Thursday, May 10, 2007

Burning down the city

One of the worst (or best, I will see) things that can happen in Porto is exams in the week of Queima das Fitas. That's because this is a students' celebration of the end of the year and in Porto it's really special. A lot of people spend money on special clothes and hats, and of course on parties. There are parties every night, on tuesday there was a parade (that I was able to see on my way home to study) and all the city wants to participate, at least by looking at the students' costumes. The Queima started last weekend, and I've heard it's not so great at the parties. Basically, it's all about a big crowd getting drunk and a lot of bad music. But hey, I wanna go. I still have a bitter taste for staying in the last two weeks, but we really had to study. Well, we still do, because it's hard to start when it's so good outside and you keep yourself from going out, but lay in bed with no enthusiams about the pile of books/papers/assessments that you have to finish. So in two days I have two exams. My international relations knowledge has at least improved in the days when I pretended to be studying, but the Portuguese language problem is getting bigger, since in the last month I've been living in another world and I don't even remember to how many of the classes I went. I can master present tense, but past and imperfecto are waiting in the textbook and right now I just want a long shower. We intend to go to Queima on Friday... it's already awkward to come home earlier and go out less then when living in the parents' house. One more week... and school's out. For now. Hey, I enjoy even these cave days, when I cook tortilla in the microwave, go out only as far as the bakery and walk around in pijama asking all the people about real life. Hehe.