Lisboa - first steps

Olaaa,
Bom dia!

Here we are, straightly from Lisboa, the city full of sun :-)

As my dear collegue Olga wrote last week, here the time flies, week after week we discover new things about Portugal and its culture. And step by step, we improve our portuguese skills...

Fixeee! (Coooool)

This week was the first week with the work all day long, after the first two ones in which we had portuguese lessons with our great professora Rute :-)

 

Portuguese lesson: mode on!

How become an actor in Lisbon after one week...is it possible? Yes, it is. I was with Paula, Olga and Sergio to watch the show ''The beast theater show - Chapito'' and suddendly I was called on the stage by the crazy and great showman, so I supposed to have one wife and another sweetheart, and we created a story about that...it was so amazing and funny at the same time, so great start as a professional actor :-)

This week started with a ''lanche'', the typical break in the afternoon ;) soo, we enjoyed a lot of foods and specialities from Poland (Olga is a great chef, I am lucky), Spain (and Paula as well, I am sorrounded by people really good at cooking, what a privilege!) and Italy (it was me, and try to guess? Yeah, the main ingredient was nutella, of course) ;)

                 

Time for lanche: from Poland, Spain and Italy with love and nutella

This week we were more deep into work, and I m starting to focus with Antonio, the President of CheckIN Associaçao (facebook), more on the international projects, a field that I love; here you can find everything, people from different culture, new ideas, new motivation, come up with new developments, everything while you are  taking part in training course, seminar really formative, that give you new professional skills... that s super cool! So this week started talking about these tasks. Erasmus plus and Europe gives us lots of opportunities and chance that lots of people may even don't know, so cool, amazing and formative at the same time...so what are you waiting for joining us in the upcoming projects? You won't regret it ;)

On Tuesday (or well - let's start and speak portuguese - on terçeira feira) I met my mentor here in Lisbon, a great guy called Emiliano; what can I say? We love travelling, discover new culture, keep in touch with different world, enjoying all the experience and so...we love this Erasmus Plus live world! It is a great chance to grow, professional and personal sides, at the same time, and we want to share with you lots of information about it!

Erasmus Plus Programme 2014-2020, a world of opportunity

Sooo, Lisbon, this week was so good and I was also able to go and listen the famous fado! It was such an amazing experience, just stay in the restaurant and look at all the magic behind it! Women, men, you are in the local for having dinner or just drinking, when suddenly all the lights turn off, one woman start to play the guitar, another one start to sing...wow, I have no words for describing my first meeting with the ''fado''. Through one song they can show all them feelings, happiness, melancholy, 3,4,5 minutes in which you listen to much more than a simply song, they talk about their own life.

Wednesday evening: peixe, vinho e fado em Lisboa

This week, thanks to the wonderful work of Olga and Paula we created a great blog, developing new subjects and new tools, so if you want to discover our daily work, activities, experience, CheckIN training and program, seeing as well what is happening em Lisboa, just follow us! The weather... some words about the weather? Amazing. This week looked like summer all week long, sun was shining, no clouds, just a t-shirt and you don't need anything more. And, in our coffee/lunch break (cafecinho e almoço, in portuguese), we can enjoy this view so cool and breathtaking close to our office, no jardim do torel (below you can see such a great sun, it is also for you, enjoy it :-)

View from Jardim do Torel, Lisboa

And the weekend in the capital of Portugal are cool as well, a lots of events, activities, and whatever you want or need you can find here, days or nights, week days or weekends, doesn't change! Just, yeah we should change something about the weather...3 weeks here, 3 fins de semana (ao sabado e ao domingo) in which it was raining all days long...so what do you want to do Lisbon?

Stay tuned, and you will discover if we will be able to change this ''wrong'' routine :-)

Desejo-vos uma boa semana,
ate ja!!!

Nico, Lisboa
27.10.2015

First two weeks of my EVS Check-in adventure

These two weeks went by so quickly… I think I still can’t believe that I am here and I will be for the whole year!

Even though I had a lot of time to prepare mentally for this challenge, I still can’t process it because of the amount of things that are going on.

View from our terrace :)

I came to Lisbon on the 4th of October. The next day I already started a Portuguese course and getting to know my new environment and people that I will work with. I was privileged enough to visit Lisbon twice before moving here, but still this time was different, way better.

elevador da lavra

First days were full of bureaucracy, but it went better than I imagined. As I know how hard it is to solve any kind of problem at the offices in Poland, I am very positively surprised with the nice attitude and kind smile of the Portuguese officials. I managed to get the tram card, the fiscal and registration number in the first week. I opened my Portuguese bank account as well :)

More fascinating and less sweaty than fighting with bureaucracy was the Portuguese course. Every day for two weeks I had 4-hour lessons with 3 other students (another evs volunteer, a big fan of chocolate – Nico, our big Spanish helper Paula who is an intern and Marianna- lovely Czech girl that decided to move in Lisbon). I knew way before coming here that the language is gonna be a big challenge for me but our lovely teacher Rute make all hard things a lot easier :)

Learning by doing - Portuguese shopping :)

These two weeks were also a good time to get to know the place I am going to work at, my team and start planning future tasks. I am more than excited for this year and can´t wait for all the future challenges in Check-In!

Dream team: me, Paula, Nico and Toninho :)

Oh and of course finally I can enjoy the proper coffee :)

Café A Brasileira 

Written by Olga