Universidade Catolica Portuguesa

Ola!

I hope that each of you feel good today and have a lot of energy, like me :) It's all cause of sun, of course.
I'd like to present you our school here : Catolica. Sometimes we're joking that we're studying on CU (Catolica Universidade) like guys in 90210 :p
 I don't know the history of my school, but i know that at least now, it's a private school. Students usually  comes from reach and high-level families and it's seen at first sight: ipads, iphones, cars (coming to school by bus here it's like : you're from another planet). At every lecture or workshop, they are carrying tablets to see slides. The system here is different from “ehms” on SGGW, but very comfortable. We have here a Blacboard. Through this system we have connection with other students attending on our classes and with professors. Every subject has own page which contains: syllabus, slides of every lecture (you don’t have to ask about it, it’s obligatory here to send them to students), exercises, previous tests and other useful materials. Even books are given by links. We don’t have to ask about anything connected with social stuff here – everything is online. During the classes we noticed that the attitude to students is different. Maybe cause we’re Erasmus, but still. Professors are giving to us even their phone numbers to call them if we don’t understand sth. They always asking if everything is clear- if not, ask.  We can rely on them always. What is more the things which we’re studying here are not like “learning by heart”. Instead of that we analyze, discuss, learn about important, practical things useful in our future.
 Here are some pictures from Catolica:

park place for students

 park place for teachers :)

The main building in which we usually have classes.

it's really terrifying sometimes and there's not enough place for people higher than 170 cm!

The level of education here is really high, this is why it’s the best university  in Porto, especially our faculty called Business School.  Even if you get such a amazing knowledge, there’s a crisis. All young people are staying with the statement : finish studies, emigrate to Lisbon or any other parts of Portugal. Unemployment rate is even higher than in Poland.

At Catolica we decided to take 5 subjects, now we’re trying to delete one of them cause we don’t need it at all. Erasmus people here usually have max. 4 subjects, some polish girls from other faculty have only 2 ! They’re lucky !!! We have test next week, and during this semester we have tests (from every subjects) 3 times + final exam at the end of term. Yeah, SGGW looks now like heaven.

 Btw. how are yours first days at SGGW after 3 weeks of freedom?!
Any questions? ->ASK

Xoxo,
Dzast.

The language

Heeey guys! How is your weekend? Mine past with nice mix of sleeping, jogging and watching of soap operas (finally we have enough fast net to watch everything).  Today I would like to write my thoughts about portugese language. So! As I said earlier, since I was little girl and 'Zbuntowany anioł' (name of Uruguayan soap opera with Natlia Oreyro) showed in polish television program I fell in love in Latino (Spanish&Portugese) languages. Before my Erasmus I had some portugese classes in Poland , which were very helpful especially to understand quite hard ( AND DIFFERENT TO SPANISH) accent. Right now I am attending portugese languege course at my University. The course is very intensive and after two months I will (hope so) finish my study and get a certificate. Because languages are one of the most important abilities,  I would like to continue my education in Poland. Ok. So for those who are looking for some new, rare language to discover i gave a link for amazing online, youtube classes below :))  Due to being fan of latino sound my music list is also full of latino american bands , not even mention about fado music. I do not know if most of you are aware that the famous song Michel Telo "Ai se Eu te pego 'is orginally in portugese languege: D !

 REALY COOL PORTUGUESE COURSE ONLINE

PS. Thanks for next thousand of visitors! As we can see Porto is more popular than Lisbon :D
Kisses - A

walk :)

Hey :)
After the whole day of rain we finally have a sun!I suppose we'll have it through all next week so my face is smiling all the time :))))) Although I have a lot to learn I'm trying to do it after the sunset or early in the morning and use the best part of these day to walking and sightseeing.(honestly we have only 15 minutes walking to our school so we don't make too many exercises every day, but we wanna keep fit so after eating delicious pancakes with fruits I need to move my ass :D)
Today I decided to go for a long walk to the centre of Porto. It was nice, sunny and warm day so many of people and tourist were also out. In the afternoon I went at the ocean to see my first sunset here. I'll share with you my fast-made photos today cause I want you all to know how wonderful is that place. (but still after watching "Eat pray love" I wanna to live in Italy !!!!)
What is more...we still have February :) 

4,8 km !

Ponte Luiz I

 Ribeira.

 I need to add that I went from down to the top by stairs! It wasn't the easiest way, trust me.

Aliados

shell from yesterday :)

PS. If you know some nive movies to watch - please share! :)
Thx in advance!
Xoxo

Wooow! Our blog is getting fans every single day! Thaaank you very much for so many views ! Our popularity is so high, that we have already gained new  brother Lisbon Erasmus Stories :)
we have noticed ( yeah we are very clever these days) that evenings outside app are warmer than inside - so now we change our timetable and began walking-visiting after it gets dark! Also we have discovered something reaaaly realy cool these days! Here in Porto in one of the shopping centres is a Walt Disney Shoop!!! I thinkt that instead of wine I'll come back with a bag of teddy bears

Have a nice day everybody, Kissses A

Markets in Porto

This time I’d like to share with you my small knowledge and experience about supermarkets in Porto which I had chance to check till now.

At first – Pingo doce  (polska biedronka)

That chain has a huge amount of supermarkets and usually close to apartments. When I came here I was told that it’s the cheapest. It’s true but not in 100%. It’s like in Poland – you need to choose between quality and price. In pingo doce I usually buy vegetables, fruits, milk, corn flakes and others stuff which in that moment I wanna to eat (olives, ketchup, anything what’s  heavy).  The prices are similar to polish. Once I even bought an apple from Poland !(0,99 euro/kg) .
Don’t be scary at first day – you have to buy everything so the bill can be above 20-30 euro. It’s normal J I decided to save some money so here I’m usually making some soups, salads or buy ready pizza’s or frozen vegetables.

·         There’s no way that I can eat like I ate in Poland….in Porto I didn’t find any kind of cottage cheese! There’s a lack of natural and Greece yoghurts, it’s usually one type and not the cheapest. Yoghurts are here really expensive, like all  dairy products. Cheese like gouda costs here ~10 euro/kg (of course you can find more expensive).  Some cheese spreads are also expensive, at least 1,20 euro / 200g so for a small pack. (like Almette etc.)

·         Meat, sausages, hams are incredibly expensive (2 x polish price). I don’t like it so much, but I miss chicken…

·         What is more…. 1,5 l of water cost ~0,50 euro.
We’re using water from tap :) Honestly – it’s really good, for sure better than in Warsaw!

·         Chocolates and other sweets are also much more expensive as I noticed. I’ve choosen once a small pack of biscuits (really small) and paid 0,52 euro.  I also didn’t expect that spices are not cheap. I regret that I didn’t take it from Poland…
·         The price of diapers depends from article. I bought a shower gel (750 ml – 2 euro) but I’m going to wait for things to my hair ( I won’t spend 4 euro for the cheapest shampoo). Also “women” things are really expensive so better take with you a lot of tampons if you’re coming here!

I usually go to supermarkets  with my dictionary cause you always have to watch out on prices and what you buy. There’s a lot of canned sausages, fishes (the smell is in every supermarket brrr), ready take-away meals so showing by your fingers what you want is not enough.

The second: Continente.

It’s like Carrefour actually. The biggest which I’ve seen is in Norteshopping center. There’s everything what you need.  And you’re getting free saco plastic :D

Third: Lidl! (it's near to Campo 24 Agosto)

I was so excited when I saw it. Unfortunately it was the end of that. I found only Pao Integral leite (like WASA) for 1 euro – small pack, oatmeals (0,69 euro....in Poland about 2,20 zł) and lidl’s chocolates (0,36 euro!!!!!!!). I’m going to buy there these things   + cheese + maybe meat ;)

There are also many of less popular chains in Porto….. eg. Froiz (on the left side of Camara Municipal do Porto at Aliados)  has the best bread I’ve ever eaten abroad! Also I found there ecological eggs ( for 6 of them - 1,19 euro). I saw many of ecological things there which remaind me about polish natural food.

I need to add that in each of these chains the cheapest is……wine :)))))))))))))))))) I’m not surprised that polish people during these cold days started to act like addicted from wine.

All in all the prices here at not so big, relatively the same as in Poland. I cannot expect to have here such a promotions like in Carrefour sometimes cause of exchange rate. I stopped counting from euro to zloty - it doesn't have sens. In McDonald here you have also good prices, but the price is here 1 euro which is not equal to 3 zloty...nothing we can do, only use to.
 
Btw. Today we have only 12 degrees, but I took my high heals  and other girls are still wearing EMU ;O

one week ago during our school break ;)

PS. For 3 weeks we didn’t find any Cash4you or Euronet so Agnieszka had to change her bank in Poland. Mbank seems to have the best offer for our needs here.

Any questions? - >  feel free to ask :)
XOXO!

Never give up !

I know that i need to write this, but still have no idea where is the beginning...

We, erasmus studnets, are usually trying to find an appartment/room/ sth like that to rent for the time of our staying in another country. Most of universities has also dormitories. Unfortunately, Catolica in Porto, doesn't have. This is the reason why we had to find an appartment.

We started looking it in December, we didn't want to do this at the last moment because in that time we had a session, exams etc. We were writing to many polish students whose were in that time in Porto. It's a really good solution - believe me. We found an appartment, signed the commitment (ALWAYS REMEBER TO SIGN A COMMITMENT), payed 100 euro in advanced (it supposed to be a half of our June's rent)....and finally came at appartment....

The conditions were not the worst but not the best : smell, old furnitures, our roommate with his unexpected friend and of course the cold. The temperature was usually above 10-15 degrees inside and we felt the wind at our chicks at night. We couldn't get the keys until we paid for February...but all the banks were closed at weekends. Our owner - JOSE BETTENCOURT - is living in Finland, has some firned here to fix sth in app and taking care of it. we wanted to get the heater..we payed a lot and instead of 3 people in app, we had 5. Finally he agreed do give us heater and discount. When we paid him for February 200 euro/each..he changed his mind...just like that. Then we wanted to move out - hope it's obviously why. He didn't allow us to do this. After some days he told us to move out and he'll give us our money back. We said - perfect!
We were looking for another app since the begginning actually so we had sth in advance.
From 11 till 13th of February, here in Portugal, is carnival. Everything is almost the same like in Rio.....it was amazing: music, colours, energy...we wanted to see how it is so on Monday we went for a party.
When we wanted to come back we were waiting for night bus, but it never showed up...so almost all the way by our foot, really tired, came back home - uphill. (every street in Porto is uphill or downhill). At the door was a card with annoucement : "you didn't move out so the locks were changed, you can take yours things at 8 a.m."

It was 5 a.m. I won't describe our reaction, never wish to my enemies to be in other country, without phone, money, anything...at 5 a.m. We didn't find police at our street so I broke the glass in the door and get into app (shouting and screaming and ringing for 30 minutes didn't wake up anyone..)
We called the police, our parents and fo course the embasay. It was 12th of Feb. and almost everything in Porto was closed because of the carnival. We packed our things, Agnieszka went to tourist police station:

PORTO - Esquadra de Turismo

Rua Clube dos Fenianos, nº 11
4000-172 PORTO

Tel.: 222081833
Fax.: 223326480
 Email.: prtetur@psp.pt

I 've started to look for any app to move out immediatly. Then, in the afternoon, Agnieszka's buddy - Sara, took care of us. She and her father (lawyer) helped us with the police, found an app, let us try to eat all frasezinhas and probably trying now to get our money back. The owner of our previous app is only available through facebook, he's criminalist and has now many of such a cases at the police.

In this moment we are cheated for 300 euro. We're living 15 minutes walking from our university, our friends from Poland are in the neighbourhood, we can see ocean and Douro every day. We're safe and our new app is almost like in Poland... :)

If anyone of you thought that my erasmus is like omq, wonderful, etc.....no it's not. Even before coming here it was like a hell to arrange matters connected with university, banks, our health...after arriving here it was also a hell. We hoped that it's now finally over and we have a chance for fresh, new beginning.

We want you to be careful in the future, have in mind our story and remember to never give up! There's always a solution...just need to find it.

Any questions? -> http://portostories@gmail.com

Xoxo,
Justine :)))

Happy valentine day!

Hello everyone - Sorry for not blogging recently but we went through pure hell. We had very serious problem here in Poro but finally I think that it's over and now can be only better. First of all - happy valentine day!! We have for you a small curiosity  related to Portugese country ;) During mass in Poland people give each other a hand as sign of peace, here in Portugal people kiss each other and give to other people hugs!!!  It's really nice but I was shocked when sudenlly some woman strted to kiss me! Never to much of love - remeber :)

Kisses A :)

Fatima trip

Yup! Fatima is ours :) We decided to take this trip to not waste our time sitting in app and use very nice weather as it was yesterday ( right now is very rainy). Tickets cost about 27, of cours we talking about round-trip tickets. When we sat in our seats and start going we were shocked! Air conditioning, comfortable seating, TV, toilet - it definitely was not our last trip by bus:) Trip took about 2 hours . After arrived, without a problem we found the way to the shrine. At Fatima, everything is focused on  tourists here stalls. What caught our attention - to Fatima, people come with all theirs diseases of the body. Here the custom of burning candles in the shape of the body (hearts, livers, breasts, even brains! )
If it disgusts you, or if you have too much intention is better to choose a standard candle (as we did) or simply pray without burning). There is also a 100m walkway covered tiles, designed to go on your knees. I was very touched when I saw a woman carrying a child, fighting with herself and kneeling. (I understood this as a thank you for this baby).

Kisses A

Travel card

Today we have classes at 5 p.m. so till that time we're staying at home. We didn't take hairdryer but we're drying our hair now sitting at the balcony cause the sun is like in the middle of summer.

Yesterday we got documents which confirmed that we're students at Catolica so we could make our travel cards (finally!). Single ticket costs here 1,20 euro for 2 zones. For 3 days it was a little bit expensive to go somewhere and got back. If you don't wanna stay at home all the time you have to buy here ticket for at least 2 zones. When we came to the office to make our cards there was a big queue. We waited in the outside for about 20-30 minutes, but in the sun, so our cheecks are now a little bit red :)
To make a travel card in Porto you need to have a document from your school (you're a student), copy of yours ID(we made it in Poland) and yours small photo (when they copy it you'll get it back). You need to pay always 5 euro for the card and then the price of your ticket. You can buy only a monthly ticket and it's valid till the end of month...not for 30 days from today, so we missed 4 days of February.
We'd paid 22,60 for 2 zones (perfect for us) + 5 euro.

small map of zones around Porto.

my travel card :)

The communication here is really strange. I used to buses in Warsaw, metro, trams...here 'their' metro looks like our trams and the buses are really small, like 166 :) (parówka!). What is more, when you're entering the bus you have to get in only through the first doors and put yours card to small maschine and then you can travel. When you're entering metro you have to also put that card to that maschine and wait for green light. There's no gates like in Warsaw, only the maschines and of course controllers ;). Together with Agnes we're still wondering what is the aim of that system...when we'll figure it out we'll tell you :)

PS. We're having here in the near a small shopping centre, we decided to go there today after classes and make some shopping cause in sales there are t-shirts for 3 euro, dresses for 8-10, bags for 8 ;))))))))))
All things in Zara, Bershka & Stradivarius of course :)

Xoxo,
Dżast.

First day at school :)

Hey, everyone. Those who tried to check our blog in past two days, we apologize for problems but we don't know why blog has changed the end of the adress.
The last two day was totaly crazy. On Sunday we had an amazing weather and we were  enjoying it by lying on our balcony and doing nothing. Sorry - once we had to got up and 'try to fix' electricity because it just suddenly went down during our cooking. Justyna  solved the problem by setting off the power in the whole app and make it clear to our roommate that he has to handle this :)
Later we went on the beach with some polish people and spent there amazing time drinking wine and listen to brazilian guy playing the guitar.

Today it was our fisrt day at University - we were late for our first classes and we had to take the last seats. To the end of lecture we were siting with open mouth not seeing or understand anything . All in all we will spend some time at the University - it's not like we thought - a holidays sponsored by UE but there is nothing wrong what goes in future for our good (or sth like that :)

Have a nice evening  - kisses  A.

Ola em porto !

Helol everyone ! We're finally in Porto, after 4,5 h of flight - for me my first time and I totally love this feeling :) We're at ours app, maybe sooner or later we'll show you some part of that but for now we'll show you our first (only with map !) yourney at Douro....we're here not even 24 hours and feel like at home. Ok, the weather could be better (temp. higher) but when sun comes out it's like hot, summer sun ray's.
In Portugal people don't need heating so they don't have it in app that's why there is so cold in 'their' winter. We're used to warm inside buildings - they're not. In our app together with Agnes we're sharing one heater so now is my turn to take it from her room ;)
Enjoy watching :)