Happy new year :)

It now has been 3 months since I started this journey here in Lisbon. Time flies, I feel I just got there. This city keeps getting more and more interesting. Although I haven’t got the chance to travel all around Portugal yet, since I am waiting the perfect opportunity, (friends and great weather both hopefully coming soon!), I got to know more and more beautiful Lisbon. There is something quite fascinating about it, but I don’t really how to explain it. The hills, the music, the people all create this particular kind of atmosphere, and a little poetry you can feel in the air. But not only the city, I am surrounded by colleagues who, I am lucky to say, became my friends. We have been sharing great moments and conversations for a while now, and I think the bonding time has just begun ! Apart from that, the work itself is fulfilling since I can write and speak with people from all around Europe, and this sort of international interaction is actually what I was looking for when I decided to do an EVS.

I went back to France for the holidays, enjoyed quality time with my family and spent the new year's eve with my friends, in the mountains in the middle of nowhere. Even though I enjoy life very much in Lisbon, walking up and down the streets of this magnificent city, everybody needs break from the sound and the fury of such an entertaining environment. I came back a few days ago, without nostalgia and eager to see all the friends I made here. A few friends frm France are going to come visit me soon, and we will travel a bit in Portugal here and there. A great year awaits! Thank you to everybody who made this journey possible :)

Dezembro is here, but the summer too :)

Yesterday it was two months I am in Lisbon.

I feel like I have been here for quite a long time: I already have my friends, my routine, many goals set for the months to come. The weather is still treating us well - it reaches 20 degrees out quite often on the sunny days!

And Christmas is coming up; my family will visit me here, so I won’t get to go back home - which is a little strange - I was kind of hoping to get to see my friends again, but they will eventually be here soon.

Work at Check-in is also going well; I am working on making a new website together with Virgilio, who is doing the writing and coding - which is something I had never undertaken before and that I really hope will work out how we want. The whole re-branding of the association’s image needs to be done and we are working on it, but it’s a process that needs some time: with Flavio, a volunteer who is studying marketing we are going to re-think the whole image and concept and try to draw new designs on it. It’s a big process and very challenging.

Also, we are thinking of new activities for the year to come, on a local level. We have a whole lot of ideas for what could happen in Checkin - also aced the question on Facebook to our “likers” and are hoping to get some feedback we can base the programming for 2017 on.

On Nov 26th we also had our first open day, which went pretty well: we had organised an afternoon of games and sharing of experiences by the people who took part to projects all over Europe through checkin, and we finished with a german aperitif and an italian dinner! Many new and old people showed up and it was a good chance for me and Antoine and Federica to meet the extended Checkin-crew and understand better what the association does.

Lisbon's Pastelarias in Christmas attire

Lisbon still has many good things to offer; the last month I visited the Oriente Foundation Museum, which displays a big collection of artefacts from Asia (mainly from ex - portuguese - colonies and the countries Portugal used to have commercial relationships during the big Navigator’s times) and has now an exhibition up about Chinese Opera; I also visited the Museu National do Azulejo, which is a good one. The building in which the museum is situated is already worth the visit itself; an old monastery with beautiful gardens and rooms covered in baroque azulejos, it displays a collection of azulejos that goes from their first appearance in Portugal - about 1000 years ago - until nowadays. I heard live fado for the first time, in a small Tasca in Bairro alto - Tasca do Chico - which i was not crazy about though; there was mainly tourists coming in and out of the place and everything seemed quite staged; really like the singers were tang the same turns every night; which took a bit of the charm out of the place. 

Garden of the Museu do Azulejo

Festival Imigrarte also took place a couple of weeks ago, which was amazing: 3 days of workshops and shows of all types, run by the different migrant communities present in Lisbon: I took part to an african dances workshop and a salsa one, a drawing class, a forum theater representation by a feminist group, and listened to amazing concerts by musicians who were playing music from Sao Tomé, Nepal, Portugal, Brasil; Argentina…there was such a good energy! The location where the festival took place was also very beautiful; it’s in an old school in the city center of Lisbon, a neoclassical run-down building on 4 floors, very charming.. it was also super moon that weekend so from the top you could see the most amazing moon. The location is going to be turned in a luxury hotel though very soon; it is very sad to see how mass tourism is transforming the city at such a quick pass, not in a good way to me.

 performance-watching at Imigrarte festival

Talking of that, tonight there will be the screening of a documentary, “Terramoturism”, that i am going to watch, in order to have some more insight on what is happening in Lisbon, when it comes to gentrification and un-sustainable tourism. I guess a small part of me is already thinking of staying in Lisbon after EVS and I already feel weirdly involved - like if I was in an actual relationship with this city :) ; I’d like to understand her and contribute to the discussion that is taking place, here and now, to contribute to making a positive change and minimalize as much as we can the damage they mass tourism might bring to this capital.

It’s lunch break now! time to catch some sun outside of the office… beijinos!

One Week up in the North: On Arrival Training in Braga

Here i am, writing from my way back home from Braga that actually as u know  is not our basis, but my companheiros Emma and Antoine and I, were there for our on arrival training organized by the portuguese national agency.

It was a big “ training event” that brought together volunteers from all over europe who are at the beginning of their evs experience in different cities in all portugal.

This training had in fact basically the aim to support volunteers in the adaptation process during the evs experience giving them tools and causes of reflection to be able to face in a better way difficulties and potential problems during their own project.

During those days we have been working a lot supported by trainers, doing so many different activities mainly in groups but at the same time giving us the opportunity to express our opinion and personal contribution about different issues related with everything goes around our own evs experience. We explored and we became more aware about our role within an evs project, we reflected on ourselves and all the trainers give us tips and tools to manage and take the best from our experience abroad, increase our “baggage of competence and knowledge” to be carried on the back during our own personal growth paths.

Generally it was a really full immersion in a melting pot of people, cultures, thoughts, acts. I met really a lot of great people with different stories and background but finally all connected and linked by the same wish to volunteer abroad and  grow up personally and  why not, professionally from this experience. There were moments that I really loved cause I had the chance to know a lot of nice people with whom we shared this crazy week, and sure, others nei quali I felt already saudade de Lisboa!!!

But  at the end of this intense week, that’s the important, come back home richer than before :)))

Até a próxima cold Braga!!

Federica

About Life in Lisboa

Hello again! It's now been a few weeks since we all got here. So we decided to keep you informed about our journey in Lisboa :)

The work keeps getting more and more exciting. I, on my side, started to work on new projects in other countries, in Eastern Europe and Balkans. The international environment makes it really awesome, especially when you start interacting with other organizations and participants.

About life in Lisboa, well, I don't know where to start. Back in Paris, everybody was telling me how great it is, and I got sick of those comments. “This can't be that great”, I was thinking. Lower my expectations, so I don't get disappointed. But actually, everybody was right. It is that amazing.

Everything is, the concerts, the restaurants, the bars, but also the people, and the basic atmosphere in this city. First off, it's really hard to not hear music anywhere. You could walk wherever, you always hear music. When you listen to a saxophonist playing on top of a mirador, with the sunlight in your eyes, it's a pretty cool feeling. The general ambiance of the city is filled with music and great encounters come from it.

Something else that was a great discovery for me is the alternative style of living here. Associations flourish by the hundreds in every neighborhood, wether it's social centers or cultural spots, cafés or bars. It is a vibrant place to be when you're interested in culture overall, but also when you are attracted to alternative lifestyles.

Therefore, the stories you hear are really different and inspiring. I met travellers, musicians, artists or students who went all over the world, telling me where I should go, or what I should do, and they all agree about one thing: Lisboa is really amazing.

The sun is always here, the food is delicious, the people are the friendliest, and the city itself is beautiful. I feel like I belong here, so we are doing pretty good :)

Antoine Girault

First Weeks...

 So, tomorrow it will be 3 exact weeks that I am in Lisbon, and I already caught myself wondering if and how I’ll want to leave this place, in 11 months from now. I could see myself becoming one of the many expats I met so far, who had gotten here to stay a few months, for a short term job or a school exchange, and ended up simply not leaving. Lisboa me encanta, she got me already. At Checkin we haven’t start working working yet, since Antonio, our mentor and leader got stuck in Bangok for a week longer than what he had planned and since we had a first two weeks of portuguese language (which was amazing! I can’t wait to be semi-fluent at least); which gave me a lot of time to, apart for preparing my presentation about the Erasmus+ program that we are supposed to give on monday, and finish our language course, to discover more of the city and enjoy her sunny and overly warm days. It’s october 28th, and I am writing sitting on a cafe’s terrace wearing a skirt and a tshirt …. it’s 28 degrees here! 

Since I can’t really talk much about the work at the office yet, I’ll go for a ramble about the city - and name a few of the lovely things I got to know so far - a list of favourite discoveries.

 Miradouro Santa Catarina

   

Miradouros - Lisbon is built on hills. Lots of hills. They say 7 but I believe they are more - or at least feel like it. So you are always climbing here, or trying not to slide down a hill, on rainy days. Up and Down Up and Down… which creates amazing geometries and geographies of narrow streets, neighbourhoods that are shaped by the morphology of the territory, where the colours of the houses’s facades and their architectonical style (there is old ones, covered in azulejos, right next to brutalist apartment complexes from the 60’s), pink and bright blue and green and yellow and rotten white all mingle together and cope with each other in a surprisingly harmonious way.... and there is miradouros on top of these messy hills. Amazing view points on the city, where people go enjoy horizons, sunsets, drinks and the cityscape.. often there will be music played by young jamming musicians or tour guides followed by big groups of overheated tourists who are half dead after climbing up. I am sure I haven’t found them all but I have a top 3 out of the 8 I spotted so far. Nr. 3 is in Penha da França, and I don’t know its name yet… I ended up there at night, and you can’t really see the river from it, but you get a great view on the whole city and the right side of the river Tago, which is all sparkly and orange at night - there  is some big stones with fences and climbing plants you can sit under while enjoying the sight - and it’s never too crowded there, since it’s located in a less touristy area of Lisbon, and you have to climb quite a bit to get there. Nr. 2 is Miradouro da Nossa Senhora do Monte (The Lady of the Mountain) and it’s right behind our place! You have to climb up quite some stairs to get up there but it’s definitely worth it: there is a small white church on top of the hill, with Pine trees and benches that face the view of the city, the river and the castle on the next hill, standing up impotently on Alfama and Graça’s half run down and charming neighbourhoods. It’s a great spot to take pics to send home from. Nr. 1 is the Santa Catarina Miraduro, which looks on the harbour and the bridge and some very modern and overly big buildings that have been recently built right underneath it. They built biiiiig marble stairs that turn into seats for the many many people who hang out there every night - usually young and not too well dressed, enjoying a cerveja, the many musicians who jam there or someone’s loud speaker’s sound (which can be more or less pleasant) and the sparkling lights of the bridge, the reflections on the river’s water… it’s a magical spot, busy and loud, but magical. Close to there I also found an amazing library - Biblioteca Camões - which still has an old original wooden and art nouveauish interior and from who’s windows you can enjoy an amazing view on the rooftops and the river... if you are lucky enough to get a seat by the window  

                                                                                Biblioteca Camões on a rainy afternoon

Social centres and Cultural Houses - Lisbon seems to be full of social centres, run by young and driven people and collectives and where all kinds of gatherings take place, most of them happen to be in Anjos and Arroios, so it’s quite easy for us to reach them. So far I enjoyed a turkish music concert in Crew Hassan, a Swing night in Bus, a folk dancing night (angolan music, Forró, Afro Jazz, Samba and gipsy music were all played during the same night by different bands, all very good) at Casa Lusitana (which is in Alfama, but about to be closed because they are going to turn the building in a hotel), Documentaries about PT writers at Disgraça and a couple of very nice (and cheap! - since often social centres offer meals for 3/4 euros) dinners at Zona Franca.. and even fado sung by some old men with wrinkles, mustaches (bigode!) and smiling faces in a hidden bar up in Graça: it was incredible - a sung out loud sad jam session. I felt really lucky to have run into; I was the only woman there apart for the bartender, and the only non portuguese speaking person - which was a pity, because I am still wondering what all those men where so sad about… but I guess it is some standard themes they sing about. Saudade, tristeza, mar were words that recurred quite a few times. 

Every day there is something going on somewhere: workshops, concerts, jam sessions… and it’s funny how, since the city is not that big (500.000 inhabitants), I already ended up running into the same people several times… even met some friends from Rotterdam who moved here a few years ago, without making any appointment - 4 nights in a raw! It’s like a big village here; most people are very friendly, it’s easy to start a conversation with strangers, keep in touch, the rhythm of life is human, you can sit on a terrace for a drink without feeling guilty towards your bank account or being robbed, walk almost everywhere in max half an hour.. and recognize people on the street when you do so! Also on my way to Checkin - since I always walk the same way around the same time of the day - there is 3 people I keep running into! I already say hi regularly to one of them :)

 spotted on the way to CheckIN

 

Dancing people - It looks like everybody in Lisbon is a pretty skilled and passionate dancer: chachacha’s, rumba’s, swing, salsa's, Forro’… nothing scares them. I am not used to it: in Italy really few young people dance, in the Netherlands they do a bit more, but it’s definitely not as well as here. They look awesome and seem to have a lot of fun, and I won’t allow myself to still be as clumsy as I am in a year from now. I am going to take dance classes here, learn how to follow steps and another dancer!

Food - Food findings of my first three weeks are: Coffee! Which is still as good as I remembered it to be here, slightly longer than our italian espressos, which makes the pleasure a bit extra long. / Pataniscas de Bacalhau!!! It’s a paste made of codfish, onion, parsley, flour ... fried. And it’s going to be my guilty pleasure for the year / Bacalhau à Bras - which is again a cod fish dish - but with, apart for potatoes and onions and parsley (all regular so far) - eggs in it! Mixing fish and eggs is something you could be hanged for in Italy, and that is why I would have never never never expected it to be such a tasty combination.. but it works amazingly. / Bifana is another thing I’d never expect to be so tasty; it’s simply a sandwich (sande) with pork meet inside, grilled, or boiled in some tomato/garlicky sauce, that you seem to have to top with mustard and accompany with an imperial (draft beer, to enjoy. I tried, and it works! :)

Emma

 

Let`s discover Lisbon...

My name is Antoine, I am 23 years old and I am from France.

I studied law for three years, and after a couple of internships, including one in the USA, I decided that, even though it can be very challeging, this was not the field I wanted to work in. I guess many people in my age feel the same, and it is a pretty big decision to stop and start something else, I had the chance to stay in Athens for a semester during the last year of my degree, it was really there that I started taking interest in other subjects, mostly humanities, from arts to philosophy. I then completely shifted from law, and switched to study fine arts, for a year, in Paris. This year was enlightening for me. I got to do what I wanted at that time, mostly painting and drawing. But I wanted to travel, to discover new things, new cultures and new languages. I used my time away from university to do what I loved most, mostly reading, going to the movie theater, concerts, travel and just hang out with my friends. But somehow I was looking for a new challenge, a long-time commitment that would help me grow and flourish. This is when the idea of doing an EVS struck me. I heard many good things about working in an organization, from the working environment to the contents of the missions. And, to say the least, everything was even better than my already high expectations. Even though I just got here in Portugal, I am already fond of the culture, the people, and the city of Lisbon is a great place to live. The place I am working at is full of young people like me, looking for a place to try different things, eager to learn a whole lot, and overall think differently. I think it is safe to say that I am going to have a great year, doing something I am invested and interested in, with awesome people, in such a vibrant city. What`s not to like?

Very first Emma-steps in Lisboa!

Ola! I am Emma, 23 years old, Italian - grew up on a hill, in a small town in Tuscany. When I turned 18 I moved to the Netherlands, Rotterdam, where I started art school, as an Illustrator. During my bachelor years, I got the chance to take a minor in cultural diversity, focused on social design and worked in an internship as a designer for a small NGO in NYC. After I completed my bachelor in July, I was - and still am - quite confused about what I want to do next, with myself. I know I want to be a "social" change maker and that I'd like to keep designing too, but haven`t come up with a formula yet. I also still want to learn new languages, travel and live in different countries - don't want to miss out on challenges.

So I had decided to start a second bachelor in Arabic and Middle eastern studies and signed up for it, it would be in Venice - back south, almost back home... somehow I felt it was too soon though, I had just gotten out of school two months before! So when scrolling my FB page on a rainy dutch afternoon I saw a call for EVS volunteers at Checkin association I was like: I have to try this! I had spent a few days in Lisbon during a trip a couple of years ago and left promising myself I would have lived here at some point; I had been struck by its multiculturality, kindness and rythm... and there was my chance up for grabs!

And so here I am: ready to start, learn, contribute, doubt, challenge and re-think myself a little, in this pastel-colored and lively place, inside the Oh so nice Checkin team! Thank you Portugal for having me over, sou muito grata! Can't wait to get to know you better :)