Miguel Anjo

Not part of holidays.
Police in switzerland sometimes we see them in a band playing covers of known songs with drums, electric guitar and voice in neighborhoods parties. Other times in roller blades they go with the crowd in monday night skating. The other day I saw one still with the clothes, gun, handcuffs, taking a class of something in a school migros. Nice also when they are eating/buying kebabs.

Coming to portugal is fixing computers. Today, however, I managed to break my father desktop, which stopped printing. Still there I know the problem is the windows which is not legal, even if he has a legal CD which was never installed. I’ve to check educational prices of SW to see if it worths buying. And then loose a weekend installing everything back in Lisbon. Other computers this holidays were my aunt, my grand-mother and my father laptop.
Not everything is bad, however. I had to take train and bought its ticket in an ATM at metro station, took the metro to the train station (new line) and was really very quick.

Flying low cost is not for me. is like best-price product in supermarket, M-Budget. huge confusion, all portuguese to get in first. baby crying all time, no free nothing. But they know how to do thing with misbehaving people: airplane opens very early while putting fuel; no delay departure; arrival at gate, no bus; lights off until completely stops – people this way do not stand or put mobile phone on. Just claps. Portuguese stuff.

This post is those kind of stupid posts where one compares the beauty and the beast.

Friday morning it was raining like hell, I was by car in the morning doing Nyon-CERN, taking one of the main entry points of Geneva.

At the beginning of the week I read that in Portugal on Monday there were 15 dead in car accidents, the double of the average, because of the rain.

I was thinking, on the car going 100km/h, better to go a bit slow but arrive faster. Everyone was thinking the same way. The traffic was exactly the same any other day, almost stopping at Coppet, but rolling in good cadence. Maybe even better than the normal as the bigger distance between cars led to less breaking.

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In Portugal when you are about to arrive to a roundabout, in a case where there is the minimum signalization you have: 200m away – info about directions, danger, max 50; 100m away – loss of priority in 100m, max 30; on the spot – loss of priority, roundabout, mandatory go right.

In Switzerland the usual signalization for a roundabout is: 200m away – info about directions; on the spot – loss of priority, roundabout. The rest is on responsability of the driver. No ‘danger’ sign, no max speeds, no superfluous stuff.
In Nyon in one roundabout, 50m before they even have a sign: end of max 60 (meaning now max is 80)! When you pass that sign everyone goes at 30km/h or you might crash to the roundabout.

Ends up in the usual cold because of the freezing houses (+10 outside means +10 inside) but included two sea baths and walk in t-shirt and shorts.

Also have a terrible visions of daily car accidents, constant speeding and parking without any consideration for the pedestrians and security.

This time I had the opportunity to discover hidden beauties of Porto and Monserraz. My university friends and other friends touch my heart and I did not want to leave.

Coimbra had changed a lot, people and the city. The trip included also Évora, train to Régua, quick pass in Sintra and Ericeira.

Christmas I see what’s new.

In a hurry I arrived to the train without wallet. Just after the moment of the ‘sorry, I forgot everything at home’ the guy next to me ‘I’ll pay his ticket’. Every single person has his good side. Wait a bit and you will see it. (His good side was the left)

J’ai senti une énorme humiliation l’autre jour quand, dans une montée en vélo, je suis dépassé par une femme habillé en tailleur. On devrai interdire les vélos électriques.