'baby, i get angry at your words and alcohol' thankyou to Missy Higgins (Aussie singer) for that Title.. although i cant remember the rest of the lyrics.. and the content of this blog is rather not related to words or alcohol.. it is rather ranty though.. so ignor it as you wish..
so.. sometimes things work.. sometimes they dont.. this is one of the Plan B weeks (always have a Plan B my dear friends.. and ALWAYS have your passport within walking distance.. these are lessons you sometimes have to learn the hard way..-and probably a lesson that donesnt apply to those sans passport)so as you can probably guess.. things arent so flash hot here. and before i get into it all id like to put in place a disclaimer.. i was reminded that this blog will have power.. for many people reading it it will be the only 'experience' they have of various countries (thankyou Penny).. and as such it has the potential to bias people.. as everything does. So i would like to use this chance to remind people that this is my opinion. as of today. i am in asituation most tourists would never find themselves.. and i have seen a very different portugal to that which most people see. i dont believe ive seen a more 'real' portugal than anyone else. its just different.. and ithink id like to come back when im older, wiser, richer, and on holidays so i can see how differnt it can be. So please remember that this is just my opinion.. and you are more than welcome not to agree with it.. ok kiddoes? got that into your heads? (that was the lawyery bit) hahaha so.. where am i? or where was i?im currently sitting on the floor of a dorm for 12year olds (now imagine the beds.. and the portuguese arent tall in the first place let alone when they are 12), not in my room cause some chick is sleeping there.. but some other room..im using a girls lap top which has the grooviest little card thing that means she can get wireless broadband anywhere.. andits super duper cheap.. i just drank two (now three) UHT cholcolate milks (probably not wise.. but hey) and its about 1630.. I have skipped going to the beach.. mainly because im buggered, and would rather spend time on the net. This is partially because I dont want to have to deal with how ever many girls having a go at me for wearing boardies (its a bikini only world here.. ) and because i dont feel like getting sun burnt or being told how wonderful the beach is. yeah yeah pathetic i know.. but im very very tired. Im in a town called Gaia.. next to Porto in the north.. its bleeding hot.. and..... well im not having that much fun.. im sleep depived.. hot, sticky, porrly nourished (in the vitamin sense) and well and truly over it.. (and in the mood to complain somewhat.. so feel free not to read if you dont want to) so over it to the point that i ahve actually cracked it and am leaving tommorow.. (id like to think that the kids at home will read that and think.. wow.. must be prety average.. that lass sticks with everything..but who knows what you are thinking.. proably whining spoilt brat ;) ) oh.. and im on this science camp thing its about 12 days long and its about day 6 now.. and im trying to workout where to start.. ok.. a description of the camp..it seems to be 50 ish kids getting together for a week and a bit to do whatever.. I am the only non portuguese speaker (which is a big part of the problem, in my experience the portuguese really dont like speaking English, and when there is only one of me they just dont unless they have to.. so its pretty lonely) although there were two americans here for 2 days, which was good.. there was english for a while.. but as soon as they left the english went with them. up till this point i didnt realise how truly dependant i am on communication ( i guess thats a dumb thing to say.. but i have run out of things to think to myself.. well not entirely.. but close to) although it has been like this for the last month solid. And you dont realise how much you rely on eavesdropping to get an idea of people,and whats going on untill you cant eavesdrop. So theres that.. Theres also the lack of sleep thing.. I used to think of a late night on a camp as like 1 or 2 am.. these guys a normal time to go to bed is about 4am.. and its dorms so theres no chance of privacy.. or sleep.. So far the whole thing seems to be an excuse to party, get drunk, hook up (well kinda.. its very hard to tell whos with who.. they are touchy feely,kissy and give full body massages to everyone.. i cant say i really care about that..niether here nor there.. but ill get back to that later) and then sleep in the lectures.. (which i feel kinda bad about) and none of that really clicks with me atm.. i dont understand the culture enough to fully assymilate myself.. and i dont think id want to even if i did.. (think of that what you will) so it all just got a bit much.. one of the things we did was cool.. we went to a Port winery place.. an old old english one.. and they did a tour in English for me (and half the portuguese kids came along). the guy who took it had quite a thick english accent (whihc was kinda cool, but i didnt really take much notice of it) and he spoke about the differnt kinds of port and the prodouction etc. then we got to try some port.. and being me i just wandered along.. soaked up some of the stuff and will probably regurgitate it at some later date.. but it turned out that i was the only person in the group who could actually follow what he said. Everyone else was beyond lost. (I found his slightly amusing becuase I am consistantly being told how easy english is to learn, and yet very few portuguese can understnad each other when they talk in english let alone understand a native speaker -they also have trouble with the whole He..She thing.. they have one word for both and dont seem to adapt well to differentiating.. which is interesting.. and kinda confusing when someone refers to a 'him' and later they were talking about you) Just goes to show the difference of being a native speaker. That said my english has degraded somewhat whilst being here specifically. Mainly my grammer at times, i still know whats right, i jsut dont alwyas use the correct grammer, which is pretty bad. But the world goes on. I think the thing about this camp that really got to me and stood out was the fact that they ahve now lost me twice. That may sound odd, but they ahve actually left me behind twice. Once I was on the phone to mum and rather distracted so i didnt notice people leaving, hung up and kapoof! im on my robinson. The other time i needed a break, people saw me walk off a ways I came back and kazamm no-one. and the thing i really liked about it all both times, was no one noticed. Im the only english speaker, foreigner, anything on this camp, and they didnt notice i was gone. Sort of makes you feel loved, especially when you are told that you should have been paying attention and that it was your fault. (sooo not impressed) although in neither situation was it particularly dire.. i could quite happily lookafter myself for a few hrs and find my way back to the dorms.. so it wasnt actually a biggie.. it was just an education. (never assume that people have your back.. have it clarified first, wise words from Amelia lol)and then theres the culture (oh no you think.. not that rant again.. i thought that was out of your system, lol nope!)this is more general about the portuguese than this camp. But they have a facinating attitude. You could write thesi on it. There is underlying sexism which i doubt would be noticeable if you were just touring, but which is interesting to discover, i wont go into it though. Then there is the 'Portugal is the best', anything Portuguese is wonderful. Because its portuguese it has to be wonderful, and damnded be the man who suggests otherwise. I like abit of nationalism, its good. Holds a country together.. people stickupfor each other etc. What i have decided I dont like is extreme universal Jingoism where anything not Portuguese cant be good. (this also goes for nationals of other countries.. I was actually pitied for not being Portuguese.. amazingly that didnt go down well) I have come to my own conclusion that there is no such thing as a better country. Some countries are better for other people (ie. dictatorships tend to work for the dictator and not many other people) but ultimatly its not that they country is better as a whole, it might be better for some things, skiing, chocolate, milk for example (they dont have frecsh milk BTW its all UHT.. go weirdness.. and they do have dairy cows.. they just dont drink the milk from them). So im a little over being told how wonderful the coutry is (the beaches are ok.. busier than ours, the food is good sometimes but after a month it repeats and becomes just chunks of meat -they dont have indian, asian, turkish, mexican or anything-) oh and how good their culture is. e. how weird it is that australians..Americans (im going to call us anglos even though we arent all technically) dont touch each other (dont we? ok then) and that we like personal space.. weird..oh.. and i liked one of the girls telling the american girl that all american girls are just like 'i wanna show my tits, i wanna show my arse' that was amazing.. cause i really dont think she was joking.. oh i did realise something though. Our personal space system is much better (go anglo jingoism, lol), youll love the reason. If you are standing close to someone a) high probability of sharing germs but b) if there is a big height difference there are problems, one person gets to see how much dandruff the other has, and the shorter gets to see right up the others nose (dont you love my logic.. this is the thinking im reduced to..lol). But if you are further apart the height difference doesnt matter as much, and no one gets a crick neck lol. and i think thats enoughfor the day..so whats happening now? tommorow im getting a train out of here -run away!!!- and going somewhere.. that will all get sorted later.. ive been pretty down the last few days so im hoping getting out will help. Actually it was really odd, (like UBER odd) i was feeling very 'i wasnt anglo ness in my life' and realised what i actually wanted was a bottle of coke.. you know you have hit some weird weird point in your life when that startst to happen. Although I had drunk a little bit of coke on this trip (like 5 bottles.. thats alot for me ok? lol) because i decided that coke kills things right? its supposed to dissolve teeth, nails etc. so it probably kills bad bugs too right? so having drunk it when i feel a bit sick or when eating slightly dodgy food, and so far it seems to have worked. (it was a bit like my kill or cure soloution for my cold in norway, i went swimming and to the sauna toconvince the cold that it wasnt going to get treated well if it stayed around) although it is possible that its just the whole mental thing, ie. if you think it will make you better it will. hmmmmm..you can see i was sort of in the mood for a chat cant you? lolso.. its been intense.. and i did feel like i was woosing out (woosing, wosing? hopefully you get the idea) but then i decided 2.5 months of Latin culture was enough, and i wasnt being chicken leaving.. (dont you dare contradict me.. i had a hard enough time makingthe decision lol) but i have learnt a lot.. you will be glad to know..ive found out how far i can be pushed.. and to ditch just before i get to the swearing at people and abusing them point. ive learntthings about other cultures i never could have imagined. ive also learnt that there are very similar personalities scattered throughout many different cultures. and i think ultimately ive leant alot that will help with work as i get older. although i do think that its unlikely that i will ever do any kind of trade agreements with a latino culture and that i would never want to work anywhere like here. and ive learnt other stuff that will probably comeout of the wood work later..id also like, again, to thank my parents for putting up with my random out bursts, and helping me get out of here. And also again to Brad (parents friend in Stockholm) who is also helping out, and my cousin ben who is goin to put me up. For every negativeexperience there is a positive one, and its nice to have it shown so clearly that there are people you can rely on who are keeping your back even if they are a long way away.so thats life.. thats the way the cookie crumbles.. and we shall see what the world offers next. Heres hoping its a decent shower, clean clothes, a good coffee, a cup of tea and a curry.Take care, learn from everything, and smile every day :)
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