Christmas

This week Kelly and I would go to Porto, how exciting!

First however some classes had to be attended. Monday was a quite normal day, except for the fact that our lovely Organizational Economics teacher announced a review test for next Thursday, one of the day we would be in Porto. That was a bit of a disappointment, but that test would only count for 4% of the final grade, so it could be worse.

Wednesday was the day we went to Porto. We had to get up at 6.30 in the morning because our plane was leaving Barajas at 9.15. This means that we are in Porto at 9.30, because of the time difference -1 hour. When we arrived there, the weather was not a good as we expected haha. We went by metro to the city centre, which took about half an hour. When we arrived at our metro stop and went out, we noticed how poor Portugal actually is. Everything looks so deteriorated; it almost looks like a slum. The owners of the hostel were so kind and friendly, something all the Portuguese people are. We had to pay only 25 euros for a room, much cheaper when you compare that to a room in Spain, which is at the cheapest 40 euros.

After we were checked in, we went to the city centre of this magnificent city. The weather went better and the sun even showed himself. We were hungry so we looked for a nice place to eat, when we walked alongside a bar where they sold typical Portuguese snacks. We chose some kind of fritter with codfish inside as it looked quite good. We continued our city sightseeing tour, where we visited the university of Porto as there were some interesting expositions.

Another nice sight was an old book store where one of the Harry Potter movies was shot. When you entered the book store, you saw the remarkable stairs of one of the scenes. The atmosphere breathed Harry Potter. Really cool to see.
We continued the walk to a church up a hill to have a great view of the city of Porto. Porto has several hills so the walk was exhausting and therefore we went to our hostel for a small siesta. We hoped to have a good dinner somewhere, but since we were the only tourists in Porto and no restaurants were open, we had no choice to have dinner at the McDonalds. This was the only open place where there was a bit of an atmosphere. We hoped for something else, but this is where we ended.

Next day we got up early to see some other sights of Porto, but it turned out that we had already seen everything. For breakfast, we again went to a bar to have some typical Portuguese snacks. Afterwards, we walked through the city again and did some shopping as the prices are lower than in Holland. Then it was time for us to go back to Madrid. I enjoyed Porto, but it was the much outside the season as there was nobody. We should come back in summer to get the feeling of Porto.

The week before going back to the Netherlands for celebrating Christmas with my family I had my first final exam. It was for the course Human Resource Management and I thought it would be quite hard as I did not buy a book or did not have any sheets to study. The professor posted some study questions on Aula Global which you could learn.

Saturday the 17th me and all my exchange friends went out for dinner together. First of all, it was hard to find a place where we could sit all together as most places are small. Luckily, one of our friends living near Delicias knew a new place where we could eat some nice dishes. She said to us it was going to be cheap, but unfortunately that was not the case. A main course would cost us 20 euros, way too much for students. Only a starter would cost me already 9 euros, so I decided that I would only take a starter. The food in general was ok, but it was just what you ordered. No garnish, no sauce, nothing. And that for 9 euros! The worst thing of the night was that one of ours had to wait two hours for her dish, while everybody had already finished! Unbelievable.

The next day I studied for the exam of Tuesday. When the exam was there, it only consisted of 3(!) questions. I finished it in 30 minutes, while the time you could use was 2 hours and 30 minutes! The questions were literally from the study questions provided so that made it even easier. You have to know that this is a fourth year course. I am wondering how easy the first years are…
That evening my Spanish friends came over for dinner. We decided that everybody should make a tapa, so that we had different kind of tapas. Kelly and I made some pancakes with sugar, as it is not normal in Spain to have pancakes for dinner. There was a kind of quiche, some patatas bravas and a tortilla de patatas. One of our friends also brought her boyfriend who had been to Tilburg University for half a year. So we talked about the differences with Spain and how he liked Tilburg. He enjoyed his exchange very much and that was nice to hear.

The next days I was packing to go home on the 23rd. I was looking forward to it as I missed being home a bit. We flew to the Netherlands at the 23rd at 7 a.m., so we had to be at the airport at 5. Metro’s are not going anymore, so we had to take the night bus there from O’Donnell. There were some delays due to ice on the wings of the plane, but we arrived even before the scheduled arrival time. I had been talking with the mother of Kelly and we arranged that her father would be on Helmond central station so that we could go back to Tilburg faster. So she was really surprised to see her dog there; it almost looked like a scene from ‘All You Need Is Love’.
That night we had a dinner with whole my family. My grandmother was really happy she finally saw me again after four months. During the dinner I talked about my experiences in Madrid and it was nice to share those.

The next day I had to buy Christmas presents as the next day we would be celebrating that and also at Kelly’s parents. I did not buy anything in Spain as I wanted to take as much clothes and shoes with me back home. And besides that, everything is much more expensive than in the Netherlands.

It was finally the 25th and the day began with a nice breakfast. Then in the afternoon we gave the presents and poems to each other. It was so nice to be back home and celebrate Christmas there. I enjoyed this day very much, not in the last place that I got a lot of presents. I looking for something on my own so I got a lot of things for my ‘uitzet’.

The next day we had to get up early as we would go to Helmond to celebrate the second day of Christmas with the parents of Kelly. There was the same setup: first a nice breakfast and afterwards to presents and poems. Also at Kelly’s parents I got a lot of presents, again for living on my own. In the afternoon, Kelly and I also had to make the starter of tonight’s dinner. Everybody had to make a dish and we had the starter. We made a trio of asparagus: delicious!

The 27th was again a festivity. It was the birthday of Kelly’s mum. We did not miss anything in this short ‘vacation’ in the Netherlands. We decided to make a long walk with the dog in the nearby forest. There we could share our experiences with her parents and that was quite nice. For dinner her mother prepared the pizzarette: that is a small brick-kiln where you could put your plate with the small pizza’s in. So you can make a small pizza yourself and put it in the over. It is a nice addition to the gourmand.
Unfortunately, we had to leave to Madrid next day. The period we were in Holland was so short when we looked back. I could have stayed there for a few more days. On the airport we met Marlies, one of our Dutch exchange friends. She had the same flight, so that was nice. We all agreed that going back now was not we all hoped for. Everybody wanted to stay home a bit longer. Especially when you know that the prospect in Madrid is making exams.

The last week will mainly be about studying, but hopefully I can find some nice things to do between studying. And there is of course New Year’s Eve, which will be great I hope! See you next time!