How to be in Braga for 5 days, see nothing and get used to eating every hour

I was in Braga with my flatmate and fellow volunteer last week, one of the cities still on my ToDo list. From Tuesday to Saturday.
Guess what happened? We saw way more on our pitstop in my beloved Porto in 4h on the way there, then we saw in Braga the rest of the week. I´m not kidding. The weather was downright awful, but that was not the only reason. We had to go there for an on arrival training from the volunteering (EVS). I´m not saying the training wasn´t interesting and fun and we haven´t had a good time – but there was one big problem – it was way too tense. We started with breakfast from 8am, first activities at 9.30, coffee break at 11.00, activities, long lunch 12.30 to 15.00 (usually we ended up finishing lunch at 14.30…), activites, coffee break at 16.30, activities, lunch at 19.45, obligatory activities until ~22.00. after that, there were still activities, just not obligatory ones. I´m not kidding, it was like this. Yes, coffee breaks sound like “breaks”. But spend them in a room with 40 people who want to get to know each other and have a lot of experiences to share, and you will realise, it´s just NOT a BREAK. Just a different kind of activity.

So after arriving Tuesday at 18.00, this was the program for Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday, we only had activities until lunch and then a free”ish” afternoon. Exactly. That meant that we were divided into random groups and had to fulfill tasks, which basically meant you had to spend your day with them. I don´t call that free at all … And, of course, especially on this day, there was not a second without rain.

And you want to know the best of all this? I had one pair of shoes with me, sneakers who broke on Wednesday morning. And I had no possibility to buy new shoes … When on Wednesday night we went out and walked back in the rain, my shoes got soaked and I walked around the good part of Thursday with extremely wet and cold feet, unless I took them off and later could borrow flip flops from another volunteer. That meant, that the “free” part of Friday was occupied by completing the tasks and desperately searching for shoes. In the meantime, my flatmate, who was also my roommate in Braga, got sick. It´s an absolute miracle I didn´t get sick, although I felt like getting sick for the good part of our stay. We ended up leaving 24h earlier …

The only photos I have, show exactly what we did – ALL of them are made inside. And there are, like, 4 pictures …

volunteer´s art galery

It´s a shame. If possible, I had even wanted to go to Guimarães or Viana do Castelo while I´m so close, but that was simply impossible. I´m just glad we made that Porto pitstop, that basically saved the whole day.

What sticks in mind of Braga? Nothing, only the volunteering stuff… And a constant feeling of hunger now ôO How can Portuguese eat constantly, and still not get fat?!

Looking at my beloved Portugal travel wall now, I feel like a betrayer having Braga on there… Oh well. I think I´ll just have to come back instead of crossing it from my to do list =)

my portugal travel wall =)

paleo diet?

hey there –

first, i really have to apologize for yesterday’s blog. man, i read through it again in the evening and my english was so fucked up … that’s what happens when you write your blog at work in a hurry (same thing i do now … oh well). so, SO sorry you had to read this – my english is definitely better than that.

on another term, have you heard about the paleo diet? do you practice it? do you know someone doing it? i’ve read frequently about it and i love the approach. but i personally have two problems with it:

1. i don’t like meat. i’m no vegetarian but if it wasn’t for minced meat i could as well be one.

2. as an athlete i’m not sure how this fits together with the diet. as far as i know, high-performance athletes, like full-time dancers, need more carbs than the rest of the world. with paleo, you get your main carbs through meat (there you have point one again).

anyway, i like many aspects and i plan to try to follow them. as in, no convenienced products, lesser grain, lesser dairy products. i already eat nothing but fruits and vegetables during the day because i don’t feel the hunger in training and i can survive the time during stretching and traveling home until dinner. there are a lot diets based on the “no carbs for dinner” concept, but that didn’t work for me at all. i ended up feeling fat in class and hungry in the evening, so i decided that i’d go for no carbs during the day. works perfect!
i’ll try to find something different for breakfast, too. currently i eat muesli every single morning and have done so for – i don’t know, all my life? but there you have it, milk and grain together. i’ll try to go for scrambled eggs instead, but i usually eat breakfast at work which makes this a lot harder …

so, what about you? how do you eat?

love,
Lenny