I Remember

I remember in Portugal, some days before coming to Greece, of being reading one of the many blogs in MyEVS.net. There was the story of a guy who had a project of 5 months like me. One and half to the end of it, he wanted badly to go back to his country. Many people advised him to stay, it was almost over, in a while he would go home, he should not finish an experience like that because everyone knew he could do it. And he stayed!
In the end he thanks in something like these words: "Fortunately my friends convinced me to stay and finish my project. It would be a huge mistake to leave in the middle like that! And...do I have to say I found love? :)"
If not whit these words, something saying the same, but I am 90% sure that the last sentence its really like this.

Truth said, I never wanted to give up from my project. I loved the life here, I still do, I love it more than ever! Because I stay to the end, I lived almost all I could. And the last month is having the best things possible... I feel like the other volunteer, I lived to the end and I found love too!
It would be so sad leaving my life of the last 5 months even without this feeling... So you all can imagine how difficult it will be this way...

There are many cases of EVS love stories, even my mentor is a case of that. She was an EVS from Romania here in Kalamata 8 years ago. She met a local guy, she stayed, they got married, they live together, they work in this city...

Give me a smile! :)

Portuguese issues

I have less than one month here in Kalamata, here in Greece, here in the Mediterranean... The last 4 months passed fast like hell, unfortunately. Now I start to think a lot on my trip back to my country of course...

Today (can't remember why) I was reading some things in the internet about Portugal, then about Portuguese language, than about Galaico-Portuguese language and its history, then about just the history, then the diplomatic history, then the military history, and I ended reading about the Battle of Aljubarrota. I dont know why, but maybe because I am sensitive about missimg my country, I got fascinated about this battle. It was even better than I ever thought, together with all the history surrounding it. I got more close to understand why we portuguese people do not like the spanish ones and the frenchs! ehehe Poor guys... Over all these centuries we won lots of battles against the inhabitants of nowadays Spain, everytime they were more than us and better equiped and they were falling like flies... Many times they were being helped by the frenchs, poor guys were losing all the times their cavalry... We fought in disadvantage and we ended winning without casualties, we fougth from 1:4 and the casualties were 1:4, we captured lots of prisioners and material and our prisioners escaped...

Battle of the Atoleiros
Soldiers
1600:5000

Casualties
0:PLENTY

Battle of Trancoso
Soldiers
1300:N/A (around the same, but much better equiped)

Casualties
Few pawns:~90%

Battle of Aljubarrota
Soldiers
6500:31000

Casualties
1000:4000

Battle of the Lines of Elvas
Soldiers
11000+11000:14500

Casualties
800:6500

Battle of Ameixial
Soldiers
24000:21500+5000 amunition cars+20 artillery

Casualties
1350:12500

Battle of Montes Claros
Soldiers
20500:22000

Casualties
700:10000

One typical thing in most portuguese people is the admiration and reliance in our history. We were great, and now we are not, so why not keep remembering that? I will always be like this, I dont care. Portugal is the country in Europe which has the oldest national identity. Portugal is the european state with the most old and stable established frontiers.Thereby, I am Portuguese since the XIII century and you have your nationality for much less time than I do. Greece became a kingdom 177 years ago, and the actual greek territory has 62 years when Italy gave them the Dodecanese islands.

From the Portucalense County to the kingdom of Portugal (in portuguese)

And I forgive you castillians! In the end you were losing all the time.... eheheheh

TVI e normas ético-legais

Ora bem... Uma notícia que me captou a atenção com extrema facilidade!

"Lisboa, 28 Mai (Lusa) - A Entidade Reguladora para a Comunicação Social (ERC) considera que a TVI desrespeitou as normas ético-legais do jornalismo misturando factos e opinião em várias edições do "Jornal Nacional", alvo de queixas analisadas pelo organismo."

Nada que me surpreenda... Só me surpreende só agora ter ouvido algum "órgão superior" falar disto...

Competitividade

Como não poderia deixar de ser, posso estar ausente do meus país mas todos os dias tenho os meus feeds do JN a actualizar de meia em meia hora.
No total leio para aí 2 ou 3 notícias completas por dia, de resto leio apenas os cabeçalhos no programa. Ontem por acaso foi a da taradona/psicótica professora de Espinho.
Hoje, embora ainda sejam 11 da manhã aqui, duas notícias chamaram-me a atenção por conterem algo curioso!


- "Ferreira Leite adverte que o país pode falir"
Manuela Ferreira Leite defendeu esta terça-feira num almoço com empresários ucranianos que Portugal tem poucos anos para resolver o problema da falta competitividade se não quer "ficar irremediavelmente pobre".

- "Portugal ultrapassa Espanha" (só este título chama a atenção a qualquer tuga!)
Portugal subiu três lugares no ranking que mede a competitividade dos países a nível mundial.

Ora bem... Algo anda para aqui a contradizer-se, ou será que não? A Manela diz que o país vai falir com falta de competitividade, e afinal Portugal já ultrapassou os Castelhanos? Algo esquisito se passa... Vejamos, a Manuela é uma pessoa que tirou economia; este ranking mundial são várias pessoas que tiraram economia! Logo, é mais fácil estar errada a Manuela que um grupo de economistas que nada mais faz a não ser analisar países.

Assim sendo pergunto: Manuela, será que Espanha já faliu e ninguém sabe?!

Banana's Republic

How is a greek second chance school?? Einai poli orea! Now we know the secret of their happiness and laughs in their work, take a look at this.
Me and Sandra are volunteering there in their Green Roof project. Today, I don't know why because they had plenty of materials, we did almost nothing. We worked something like 15 minutes! Then Giorgos told us that "today no more work, food!". Okay!
Then we went to the small garden house in the roof, with only 2 walls, and they brought some small foods and Ouzo...and Tsipouro (or whatever it is written). For those who don't know, these are like 30% up, Tsipouro being more than 45% I think...

So, an afternoon to discover one of the secrets of the "Banana's Republic"! I would like to see a public employee drinking these drinks during their work schedule...ahahah!

Responsabilidade

Serei eu extremamente pesado e o outro demasiado leve?? Se calhar é por isso que ando sempre cansado, obrigando-me a dormir as horinhas certas para estar relativamente bem no trabalho.

Carago...qual o peso da responsabilidade??

Olympia

Last sunday, Olympia.

Being my first train trip in Greece I was a bit expectant. Well... It started fantastic! The train line is not working at 100% so we had to take a bus that was waiting outside of the station. Half an hour or more through swamp-like plantations and zig-zag roads... Great! We then entered the train in a station somewhere. An old and slow train but okay for a trip like this.
Arriving at Pyrgos we waited a bit and took the next train to Olympia. A small one, looked like the urban trains in the portuguese North Line.

In a short trip we arrived at Olympia, last station of the line. Maybe because it was sunday, but the first thing we saw were big piles of garbage nears the bins... Poli orea! We then saw the map and we moved to the area of interest.
The town looks like it only lives for the tourists, so it seems there is nothing more to see than the and the archaeo site.

Archaelogical Museum
Modern building, nice construction with some statues outside, video vigilance everywhere, "security" people everywhere (and one of them a bit annoying), better room lighting than in the Athenian Museum (which is great for taking pictures without flash)...

The expositions count with lots of statues, many of them from roman emperors and famous people and athletes, very nice glass objects, metal objects, tons of pots, war helmets and armor, shields, bronze griffins and very small statuettes, and a huge room with a sequence of statues or both sides.
In fact I discovered here in this last room, that mobile phone technology was already used in ancient Greece, as you can see in the next picture.

Anyway, we moved to the archaeological site after talking a bit!

Archaeological Site
5 minutes of walking from the museum and we where there. We showed the tickets at the entrance and then we started a tiring trip!... In the beginning the place did not look so big. We passed by Gimnasium, then the Philippeion, then the Olympic Stadium, then the Echo Portic, then Nero's octagonal house, then the place where the Cryselephantine Statue Of Zeus was, one of the Old World Wonders, then the baths, then 2 more buildings and finnaly we were done!
It was a very hot day, we were tired, so we decided to go back to take the bus back to Pyrgos. Otherwise we had to wait 2 hours for the next bus back.


(The server is not uploading images. Later if I have the pacience I will upload some more...)


Distance from Kalamata: ~110km
Transportation used: train, bus
Travel time: ~3hours x2 (10:30-19:15)
Total transp. price: 9,40 euros
Museum + site prices: free to EU students, 9eur normal ticket, 5eur non-EU students and <19

Photo count: 428
Photo artifacts found: 0