Erasmus Report for Aveiro

I have never heard of Aveiro before I was offered an internship there by my teacher. I was excited to try something more extraordinary than just working at a company everyday in Denmark. By studying abroad I would not just learn about working at 3D environment, but also learning about another country and culture there as well. And since I still live with my parents I would also get the taste of being independent.

But before my journey everything was a mess. The teachers from my school kept saying that the Portuguese university would find a place for me to stay at, and everything would be okay, and the answers from the teachers from the university varied from person to person. Even the last day before my journey it was still not decided whether I should sleep at the streets or not. It was like everyone didn’t care about me, and was only interested in having this transfer as a proof that both of the schools had an international connection. When I arrived I and my Erasmus buddy searched for a rooms rent the all day. I was walking around from 3PM to 23PM with my luggage on the streets until we finally got a room! And the room I got was more expensive than usual, and all the problems with the room where hidden very well. First at night when I wanted to turn on the heater I realized that they didn’t work or smelled burned. One of the rooms had ants if you left anything sweet there, and the toilet seems to be very loose if you sit on it. I was pissed, but it’s hard to complain to an old woman that don’t speak English, and who apparently don’t need her stick to support her poor little legs the next day you see her at the streets. Manipulating bitch!

When you go to such a trip you realize how much everyone juts tries to take advantage of you in every way they can. While writing this I remember how much I had to mail my teachers all the time to get things signed and arranged. You most do everything yourself, if not you can just forget about it. Nobody cares for you. I don’t feel like answering the question: “Were you well welcomed and informed” if you know what I mean…

But when you finally are up and running at Aveiro, and you are not depended on the lazy teachers and manipulating old ladies then everything is nice at Aveiro. Just don’t go at February and March since it cold and rains A LOT! The grant + SU is not enough even though the prices on groceries are a little less than in Denmark, but if you save some money before you go, you should be okay. The only things you spend your money on at Aveiro are food and beer.
Aveiro is a city of students, and every Tuesday to Saturday students are at the city having fun, even though they have classes. “The Erasmus students stick together” that was one of the first words I heard at the Erasmus meeting with all the new Erasmus students. They have some different arrangement for Erasmus students where they visit different places around Portugal. They even have a Facebook group.

The people here love the social life. Aveiro is full of cafés with you people doing homework and some of them just hang around. The cafés all have free internet, so don’t worry about it, if you room like mine doesn’t have any internet access. Of course you will have to buy at least one drink for being there. But being at the café is sometimes hard to have a video conversation with you parents, so if you wish to do such you can go to the university and find a empty room to talk to your girlfriend, friends, parents etc. Video conversation is highly recommended, since I think it seems to be more personal than just texting to them. Then they can see you are fine and still living…

People hug and kiss when they say hi, even though you don’t know them. Obviously you don’t kiss a male, if you are a male. Some of the Portuguese are much opened, so don’t get any weird thoughts if you get invited to some family dinner or so. That is a big cultural difference for me, since my generation in Denmark are very embarrassed about our parents, but here they really appreciate their parents…

Thoughts on the overall experience
I did not have any expectations, since I had so many troubles at the beginning. I was close to give it all up, but I’m glad I did not. It was really worth visiting Aveiro, the city of students, and being a part of the young life there. Too bad I did not really get into the Erasmus community that well since my teacher didn’t care much about me, and never gave me my student card and signed me up for the Erasmus community, but I had a great time with them, and even joined some of their arrangements.

I would recommend everyone to study in another country since it really is an indescribable experience, and many of those I have met can only recommend staying abroad for at least one year. Six months is not enough! And what I can I say with my silly two month?!

I really love my life as an Erasmus, Jeffrey Lai

Ps. while writing this in Aveiro just one week before leaving, really makes me miss the city even though I’m still here…

Day44 - 16-03-10 Tuesday

At the morning I introduced the new software that I found on the internet. They were very happy about it, and we decided to use that instead of wasting any more time on Mr. Planet. We got it to work with multiple patterns, and use animated models too. I have seen that it is possible to get the models to interact with each other, but we are not sure how to do it. We think that we have to add some codes to our models before we import them to our Augmented Reality software.

Day43 - 15-03-10

Today we worked at the university from 10 to 19. The professor wanted to Augmented Reality for the building plans for the coming extension for the school, and had found a program called Mr. Planet to do the task, but of course the program did not work very well with our devices and the software we use. While making the building plans in 3D, we also tried get Mr. Planet to work. At the evening we gave up, and decided to continue our work the next day. While I was home, and I really should relax instead of being at the computer, I found a new program called BuildAR which is a prebuild of ARToolKit. It’s very simple and intuitive, though I miss some of the advance settings, but at least it works.

Day42 - 14.03-10

This was the last at the mountains, and the day started by having lunch on a fine restaurant with a lot of the family members. It was nice to meet them, even though it was a little bit weird for me. I have never been welcomed that much to a friend of mine before in Denmark. But it might be the cultural differences or something in that matter. And speaking of cultural differences the youth culture almost never “hang out”/introduces their family to the friends since we are shy about our “oldies”, or think they are annoying… Here it’s totally opposite of what I’ve experienced, and that really confirms the warmness of the Portugal people. But hey, at the cities they are all busy and fuc#”¤ up…
After the lunch we went to Europe’s 2nd biggest mall (according to Hugo, I’m not sure). It was big, and had a lot of shops (of course). They even had ice skating at the top floor, where we spend an hour having fun…

Day41 – Saturday – 13-03-10

At the morning (8.30AM) we prepared us for the trip towards the top of the mountain Serra Da Estrela ['Mountain Range of the Star']. The mountain is 2000m high and is covered in snow on the top of the mountain. People ski up there, and you see a lot of people and tourists. It’s basically impossible to get a parking spot if you go there too late at the day. We didn’t ski or anything, but we had some fun with the snow.
After the mountains we went to Hugo’s God parents, located at the other side of the mountain. It was a really nice place they had, and the view from their backyards is just indescribable. That would be my only reason for ever considering the urban life…. Anyway we had lunch, we and played some games there (table tennis, food ball and guitar hero).
When it was getting dark we went home, because it can be dangerous driving on the mountains at the night. Very soon the twilight were over us, and something weird came out of the bushes and scared the hell out of us. It was 3 meter high, very furry and wasn’t human…. Oh my god, it must have been Bigfoot! But before I could take a picture of it, it was gone… LOL
We were all pretty tired when we finally arrived home, and we decided to take a nap. After the nap we had some dinner, and we talked and saw what Hugo’s portfolio. I really think they learn a lot more about multimedia here than at my school, but I’ve never been that fond of my school anyway. I think it’s too incompetent at many points.
The home culture at their place is a bit different than the ones I’ve experienced. I’m not sure if it’s general for all Portuguese, I really doubt that, and I’m not sure if I have understand it correctly, but the girls learns a lot of their mother’s in the kitchen. It’s not because they are preparing themselves to be housewives, but for their personal sake. Everyone is giving a hand there if needed, and that’s really nice to see that the traditions about housewives are still fading.

Day40 – Friday – 12-03-10

From the morning to the afternoon we were trying to fax our application to the next institutions we finally had decided to study at. At first we went to the post office at the school, and she wanted 18Euroes for faxing 6 pages! I didn’t know it was that expensive to fax… it so stupid that the institutions don’t allow attached e-mails! Anyway, we went to our department where they helped us for free, but the problem with that was we always got an error when we tried to send it, except for the course that my mate wanted to sign up for. We tried several times, but all of them failed. Finally we decided to send it to another department own by the same institution in hope that they will help us send it to the right department. It was basically the last day we could send it, because the deadline was on Monday.
After too many hours we finally went home to pack our things for our next little journey. Hugo drove us to his little village at Seia which is located at the highest point in Portugal. The ride upwards the mountains were very beautiful, but also very tough (for the car). The ride lasted for about 1 hour I think, and it was nice to finally feel the ground again. The air up there is much colder and contains much lesser water than at Aveiro.
We had dinner there with his family, and even though they were busy his parents went home to meet us and serve us dinner. It’s not every day you experience that kind of a welcome! We also met his grandparents who are really nice, and have been a lot of places.
At the evening we went to the local cinema to watch Sherlock Holmes, which was quite a disappointment, but it was cheap! After that we went around the city, and finally ended up at a café to have a beer and some food.

Day37 – Tuesday – 09-03-10

We caught the train to São Bento at Oporto that morning, even though we only had slept for a few hours... After 1 hour we were finally there to start our sightseeing. People have told us a lot of positive things about this place, and I can fully understand why. It is a very beautiful place, especially if you go down to the river and look up at the many bridges. The bridges themselves are very beautiful, because of the simplicity and the design you see from the old days.
According to Google Earth and the user uploaded information most of the attractions where close to the river, and why is that? As far as I remember Portugal had a trade relation with England, this might be the harbor where they traded Port wine. The wine is named after the city.
The historic centre of Porto was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996, and you can really see how well preserved the town is itself. You can really feel the past if you have an insane fantasy. I was told that the Knights Templar was once expelled from France because they had gained more wealth that the French king. They conquered some earth at Spain at the beginning, and kept conquering from what is now called the north Portugal to the south Portugal. That is why you see so much old history in the north part of the country, and in Oporto, but even though Lisbon is in the south part of the country they also have a lot of old monuments. Lisbon and Oporto are the biggest cities in Portugal.
Even though you see all the old stuff here in Oporto, they also have some new buildings etc. We visited the Casa da Música “House of Music”, which is a concert hall build like a giant spaceship from Star Wars…
Oh yea, I almost forgot, the metro system is a bit weird at the beginning. We asked a guy to explain it to us, and he basically took advance of us that son of a bitch. He tried to explain the system, and we thought we wanted to help us. He gave us some cards, which you can buy for 50 cent. He had so many in his pocket, so we thought he would give it for free. He explained the zone and tile system, and how much money we should put into the machine, and soon he started to explain that he needed 1 euro for each card (we knew it wasn’t that expensive), and that he had reloaded money in one of the cards, he also showed us that he had. He required some money, and I thought it was okay, maybe we lose 1 or so, but he took his time to explain the system for us. I did not have the exact amount of money, so I asked him if he could change. Of course he could, but he forgot to take my 5note, and I did not say anything, because as soon as he thought he had note on his hand, he started to explain that we had to pay for the cards and the money inside.
We went away, still with the 5 note in my hand, we knew he cheated us, but he forgot to receive the 5euroes. So all in all we have received the cards for a small amount, but then the motherfucker found us in the metro, and claimed the money… I did not know what to do, and I saw no other option than paying him the 5 note which he did not deserve. It really feels like shit when people takes advance of you, and you can do nothing about it!

Day36 – Monday

At the evening we where planning our trip to Oporto, and we stopped our research doing the morning, because we also had to get up to catch the train.

Day35

It was just a boring work day as usual.

Day34 – Saturday - 06-03-10

If I said people in Portugal smells out of their mouth I’m not sure they would do anything about it. Some of them really smell bad, and I’m not kidding, and as far as I know, I’m not the only one of that opinion. I think the more away you come from the big cities people care less about the “superficial things”, but more about the core value like “having fun”, and “having a good time”.

We went to Retail Park which was recommended by people we know, and it was really a waste of our “precious” time. We went there by taxi, because it appears there are no busses after 1 o’clock... We should have been thinking twice before heading there, because they sell stuff for people that really lives here or lives her for a longer period. The mall (Aveiro Shopping Center) where just really small, and did not worth the title Shopping Center at all!

The way home was worse, because everyone that comes here has a car (of course). It’s not a place where you can find a taxi around the corner, so we went from place to place to find a cab with no luck at all. So finally we found an information desk who could speak a little bit English. We explained and helped us to call a cab to take us home. The taxi driver was an old guy, and he basically cheated the money out of us by driving a detour to Aveiro… Luckily it was not that expensive after all, but still… The taxi drivers here are not to be trusted!

Later we went down to have a cup of coffee at the popular café mostly visited by students. The Portuguese coffee are served in small cups, if you can call it that, it is actually almost smaller than a shot glass... Everything is smaller here in Portugal. Many people drink the small beers of 20cl, because they basically say that they can’t drink it fast enough… they say the normal size beers gets warm and boring before they have emptied it… haha.

Day33 – 05-03-10

We went to the meeting today and were introduced to some “new technology”... I’ve seen it before and it’s already used commercially. Playstation has a game called Eye of Judgment that uses this “technology”. Basically it’s a webcam that can recognize some patterns on a surface and load a specific 3D model. Because the algorithm can detect the pattern and the angles in which the pattern is seen from the camera, it’s possible to rotate the pattern and make the 3D model to spin too. You can see an example here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsQ-YGgVUT0.The professor has another group of student that will explore this option for our 3D project.

Later we went to Estação Da Luz (Disco far away from the town), because we got some “V.I.P” tickets at Praca the other night. It was quite empty compared to the first time we went there, and I think that’s why they were sharing the free “V.I.P” tickets. It seems like all the clubs hands out flyers and other promotion stuff at Praca every Thursday night, because people go out that day, and because the bars and clubs are afraid of having empty houses when the students go home for the weekend. I think the promotion is okay, but I don’t think it has that big an effect since people already know what the different places are like…

Day32 – 04-03-10

Nothing special to mention, it was Tuesday and we had the usual Erasmus party, but we didn’t went inside. I know and everyone knows it, it’s basically too boring to hang out there now… and we have been to any corner at Aveiro. In that way I understand why the Portuguese people hang out outside the bars… the music is too loud to have a conversation and the people (the Portuguese) often hang out with their buddies and no one else, and if you try to have a conversation with them sometimes they basically say: “I don’t speak English”… I think it’s too weird that it is possible NOT to learn English AT ALL doing your high school period in 12 years. Doing the school period you have to choose at least 1 foreign language. You can chose between Spanish, English and French (correct me if I’m wrong), but if you wish to study at the university you have to at least pick up 2 foreign languages.

Day31 – Wednesday

So my computer is running again, and I have to start thinking about working again on the next doorway. The day has been going on with installing the software that I use for my work, while my mate has been making pizzas all day. I’m grateful that he cooks every day, because my food doesn’t taste that good all the time… Writing this makes me think about the EU-report that I have to write soon in connection with the Erasmus grant which I got for coming here. I cannot remember exactly what to write about, but I think it was something about the cultural differences and that kind of stuff. Even though when I’m home, I have to deal with the cultural differences. I myself am originally from China and my mate if from the eastern countries. Even though we both are born in Denmark, you can see we do things differently in matter of washing, cooking and cleaning. I’ve gained much more insight knowledge about another culture than I ever would, if it wasn’t for this trip. As an Erasmus student you learn a lot about cultural differences. The students often live with 4-3 other people with different backgrounds in apartment. They pay around 125Euroes for a room, and it appears that some of them dinner at the cantinas at the school, because it’s cheaper than cooking yourself. They spend around 2,15Euroes for a meal, and we who cook at home spends like 5euroes pr. Person on a meal (does not include gas and power).

Oh yes, speaking about the report, my teacher has still not sent me anything about the criteria for my other report that I have to hand in to my school… I wonder if it ever will happen… and speaking of “incompetent” administration, I wonder what happened to my student card here in Aveiro. I’ve already notified them some times, but things just never happen…

Day30 – 02-03-10 – “how are you?” – I’m bad

Finally I’ve obtained the Windows 7 image file from Microsoft; it only took like 3 days to get a proper version… We tried to burn it down a couple of times, but it seemed to fail every time resulting that it cleaned my computer without installing windows, which means I couldn’t use my computer for a couple of days. But finally we achieved to burn it down on DVD without failures, oh yea, the mac computer mad the worst DVD example of the DVD ever. It was burned “that well” it was stucked inside the mac computer for quite a time haha…

Well the last copy was good, and ready to be installed on my computer. We went down to buy some groceries, and on the way down there I asked if my friend had brought his keys, because I forgot to bring mine this day. “OH SHIT!”
The situation was: no one had the keys, I was the only one with a cell phone, and the number to the owner was inside the apartment. We tried to figure out how to get in, and we decided to get into our backyard in hope that one of the windows was opened… So we knocked on the old neighbor’s door, but she wouldn’t open the door and kept talking Portuguese. Luckily our neighbor from the upstairs was home to speak explain our situation and plan to her. She let me in, and I jumped over the fence to get to our backyard… and the shits were of course closed and locked from inside…

I knew my window was not locked, because the lock is broken, but it was on the front side of the apartment. We tried to get some ladders from the different store under our apartment, but all of them were too short. One of the owners knew our landlord and had her number, but when I tried we tried to call her, she did not answer her phone. The next time we called her my phone was out of credit.

We decided to go to the fire station in hope to borrow a ladder, which they wouldn’t… they said we had to go to the police station to report our problems… it was already getting dark outside, and going to the police station and reporting in English to someone who doesn’t get a damn of what you are saying is like telling something to a dog, and hope it can tell the same story to another person…

We decided to go back to the old ladies house to wait for her to come back. Oh yea, do you believe me if I’m saying it was pouring down all the time we were locked out? Well, I can’t remember what time it was, but eventually the old lady came outside to talk to my mate, I stood at the bus stop and waited more than half an hour for him to get out again… it appears that the old lady wanted him to pay last month’s bills before she would follow us home with the extra key to our apartment… and my friend told me that he had to calculate all the bills himself, since she wasn’t able to do that…? Well, finally they came out of her house, and it took ‘ages’ to get back home with the old lady…

We were that tired that we decided to go to the restaurant everyone in Aveiro is talking about, and of course it was closed that day… even people we met at the street said it was first time they have seen it closed… what an awful day to be honest, I can’t even look back at from any bright sight’s point of view… it really was the awful!

And when we came home, my mate ruined one of our two glasses… now we have 1 glass, two plates and some silverware….

Day29: 01-03-10 – Monday - Marts month

My multimedia education is soon over, and I will have to pick up something to continuing my studies. Due to my laziness I think I will find a school close to me this time, and that’s why I’ve decided to study at KEA which is located in Copenhagen. I’m not sure what which education to take, but I know I want to get the PBA. I think I might pick up the E-concept education as my first priority, because I think the web development branch is too crowded already, and because everyone knows how to make a website. I already had a website since my first computer…

The E-concept is like marketing, and I’m sure that branch is very well crowded as well, but at least you won’t expect to meet any amateurs in this branch, since no one would study this on the internet…

We went to Jumbo to buy a big beef today. It looked very big, and so did the price. We thought it would last for quite some days or even weeks, but when we brought it back home we realized it would only last for 4 meals.

Day28: 28-02-10

It has been raining and storming all day long, so we haven’t been able to accomplish much outside. The only thing I’ve managed to do is to get a bland DVD from the one of the china stores further down the street, because my Windows complains about the test period is expiring, and that I have to get a new copy of it. I already have a copy of it on my computer, but it seems like the back up of the CD is damaged, so I have to get a new copy from Microsoft. I’ve been downloading all day, while working on the 3D doorway for the museum, and it seems to fail every time the download seems to be finished…

Day27: 27-02-10

That evening we were invited at Hugo’s and his friends’ place. We went to the mall for groceries at 9pm, John was late, but I think some Portugal people eat a bit late. We bought some salmon and some liquor, went to his place and grilled the salmon, which turned out to be very good. We played some games and had some fun, too bad we went out of things to drink, and the ladies were too… I don’t know if it’s the right word, but “boring”… It went that well that we agreed to see make something the next week.
Seen from at theoretically point of you, you could call this little event for what crazy people call “teambuilding”… I think we really got to know each other, well considered the time we have spent together…
Oh, and it seems they have a game called the “freaky freaky” haha, it’s like the one I know called “James Bond” which really screws your head, because of the alcohol, the reaction time, and the thinking.

Day26: Big washing day

The title says all says everything. And I also looked up some information about the interaction possibilities in Unity (the game engine we are going to use for our 3D project).

Day25

We got our new tasks, and my job is to look for some textures to our models, and to figure out how to open the doors on my model in Unity.
In the evening we went to see Shutter Island at the cinema at Forum. 5Euroes for the ticket (student price) and 1.8Eures for ½liter soda that cheap compared to the prices I’m used to in Denmark. We pay at least 13Euroes for the ticket and 4Euroes for the ½liter coke. The film was okay, at the beginning I thought it was boring until I realized what the movie was all about in the end of the movie. Hope I didn’t spoil too much already :P
After that we went to Praca, of course, it was Thursday, and that the night you go out. We met some Erasmus students and had a great time.

Day24:

Today I finished the first door way, and had to help my friend with his last work in order to reach the deadline the next day. I think the result is okay, not too bad, but neither great.
Thelma stopped by that evening, it has been a while since we have seen her, but she is okay now, and the injuries seem to heal very nice.

Day23:

So this night we went out with our new friend Hugo. We are going to help him with his master project about the life as an Erasmus in Aveiro. He needs us to get into the Erasmus community so he can interview them, and learn about the Erasmus. We talked a lot before going to Santos bar, the place where the Erasmus people hang out every Tuesday night.
Hugo definitely loves to talk, haha, and that’s fine since we got a lot of information about the Portuguese people and their passion for soccer. Not that I haven’t realized that since every place with a television is tuned on some soccer game.
So we went to the Erasmus party, but we hanged out with most of Hugo’s friends outside the bar, yes, Portuguese people love to hangout outside the bars at Praca. They basically go to some bar, buy a beer, and go outside again…It seems that 1Euro for a beer is expensive, since you can buy one for 20cent at the supermarket… hmm, I think a Portuguese would have quite a chock if he wanted to buy a beer in Denmark… we pay like 5Euroes for one at the bars in Copenhagen.
New words that I learned:
Tu és muito bonita = You are very beautiful (useless I think…)
Vai-te foder = Go fuck yourself (maybe a bit harsh, don’t you think?)

Day22 Monday: We have ants 4sure!

Sometimes we see some ants walking around our apartment, and we know we have an ant issue. We have told the owner of the apartment about the issue, but because she is old and Portuguese, and probably evil, I think I will spare myself for further troubles and just ignore the ants walking on my table next to my computer, cloth and my sweets… Actually it’s because of the sweets we really found out that we had a problem. We bought some coke from the Mini Preco (supermarket) down stairs, and I decided to have a cup of coke. I put it next to the window where I also had put some candy. At the evening when I was practicing my network security skills my mate saw all the ants around my cup of coke and the sweets… I don’t know what to do about it, I could tell Thelma to contact the old lady, but I don’t want to bother her all the time about this shit hole, and I don’t want to buy any anti-ant spray, because I don’t think it’s my responsibility to do that… Well as the asshole I am, I’m just going to leave it like this haha.
Oh yea, since we are talking about problems at our apartment my mate told us that we had some sort of mould above the ceiling of the bathroom. Great… I think they are toxic, and therefore you shouldn’t stay too long in the bathroom… I should probably lay a note for the next stupid students NOT to rent this apartment…

Day 20 – 20-02-10

That night we went to Estação da Luz (disco far away from our home). We had to take a bus to get there, and we had some problems finding it. At our map it said the bus station was quite far away, but in fact it was really close to Forum. When we finally found the bus, people were smoking inside. The Portugal people smoke everywhere, I wonder if they know that smoking can kill (like everything else)… Some of the people inside looked quite young, but I’m not really good at judging peoples’ age, but as my friend say: “they must be 18 to get in, right?” Well I guess so…
We had some problems getting in, because no one has told us that we have to be signed up on some stupid list, and that you have to bring some girls too… It was raining and we couldn’t get home until the bus arrives at 4.30am…it was only 2am, and we had already given up, even the group next to us, who didn’t have “enough” girls tried to pull some girls into their group. We had no chance at all, and everybody there always excused themselves that they did not speak English… We gave up, and found a cab. The driver wanted 89Euroes for driving us back to Aveiro, yeah right! It shouldn’t cost that much, so we decided to make a walk around the little city. There was nothing to see except for expensive houses. We went back, and we took the chance to get in again, and finally we passed the guards and they let us in.
It was a quite big place dominated by some electronic club music. The disco was separated in the middle, but with no walls or whatever, saying that which part you may smoke in… You could also just look at the floor, if you were in doubt of which part you where at.
People or the ones I’ve met knew how to speak English, huh, what are the odds for that if no one at the entrance knew how to speak English… Seems like some people don’t want to be bothered, so they use that for an excuse… Well, I spoke with some people there, and got a lot of information about the Portuguese people and things I should experience while I was here. I should definitely try old traditional dishes, and something else that I have forgot.
We went at 6am, because that was the last bus home. I think we had a great time there even though we had some problems at the beginning, and oh yea, I found out that a cab to Aveiro shouldn’t cost more than 10Euroes…and that you could enter the disco without being on the list and having a girl, but you have to pay 90Euroes…like anyone is that stupid…

Day 19: 19-02-10

I had a hair cut today at a barber where no one knew how to speak English. It went very well, and luckily I’ve been noticing how my barber at home makes all the work so I could guide the Portuguese guy in what I wanted. 7 Euros for a haircut wasn’t bad, and even though the guy used more time in “nursing” my hair I think he did a good job. He was quite careful compared to the one who does my haircut in Denmark; he really took it easy haha.

Day 18: Thursday – The trip goes to Lisbon.

At the morning (7.30am) we caught the first train leaving to Lisbon. It took 2.5 hours before we were at Lisboa (sta. Apolónia) where we caught the Metro towards Colobombo (West Europe’s biggest big). After visiting the place we head backwards to the city (Restauradores st.). It’s nothing like Denmark/Copenhagen at all. On every 10th corner you would find a homeless man/woman, and you could see that they really were poor, not like the homeless in Denmark with Nike shoes etc. (some homeless in Denmark are fakes). They basically lived at the streets with their blankets. It makes me wonder what happened to those peoples’ family. Did they just abandon their old mother? Well Danish people aren’t much better… It happens that they just leave their old ones at the rest home, which is by the way financed by the government and our taxes.
I don’t know why, but we saw a lot of African-American people at the street that day. They were talking in big groups at the city, and it seemed like they knew each other very well. So I suppose they do it often.
At Lisboa we also visited the ‘Elevador de Santa Justa’ which is an elevator made by Raul Mesnier du Ponsard who was trained by Gustave Eiffel (known for Tour de Paris of Paris).
While walking the streets of Lisboa we found an old church, a simple edition of the Notre Dame at Paris. It also had an exhibition part inside where you could what they have been digging op from the garden behind the church. It was quite cool to see that.
After that we headed towards the city again, and my mate asked a girl where to find any malls. She told us how to take the bus, but it was so ridicules close that a real Aveiro’nese would laugh the distance… At the way home we walked the way, and it took us like 15-30 minutes to walk the way.
After that we went towards ‘Oceanário’ which should be Europe’s biggest aquarium. Unlucky for us they just closed, but then we took a ride on the air carriage (I’m not sure what they are called, but it’s basically a cage tight to some wires in the air that you can use as transport).
At the evening some hours before the last train departure, we went to one more mall next to the Oriente Station. It was a quite nice looking mall, and it matched the train station very well.

Day 17 Wednesday:

Nothing happened except that we bought a lot of groceries, and Ahmad made some pizzas.

Day 16 Tuesday:

Today we are going to have a big Erasmus student party at the usual bar. I’ve pestering him all day to make him buy a costume, but he still did not want to. I’m going to be a joker, and have bought a nice hat and some face paint. I have to say it’s quite hard to apply it to make it look good, and Ahmad did also help me around the eyes. I’m excited to see the result with the hat and the paint, and to see if the other Erasmus students have dressed up like the Portuguese people.
So we went to the bar, and some of the Erasmus students had dressed up but not all of them. Joana, who said she would bring her mask, did not bring it because she thought nobody would dress up for today. It seems like the carnival was quite over. The tents were empty, and nobody was at Praca. It rained a lot, so it didn’t surprise us that we wouldn’t expect to see that many people at the bar. At first I felt quite stupid as I was the only one that was dressed up when we were heading towards the bar, but luckily we met Zoro, a gipsy, school girls and more at the bar. It was quite okay, that the bar wasn’t that full, because it was quite easier to find someone to have a conversation with. Unluckily we did not find any Portuguese people we could bother the Portuguese lessons we have been taken from youtube - yes you can learn everything from youtube… I bet you could learn how to rob a bank if you searched for it…
Well anyway, we had a great time, and we met some other Erasmus students too.

Day 15: Monday

Today and tomorrow are the official days for the carnival, all the schools are closed.
At the evening we went to Praca to see how the nightlife was. A lot of people were celebrating the carnival and they were all dressed up like the other days. The big tents where still there, but this time with people dressed up as Rambo, Avatars, lambs, bees, police women, nurses etc. People had puked different places, and the place stank like shit everywhere we went, so we went home quite fast.

Day 14 Sunday:

Today they had a carnival procession on the streets next to us. It was quite amazing to experience, and all the people was dressed up and threw candy everywhere to the children. They dress up like the Danish children at the Shrovetide.
Thelma told us that the carnival will officially start at Tuesday, but people can dress up for the carnival as early as they want, that’s why I’ve seen so many children dressed up like ironman and superman.
We paid a visit to Thelma today, it appears that she “also” went into a glass door, but she got injured much more than me. Actually she cut her face around the nose and mouth pretty badly on the broken glass door, and now she must eat soups and milkshakes all the time… Luckily for her “Portuguese people like soup” (you can get soup everywhere in Portugal, even at McDonald), but she said she was getting pretty tired of it already. Well, it’s probably because she is not a real Portuguese. She is from Arizonans which is a Portuguese island two hours from the main land.
It sounds like people don’t pay taxes here, and that’s also why Thelma must pay 8Euroes every time she goes to the hospital. She has already been there twice since the accident, and must go to the doctor at Tuesday… it’s a lot of money for a student, and you will first be able to collect the insurance money at the end of the year…
After company with Thelma we went out to crap a pizza. All the places were celebrating Valentine’s Day, and I think it was pretty embarrassing to eat at Pizza hut with all the couples around you, making you and your friend look like a gay couple… we should have asked some girls out, obviously Thelma could not come since she can’t eat, and it would be too weird to call some of the girls you had met once or twice just before dinner… so we ate, and went out as fast as possible…

Day 13

Nothing special to mention except that I finally had enough knowhow to hack a wireless net that was using WEP encryption and how to protect against that. Too bad WEP encryption is not used anymore, but of course you should never hack other peoples’ network without permission. I rather pay my 1Euro to have a stable connection at the café where I can enjoy my coco or something like that.

Day12

At the morning we started to wash again, and I tried to hand wash some of my jeans. It took forever to get the soap out of it, so I think I will let the washing machine do the work in the future. When I was finished washing my friend was gone. His phone was turned off, and he had not left any note. A little frustrating because I didn’t know when he was coming back. It appears that he went to the university, and had a little trip himself. Well of course I didn’t stay home waiting for him, so I took a walk around the city and ended at the mall where I tried a local dish as for dinner. It was a pork meal with a really nice champignon sauce.
At the way home I experienced a turn out from the fire station. It appears that they use some sirens that sounds like the ones used at war, just before the trucks get off the fire station. It was quite a special experience.
At the evening my mate came home, and we tried to boost the wifi reception for the computers by wrapping an internet cable around my phone. We even built a little satellite dish out of tin foil, but unfortunately it didn’t work… it actually made it much worse… after the failure we went down to the café to surf on the internet.
Oh yea, almost forgot to tell you about what I saw today: A dog and its owner was walking while a homeless dog was following them the whole way, I think it was quite a funny to see that  Oh yea, by the way there are a lot of homeless dogs just walking around in Portugal.

Day11 – Thursday 11-02-10:

We went to the museum that morning at 9.45am, because the appointment was at 10am. In Aveiro everyone comes 15 minutes too late, that’s what the professor told us haha… Anyway we went inside and it appeared that our meeting would be delayed because the director was busy. Not good for our professor, because he had a meeting at 11am… so when the director finally had time to see us they had to make the conversation in Portuguese in order to make the conversation faster… great…
Well, anyway we got a little tour at the museum to see what we would be modeling those two months, and I can tell you for sure we are not going to sit down on our asses and do nothing 
Later I went to the university to get some modeling issues solved, and when the time finally past 8 and 9pm you could see and hear people at the street going to Praça. It appears to be that this Thursday, is the “Académic day” or something like that (I think they are celebrating the start of the semester, and why a Thursday? Because that’s the day most people go out). Joana, the girl I was talking about who moved out when she was 17, told me that, but I didn’t get it for sure, because of all the noise at Praça. They had live music inside the two tents they had put together, and some of the people were dressed up as different things. It was really crowded and both young and older people had showed up, even though it was past their bedtimes…
After that, at 3am we went to Club 8 where I went into a glass wall, and hurt my nose pretty bad… and the funny thing is that I and Joana was heading towards the dance floor when it happened, it couldn’t be more embarrassing… luckily all those embarrassing things happen here in Aveiro, and not in Denmark haha.

Day10 – Wednesday 10-02-10:

Today was a modeling day, and we basically stayed at home until the evening where Thelma called us, and wanted us to join her at the student bar. The student bar is located across the long bridge next to the school, so from the starting point at the cheap heavy metal bar at Praça, we walked those 45min to what happened to be a trance party with a lot of cheap beer. 60 cent for one, that’s the cheapest yet.
When we arrived at 2am you might say that it was almost half crowded, but when the time past 3 or 4am people start showing up because all of the bars at Praça close around 2am. Unlucky for us you might say so, we left when it was most crowded, because we had this meeting the next day at the Museum of Aveiro.

Day9

Today we really had a modeling day, and I was fighting with some of the weird modeling techniques that should make life “easier”… yeah right… We worked pretty much that day, but I can’t say that I’m satisfied with the result. It looks like I have done nothing the whole day, but it took me forever to adjust the models. After school we went down to Forum, and rent some bikes. It’s pretty cool that’s free, and we biked around the city. We didn’t see anything special, but it was nice to bike again instead of all the walking. It’s probably the government/city that has made this service available in order to let the tourists see what Aveiro has to offer. I’m not sure of how many tourists actually choose to visit this place, but because of the many international students that come to study one semester/6 months at the university you could probably count them as “tourists”. You might imagine that’s the only tourism they have here in Aveiro… You can’t really say that this city has that much to offer compared to bigger cities. You can actually see all what Aveiro has to offer in one day or two depending on how lazy you are, but even though is a small city and it’s nothing compared to the bigger ones, it’s a place like nothing else. It has something indescribable, I’m not sure of what it is, but it feels okay to be here, even though it has been a long trip to finally feel “home”.
At the night we went to Praça, notice it’s a Tuesday which means we are going to have five parties doing this week… Sometimes it makes me wonder how it’s possible for students to concentrate about their work with all those parties. Our neighbors are a good example. They study at the university, and every night they are having some sort of a party above us. It’s just unbelievable… How can they even afford it? Speaking of money - I met two girls at a bar at Praça and it appears that they moved out at the age of 17. I forgot to ask them about if they had any job, maybe I will do that later. Oh yea, if you didn’t know mostly the parents pay for their children to read at the universities, I wonder if those girls parents are paying for their apartment too… I wouldn’t surprise me after all…
At our way home we met more Erasmus students, some French and some from Poland. They were quite nice, we should have asked for their numbers… They say, well the school said that Erasmus students stick together, and we would be having a lot of arrangement together, and since we don’t have any internet connection at home, it would be sweet to have to friends that could inform you… Hey, don’t get me wrong about that, having friends for friendship is also important down here.

Day8

Today we have been at the university to the project. We have each received some tasks to do to Thursday. My job is to model a door of the museum of Aveiro. We have also received some DVDs with 3ds max tutorials.
In order to get a better perspective of what I was going to model I went down to the museum to take some pictures of door. It’s not going to be an easy task, especially because I haven’t used the program that much and several editions of 3ds max has been published since last time I used it.

Day7: 07-02-2010

It’s Sunday and nothing really happened today. Some places have closed, some not.

Day6: 06-02-2010

Today was just like any other relaxing day. The only that differs was that I went down to the café and ordered a drink, in order to get access to the free internet down there. I just went there to talk to my family and respond to some of my mails, but didn’t have enough time to really enjoy my time there, because the battery on my laptop isn’t that good.
We also started our first wash that day, and I’m “excited” to see if it is “wearable” again… before I started the wash I met the Italian guy from last night, it appears that he feeds some of his friend’s cat upstairs.
What I forgot to tell you guys is that it appears very few Erasmus students have a job in Aveiro. It’s not because it’s hard to get, but because the pay is too bad. Who wants to earn 5Euroes an hour anyway? Even for the Portuguese people it’s not much, but if you live at your own place you can survive without a job… Thelma told me that it was a very common low wage to earn 400Euroes a month… How can people surive with that kind of wage?

Day5

At 10 o’clock we went to the school for the Erasmus meeting. We thought that we had entered a wrong meeting, because Thelma said it was near the church at the school, which meant it couldn’t be this meeting. So while the meeting was on, we left the room, and went towards the church. We found a sign saying Erasmus, so we entered that room. What I’m telling you now, must be the most embarrassing experience I ever had. In the room we have 6 people behind a table, and next to the table was a lady presenting something from her power point, I guess. Some girls might have been friends or family was just looking at us when we sat down on one of the many seats in the room. I was pretty sure it was the wrong room, when I realized the people behind the table might have been external examiners… Ahmad keep whispering me we couldn’t leave the room, it was too embarrassing, and one of the girl just keep looking at us. Finally we left the room very quiet, and we never looked back… haha
Luckily we found a girl wearing a t-shirt saying “Erasmus”, and she gave us a map of the university point towards the meeting we were attending before we got the SMS from Thelma… So embarrassing, I swear to God, I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life “except for the time when I…” (A typical punch line from Family Guy, which we watched when we were bored)
Well after the meeting we had a little tour at the school, and a bus trip afterwards. They showed us some of the city, but we had already seen most of the city the first day while we were searching for an apartment. The only thing we haven’t seen on the little tour was the ‘Casa Nova Breche’, which is a nice place to surf. They have some awesome waves down there, and Europe’s second biggest lighthouse.
After the trip we went to Jumbo and bought some glossaries, and we made some weird pizzas, before going to the dinner at Thelma at 9 o’clock, which I think is late for dinner… We couldn’t start the gas oven, we don’t know why, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it didn’t work too… So we tried to make it on the pan, it didn’t go well, so we used the microwave as our last option… not that tasty, but at least we didn’t have to starve before going to Thelma.
At Thelma we got some fine dinner, with beans, rice and some vegetables. A little different from Danish dishes, but it was nice. After the dinner she showed us some weird kind of mouth organ made in Vietnam, and the sound from that was quite surprising. It makes some sounds like you would expect from a computer.
The time past twelve, and we went to Praça, and we met some of her friends and some of our new friends too (that we have met in at the past night). I think it was a typical night at Aveiro where people go to a specific place to start, and then goes to another depending on when they close. When the whole praça is closed around 2am people go to either Club 8 or Performas, which is a place that plays different music depending on what day it is.

Day4

In the morning we were keeping the accounts of our usage doing the 3 days in Aveiro. It didn’t come to our surprise that we had almost spent 200eEuroes in 3 days, because of all the things we had to buy to our apartment, and all the junk food we have been eating doing our “establishment”. But I think it is a healthy reminder that we need to save some money when it’s possible. I’ve already built up some kind of a psychological skepticism for things above 1Euro, hah… Because that’s what a beer cost, just joking  No, but really… we have to have in mind that if we buy too many things for 1Euro, and we don’t really need it, it will be an expensive journey.
In the evening we went upstairs to our neighbors, I’ve established some kind of a friendship already the second day I was here with our neighbor. It’s quite a funny story: It happened in the evening when our Portuguese neighbors from 3rd floor accidently dropped their laptop from their window – I think they were trying to catch the wireless net from the café around the corner, yes, sometimes you can catch it, but mostly not – They came downstairs to us, because the totally smashed up laptop landed on our balcony. No chance it would have survived that fall… They went upstairs with the “dead body” and I was thinking that maybe they knew a password for some of the other wireless networks that you can find around here. So I went upstairs to talk to them, apparently none of them spoke English, so they went to the 2nd floor (we live at 1st floor) where they knew a girl who spoke English and Portuguese. Apparently that girl just left the apartment and the pajamas wearing guy in the apartment was totally unaware of the situation. He looked like a big question mark when the two Portuguese guys were trying to explain that they were looking for the girl whose name I cannot remember… Luckily the guy, Sebastian from Slovenia, talked perfectly English so I explained what happened and my theory of their internet access.
Even though he couldn’t tell me how to get internet from the apartment, we developed some kind of nice friendship. So that evening we went upstairs, and go some beers where after we left to Praça where all the bars are located in Aveiro. We went to a club with a lot of other Erasmus students like us, and it was actually quite nice a place, just weird it already closed at 2am. It appears that many of the bars do that except for 2 big ones.
The next day he left the country, because he had his last finals that day.

Day3

Day3
Today is our “resting” day. We have been all alone without Thelma. We have been looking for some internet options; yes we do not have internet or television at our apartment. Even though we live so close to the cafes with free internet service, we can’t access them from our apartment. It’s too far away… but if you go down to the street, you can access the internet, so it will be there I will be blogging to my blog…
It seems like many students are going to the cafes after school to hang around and do their home works together. I think the student life is nothing like Denmark at all. People hang around with each other much, and the libraries are full of young students studying and helping each other.
We have been down at the centre of the city, which is called Forum. They have some shops and restaurants there.
In the evening we will be going to the city. It seems like people are going out Wednesday and Thursdays, because some of the students live far from here and will be joining their families in the weekends.
All the pubs are located at the ‘fish market’ which is I find very weird. It smells like very much of fish there, but it seems like people hang out there…
We went to different bars, and the first one was a little expensive, but compared to Danish prices it is cheap. We paid 10Euros for 2 Jack Daniels, which is the same price for one in Denmark. But if you are student and have spent a lot of your money on food and accessories you are a little broke… After that we went to some cheaper bars, where we bought some local beers for 1Euro each. Their local beer ‘Super Bock’ and ‘Sagres’ taste like regular beer, nothing really special about them, I think. I’m not really a beer guy… It seems like the Portuguese people eat some yellow beans to their beers. It looked very oily, but I wonder what it takes like... After that we went to one of the discos in the town – Club 8 where we had an expensive drink and went home for some sleep.

Day2

In the morning we went to the university to see the professor. It was quite easy to find even though we had no idea where we lived. Thelma could not find the street name for our apartment. We asked about, and luckily we found one that could guide us.
The university was quite big and the professor introduced us to the project in which we will be working on the next two months. He also talked about a little about Portuguese traditions and other stuff…
We had rabbit for lunch, which was “cheap” according to the professor… It almost cost 5Euroes! Seems like everything in Aveiro cost 1Euro or 5Euro… It appears that the Portuguese people like to eat rabbit and squids… I’m not a fan of both..
After the meeting with the Professor we met with Thelma, and she guided us around the city. We went to a mall to get some of the stuff we needed back in the apartment. The apartment did not have any dished or casseroles. We had to buy everything; it was like starting a new life in another country.
Luckily again Thelma could help us by providing some casseroles and ingredients. What should we do without her? Without her I think we wouldn’t have made it… Thanks Thelma!
It appears that the Portuguese people are a very social and warm people. Even though they don’t know you they kiss and hug like they have known you for years. Even at the training center, Ahmad was looking for one; people seem to be very friendly. The only one I’ve met which gave me a negative attitude was the old cripple lady who apparently was not cripple at all. We saw her this morning without her stick from one of her expensive cars. I’m not sure if she is false or what, but I just can’t stand the look of her, and when we were paying for the rest of the rent, she charged us for the gas bottles which were empty when we came to the apartment. Of course I can understand we have to pay for our usage, but isn’t it a standard that everything should be working from the beginning? Maybe this is what people call a “cultural shock”…

Day1

The trip to Aveiro at Portugal was a bit rough. When we were leaving Denmark it was snowing heavily, and we were unsure whether the plane was flying or not. The metro which we took to the Danish airport was stucked at many train stations, and we were a little bit late even though we left in good time.
We middle landed at Barcelona and took the plane to Oporto where we took the metro to Campanã to take the train to Aveiro. It was easy, but to our surprise people did not speak English, even the young generation did not speak English or did not speak it that well. More about that later…
When we arrived at Aveiro we met Thelma, our Erasmus Buddy, and we explained our situation about the offers we have made with different hotels around the university. 2000euroes for two months were too much, and could be done much cheaper so she made some calls at her home to some of her contacts. Everything was rent out to other people, we were too late.
To my defense I’ve been asking my teacher about where I would stay doing this internship, and they kept saying that they would take care of it. The last time I asked them about the situation, which was one week before the trip, they told me that they could not help me, because they apparently did not have a contact in Portugal. I then contacted the professor in Portugal which had arranged the internship with my teachers. He could not help me either, but he said that we would be contacted by an Erasmus Buddy. She contacted me one day before the trip… While everything was “taken” care of I and my friend had made some deals with different hotels around the university just in case everyone could not hold their promises… But it would have been an expensive trip if it wasn’t for Thelma. Luckily for us she was contacted 11 o’clock in the evening while we still were looking for any rentable apartment on the streets. We walked our legs off that day in search for a place to stay! We walked almost every corner of the city…
We got an apartment for 900Euros, but we only had the half on the money in cash. It was okay with the old cripple lady, and we were able to loan some sheets and blanket from her which apparently was not included in the apartment.
When we finally were alone and ready to sleep we realized what a shit hole we have rented… The toilet is loose, and you have to be careful not to fall over when you are “making business”… The warm water was not working, even though the old lady tested it in front of us and said it worked.
When we went to sleep it was getting pretty cold, seems like the temperature is dropping quite a lot in the evening. We were close to freeze to death, because none of the radiators were working…
This is of course the simple version of the worst day of my life, but I don’t want to bother you with my endless complains…