MICHA.ELMUELLER

Went there with Valerie for just a bit over a week in May. We stayed in Lisbon for some days, which I perceived as quite a nice city with a unique vibe and architecture. I liked that people were so calm and relaxed. We met up with Marina in Lisbon and spent a nice time with her.

I was surprised that Portuguese is actually a very different language from Spanish. I found it remarkable that words are different when a woman says them opposed to when a man uses them. For example, the version of “thank you” which females use is “obrigada”, opposed to the male version “obrigado”. The expression “thank you” is of course so ubiquitous that it is used in all kinds of contexts: advertisements, door signs, websites, etc.. But I only ever saw the male version “obrigado” in these contexts, which makes me implicitly mentally read and associate this with a masculine voice. It’s crazy how deep gender segregation runs here – it is even deeply manifested and reflected in the language. I think this will make it very hard for the culture to detach from gender stereotypes and to adapt e.g. trans-/crossgender ideas.

After Lisbon we spent some days in Porto. I didn’t get that enthusiastic with the city, a bit too many tourists, too much stress and too much noise. Lisbon on the other hand was more chilled out. Still, it was a nice time and I perceived the Portuguese as very friendly. We had a nice time trying the different fabulous vegetarian restaurants there. The prices usually are a bit cheaper than in Germany, so for 14-16 Euro per meal you get an extraordinary restaurant where you will be served with white gloves and stuff, comparable to a high-class, top-notch German restaurant.

For one day we went to a smaller city called Aveiro and visited Marina there. Quite a nice city, nice conversations, nice time.

Even though it was just a bit more than a week, it was still nice to travel for a bit. Especially since I haven’t been to Portugal before. There is always stuff to discover and we had a lot of fun trying various famous Portuguese pastries. One evening we were in a Cafe late in the evening reading some books. They had some cake left, which they didn’t want to spare till the next day. So they surprised us with it :-). Stuff like this is nice and somehow tends to happen more often to me when travelling. And I always enjoy the feeling of coming home, getting a hot shower and putting on some completely fresh clothes (and not the ones which have been in the backpack for days). I think that’s probably in my Top 3 things about travelling: Coming home again :-).