Sandra: First week in Portugal. Boa tarde!

So here I am the volunteer of European Union that just started her project in Portugal. How everything started? For long time i was working with some projects, ngos that mainly try to tackle the issue of social exlusion. It was back in a day when I lived in a very nice but just a bit cold country named Lithuania. It is situated a bit far more north from the Portugal. I wanted to do some bigger project, that would include not only contributing to the society but also new culture and a bit different kind of practices for dealing with the problems that are within the society. So here I am. And I am lovin' it.

I arrived here last Friday. Spent the night in Lisbon and went straight to Oreiras for a youth exchange project. It was quite awesome week. 35 persons from all over Europe: Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary, Spain, Italy and some examples of other nationalities met in one very nice place on the the beach of Atlantic and tried to understand what in general Social Solidarity is. Project went amazing. It was useful in more academical or general awereness sence but also in making new friends, getting to know new cultures area too. And now I can say: I am thinking outside of the box.

But ten days of the project in Oreiras flew so fast. And from this Monday I am an official resident of Lisbon city. I live in really magical house. Have a castle in my neighbourhood and million adorable steps to reach the central square and all other places Lisbon has to offer. I know after some time i will get usted to the steps. But I am pretty sure that it will be very hard to get used to be amazed by this town every time I go outside. Not that I complain of course. I am just so eager to discover each and every corner of this bohemial paradise - Lisbon.

A bit about the work I do. Each morning at 9.40 we (me and other two volunteers Esma and Nicolo and of course our wonderful mentor Frederica) take a train from Lisbon to Damaia, Amadora. Where we go to try and help the socially exluded people. At the moment I could say the organisation is more contributing for us than we do something a lot useful. But this is beginning and now the most important task we have is to learn Portuguese. Its quite fun language and we have the daily courses for it. I hope in couple of months to speak at least medium level of this fascinating language. But i cross my heart and swear on everything that is saint to me the last entry of this blog in June will be in Portuguese!

This is it for now. I will upload some photos later. but sadly my camera is broken again. So now not sure what to do and how to show for sure how wonderful the places around me is.
Ate amanha!

Sandra