Blogs from Central, Portugal, Europe - page 16

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 walk/run across the bridge to the other side of the river. - Jason ... read more

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 we really knew about it when we decided to come here. It’s a good size for us - big enough that there are things to do, but small enough that we feel like we kind ... read more

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 the university. The festa started last Wednesday night with a big fado concert at the university, and all week long there have been concerts at the stadium with some pretty big name Portuguese and European ... read more

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 of the interesting things that has been going on is that the older students have been “hazing” the first-year students. It doesn’t seem to be anything too awful, but it’s definitely aimed at humiliating the ... read more

Saturday night Jason and I went to a free fado performance down the street from our apartment. Fado is a traditional music from Portugal, and there are two different styles, Coimbra fado and Lisbon fado. The fado from Coimbra is considered more academic and only performed by men, while the fado from Lisbon is more popular, and both women and men can sing it. The fado group we saw had three members: one classical guitar player, one Portuguese guitar player, and one vocalist. They played for an hour in a cool spot near the old city wall. There were probably about a hundred people there, and it seemed like a mix of tourists and locals. Towards the end of the performance, the vocalist invited the audience to sing along, and a surprising number of people knew ... read more