 
| Monday, 11 June 2001 |
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I spent the day working on some of my projects here for most of the morning. I brought in some of the Sopa de Pedra for lunch, but I spent about a half hour hunting around for a microwave oven to heat it up in. I got several suggestions for places to look, but to no avail until Luis showed me one.
After lunch I came back to the office for a short while, then walked over to the International Office to meet with Helene about an upcoming trip they're sponsoring. I'll be leaving Friday the 22nd of June for a weekend tour of the north of Portugal. It should be a lot of fun. We'll be camping out as well as doing some rock climbing and rapelling.
The security measures in the building there were pretty insane. It's a new building and the office is on the third floor (actually the second, because they count it ground, 1st, 2nd). I had to go to the guard booth and find a guard who understood my Portuguese. He escorted me to another guard after calling ahead to confirm that I could go up. This other guard was stationed at the elevator, and I had to wait for about 20 minutes before I was allowed to get into the elevator. The guard escorted me up (he had to swipe his card to activate the elevator) and took me to the office. Apparently they only allow 4 students up there at a time, which explains the wait. I've got to go back today to pay for the trip, which will cost 6000$00, or about $25.
On the way home later that evening we stopped at the Jumbo to pick up some groceries for dinner on Tuesday, as well as some snacks for our trips later in the week. I'm leaving on Wednesday for Spain, and Professor Doty is leaving on Tuesday for the north of Portugal and a short jump into Spain. We then returned home to finish off our soup for dinner.
After dinner I went out to a nearby cafe for some dessert and to just hang out for a little bit. I was hoping to meet some of the neighborhood regulars, but as full as the place was, they were all engrossed in their studying. It's exam season here and all the students are busy preparing for them. Eventually I headed home and read for a little while before calling it a night and going to bed. |
| Tuesday, 12 June 2001 |
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Today wasn't really prodcutive as far as real work is concerned. I spent the morning working through some paperwork here. I also had to spend a little time preparing for my excursion later this week. Net work accomplished this morning: zero!
I joined a group of people her to head over to Zico for lunch, then booked it back here in time to go to the International Office to meet Helene so I could finalize my paperwork to be allowed to use the gym and other facilities here on campus. I haven't had time to do any of that until now, what with all the other details to work out.
In the afternoon I was able to get a little work done, then Antonia came in to talk about the plans for our trip. We ironed out some of the details and decided we'd be coming back on Sunday night, not Monday. I finished up, then Professor Doty and I left at 6pm to go home and make dinner. We bought some lamb cuts yesterday and I marinated them overnight. Professor Doty made the rice and some spinach while I prepared the meat and we settled down for a nice big dinner.
After cleaning up after ourselves, I settled down to digest my food before going to a surprise party later in the evening. Unfortunately I dozed off and didn't get up until about 1am. I realized the party would be winding down around then, so I just wrote some of this up, read for a while, then went back to bed. |
| Wednesday, 13 June 2001 |
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I'm writing this early this afternoon because I'll be leaving in a while to go north into Spain, specifically, the area known as Galicia. There are four of us going now, and maybe a few others, but they'll call and arrange to meet us somewhere up there. I won't be back until Sunday night. Obviously, this means that there won't be any updates to this journal for a few days. Take a break and surf some other sites for a few days!
Seeya in a few days! |
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