Last Sunday was the grand opening of the pedestrian bridge at the park near our apartment. We walk by this bridge all time, but it has always been closed, even though the sign says it was supposed to open in March. So, needless to say, this was big excitement for us. They had a really big flashy show with actors in costume, fireworks, lasers, and music (some trendy dance music and some traditional fado). For the grand finale, a marching band of knights, dragons, and bagpipe players (don’t ask me) crossed the bridge, and then they let all of us Coimbrians [View Full Entry]

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It’s been awhile since we last posted, and we don’t actually have all that much to report. We’re finally settling into somewhat of a routine, just in time for Christmas and our trip back to the states to shake it all up again. We thought that we would post some more pictures of our little world here in Coimbra and talk about some of the good and the not-so-good things about living here. On the whole, I think we’re both enjoying it here, and we were saying the other day how lucky we were to have picked Coimbra, considering how little [View Full Entry]

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The weather this past weekend was the best it has been in a few weeks, so we rented a car and took a little road trip. On Saturday, we went with a few American friends from Lindsay’s class to a town called Óbidos, which was holding its annual chocolate festival. We also went to see the beaches in nearby Nazaré. On Sunday Lindsay and I went to Conímbriga, a Roman ruins about 20 minutes from Coimbra. This was our first time driving in Portugal and we were a little apprehensive, but the toll highways were great (although a little bit [View Full Entry]

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This last week has been an interesting one here in Coimbra. The annual Festa das Latas (Party of the Cans - doesn’t translate so well…) started last Wednesday and culminated with the “Latada” last night. The Festa das Latas used to be held at the end of the school year, when law students finished their exams before the other schools and ran through the streets with cans tied to their legs to irritate all of the students who were still studying. Now it’s held near the beginning of the year and is a way to welcome the freshmen, called caloiros, to [View Full Entry]

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Lindsay’s brother, Tim, came to visit us last week. It was fun to have a guest and see a familiar face. We showed him around Coimbra and in exchange he brought us brand new bottles of contact solution (it costs over $20 a bottle here!) and The Office Season 2 DVD to watch. I thought it was a pretty good trade, myself. On the weekend we went to Porto and climbed the tallest tower in Portugal, the Torre dos Clerigos (around 200 ft. high and 225 stairs, not too bad), checked out a few port wine lodges, had some good Indian [View Full Entry]

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We’re back from Italy now. It was a really fun trip, but more of a traveling/sightseeing trip than a relaxing vacation because we were in cities for most of the trip and there was so much to see. Lindsay and I were saying to each other on this trip that one of the most exciting things about Italy is that there are things there that are so famous that we’ve known about them since we were little kids. Things like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the canals in Venice, the Roman Empire, spaghetti, lasagna, pizza, and of course the Teenage Mutant [View Full Entry]

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Hello from Italy. Jason and I have been here since Saturday and are having a great time. We spent the first three nights in Rome, and we’ve been in Florence since yesterday. Rome was an experience - so full of everything, including tourists. There are some huge, blockbuster sights there - the Colosseum, the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, but there were also more tourists than I’ve ever seen before in my life. We stood in line on the street for two hours to see the Sistine Chapel! Florence has been a little more to our liking. It’s still a huge tourist [View Full Entry]

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Coimbra is a university town, but until recently most of the students hadn’t been here. In the last couple of weeks, the town has been changing a lot as classes for some programs have started and the students have started to return. Certain parts of the city that seemed kind of deserted before are now packed with students sitting at cafes, having a coffee or a beer with friends. It seems like everybody is always out - I’m not sure if this will continue as the semester wears on and the weather gets cooler, but for now it’s very festive. One [View Full Entry]

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We took a day trip this Saturday to visit Porto, the second biggest city in Portugal, and the home of port wine. Porto is on the coast and is a 1-hour train ride north of Coimbra. The most popular attractions in Porto are the port wine lodges which are actually across the Douro river in the city of Vila Nova de Gaia. The port wine lodges have been used as warehouses for port aging, storage, and shipping since the mid 18th century. These days most companies have updated their warehouses with tasting rooms and tours. Visiting here was almost like going [View Full Entry]

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We just finished our first week of classes. It’s a pretty intense schedule, with 23 hours of class a week and four different subjects. We’re both in the beginning level, which has moved really fast (present tense, present progressive, ser vs. estar - all in the first 4 days!). As we expected, we are among the oldest students in the class. There are about 35 students in our class, and maybe 3 or 4 other people who are beyond standard college age. It’s been fine, though, and a lot of the students are really friendly. We’re the only Americans, and there [View Full Entry]

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