Hey folks,

by now my exchange program has officially ended and I have eventually made my return to Austria but of course I don’t want to let this blog hang and hence still will update you about the rest of what happened. One could say I treated myself to a last blast! Have a decent read.

First thing happening was, that I luckily got my shoulder back to life by doing loads of mobility stuff and actually attending some physiotherapy being my first time there. Right after I got it fixed I was instantly doomed to help on my hostdad’s potato field once again, as already sometimes before. I tried to alleviate the annoyance of it by listening to some sweet heavy metal next to it and on top of that doing my absolute best to get a tan — admittedly upper body free…

A few days more into the month, there was some crazy stuff going on in the Portuguese school I initially studied in… In there, some students had gathered to protest against LGBT discrimination. I found the whole thing to be pretty admirable and to be honest would’ve actually enjoyed being a part of it.

And then eventually the single last AFS camp — at least for myself — came to be, this time in the quaint city of Porto. Other than a pitiful case of some girls getting some of their things stolen — as other AFSers already beforehand — it was a lot of, admittedly overshadowed, fun. It was fantastic to see the others once more, even with the thought of it going to be the last time for a fairly long whilst in the back of the head.

Having come back from the memorable experience of AFS’s last camp, another amazing event was standing right before my door — a concert of Salvador Sobral the coming weekend. After getting through the days of eager awaiting, I got to see Sobral, whom I probably already have cherished once before (insofar my mind didn’t trick me), live. Admittedly, the live performance, he presented was incredible and ended up heavily flashing me. Even though I feel fairly likely to already have mentioned this before — I just can’t say it often enough — I really appreciate the fact, that both, Sobral and his sister, had been in the US for an exchange year with AFS some years back.

While my experience seemed to slowly come to an end — although I didn’t realise it at all — an actually pretty tragic incident occurred. Around the area of Coimbra some villages happened to get completely surrounded by burning woods and many people found their death in the flames. All of Portugal was in a shock, but showed incredible solidarity, like everyone in my humble opinion should do in such a tragic situation… (I, for my little part, donated a pile of clothes to the firebrand victims before packing my suitcase, which might not have been that big of a gesture but still might have hopefully helped someone.)

Having already started packing my suitcase and trying to get my mindset right as I still didn’t realise I was going to leave, I had one last lunch with my Portuguese-for-foreigners teacher, her daughter and the other exchange student girl in my class. The whole thing had — next to pretty damn good Portuguese food — a fairly beautiful parting coming with it. Following the lunch, I had a coffee plus a two-hour talk with my contact volunteer, next to some random Crossfit event. Also that came with a beautifully feeling parting and somehow pushed my mindset in the right direction.

Further into the holidays, I also had been given the possibility to finally go conquer some Portuguese beach areal. Whilst my little hostbrother was surfing in a proficient manner, I was throwing my body into the fairly cold Atlantic as one of the few on the beach — apparently to me, the cold showers I had made a habit of mine over the past months helped me doing so… And here also comes the point where I was about to part with my hostfamily. After a final gathered lunch and a bunch of hugs, I was to meet up with my grandparents on the way to Porto, where we were going to stay for a few more days. The same day, there also happened to be the official end of my AFS programme, which should have ended with one last big camp, but for some reason all people who stayed longer weren’t allowed to attend it… Anyway — the moment I eventually reunited with my grandparents was totally blowing my mind away and got me realising that this experience was really going to end for the actually first time!

So the first day together with my grandparents hadn’t contemplated more than checking in at our Airbnb, I had rented before and a yummy dinner in a sleek restaurant, somewhere in Porto. Fancily ironically, we lived in an Airbnb, which was next to the small and gloomy alley, I originally had my pickpocketing encounter in a few months back. Also, the next morning, there came an Austrian friend to visit us — the girl which already had visited me in Aveiro a few months back — and she went on to bear with us the coming days. So that said next day we fully spent in Porto, being thoroughly enjoyable throughout its course. Starting the day off well, I diminished pretty much an actual litre of cappuccino for breakfast. Afterwards we went on to have a gigantic walk around all corners of the cities, visiting things such as the famous bridge, the cathedral, other churches, the Lello library plus many more sights and on top of all of that we got ourselves into a cable-car and followingly to a great port wine tasting. All in all, that day was simply marvellous!

The coming day we meant to spend in Aveiro, where I by then had become a pretty proficient tourist guide. Starting the day early for my arranged tattoo session, we were already sitting in a coffee in Aveiro’s “avenida” by the inhuman time of 9 o’clock. Back then I, I guess understandably, had already gotten pretty darn nervous. For the past months I had done my very best at convincing my family of getting a permanent exchange year souvenir in form of a tattoo drawn by my uncle and embedded with a lot of meaning through a range of design details. (I herewith also want to thank my uncle for letting me illustrate my blog with his creations!) Arriving at the tattoo parlour a bit early, we still got to enjoy some heavy metal lounge music and see a saw on the wall labelled “Tattoo Remover”. In the end I luckily survived the tattoo session pretty okayish — with admitted mental assistance of my Austrian friend. Since I afterwards convinced her to also get a little tattoo, the whole session took between five and six hours and hence got my grandparents pretty stressed out. After we both were freshly inked, we meet up with my grandparents once more and went to the fish market intending to visit a shop called “Cais à Porta”, with which shop owner I had built a good relation with and in whose shop by then some postcards with the design of my uncle were planned to be getting sold. Once I had praisingly showed that store to my three companions, we went on to visit my hostfamily on the countryside for one last time, where we were surprised by an extensively fashioned afternoon snack/dinner. An hour into the feast, the foil on top of my tattoo started getting off at the edges — obviously way too earlily — and hence we had to return to the city once more so I could get myself a new foil put on top of my fresh tattoo. Right after this dilemma, we caught the train back to Porto and — all in all — had experienced another fantastic day!

Our fourth and final day of our short reunion holiday, my grandparents, my friend and me decided to dedicate to the small but amazingly quaint city of Guimarães. In there, we ended up doing a similar tour as the other exchange student girl in my class and I had had with our original Portuguese professor — and once again, it was wonderful! The rich history, medieval atmosphere and picturesque sights made the trip pay off to its fullest. Lastly — after having returned to Porto by train — we ended our little holiday by having a delicious dinner in an amazing restaurant my friend had recommended us, since she had been there before.

And eventually… the day had come — I was going to fly back to Austria, although I still hadn’t realised it. Shortly summarising the trip: We traveled for twelve hours straightly just to end up in my all-time favourite Pizzeria, in where I still hadn’t realised that I was back by then. It just felt so weird and still feels so weird to be back once again…

Concludingly, I will make sure to resume everything on one more final 12th blog post of my Portugal row and for now — I guess — there’s nothing more left than wishing you an amazing and enjoyable day!

Julian