Bragança

WORKS, BLOODY WORKS...

This week I have a lot of works to do for the school. I have to finish everything till 20th of December, because in January I will not go to school - we are going to preparations to Algarve. I can not wait my friend from Slovenija to come on 27th of December. Most of the days I am training alone, there is no athletes here, who I could join. I am a bit dissapointed, but I stick to my training plan every day.
I think if you can not do it yourself, you can not do it at all.
We are having a Christmass party in my house with the Erasmus students who stay here. I am happy to host them, all my flatmates are going home, of course. We are going to have a dinner and after that we are probably going to church. How many people will be present, still do not know.
I am going back to my work for Contabilidade = accounting .
Ate amanhã.

European Cross Country Championship 2007 TORO

Zamora, Toro; ESPANHA
Yesterday we had a very nice trip to Spain with Arek - the photoman, Sebastian, Lech and Altino - the driver. We went to watch the EAA Cross Country Championship in Toro. We started our trip with a half hour delay, because the night before the trip was a bit long for most of us. They picked me up at 7:30 a.m. (portuguese time zone). The destionation is 130 km from Bragança, so it was not really a long trip, but it was very interesting one.
The weather was sunny, no clouds and the ambience in the car was a bit sleepy (Arek had to make it up for the last night). It took us some time to find the place of the event - we were lucky that Altino saw a very small sign with the direction of the competition.
We arrived to the "place of the crime" a bit later than we planned, so we missed the first two competitions of female and male juniors. I found my friends from Slovenija more or less immediately - I was so happy to meet someone from my country after two months. A big surprise happened when I wanted to speak with them in my language and I had to find the words to say... I did not speak in Slovenian language for 2 month to anyone live, so it took some time to switch my language.
We found our position for watching the race - and tried to enjoy our day as much as we could - anyone in his own way. Sebastian, Lech were giving atention to their Polish collegues, I was was cruising around the competition to see famous faces from the Track&Fields of the Europe, Arek was taking photos and Altino was observing his Portuguese athletes.
For me was very interesting to see their warm up, what kind type they do, the exercises... Everything I could see. In the audience I recognized Mayte Martinez of Spain and I could not resist to speak with her. I liked her English with a Spanish accent.:)
The most interesting races were of course the senior ones. In female Spanish native Marta DOMINGUES won in a very souvereign way - leaping apart from the opponents in the final 500m and coming home with her hands high in the air to celebrate her victory.
In the man race the sitiation was similar; Sergey LEBID from Ukraine outsprinted Mustafa from Sweden in the last 300m.
After the competition we took some photos together and I also took some photos with he female winner MArta, who was celebrating in some calm place behind some old house. We I spoke with her, she really impressed me - her handshake was very strong and her look was so determined one. She was really happy and I could feel her energy.
After we left Toro, we went to Zamora to hotel were Slovenian team stayed to spend some time with them. Nastja brought me my stuff, which my friends sent me from Slovenija and I gave her some stuff to take to Slovenija.
We also took a small tour through the city and we all found it very beautiful. The buildings were manly old and pretty good kept.
We wanted to go on some party they usually make after the competion but we found out that it colud be a problem to enter there, because we are not the participants of the competition. So we went home around 8 p.m. and we finished our trip in Bragança - Lech and Sebastian went home and Altino, Arek & me went to some small restaurant to have a dinner: françesinha for Altino, tourada for me and some steak for Arek.
I got home very tired, but veru satisfied with the day and trip we made.
Ate amanhã.

VILA REAL 2. 12. 07

VILA REAL

On Sunday we spent the day in Vila Real with Toze, his feeyonce Joana and his sister Isabela. It was a nice day full of happenings... In the shopping centre I met Trindado from Sao Tome e Principe and he explained me how to prepare manioca and how to cook the bananas. He was very nice man and explained me everything in details.
Check the photos...

Jantar at Marisa's parents house 1.12.07

Yesterday evening I was invited to dinner with Toze (my brother - we call each other that way, because we are like a family). to Marisa's parents at the village 20km out of Bragança. The dinner was perfect: we ate soup of vegetables, pork liver baked in the fireplace, quejio caseiro (cheese homemade) some specila saussage made of pork meat and bread and we drank some caseiro wine. There was David - Marisa's father, mother of Marisa, and two grandmother of Marisa - is 91 years old and she still works in the field and is still pretty healthy. After the dinner I watched how they prepare special kind of saussage - sweet one. Yes, that's right - sweet. They boil bread in the water, after they put pork meat, honey, nuts, canela and pork blood into it and mix alltogether. I took some photos, take a look. They invited me to spend Christmass eve with them... I will keep that in my mind... It was very nice evening for me to spend some time and take some insight of Portuguese people who live in a village. For the first time a saw a table were they put fire in the big plate below it and you can put your feet to warm them up. It is on the photo. Ate amanhã.

Dinner - multinacional

Jantar multinacional











Yesterday we had dinner in my house - I invited Daniel and Alex(his new nickname: Babyface) from Romania and Anna from Poland and Stephanie a.k.a. Rudolf from Belgium. We ate pasta with ham, chicken and pieces of saussages with milk cream. We had two deserts: cake with cottage cheese and manga - Toze's speciality. It was a great evening, we laughed a lot and had great time together. I went to bed at 3 a.m.; we started at 20h. We have to repeat this session - I beleive we all liked it very much.
Today I woke up at 7:30. I felt pretty tired but i get out of bed although. At 11 a.m. I had a test run 4km at the IPB track and I run pretty good - I was very satisfied with my time and feelings during the run. In the afternoon i had an easy run of 8km and now I feel tired but very satisfied - like floatng above the land. It is great. Sebastian and Altino helped me with the run - running some laps with me - thank you friends.
Tonight I am going to sleep like a baby. :)

Ate amanhã.

Test at the stadium of IPB

Today I did my 30m flying and 400m maximum speed at the track. The weather was perfect and the company also:professor Bragada, Altino and Sebastian. Altino filmed my 30m flying and Mr. Bragada clocked the time and took the drop of blood after the test for the lactate analysis. Times were good - due to running in usual running shoes. It was very strange for the students in school when they saw me in shorts in this period of the year...

Photos from INSTALADA

Finally i got the pictures from Instalada- - tha party I wrote in one of





the previous posts.... Take a look...