Birthday parties

Hey hey everybody!

Well from the begining... The last sunday I ended up not going to the party at marcushof... and i think today i'm skipping it again!

thing is... the work is starting to pile up and I better cut some slack on the parties!

More bureaucracy... registering at Gementeen (Delft city hall) monday morning...

Plus i have now chosen all the courses i'm taking this semester! (I enrolled in Management of Technology)


Wednesday was pretty funny! as usual we went to De Ruif in the evening but me and Hugo were a bit out of our minds so we ended up completely lost while ciclying home! the graphic shows how idiotic that idea was!

Lost in Delft

Living in delft give the expression 'looking forward to the weekend' a whole new meaning! It's almost certain there will be a party friday saturday and sunday! And it's quite difficult to miss it!

Friday was Nicola's (from Italy) birthday and we get along pretty well. Hugo and me bought him a 24 pack of beer as a gift... which turned up to be a good present... if only the rest of the fellows were buying him this same gift :) but still it's funny to see how everybody in the world seems to know Sangria and Calimotxo!!

Saturday was Augusto's (from Spain) birthday. Pretty much the same recipe! but with louder speakers! Different people were at marcushof in the two parties, but the majority I either know or am friends with!

A labrador retriever smelled me saturday... pretty incredible how the scent lasts :)

Today... being sunday... we played basketball again... its kind of a scheduled game by now!

That quite sums up the week... And if the text seemed boring I hope the pictures won't :)

Random pictures from the week and the weekend!


Saturday

Saturday

Saturday

Friday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday playing hoops (Starring Victor)

Chess game in the pub

Classroom

Saturday

Friday

Nicola. The birthday guy

Friday's chiken

Minerals =)

See you next time!!

Love,

Diogo

Bicycle, Parties and Hoops

Hey yall!
It's been another long week and lots has happen since then... but I'll try my best to sum it up in an interesting way!

Well Monday I bought a bicycle! I was stoked when I finally got it... tough a bit small i really don't care about it... I think it's a really cool price for it (35 Euro)

My new bicycle

It was this old guy's place near the ALDI supermarket! the guy sells almost everything. From mini-ovens to fridges, freezers, printers, bikes, bicycles, clothes, scanner, microwaves... well you name it! Course it's all second hand and very cheap... but this place prove to be very handy until now!
You can see the man here (courtesy of Hugo's)
Monday was such cool day for me! Riding on our bikes, Pavel, Hugo and myself went to the centrum trying to look for tools and stuff for the bikes. Because me and Hugo hadn't yet locks I stayed outside the store... It goes like this... I could tell the lady with the dog on the leash was either American or British because the accent sounded so perfect. She was trying to get some big box card from some bikes boxes that were outside... I was just sitting there kinda listening to her attempt to explain the dutch guy what she wanted, when she asked if I was from Brazil. All of this because of the flip-flops (a.k.a. havaianas) with the brazilian flag on it! From then on we started talking half english half portuguese. She spoke portuguese because her husband was Brazilian! After about half an our talking the three of us helped her carrying the card to her place where we met Chico her nephew... It was pretty cool getting to know them and she even offered us some homemade peanuts biscuits! =)

Myself, Chico, Linda, Hugo, Pavel

BTW, you can also see some pictures of my neighbourhood

My building is the one on the left

The garden in between Poptahof Noord and Poptahof Zuid

The basketball court

Tuesday with started another course: Medical Technology and Health Care Systems. Far more interesting than what I've been attending the last couple of years!

Wednesday nothing really happen besides the cool offer that I got from the studenten... cool box with food and lots of other!
Check it out:

Studenten box

We had wednesday dinner at korn beuers. It's kind of a bar/pub/canteen with a cool environment

The pub

That wednesday we went to the fair in the groot markt and took some cool pictures! But it was still pretty early when hugo and myself arrived in de ruif so we just headed home!

Hugo de Groot owning the bumper cars :)

Thursday pretty much was the class in the morning then mentor meeting in the afternoon but it was fun with all the chinese and nordic people!

Mentor Meeting (that's Medya - my mentor - next to me)

And now for the weekend ^^
Friday started up really good. It was traditional swedish dinner at Tim's. Victor and Harold did the cooking and the rest just sat or helped in any way!
The dinner was pretty good and after the dinner people just started flooding in! In a couple hours the place had around 40 people! I met lots that night, from Finland to Hungary to Sweden to Spain to Japan (Yoshi rules^^) to every other place! From that night are loads of pictures but i'll just try to upload the coolest ones! enjoy!

My roomies :)

Cathleen Aina and Jose

That's about it from the saturday ... it was pretty awesome...

Sunday I was talking with some Italians and we (Hugo and Pavel too) this Christian church where they were making a BBQ for free... the problem that night was our dinning time... half past 8 is NOT a dutch dinning time.. we should have been there at 7. But the guys were so nice and one of them offered to drive home and go get some more sausage and hamburger (since they had ran out of food)
Here's the picture (i was shooting it):

After the BBQ we headed to Marcushof because Nicola had to go pick a friend in there, and from there we went to the next building at some polish guys house! It was Cristina, a spanish girl, birthday. So that was quite enough reason for celebration!
Another bunch of pictures from saturday night!



Today, sunday, it was all about doing assingments and playing basketball with the italians and spanish! Me and Hugo bought a ball so now we can play anytime!

Basketball action(spanish italian czech german swedish australian & portuguese)

My quilo bag of Kruidnoten (very good ginger biscuits)

That's all folks! Hope you like the 'story of the week' and the pictures!
Be my guest to drop a line anytime!

Bye

Diogo

Classes, guests and Rotterdam

Hi Hi! What up?

The story on the last couple of days...

I met with Leonor and Catarina in the morning of the 8th of September. It was pretty fun and comforting to have guests here. We went to have dinner at Hugo's and everybody enjoyed themselves.This is at Hugo's.
Left to right: Pavel, Catarina, Hugo, Leonor.

I'm still descovering lots of places in Delft. Some more coffee shops, the faculty, the grass-rooftop library, etc...

It was curious to see the weather changing dramatically when the girls were in town. Seemed like they brought the sunny days. And it did started to rain when they left. (This is one for the superstitious fellows ^^)
This is a picture of the main square in delft, and you can see the funny looking tourists car.

The tourists car :)

I'm also trying to fix a bicycle that was in the basement (I still haven't bought one) but the chain is a serious problem to fix! I'm trying to find an old guy who sell cheap bicycles.

I've been having some meetings and classes as well. Let me clear you people on on these 'meetings'.

The faculty divided the exchange students into groups and assigned one mentor for each group. The mentors are generally students who have been in Delft and the (TU Delft) for quite some time. And we meet and talk about any problem about living and studying in Delft. It's really helpful because there's lots of bureaucracy in here!! (I mean: Lots)

I had the strangest night till now waiting up for Leonor and Catarina when they went to Amsterdam for the first night. But it ended up ok. (note: cellphone communication can be a problem when ur leaving abroad - Ricardo and Daniel were quite helpful though :] )

We were back to De Ruif this last wednesday but because we got there so late (around 1:30 a.m.) we couldn't hang there for long. it closes around 2 or 2:30!

That wednesday was also the first time who attended a class (Enterprise Ontology). It was fun but we started to realize it's time to get to work. We already did one assignement and are suppose to start the second anytime now!

I was also at the bank to schedule an appointment to open a dutch bank account. it's free and it is very important so that we can use to chipknip (a little eletronic card to pay for stuff in vending machines in the faculty and lots of other places in Delft)

Bought and umbrella because of the nasty weather, though today is quite sunny :)

Yesterday I redesigned the room and now it seems bigger. the little table went into the kitchen because we could use a place to put a big table in order to have some more space to cook!

By the way... cooking is beeing funny so far but haven't managed to eat fish! I'm very suspicious of the fish here in the supermarket. It's not very common to eat fish in the Netherlands culture... they tend to eat a lot a fried stuff... It's incredible the ammount of stuff they fry!

Definitly not a healthy solution but it tastes very good :)

Yesterday night we were supposed to go to the Hague to a street jazz festival but instead ended up in Rotterdam. The city is completely different the Delft and there is a bigger variety of options for the night. Pubs, bars, disco... etc.

It's a really big city and we noticed the difference right away. but it was a cool night. Despite walking for what seemed like miles :x the company of very nice. We were a big group, mostly spanish but also some portuguese guys.

After Rotterdam we came back to Delft for the Marcushof.

Marcushof is similar to the Poptahof area, but it's smaller and there's only students living there. There are no appartments. They share the kitchen are and bathroom with the roomates of the floor. It's very nice because there are lots a parties there and it's really close to the place i live.

This morning i met some more people from my building including some portuguese and german. And since it's so sunny outside i think i'll going for a walk... try to find the old man's place ^^

I'm posting some more random pictures in here as well as the descriptions!!

Wish you all well and hope everything is going sweet in Portugal.

(I hadn't to much time to see Portuguese tv, but i saw highlights from Portugal-Denmark... what a shame)

The first thing I saw after leaving the train in Delft: bicycles!!

We went to the Delft's IKEA for some stuff useful to the kitchen.

A couple of ducks by the kanaal (channel)

One of many channels...

The new church. (As tall as Clérigos I guess)

Other view of the same church

The square

'T Keldertje - It's the best coffee shop in Delft (as we were told). Leonor and Catarina were being chase by the number 22 all over the place they've been... so that was funny. The bar 'De Ruif' is also the number 22! :)

A cool looking house near the centrum!

Big kanaal late night with Leonor :)

The porcelain shop! Perhaps my grandfather has been here when he was he Delft...

TU Delft EWI - My department is the large tall building. Most of the rest of the Faculty is behond site! It's huge. Just TU Delft is the size of FEUP FMUP FADEUP FEP and all that area around the Hospital all toghether!

The grass-rooftop of the library!

On the train to Rotterdam!

Everybody in Rotterdam...


Well I guess that's it for now... hope you guys enjoyed the pictures and now... go enjoy the rest of your Sunday :)

Love,

Diogo