Thunder, Thunder, Thunder Pictures!

Last night at 4am in the morning. It think this was the first time I woke up with a thunderstorm and the sound of the wind. And something that might have helped was the small pieces of dust from the ceiling that were falling down all over my face. One of the downsides of living in an attic. =)

Company or dinner?

Tonight I saw this little spider crawling on my walls... I was going to kill it, but then I was merciful and let it live. I hope she doesn't come back while I'm at sleep! Yuck... (at least I hope to have good fortune... in Portugal spiders are associated with good fortune, I have no clue why).

While the spider was crawling my walls there was a nice thunderstorm outside the window. It has started almost two hours ago and still lasts, going away in distance and coming back. I know my camera is not that good, but I was able to take some pictures of the weather...


Before and during the "blowing" of a thunder...
Awesome! =D Fortunately it wasn't raining when I came home, otherwise it wouldn't be so awesome...

It has been a long time since...

Hello everyone that still keeps following me. I know it has been a long time since I last wrote in here, but I haven't found the patience to do it lately. And the more time I take the less motivated I feel, because there are stuff that I want to talk and write about, but the time passes and too much stuff piles up... and then... I just want to write excuses for not writing. =)

So I'll just sum everything up in this post and maybe I'll write more in the future... or maybe it's just the way it is... just a small blog with few posts. =)

Anyway...

After my trip to Luxembourg I had a short week of work that finished wednesday, because thursday 30 of April was a public holiday here in The Netherlands, The Queens Day. In Queens Day eve I went with some friends to The Hague to celebrate. It was a really nice night. The streets were full of people, there were Dj's in lots of places playing music outside. I found this really cool, because I'm not a fan of discos, speacially because the music gets too loud and the space gets too small. So outside djaying allows for disco fans and people like me to be together in the same place with the best of two worlds, space and music. Allowing conversation and dancing... Besides the dj's, the people and the bars there was also a kind of a Theme Park in the middle of the park. With things that I thought only existed (or maybe never really thought about) in Portugal, but it seems that are the same everywhere. Really the same. I can almost swear I saw those same machines in Portugal. =p

In the Queens Day we went to Amsterdam and if The Hague was crowded, then Amsterdam was really insane. With waves of people always coming and going in every big street of the city. And most of them were dressed in Orange, to honour the House of Orange. It was a really nice day, even though a bit tiresome.

In the following day I went with Mariana and Sofia back to Portugal for a one week visit.

In the next day, saturday, the "Queima das Fitas" (Burning of the Stripes in a literal translation) started. This is a week long event for students of the University of Porto, dedicated specially to the senior students, like me, who finish their studies at the University this year. =) It was a really awesome and touching week. I really enjoyed it!=)

Besides the "Queima das Fitas" it was really good to be with my family and friends! It was a very busy week, with lunches, dinners and almost even breakfast scheduled to try to be with everyone. Of course and unfortunately a week wasn't enough to meet everyone, but it was really good nevertheless.

On the 10th of May I returned to Delft and on the 11th of May I celebrated 3 years since I've started dating with Mariana! It has been some amazing years and I must say that she makes me happy!=D Thank you!

In that day I also returned to work and at the time that I'm writing this there are only 6 weeks left to finish my report and a web application that I'm developing, so it's time to run for my life and finish my studies, at last!

In this last weekend Gustavo came from Boxmeer with a Catalan friend of his. It was nice to meet him again and hear his story about the farm they are working on. It was another nice weekend in The Netherlands. It was the first visit I received! Yay! :p

And as one visit is not enough yesterday a former member from BEST Porto, João Oliveira, arrived in The Netherlands and is staying at my place for one week. He didn't actually came to visit me, but since he will start working in Roterdam in June and is still looking for a place to stay he asked for shelter.

And that is all for now! =) Hope you were able to read this far!

Now back to reporting, enough procrastination! And you... go back to work!

25th of April 1974

Yesterday was the celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal. For me it is one of the most important and meaningful public holidays of Portugal.

This was the second time I wasn't in Portugal in the 25th of April.

This year I was not only in The Netherlands but also in Luxembourg and even passed through Belgium. I went on a quick visit to the Luxembourg with some friends.

But I didn't forget what day it was so to make my own small celebration I listened to José Afonso, a Portuguese singer whose political songs were a way of fighting against the dictatorship that ended in the 25th of April of 1974.

As we say in Portugal "25th of April forever, fascism never more! Long live Liberty!".

As suggested in the comments box here is a link to some videos of José Afonso's songs.

Graffiti Tunel #1 - Lucky Luke

Here in Delft there's a place relatively close to the train station where people make graffiti in broad day light. I don't know what is the law here in The Netherlands but I don't think that it is allowed to do it anywhere, so I guess that in those specific walls it is not forbidden to do graffiti. And I find it perfectly logical. Those walls are just by the street and half of them covered by a train bridge, so otherwise they'd just be gray.

This way every week, mostly at weekends, there are people painting them with new graffiti. And since they are not breaking the law they have time to make some nice drawings. But since there aren't so many allowed places to graffiti most of the drawings don't stay for more than a week, being painted over by someone else some time after. Which is really nice, because this way the decoration of that tunnel is always changing!=)

And for someone like me who likes graffiti is really nice to pass and look at what's new!

Two weeks ago someone had painted this Lucky Luke:

And it seems that it wasn't someone too young, because Lucky Luke is smoking a cigarette instead of having a straw of some cereal in his mouth...

So you can expect to see some more graffiti in the future, if I see some nice drawings. =)

#Sorry for the quiet time! =) More posts to come in the next days (or weeks, who knows!). Wait to learn how I almost started an International conflict at United Nations office in Geneva!

Corpus Experience, Leiden

In the same day that we visited the Keukenhof Gardens we also went to visit the Corpus Experience. The Corpus Experience is a 5D (yeah, 5D, at least that's what they say) experience museum about the Human Body. In this museum we travel around different rooms that represent different parts of our body. During the journey there are some explanations about what we are seeing and how our body works.

The idea is really nice but I think that the final result is a bit disappointing, because most, if not all, of what I heard there I already new. It's probably a great place for children to visit, but they should have told us that before...

So even so that it's kind of nice to visit I won't recommend it to anyone that has studied natural sciences in the basic school.

So for me the most interesting thing in this museum is the building... which has a giant iron man sitting in/inside it. =P

Corpus Experience

A Visit to Keukenhof

When Mariana's cousin was here one of the places we visit was Keukenhof Gardens. As the name might suggest it's a great place to see flowers, and specially the famous Dutch tulips.

Here are some photos of this visit:

A philharmonic band! =) They played the "Pink Panther" Really nice!
no, not drunk... it's just my camera's fancy color options

hmmm, flowers...
Look at me, look at me!
Really nice colors!=) Tulips field

One more camera trick!;)
The Flintstones's car!