Top 35! Aiming high! On the bright side, at least we're not in Poland.
I had to throw that photo in, just in case anyone didn't believe me from the last post. They are so proud.
It turns out that my classes are pretty much all graduate level classes, which Ana ...Sofia? Maria? Bela? Catholic name something or other... advised were probably not as difficult as undergraduate classes, not the least of which being because there are some that are actually offered in English. Taking classes in Portuguese here is fine too, but we have to get special accommodations for tests and the like, so I'm trying to keep it to a minimum. The upside to this means that I may not start classes of substance until March, the downside of this is that I will probably be taking Portuguese anyway, negating that gain entirely. Not too bad, though. I should probably keep up with the português as much as possible.
Which brings me to my main point(s), summarized in my favorite format:
• Portuguese people are generally very cosmopolitan and have an excellent grasp of English.
• Of the dozens of people I've managed to meet in the span of just one week, people ranging from a DJ to a former vice president of Northwestern University and beyond, everyone has the same concerns with the economy and desire for their country to correct itself. They all hate Merkel/Merkozy.
• Portuguese people insist they are worlds different from the Spanish and are vaguely offended by the notion of people thinking they're similar, which is truer than not.
• Portuguese people are rather short and rather skinny.
• People are laid back and will talk about anything with you in any of the numerous instances you may find yourself seated at a table with them, drinking a coffee or listening to a cat being strangled to death the worst fado performer on earth.
• People tend to be educated, but it's not actually necessary for a job here the way it is in the rest of the developed world. Many people have never gone to college but have typical middle class jobs that don't pay nearly enough akin to the rest of the world, because if you have a job here you're fine, the problem in the economy is with those who don't.
• Portugal isn't really as inefficient as many of its south European kin, at least according to them, they just have a little problem of embezzlement and corruption in the government.
I don't have much more to write because I'm too busy doing the things I'll write about later. Ciao!
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