Barca de Alva, Castelo de Rodrigo - Portugal

In a previous post I showed you the beautiful Marialva and our amazing traditional lunch. After lunch we drove back meeting the Douro river and following it taking advantage of all the beauty that surrounds it. Around sunset we found ourselves at Barca de Alva, on the border to Spain and enjoyed the golden hour by the Douro river.

No post anterior mostrei a beleza de Marialva e o nosso maravilhoso almoço tradicional. Após o almoço iniciamos o nosso regresso, mas por estradas diferentes, cruzando-nos com o rio Douro e e aproveitando a paisagem. Quase ao pôr-do-sol estávamos em Barca de Alva, na fronteira com a Espanha e desfrutamos da hora dourada à beira do rio Douro.

 A map of the Douro river in tiles / O mapa do rio Douro em azulejos

 An old train bridge - on one side Spain on the other side Portugal

Uma ponte do comboio em desuso - de um lado Espanha e do outro Portugal

 A random viewpoint on the road / Um miradouro ao acaso na estrada

Afterwards we headed to Castelo Rodrigo, another historical village. It was already rather dark when we got there and the castle was closed. However, the lights were really nice and we could still enjoy the castle ruins. 

A segui fomos até Castelo Rodrigo, uma outra aldeia histórica. Já estava bastante escuro quando lá chegamos e o castelo estava fechado. No entanto, a iluminação está muito bem feita e ainda pudemos aproveitar a vista das ruínas do castelo.

This was our day trip around the north of Guarda and Portugal. There's much more to see and explore and even I fell that I have a lot left to see, although I lived in the region for many years. 

It somehow never ends and that is nice!

Esta foi a nossa viagem de um dia ao norte da Guarda e de Portugal. Há muito mais para ver e explorar e até eu tenho muito para ver, mesmo tendo morado na região por muitos anos.

De certa forma há sempre mais e isso é fantástico!

Sara Jump - Marialva

It started with me and my sister. Then Johan's brother joined us. Then my father also wanted. And finally our other Swedish visitor decided that he couldn't be left out.

Here is the result, a super fun Sara Jump!

Marialva, Portugal - December 2017

Marialva - Portugal

I spent Christmas and New Years Eve in my hometown in Portugal. The year 2018 was received with a big party at my parents house and besides the usual gang of friends, we counted also with two Swedish visitors. Besides Johan that is. Having new people in my hometown means we have to show them the region. My father suggested a one-day trip on the North of Guarda, since it was also something new for Johan and almost new for me, because I couldn't remember being there.

Passei o Natal e a passagem de ano na minha cidade natal em Portugal. O ano de 2018 foi recebido com uma grande festa na casa de meus pais, com o gangue de amigos do costume e ainda alguns convidados suecos, além do Johan claro. Ter convidados na minha cidade significa que temos que lhes mostrar a região. O meu pai sugeriu irmos passar o dia a norte da Guarda, já que era também novidade para o Johan e quase para mim, porque não me lembrava de todo de lá ter estado em pequena.

We started by the lovely village of Marialva, part of the historical villages route in Portugal. On top of Marialva sits its medieval castle, built around 1179, with the wall still almost fully intact. 

Começámos pela encantadora vila de Marialva, parte da rota das aldeias históricas de Portugal. No topo de Marialva está o seu castelo medieval, construído por volta de 1179, com a muralha ainda quase totalmente intacta.

 The village of Marialva with the castle's wall in the background

A aldeia de Marialva com a muralha ao fundo

 Entering the complex of Marialva's Castle

A entrar no complexo do Castelo de Marialva

Inside the complex there are churches, a pillory, different gates, and ruins of the different buildings like the court house, city hall, and converted-jewish owned houses marked with a cross on each side of the door. Besides that visitors can also walk on the wall and enjoy the surrounding landscape. 

No interior do complexo há igrejas, um pelourinho, diferentes portas na muralha, e ruínas dos diferentes edifícios, como o tribunal, a casa governamental e casas onde moravam judeus convertidos que eram marcadas com uma cruz de cada lado da porta. Além disso os visitantes podem também caminhar no cimo da muralha e aproveitar a paisagem circundante.

The Swedes need no jacket when in Portugal even if it's winter...

Os suecos não precisam de casaco em Portugal, mesmo sendo inverno...

After walking around Marialva and its Castle we started to be hungry and headed for lunch. My father knew exactly where we were going because he wanted us to try a "posta mirandesa" which basically is a giant beef stake of the utmost tender meat. He had talked a lot of time about this and my expectations were high, which is very dangerous. We started with an "alheira", a typical meat and bread sausage from this region. Delicious. Then we got the famous steak with both roasted potatoes and punched potatoes. No one was disappointed!

Depois de passear por Marialva e o seu castelo começamos a ficar com fome e a querer almoçar. O meu pai sabia exatamente onde íamos comer, porque ele queria que nós experimentássemos uma posta mirandesa, que basicamente é uma porção enorme de carne de vaca tenrinha. Ele já tinha falado na posta tantas vezes que as minhas expectativas eram altas, o que é muito perigoso. Começamos com uma alheira, também típica desta região, que estava deliciosa. A seguir e finalmente lá veio a famosa posta com batatas assadas e batatas a murro. Ninguém ficou desiludido!

It was one of the best pieces of meat I've ever eaten, and I'm counting in meat I ate in Brazil and Argentina. It was so good that we decided to order more. The service was very slow but I think everyone agreed that it was totally worth the wait.

When we finally resumed our trip we only had two more hours of sun light. I'll tell you more about it in a next post.


Foi uma das melhores peças de carne que já comi e estou a contar com carne que comi no Brasil e na Argentina. Foi tão bom que decidimos pedir mais. O serviço era muito lento, mas acho que todos concordaram que valeu a pena a espera.

Quando continuamos a nossa viagem já só tínhamos duas horas de luz solar, mas contarei o resto em outro post.

Charlotte Kalla's Sara Jump

What does an olympic champion do soon after they cross the finish line?
A Sara Jump, of course!

Photo taken to a page of Göteborgsposten 

Winter Olympics 2018

The Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, started yesterday and I have already turned into the usual couch potato. At least now during the weekend, because unfortunately due to the time difference a lot will happen during working hours.

I didn't really care much about the Winter Olympics until I met Johan, which is excusable since Portugal is not really big on winter sports. Now that I live in Sweden it's a whole different story and the olympics have been the theme of coffee room conversations for a few weeks. To help Newbies in Sweden get into the right mood I wrote an article to the Newbie Guide to Sweden about the Winter Olympics and the Swedish top athletes. Those where the hope for medals rely on.

One of them is of course my favourite skier, Charlotte Kalla. She is so fast that I didn't even had the time to write this post before she got her first gold medal! That's right, Kalla won this morning the first medal to Sweden in Skiathlon. Yay!

You can read the full article I wrote here. I'll be cheering for these and many other athletes.

May the Olympic spirit inspire you! 

Standing out

I saw the add for a workshop about leadership and working with people. It was free and by a guy I had seen before and thought was really good, so I signed up. I deal with a lot of people at work and I'm interested in how people function and saw a great opportunity to learn something. 

And I did.

But instead of a room full of people as expected it was me and 8 others in the room. Including the speaker!

8 other man. 

8 other swedes. 

8 other big bosses. 

And me. 

Talk about standing out! The workshop turned out to be quite interesting and helpful, especially after that first uncomfortable half hour. We learned some things, discussed situations and I met people that wouldn't have otherwise. Another plus is that I have a funny story to tell. After telling my boss he asked me, joking, if I was secretly planning to take over his job! 

I'm not. That was just doing the Sara way, as usual.

The return

It's been months since the last time I wrote, but here I am again. It was the longest break I ever took from blogging, but it was necessary. I tried to keep it up, but one month into the course I was already really exhausted and I understood that I had to cut on my extra activities. Working full time and studying a day course didn't leave me much chance. The third activity I chose was to sleep, to be able to keep my brain in shape and my energy levels up. It worked! I kept working as usual and I did very well in school. 

I stopped blogging and I almost stopped training, and although I missed both things everyday, I feel it was worth it. 

In the middle of all the craziness there was a few chances to escape and have fun, an essencial to keep me sane. I'll come back with more complete posts about each one, but here are some of the highlights. 

Passaram meses desde a última vez que escrevi, mas estou de volta. Foi a pausa mais longa que já tirei do blogue, mas foi necessária. Eu tentei continuar, mas um mês depois de ter começado o curso já eu estava exausta e entendi que tinha que cortar nas minhas atividades extra. Trabalhar a tempo inteiro e estudar não me deixou outra hipótese. A terceira atividade que escolhi foi dormir, para poder manter o meu cérebro em forma e a minha energia em cima. Funcionou! Continuei a trabalhar como de costume e o curso correu muito bem.

Parei de blogar e quase parei de treinar, e apesar de ter sentido falta dessas duas coisas diariamente, tenho a sensação que valeu a pena. 

No meio de toda a loucura houve felizmente algumas oportunidades de escapar à rotina e me divertir, o que foi essencial para me manter sã. Farei posts mais completos sobre cada um dos locais, mas deixo aqui algumas fotos.

 J. had a conference in Athens and I took the chance to join him for a very pleasant weekend. 

O J. teve uma conferência em Atenas e eu aproveitei para ir lá passar um fim de semana muito agradável.

Växjö, in the south of Sweden, including a really nice lunch at Teleborg's castle (below). 

Växjö, no sul da Suécia, incluindo um belo almoço no castelo de Teleborg (em baixo).

A visit to the Christmas market in Marstrand.

Uma visita ao mercado de Natal de Marstrand. 

 In the end of the year I spent 10 days in my hometown, in Portugal. We had guests and took a day trip which included the castle of Marialva (above), Barca D'Alva and Castelo Rodrigo (below). 

No final do ano passei 10 dias na minha cidade natal em Portugal. Tivemos convidados e aproveitamos para fazer uma viagem de um dia que incluiu o castelo de Marialva (acima), Barca D'Alva e Castelo Rodrigo (abaixo).

Barca D'Alva

Castelo Rodrigo

Happy 2018 to you all!!!!!

Feliz 2018 a todos!!!!!

Running... without running shoes

When I got hired in April I decided to take a pause in my Swedish studies, signing up for the next level only in August. Normal employed people take evening courses, but I wanted to continue in my school so I signed up for the daily course, the only one for my level offered there. I signed up thinking the course was 4h a week, which is perfectly compatible with a job with flexible working hours. In the meantime, the course was re-done and became a 8h/week course + homework and studying hours. I decided to try anyway, much because I would keep having my favourite teacher, and I think I'm handling it well enough to keep going for 3 more months.

Sometimes is tough though. I go to class. Cycle to work. Eat lunch as fast as possible to save time. Solve the million problems waiting for me. Run up and down the building as needed. Cycle home. Cook and eat. Do homework. Crash in the sofa for 30min which is the only time I have left before going to bed. Most of the days I'm so exhausted I can't do anything else, and by that I mean write posts in my dearest blog or run (real running, with running shoes). I simply do not have the time and the energy. 

However, winter is coming, bringing more homey weekends, probably the only advantage of it, in which hopefully I will have more time to my blog. 

Oceanário

The Lisbon Oceanarium is the largest aquarium in Europe, with a giant central tank containing many different species of fishes, and several other smaller tanks with more especial or fragile aquatic species. It is located in Parque das Nações, in Lisbon, where the world exhibition Expo 98 took place. It was then, in 1998, that I visited the Oceanarium for the first time and I had never returned until this summer. It was great. Visitors walk around the largest tank, both on the ground floor and one floor up, passing by the different smaller exhibitions that are on the sides at the same time. In summary, it's huge and there's a lot to see and learn. 

O Oceanário de Lisboa é o maior aquário da Europa, com um tanque central gigante contendo muitas espécies diferentes de peixes e vários outros tanques menores com espécies aquáticas mais especiais ou frágeis. Está localizado no Parque das Nações, em Lisboa, onde ocorreu a exposição mundial Expo 98. Foi mesmo em 1998 que visitei o Oceanário pela primeira vez e nunca mais lá voltei até este verão. Ainda bem que voltei. Os visitantes andam em volta do tanque maior, tanto ao nível do fundo como um andar acima, passando pelas diferentes exposições menores que estão nos lados ao mesmo tempo. Resumindo é enorme e há muito para ver e aprender.

 Sharks / Tubarões

Sunfish (ironically called moon fish in Portuguese)

Peixe-lua (que ironicamente se chama Peixe sol em inglês)

 Sea horse / Cavalo marinho

The giant squid, one of the Oceanarium's favourites. It's really cool to observe it moving around in its tank and getting its tentacles stuck against the glass. 

O polvo gigante, um dos favoritos do Oceanário. É muito fixe observar os seus movimentos no tanque, enquanto vai colando os tentáculos contra o vidro.

 Kids freak out and scream Nemoooooo, when they see clown fishes.

As crianças entram em paranoia e gritam Nemoooooo quando vêem peixes palhaços.

If you are in Lisbon, don't miss the Oceanarium. It's a well spent morning or afternoon, that can be combined with a lovely walk around in Parque das Nações, which is by the Tagus river.
Se estiverem em Lisboa, não percam o Oceanário. É uma manhã ou uma tarde bem passada, que pode ser combinada com um adorável passeio pelo Parque das Nações, junto ao rio Tejo.