the city

After that we drove back to the hotel, I fell asleep in the car, two hours later I woke up and we were still driving. We were lost. We pulled over to the side of the road and then after a few minutes he got back in the car and said I see the bridge back to Portugal. I stayed awake from then on, I don’t like not knowing where I’m going, so I watch intently out the window. Once we arrived back to the hotel it was still very sunny out and so I decided to lay out in the back of the hotel because there was a pool. To bad the water was very cold otherwise I would have got in the pool. The hotel we stayed in was really nice. I never had a whole hotel room to myself ( now I know how you feel –mk) I laid around mostly at night, turned on the tv and tried to find something on the four channels to watch. The second night the movie PS I love you was on so I enjoyed watching that as I waited to meet back up for dinner. For dinner we walked across the street to a small little restaurant I forgot the name of it but it had a home feel to it. I order salmon and it came with potatoes and cabbage( but this cabbage taste very different from the US because usually I wouldn’t eat cabbage, but this was good). If it’s one thing I spend my money on its food, I always make sure I eat well. The next morning we ate the free breakfast ( bread, cheese, ham, fruit, tea, coffee, and water) and then we left the hotel to head back to Coimbra. It took like 40 minutes to get to the train station. We got on the train from Porto to Coimbra, took about 1hour or so. The rest of the day I did laundry and cleaned up. Talked to my friends about my weekend and cooked a big dinner so that I don’t have to cook the next day :)

Then Monday came and I went to this beach called Faivela. It was really nice because its like a hidden beach so there wasn’t a lot of people there. I enjoyed the sound of the water, there were these mini falls, to get to the beach we had to walk across a wooden bridge. At first I was scared because the bridge looked dangerous but to my surprise the water was clear I could look down and see the bottom. The water was so shallow, like to my knees if even that. With the sun and the sounds of the water it was destined I spent my whole day there. Something about me and traveling, its like a light switch from the busy Leslie that has to do list and scheduling meals and shows in Madison, to the chill Leslie that has no plans and leaves when I please. I enjoy both lives, for when I am in Madison I long for calmness and uncertainty and sometimes when I travel I miss having a schedule and business. I feel bless to have experience both. Realizing there necessary, and I’m fortunate to have to choose one over the other, I just live in both, and it creates a wholeness of self.

Well after the beach headed home to cook dinner and then I talked to my new roommate in our small room. Her name is Datianna she’s a first year student studying chemistry. I think I may try and find my own room though, I really value my privacy and if I can find something for the same price or cheaper than why not? I have some friends that are looking for apartments now so I could just get a room with them. J

Oh ya, today at the beach I wrote my first poem in Portuguese so as I close this post with a poem:

O som de agua faz me completo

Eu escucho por reposta

Porque eu tenho medo de preguntas

Porque eu tenho medo da reposta

Então eu aprendeindo eschuchar o som

The sound of the water makes me complete

I listen for the answer

Because I’m scared to ask my questions

Because I fear the answers

So I learn to listen to the sound

I'm Back

I know I know, its been a while but I've been trying to learn my way in Portugal. I will try to update at least once a week. Every day I have no obligations or plans and for some strange reason everyday becomes FULL and I'm busy.

From last time I wrote(about two weeks ago) I experienced the night life in Coimbra. Tuesdays and Thursdays are the most popular days to go out. Every barr here is always packed full of people, majority if not all students. They also have places where a people dance, called discoteci. I went to an african night one with a few friends i met that are from cape verde, it was really fun. But guess what time it started? Like 1 am!! thats another big shocker here, people go out at 1 or 2am and don't come home till 6 or 7am. I don't know how they do it, they must take naps but every time i ask people if they take naps they tell me no. I get so tired waiting for 1am around 10 and 11pm. My brazilian friends I always telling me to stop acting like a baby..lol and come out. It's funny to think I'm in Portugal and majority of the friends that I have made are from Brazil. It's so much easier for me to understand Brazilians speak Portuguese than it is to understand the people of Portugal. But i will honestly say that the portuguese people here have a way of giving bad vibes to brazilians here. whether its in a joke to another friend, or a certain look. I may not understand every word but I definitely understand body language and the vibes people give off to one another. It's mostly Portuguese people "correcting" Brazilians on the way they talk as if they speak some other language. To me, I thought the people would be more kind but you see this competition, this attitude that says"I'm from Portugal and speak portuguese and you don't." I'm not Brazilian however spending time with my Brazilians friends its seems at least once a day some Portuguese person makes some joke about Brazilians.

The week after that I celebrated my friend Natalia birthday and that was a lot of fun. It amazes me how nice and happy all these people around us were about her birthday, people who have never even met her. The bartender Avo, has become a friend of ours and he made a whip cream and oranges cake for natalie. It was a really nice gestures and afterwards he danced on the bar..lol

Natalie and I

The bartender Avo dancing

The whip cream oranges cake

And I'm off to EUROPE

Again..right? I just returned from visiting Europe in July for an amazing experience in Manchester, England as a performer in an international theatre Festival called Contact the world. But this time I'm really off. I'm off to study abroad for a YEAR. I will spend one semester at the University of Coimbra in Portugal and second semester I will spend at the University of Belo Horizonte in Brazil. Both programs work with my Portuguese and Latin American studies major as well as my personal interest in different cultures, the african diaspora, and dance so it works out well.

A year. A year? People asked me that all the time before I left. Yes, a year. Ambitious right? In the words of Wale who created a song for an ambitious girl like myself he raps :

I'm in love with your business

and your productivity is the reason I intrest, ambitious girl

see, I like the person that you are,

but I'm in love with the person that you have potential to be

and all your dreams sharing with me

and your secrets baring with me

and the flaws, you aint even got to mention to me,

ambitious girl, you just wanna win, and you'd rather chase your dreams,

then to try to chase these men

Man, I have to thank Wale in person or send him a fan letter because this song is definitely always on repeat. ok...now to my ambitious future...

...I left Minnesota Thursday 1 pm on Sept 3, 2010 with a full day of travel including a stop in Philly for about 4 hours. I made it Friday morning at 8:30am to Portugal ( which is really 3:30am MN time:(). I landed safely in the airport in Lisbon with many things needed to be done: had to exchange money and then figure out what train to catch that takes me to Coimbra. Well with all that information on my cell phone email that doesn't work had to put on my thinking cap. I pulled out the emergency called with all the numbers called the director for my program Ana Paula and asked her what train station I should go to to take the train. Well she must have misunderstood me because she replies I'm meeting you at the trainstation in coimbra, im not in Lisbon. I sigh for we had this conversation in english, and say i understand that i just would like to know which traint station i should catch the train at. Ana Paula tells me I have 10 minutes to catch the train that leaves. I hang up the phone with an quick tchau and hurry to find a taxi.

Well to get a taxi you have to wait in a long line, like when everyone received their tax returns and wait in the un-bank. lol it was just like that, but quicker. I got in my taxi and arrives at the train station, the taxi driver spoke english so he explained where i would purchase my ticket. With my jet lagged self i carried my 68 pound suitcase, my addidas duffle bag around my neck and my heavy back pack and scurry to the elevator. I caught the train that said to Porto, lucky for me I knew that Coimbra was in the middle between Lisbon and Porto. Put my luggage away and sat down, well this lady comes to me to let me know I'm in her seat. I'm thinking, dang they have assign seating on a public train how silly. After an hour and half I finally arrive to Lisbon, I look around the station, I notice a stylish woman with these big Hollywood sunglasses, high wedge heels, and a cigaret. She looks familiar from the picture I receive a day age: I realize it is indeed Ana Paula. We meet, we greet, she talk and talk the whole car ride about tons of things. Fortunately she typed them up because I don't even remember half of what she said. She dropped me off at the dorm and said "See you Monday."

I got kind of settled in, I was way to tired to put things in drawers so I just showered and slept. Once I woke up I looked over the papers Ana Paula gave me, and they included a map. Took a small purse with my map, mase, notebook, and pen. I set off to explore some of the city I couldn't sleep the whole day away.

Coimbra, Portugal

On the campus by the clock students call it cabra which means bitch

Equivalent to state st. in Madison, WI

My first impressions of Coimbra:

-it's an old city

-seems like the elderly live here more than another age group

-nice weather

-cobbles stones streets make me miss Brazil

- the portuguese spoken here is different from Brazil, sometimes it's hard for me to understand basic words

Well I ended up wondering to a park and to Rio de Mondego- the Mondego River. It was a peaceful site. I always feel better when I'm near some sort of body of water, reminds me of home. I just walked around there and found some cute little barres that have tables sitting on the river. My stomach was calling so i stopped at this Irish Pub, I seen chicken fingers with batta fritas(french fries). I was confused about the sitting arrangement:was i suppose to sit anywhere or does she sit me somewhere? I went inside to ask her, well kind of cause I didn't know how to say it exactly in portuguese, but she understood it and ask me in or outside so I just sat outside to soak up the sun and other peoples conversations. I attempted to understand, most people spoke way to fast, there were some men just on their lab tops. I was thinking this reminds me of people at coffee shops on state street with their lab tops not some Irish Pub in Portugal.

I inhaled my food with a bitter beer taste in my mouth because if I'm not mistaken I think the chicken fingers were cooked in beer batter. That was NOT great, but when your hungry it doesn't matter. at least the french fries were decent.

I walked around some more, found more little pastry, coffee, and beer stores. I even found a mall no to far away: not sure if thats a good or bad thing. For now we will say a good thing..lol I found a nearby grocery store called Pinga Doce. I went in with the intentions to buy items for breakfast, i bought a box of cereal and some milk. Now the milk here is different, I didn't know what the heck kind to get. Its not refrigerated it just sits in the aisle. I mean I understand that there was fat, light fat, and no fat in the milk but what would it taste like? Do I wait for it to be cold?