Coimbra University

Portugal Football Game!

Portugal - Day 3

On our 3rd day in Portugal we took a trip to a winery out on the countryside. We got a chance to learn about how the harvesting of grapes and the production of wine has changed throughout the years due to the introduction of mechanization.

Wasting some time while we waited for our tour

Left - Our cameraman Josh playing with one of the dogs living at the Winery

Right - Three of our students relax outside

The first part of our tour was an explanation of the modern winemaking process, followed by a tasting of their wines. Some of the wines offerend had been award winners at wine tasting competitions around the world!

This little girl was the granddaughter of the owner of the winery and kept peeking through the bushes at us!

The next step was to head out into the sunshine to pick some grapes!

Left - Me picking my first bunch of grapes of the day!

Center - I had never seen (or tasted!) grapes straight off the vine

Right - One of our participant leaders, Dana, helping out with the harvest

This is about half of all of the grapes we picked. We ended up with about 12-15 buckets overflowing with bunches of the most delicious grapes many of us had ever had!

Then we dumped about 12 giant buckets of grapes into a huge stainless steel containment area and hopped in for some fun! It was slippery, mushy, cold, and AMAZING!

Apparently there is enough juice in 12 buckets of grapes to make at least 70 liters of juice! And for those of you who swear by Juicy Juice or Welches Grape Juice, they simply cannot compare to the freshly stomped grape juice straight off the vine!

The day ended in a feast of homemade bread, cheese, butter, and wine, all of which were made at the winery. Being able to step back in time and experiece something that was, for generations, almost a festival of community living, was incredible. Today a machine can harvest the same amount of grapes in one hour that it would take 12 employees to do by hand in a day. But nothing could possibly compare to spending time in the sun with friends picking, eating, and stomping the day away.

Portugal - Day 2

September 14th was not only our second day in the country of Portugal, but our first day of our first AFP. An AFP is a program where students spend 5 of their 7 days in a country taking tours, going to lectures, working with organizations, and working as a group to study the country from the perspective of their learning circle. As a member of the Global Cultures and Social Change learning circle, our first day was spent listening to a lecture on Population Settlements, visiting the Cartography exhibition and library at the University of Lisbon, on a guided tour of Jeronimos Monastery and the Maritime Museum, and a stop at the Discoveries Monument.

This is a copy of the earliest known map of Portugal. The real version is in a museum somewhere, so the cartography center was unable to have anything but a copy. The museum held hundreds of copies of maps from all over the world, but on display were only historical maps of Portugal. They varied in age, size, and technology. At the conclusion of our tour, the University of Lisbon (where the museum is) presented each of us with a package of copies of each of the old maps of Portugal. The quality is beautiful and all of us have full intention of having them framed and displayed upon our return to our homes.

Jeronimo's Monastery was an incredible place to visit. The architecture was complex and beautiful, and though the buildings are no longer used as a monastery, the rich history behind the locations were very interesting. Above is an entrance of the monastery.

These images are of the church within the monastery. The art and architecture were absolutely gorgeous and it was exciting to finally understand what it is my Art History professor had been talking about during all of those long hours in the lecture hall! The church was interesting because one of it's main functions was that when men were preparing to journey out across the seas to explore, the final step they took was to go to the church for confession so as to be absolved of all of their sins in case they were to die. Therefore much of the minor architectural details had oceanic references in tribute to the sailors. This church is the only part of the monastery which is still active today.

The courtyard in the center of the monastery.

These images are from the only room in the monastery where monks were allowed to speak. The outside images are of glazed tile paintings. Glazed tile is an old art form in Portugal which is used to decorate walls both inside and outside of buildings. It is still used today. The center images is a painting of St Jeronimo.

The entrance of the Maritime Discoveries Museum. This museum chronicles the progression of maritime technology as well as Portugal's explorations of the world.

This map was just inside the entrance of the museum and had the routes of all of the Portuguese explorations on it, along with the lead explorer's name and the year of the exploration.

Some of the model ships showing the progression of ship technology

Two figureheads from the front of Portuguese caravels. The one on the left is from the ship sailed by Vasco Da Gama, the most famous of the Portuguese explorers.

This image is of a giant map which has been inlaid in the ground outside of the Discoveries Monument. This monument is dedicated to all of the great Portuguese explorers who traveled the world in search of new places. This section of the map is, in case you can't tell, the east coast of the USA! Also, if you note where my foot is, I'm basically standing on where I am today!

These are images of the most important part of the Discoveries Monument - the statues of the famous explorers.

A guard of the home of the Portuguese president.

Our tour guide passing out a famous Portuguese dessert made out of sugar and eggs, then topped with cinnamon and powdered sugar. Delicious!!!

Portugal - Day 1

Portugal - A country of discoverers

Arriving in Portugal was incredible. Regardless of the architecture, the history, the language, and the lifestyle, we were just excited to finally be back on land again! Our first day in each port is a free day, and we took complete advantage of this! A group of us headed out to be modern discoverers in this country which had seen so many before us. We took the metro to the city center and began our exciting, and exhausting exploration.

(Left to Right:) Josh (our onboard cameraman), Adriano (Brazil), Me!, Hannah Lena (Germany)

???, Natalia (Brazil), Mareike (Germany)

Some Portuguese graffiti. The graffiti in this city was incredible - even better than in Greece. All of it was very deliberate and meaningful (even if the meanings are sometimes a bit controversial). Note the bottom righthand image of a Nike symbol out of which a plane is flying into two towers. Up close these towers say "Lisbon Towers". Next to it was more graffiti which I have recently been told said "We Want Tragedy" in Portuguese

A group of boys were strategically placed through the city center playing accordians while their little dogs held small buckets in their mouths to collect change. One of the dogs even howled (sang!) along with it's owner as he played. They stuck to the city center in order to increase the amount of income they could make from tourists.

This man was the owner of a small shop selling fresh fruits, vegetables, drinks, etc. on a small sidestreet in Lisbon. We bought our lunch from him that day - Only 2.60Euros for about 6 pieces of fruit, 2 small loaves of bread, and a humungous bottle of water! It was one of the best meals I have ever had.

Some interesting parts of Lisbon were it's cable cars (remeniscient of those in San Francisco), it's cemetary (which contained not only these interesting graves with wooden crosses, but also above ground mausoleums which had glass doors so that visitors could actually look in and see the coffins), the age of the buildings and doorways, and the appearance of the roads. Most of them were narrow, cobblestone, winding, and extremely steep. The doorways were always interesting shaped - some tall and extremely narrow, others short and fat, almost always looking as though they had extended their welcoming hand to years and years worth of visitors and residents.

Sometimes we just need to have a little fun!

I like these two images for the main reason that both of these students, Natalia and Adriano, are from Brazil. For those of you that know a bit about world history, Brazil was conquered by the Portuguese hundreds of years ago, hence Portuguese being the Brazilian national language. If you look into the sunglasses of each of these two you will see the city of Lison and a national monument reflected (respectively). To explore the country of Portugal through the eyes of someone who had been conquered and had their history changed drastically is something I could not possibly begin to comprehend or imagine.

Things to remember about living on a boat...

Number 1:
If you ever get sick, there is always a way to evacuate you! For example, this Italian Coast Guard team came for a sick student. With engines on all sides of the ship, it could maneuver in any direction and was able to come up along side our ship, and within about 5 minutes, evacuate both the student, an accompanying staff member, and all of their luggage.

Number 2:
Never go swimming when the weather is bad! Note the fact that I was actually standing vertical when this shot was taken, it was the boat the was leaning sideways. Take a close look at the water level in the pool!

Number 3:

When you are an extremely fair skinned person who has not seen sunlight in anything but a tshirt and shorts for the past 5+ years, DO NOT fall asleep in the sun while studying... This happened on the 3rd day of the voyage, with this picture being taken about two days after that, and now at the beginning of week 3, I am STILL dealing with it's after effects!

Number 4 (and most importantly!):

ALWAYS WEAR YOUR LIFE JACKET! During drills at least! But don't worry... the fear on their faces is purely dramatic!

Athens, Greece

Athens was incredible. It's been over two weeks since I left there, but it has left a distinct mark in my mind. The different areas of the city were completely different from one another, and very rarely did any of them match the preconcieved notions I had in my mind.

Upon arriving, the first thing I did was take the train from the airport to Syntaegma Square and searched for about 20minutes, with over 100lbs of luggage, until I found my way to my hostel. It was an adventure to say the least, but the help of a friendly local sent me in the right direction. Located in Plaka, an old part of the city, it was called The Student and Travellers Inn. I stayed in a small room with enough bunk beds for 8 people which had a window looking out over a small garden in the center of the hostel:

Contrary to some slight fears I had before arrival, it was actually alot of fun being there! I met a couple of the people living in the room with me and there were so many stories to tell. It actually turned out that one girl staying there was going to be participating in The Scholar Ship as well so it was amazing to get a chance to talk about someone else in the program.

After falling asleep for about 3 hours to shake off some jetlag, it was time for me to head out adventuring! I think that the best way to get to know a culture is to walk it's streets. I grabbed my trusty map (completely written in Greek!) and headed out. I decided that my best bet was to just walk until I got myself thoroughly lost, and then figure out where I was and find my way back. I made my way around for about 2 hours before deciding to turn around and make my way back, and here are some of the more interesting things I saw...

The most expected things I saw were some of the ruins of ancient Greek society:

Although I think it is incredibly important to understand the history of a culture in order to understand it's present state, I must say that the ruins were not able to hold my attention for long. I was more interested in seeing the local people in their daily lives and attempt to understand the sort of world that they live in today.

Next came the people and the local culture:

On the left are some riot police due to a demonstration/rally that was being held in Syntaegma Square night I was in town. Unfortunately, since the protestors were shouting everything in Greek, I'm not sure what cause they were supporting. I heard mumblings through the crowd that it was in response to the poor reactions to the outburst of wildfires which had overtaken the country just days before my arrival. In the center is an example of part of an open air market in Plaka. On the right is the wall of a bar in town which was lit only by the lights behind the different colored bottles.

On the left here is an example of what I deemed an "interesting" fashion choice by a local Greek woman. On the right is an image of an average street in Plaka. The road were very narrow and very few were open to vehicle traffic. Most people walked from shop to shop in order to get what they needed.

Up next is a man who was selling nuts on the street. He often had to deal with pigeons trying to get his food, so he had made a sort of whip out of a thin, supple piece of wood in order to scare the birds away when customers came by. In the center is an image from the local pet store. The entire exterior was covered with bird cages, rabbit cages, hampster cages, etc. What was most interesting though was that many of these cages were open or, in the case of these two little birds, there were no cages at all. I'm not quite sure how they kept the birds from flying away or the rabbit from hopping away, but they all seemed quite content to say on their perches as people came by to shop. The last image was quite interesting to me due to the fact that because of my education and having learned so much about ancient Greece throughout the years, I had this picture in my head that the city wouldn't be as modernized as it was. If you notice there is a Converse shoe display to the left, a motorbike to the right, and a Coca-Cola machine in the background. Talk about globalization!

I think that the most interesting thing for me in Athens was the grafitti:

"One Nation Under One Groove" and "Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow

"Fight Back"

Overall Greece for me was really interesting. Most people spoke English (or at least the shopkeepers did!) so it was quite easy to make my way around and get what I needed. Though there were alot of things that I didn't like (the city was incredibly dirty being the main thing) I would definitely like to go back and spend some more time exploring the country. I really only had about 24 hours there, and I was asleep for probably half of that! It's rich history is paralleled by it's expansive and interesting present culture and is defintely worth learning more about.