a weekend which felt more like a week, it's been so full of joy that i keep running with the same energy after barely having slept for 3 days in a row...! (and with the anticipation of my flight to athens in 4 days as well)
preparation friday evening i left work at 5pm, went for drinks with my colleagues. i still couldn’t believe i would be going to portugal. just to put things into perspective, when i booked the flight 2 months ago, i hadn’t yet moved to the UK, i didn’t have a job confirmed, and i was broke and approaching my credit limit on my card (i am officially there with my last minute airport shopping last nite). went home, packed, left to gatwick, where I got at 1:30 am. tried to get some sleep before boarding the plane at 6 am.
before i knew it, it was 9:30 and the plane touched down in Lisboa aeroporto. i had an irritating kid next to me playing PS2 and elbowing me for the entire duration of the flight, but that didn’t matter much since i was too happy to bother.
straight after landing I took a cab to the hotel where i was right on time to check in and take the bus with the rest of the people staying there to be on time for the wedding (10:30). when entering the bus i was in such a daze from the amount of friends i hadn’t seen in quite a while that i didn’t know whom to greet first. i was really the last person to arrive, just half an hour before the wedding...
the wedding
...soon enough we were outside the church waiting for the bride (Anya) and groom (Pedro a.k.a. Pita). it was all in all an exciting experience. at the same time a new experience for a lot of us. just to mention a few, Sathe said he had never been in a Catholic wedding before (like myself), Pinar and Evrim said they had never seen a wedding in a church before, and soon after the wedding was over (no, we didn’t put up flip charts or divide in groups…!) we started discussing about different types of weddings and customs in our countries (of origin).
the wedding was really nice, with not a lot of people as compared to greek standards, which made it an even warmer event. at the same time the amount of internationals and familiar people around made everyone feel at home, it was just impressive. the priest even addressed the guests in english at one point, also mentioning that maybe we don’t understand a word of what is happening during the ceremony, but we will for sure understand when the couple says “I do” (or “yes”, in portuguese fashion) to each other.and we did! i also realised some similarities we have with the Greek orthodox wedding – for example throwing rice to the couple after the ceremony is over. to my surprise i could understand quite a bit of what the priest was saying in portuguese, thanks to my rusty italian and my christian background as well (also quite rusty, to be honest :-). i think after a couple more years of going to other people’s weddings I will be ready to run the show myself!
it was midday and about time to go to the place where the celebration was going to take place, in Sintra.
the celebration
the setting was very very nice, and started off with drinks and snacks and photo shooting. it looked a little bit like an AIESEC conference since we soon started taking pictures of the bride and groom with AI 02-03, AI 03-04, FTF, MCPs 01-02, AIESEC in Portugal etc etc. but it was lots of fun (of course) and lots of catching up to do, among great food and company, celebrating such a great event! there was some dancing happening in the evening as well. everything was perfectly organised to make everyone feel at home, and that takes exceptional skills for a couple that doesn’t live in portugal, to get the wedding so well organised while living at the other side of the world, in singapore.
although this was a portuguese wedding, the international element gave another tune to it as well, since there were at least 30 of us there. i felt really privileged to have been invited and had a great time. When the bride’s family gave a speech (they are from Kazakstan) listen to this: the speech was being translated from Russian to English and from English to Portuguese. How cool is that? :-) 
we came across a few interesting customs as well, such as the arrival of the couple on a coach and the fact that they handed out gifts to all the guests present. the party finished at about 1 am (if my memory is right, cause we lost track of time way before that, imagine drinking for 12 hours). 
Lisboa
of course we went downtown lisbon for drinks after that, and ended up back in the hotel no earlier than 2:30 am or so. i have to admit that I didn’t see much of the country or the city, but that was not the purpose of my trip there, under the circumstances of not being able to take days off work. from what I saw though lisbon is an impressive city with nice architecture and wide avenues, and the people are cool and laid back.
i have seen a portuguese wedding though, and that tells me more about the people than a tour around the city.
but not having seen enough of the country, is no more than a good reason to come back.
the Atlantic
on sunday it was time to leave, but before that we arranged to go to the seaside. we went to costa da caparica along with rajiv, ripun, brenda, vaibhav, yumna, szymon, kshama, and all i can say is that i realised how much i miss the sea in my summer. it was a great feeling! costa da caparica is a coast that has 18 consecutive beaches, and you go from one to the next using a coastal electrical train (quite cool!)
the atlantic was fun, though swimming was not a lot of fun with big waves coming along and the temperature of the water was rather low. but it was fun to have my first swim (and sunburn) for the year, and possibly my only one in the summer. and i was a bit disapointed no sharks were around to add some excitement :p
but at least i can now officially state on my cv i have swam in the atlantic ocean. great, now i only miss just another couple of thousand places around the globe only.
after that, it was time to say my goodbyes and go.

the return
picture this:
- i left the beach at 15:00.
- got on the electrical train at 15:05
- got on the bus back to lisbon at 15:20
- arrived in lisbon at 16:05
- took the metro and walked to the hotel, where i got at 16:25
- took a cab to the airport at 16:45
- boarded the plane at 18:15
- landed at 21:00
- took a train at 21:20 to victoria
- took the tube from victoria, had to change once to get to liverpool street...
- ...where i got a train back home at 23:10 and after walking for 10 minutes arrived home at 23:35.
(NB: there is no time difference between portugal and the uk)
Conclusions:
- travel today is very complicated, though it seems simple
- there should be a plane from costa de caparica to my place. it would save me at least 3 hours.
more photos from the weekend are here.
i had an unforgettable time in portugal and hope to see all you guys sometime very soon again! thanks for everything, and wish pedro and anya a lifetime of happiness!Labels: travel