thursday - living like a local day.

when you are tourist in city you most of the times see just what other see, however if you stay at some place longer, get to know locals, then the city gets completely other image most of the times. And its all that not only because of the traditions or culture, but more over of some amazing places, that are there but you have no idea...or more over, you pass them hundreds of times, but never feel like exploring or going in, as the outside not always is the best advertisement. 

as from this week we are left alone of studying portuguese, as our teacher was not able to continue teaching us further, we had to investigate how to learn the language in other way than till now.
As it turns out then Portugal is very open for immigrants, more over they even offer free classes of 150 hours of portuguese lessons. However we are quite late with subscription, as the course has already started, nevertheless, if not trying to ask, we will not know if we are able to enroll in the middle. So yesterday we went for one of the schools, to know more and ask if its possible for us to join.As with awesome timings, we did not manage to be the right day the right place, however the guard at the school, hearing our badly spoken portuguese directly gave the right times and place to come back to ask more. Going back on monday, and will see how this develops.

The other thing, that i have wanted to do is finally to have a real bank account in foreigner country, as using the latvian one is not really handy, plus having only cash all the time is not handy either...till this week, we were very skeptical of if we will have it, as first of all we still lack the national identification number aka tax payers number and secondly the prices the usual banks want to charge just for having account...well its more like waste of money than useful... not closed with the topic, this week we found out about Activo bank, which offers not only a free opening of account, more over also no charge for the card and lastly no other fees almost...sounds also not really trust-able as everything for free, really? However, as gave the visit yesterday to one of the rare contact points, then indeed it is like that, as they are mostly based online, have just few points of contact and are in cooperated with another bank... we are still not sure if this is really worth the efforts, however we will see by monday of how the mood is about all this.

Asides the official stuff and getting to settle in Portugal as a locals, we went to "celebrate" the outcomes of the day, to have some lovely chat in one of the old places in Lisbon, known as Alentejo house...which is an awesome inside outside terrace, with beautiful architecture just entering the place, great restaurant in the upper floor and lovely cafe / bar downstairs. While being there you may loose the feeling of being in Lisbon, as it is so inside and quite from any street sounds, and at the same time it gives you to smell fresh air, as the bar is like in an inside garden. Since first time i went there, i so much enjoyed it, that for sure, i will return there more than just two times so far. And the truth is that without locals help and directions I would never had gave a try to enter the place as from street it looks like nothing much special.
As none of us were up to stay long in Lisbon, then after the great coffee or more like Coca cola for me...with my spontaneous wish, we went for a sushi to take away...instead of just take away and going home, we got so hungry while picking up sushi, that the perfect place to eat turned out to be the Miradoru, just next to the Sushi restaurant...a perfect view over the Lisbon, perfect weather and superb company... and as i noticed then instead of staying in some bars, it turns out to be a quite popular place to come with take away food and dinner here...
Oh well, the friday eve is here, so now im out to enjoy and experience Lisbon, just like a local again,
Hug for everyone,
S.