West coast of Portugal

Like I wrote yesterday, today we wanted to see the west coast of Portugal, so we decided to go to Cascais and Guincho near to the Cabo la Roca, the most western part of Europe (which we did not visit). In the morning we had some troubles with the train ticket because we bought a single ticket to Cascais from Rossio (where we are staying) but we had to find out that there is no train to Cascais from Rossio to Cascais. So we decided to take the Metro. But for some reason the ticket only included the train so we ended up walking to a station 15 minutes away where there is a train to Cascais.

It allowed us to see something more about Lissabon, for example the actually very steep streets (because Lissabon is another city that is called "city of the seven mountains") and the huge amount of fabric or shoes shops. There is surely at least one in every street. I can only guess that portuguese people like to sew their own clothes.

The coast was really stunning. We saw this cute white villages on the hillsides as well as lots of palm trees and really beautiful villas. Since everything here is reachable from Lisbon within an hour, it really looks like the rich people decided it would be better to live there. But we did not come here for the villas but for the beach and we shortly found out that the beaches that were reachable with the train were completely crowded and did not look comfortable at all. So we went from Cascais, the final station of the train, to Guincho.

The landscape was really different there, sometimes it looked like the desert is slowly consuming the area.
But there we found a beautiful beach we could relax. Unfortunately they did not have any shadow to hide from the sun so we were not able to stay too long because we did not want to turn fully lobster.

First I was wondering why noone was swimming in the sea and I had the theory that it was just too cold. But then we decided to go swimming and I found out that it was not only really cold but also the tide was really strong. We were not even standing in the water and we got wet all over when a strong tide came. This is why normally only surfers come here. But the nature around here was so beautiful so it was totally worth it! Also, the Camino the Santiago is passing here so I am already making plans on doing my own Camino the Santiago on the Coast of Portugal. I already really like this country and I am sure I will come back (which I don't say about every country).

Everywhere they have this tiles. On the wall - inside and outside -, on the floor, and even on the street signs. This is really something special and I like it, even when I normally don't like tiles.

Another interesting aspect was some kind of "social study" we did on our way back to the train station. Directly in front of a hotel there was a roundabout and for some reason there was a car parking at a place which made it impossible for the bus to pass. Therefore the bus got stuck in the roundabout and had to wait until the car driver showed up and parked the car somewhere else (which happened pretty quick - after about 10 minutes). When I think of Austria, I am pretty sure all the cars coming behind the bus would have stayed behind and the drivers would have gotten pretty mad and would have complained a lot. Not so in Portugal. When the first car behind the bus realised that the bus could not move, he just took the other way around the roundabout and drove away. Same happened for nearly all the other cars coming along behind the bus.

But then some car from the driving school approached and of course there was a pupil in there learning how to drive. The driving teacher was really unsure what to do and after some time waiting got out of the car and asked the bus driver what was wrong. The bus driver told her to just go around at the other side of the roundabout, which was something a driving teacher can't tell her pupil. So in the end they changed places so the driving teacher would drive the car to go around. It was really amusing for us to watch the scene. And just in the moment they changed the places, the car that was blocking the bus moved and we could go on. We just caught a glimpse of the driving school car when both of the drivers got out again and the pupil could drive again. Really amusing.

I thing, that is the reason why people in the south are just happier people. Because if there is a problem they think of the easiest solution to solve it without complaining all the time and acting strictly according to the rules. And I also think that life would be a lot easier in Austria, if we wouldn't take our rules so seriously. I know, we are better than the Germans but we still have this state of mind where we just don't think of easy solutions because we just want to complain and make politics to make better rules so we would be satisfied.

Everytime I am in a country like this, I realise our madness about rules and complaining and I always start to question why we have this situation - It is like nobody wants to take responsibility and think on his own but wants to be leaded by the rules or at least make others be leaded by rules. But maybe, just maybe, sometimes it would be better to give back responsibility for everyones actions and make people decide on their own which would be best in this situation and how to save the situation. It actually makes me kind of sad of our country because we don't realise how strange it is to complain without intending to change something on your own. Truth is, the only thing you can really change is yourself.

And that was what the portuguese people were doing. They surely weren't happy about the situation being stuck behind a bus. But they saw that there is another side of the roundabout going back to the same street they were heading so they had a look if there was traffic coming from the other side. When they saw there was no traffic, they just took the other way, the problem was solved and there was no need to complain. Surely, you can tell the driver of the car blocking the roundabout that it was bad and make him pay a fine but it will probably happen again - not because some car drivers want to harm you but maybe they are just desperate because there is no parking space and you can't just dump all the responsibility for bad situations on someone. Maybe it is your own responsibility to do something about it so it won't be a bad situation at all. And that is what is really missing in our culture. And that is why I already feel really comfortable in Portugal.

 

 

And this is the sight out of our room in the hostel - we are really central. :)

Traveling to Lisbon

Today I went to Lisbon with two friends as a holiday. We thought, since our flight was going from Vienna, we already sleep in Vienna the night before so we don't have to get up early and hurry and reduce unexpected delays and so on. So we were really good in time, actually we were ready an hour before we had to leave. But like always, that was exactly the moment, when the unexpected stroke. I was just cleaning my glasses, when one temple broke. It was exactly 30 minutes before we had to leave to the airport. The most frustrating part was that I couldn't even see what was broken because my glasses were broken.

Gladly, we were somewhere in Vienna, so I hurried to the next Hartlauer. Unfortunately, the staff there was really unfriendly and didn't want to help me because they had other customers, so I found an optician very close who told me that this temple can't be fixed. But he offered me to put the glasses into another fitting and if he does not have any customers, he probably will be ready in 30 minutes. So I could just wait and see if I would have working glasses in Lisbon. I was lucky - the glasses were ready and now I have new glasses. I don't know why but stuff like this always happens directly before going on vacation.

So in the evening we arrived at Lisbon and we were really impressed. At the river it smells like sea and it is so warm and the whole city is loaded with beautiful old buildings like castles and palaces and so on. You can sit beside the river and buy a beer at a boat that is now a bar. There is this impressing elevator connecting the upper part of the inner city with the lower part. Everywhere there are mountains and on each mountain there is something great. People seem to be very happy. It is a little like Barcelona (big city at the sea) but better.

We will have a look at all the great places in Lisbon the next days, so today just some impressions for you. Tomorrow we will go to the west coast of Portugal and see what it has to offer, but I already love Portugal.

Auschwitz

Today, we were visiting Auschwitz, the biggest concentracion camp and a big part of german history.

In nearly every building there is some kind of sub-museum where you can see an exhibition to a special topic like the holocaust of hungarian or polish jews. Already after the first building I felt pretty sick because everything was so bad and disgusting and unhuman I just wasn't sure how to deal with it.

It started with a place they put the dead people they shot when they wanted to break out of the camp as a warning to the others. All the people they burned (after shooting them or killing them in the gas chamber) were even reused by taking the ashes and dunged the fields where the camp inhabitants were working on with it. It was like fully sustainable in a really really sick way.

People who were getting sick were sorted out by the probability that they would be able to work again. They just treated people who would work again, the rest was just killed. They even performed experiments on women to see if they could make them infertile.

This wall is the wall were the people got shot. There were so many ways to die in those camps. They say about 1,2 million people were killed in Auschwitz in total.

And I asked myself: If the war had taken another few years, if they had been successful to kill all the jews and gypsies and so on - who would have been next?

Krakow

Yesterday we did a trip to Krakow. Unfortunately, the planning was not that good and we had like 3 hours for the whole city which was really not enough. But we managed to see some great aspects of the city.

This was the first impression of Krakow and now I am feeling sorry that we don't have something like that in Austria. I know that there is a place to relax at the Donauinsel in Vienna but this is actually next to the castle, therefore really close to the city center. I even found my favourite place to relax where I would go if I would live in Krakow. There were also lots of tables where people of every age were coming together and playing chess.

After that, we were in the Jewish quarter and it was really impressing. This was really lively and there was this place where all the people just sat together and ate and the bus was a bar and so on. I have never seen a bus that is a bar now.

In the middle, there was a synagoge (unfortunately it was already closed) and lots of bars around that sell jewish stuff, like here: hummus & happiness. The funny thing is that the hand on the building is the hand of god for the jewish people, but I saw it too in Istanbul, where it is the hand of Fatima. It's like they all use the same stuff but for different meanings.

The buildings were mostly very interesting to look at - in most cases the face of the buildings was partly destroyed, but they did not restore it but just let it like that - like it was polnian style. And it actually looked good and fit into the face of the city. That was really interesting for me to see.

Of course they also had an old town - it is acutally a pretty big one. If you just walk straight ahead through the old town you need about 15 minutes to cross it. And outside, there is the wall, which is still in a great shape and around the wall there is a small park which probably used to be the moat. Therefore, there is a really big park area in the center. The city center was beautiful too and looked a little like Prague but for me the jewish part was more impressing.

And here I have a picture of all the Austrians at the Euroweek project for you that we took before we had to leave again. But I can really recommend you to visit Krakow!

City of Katovice

I want to tell you a little bit about the city I am currently staying in. Katovice is in the south of Poland near to the Czech border and close to Krakau and Auschwitz. We are actually planning to visit both before leaving again. It is a city with a pretty big university, the University of Economy Katovice. This really makes a difference - because of all the students, the city gets pretty lively. Until now, I haven't seen the city center at daylight, but next to this beautiful church, there is the "party street" where you can eat at lots of restaurants in the daytime and have a drink in the nighttime. And for some reason, there is always somewhere to go, even on uncommon days for going out in the evening. And everything is pretty cheap. If you eat something expensive, it's about 5 Euro, for a drink you normally pay 2 Euros or for a Cocktail 3 Euros. I could get used to that prices.

Yesterday in the evening, we were not in the "party street" but in a pub a little outside and I must admit, it looked like a place where horror movies could take place. When you entered the small street, this was what you saw:

And the pub was around the corner, so we had to get into the darkness. Good thing we were not alone. The pub itself was actually pretty cool with really simple furniture.

On our way to the university where we are doing the project, we walk along this view:

I am not sure what they are, there are lots of them all over the city and I guess they are garages, because my grandparents have one like that except theirs is out of bricks and not out of panel sheets. Also, I guess their car is now too big for this garage.

But I also have to point out, the main building of the university we are currently working on our project is probably new and really well done. They have all the newest technology we don't even have on my FH or any other university in Graz I have been to. Everywhere around the Campus there are Couch corners to sit together or work on something and there are lots of big balconies to sit outside in the sun. All the newer buildings look a little bit like Limerick because there you see they are built out of bricks. All in all, it really looks like an ambitious region, but right now you can't forget that it was not always like that.

Going to Katovice II

As I promised, here is the music we heard when watching this guys:

Going to Katovice

Today I arrived at Katovice in Poland, where I am staying until saturday for a project of my university. Therefore I will spend a lot of time working on the project and I won't have so much time to get cultural impressions. But I will do my best.

To get to Poland, a study colleague picked me up in Vienna and we took his car through Czech Republic. The whole drive only took 4,5 hours so it is not that far away. On the way we drove through Ostrava, a city near the polish border that is known for its steel industry. The highway was more or less built over the city so we had a nice look down on Ostrava. It is like the most industrial town I have ever seen. The whole skyline was filled with big chimneys and funnels of all the factories operating there with smoke coming out of some of them. In the center, we saw all the different factories next to each other. Around, there were those big panel buildings with lots of flats in them and a little bit farther around there were even small houses for j ust one family and some churches. It looks like the industry came first and then they made a city out of it. Not like all the beautiful towns you talk about where there was a castle first and then people moved next to the castle to be safe. It was really interesting to see because I always thought Linz was a really industrial city. This is like the last place I ever want to live.

Until now, Katovice is really nice. They do have those creepy buildings that have wood panels instead of windows or sometimes don't even have that just standing around near to the center but they also have a really nice downtown and everything is pretty cheap. I already met some people from other countries and we were out to eat and drink.On our way back to the hotel we saw the police and heard loud music coming from a building (that looked creepy as well). Turned out some .. movement occupied a flat there, putting up banners and seeking attention while wearing all black. For some reason, my photo of the scene got lost but I will add another one tomorrow.

The music was acually pretty cool, if you want to, I will put up a video in bad phone quality.