New Life

Since the first time I stepped on the floor of Hamburg, I suddenly felt that my Life would unexpectedly change.
In a blink of an eye, I said Goodbye to my old and monotonous Life and I said Hello to a new and spontaneous Life, which I like a lot more.

A Life I truly love.

In my new Life, I have something I always wanted to achieve: Independence.

In this Life, I have created my Own World, exactly how I idealized it but I must know how to take control of it, so it doesn't destroy it self.

This is a Life where I have my apartment with my bedroom, my kitchen and my living room, which I can personalize the way I want but where I have to know what to do so I can keep them in a good state.
This Life is teaching me how to survive and to grow up in every senses: personal, responsible and sociable.

And...I just love it!

Because...

It's the greatest challenge I have ever had and the best experience ever!

I'm loving this New Life!!!

And I used to think I had grown up when I got job this year...lol

Now it's the time I can really say: I am growing up!

Laundry day

After two weeks in Hamburg, I had today my first experience with the washing machine, which was not very good.
Firstly, we just have 3 washing machines, and other three drying machines for more than a hundred people. Of course it's not enough for everybody.
Secondly, the machine to put the coins doesn't give change, and doesn't accept coins of 5cent or bills. So, I had to put more money that I needed because I didn't have change.
Thirdly, I hate the drying machine, it started whistling saying it had a technical error. So I had to call a man, who was in the secretary, and had to pay again!

And now I can't sleep, because my sheets haven't dried yet!

Happy Birthday- I don't know you!

It's becoming a habit for me, as it is the second time this week, to go to birthday parties that I don't know whose the birthday is.
But here it doesn't matter if you know the person or not, as it is just one more reason to party (because we don't have enough)!
However for me is very weird because I'd never do this in my country, it's considered to be disrespectful.

But Hamburg has no rules, so Happy Birthday stranger!

So Far Away...

The buildings, the people, the weather, the habits, the mentality...

Here in Hamburg...everything is definitely different.

I deeply feel a big distance from my home country, Portugal.
It's not a physical distance, envolving miles but a psychological distance because here people are more open minded and they are not so judgamental neither are they constantly having prejudice of somebody.

Here, I feel the total freedom of my soul because I feel I can be myself, without caring about the others' opinion because they won't judge me, like in Portugal.

Everbody here is focused on their lives and on what they want to do with it plus they are very respectful to the others, besides their typical coldness and reserve.
They have a total different tradition from mine but they are more civilized and proud about what they do for living and that is just great. :)

I feel so far away from what I used to be and very surprised about what I am start to be now. :)

But besides this feels a little weird, it is really good to me because...

I start to feel and to have the security and the comfort I always looked for but I never had before.

Katharinenstrasse und Katharinenkirche

On friday while looking for the harbour, I found my church : Katharinenkirche - Katharina's church. Unfortunately, it was under construction, so we couldn't see it's beauty. However, we entered and saw pictures of how it was in the past. And we heard something coming from the inside of the church, we looked at each other and decided to see what was that noise. It was a man playing an organ, on two keyboards with his hands, and on another one in the floor with his feet. It had an amazing sound, so we stayed there just listening to him..
We eventually found the harbour and in the way we found my street...

Well, my church is under construction and so am I. I'm getting to know myself here in a way I never thought. In Hamburg I have the opportunity to just be, just be myself! And I'm grabbing it. There's something inside me that wants to come out just like the sound of the organ inside the church... Step aside, I'm in my way to self-knowlegde.

Hamburg

Everyone keeps on asking me how it's Hamburg and the first word that comes to my mind is HUGE! Hamburg is huge, in fact is the biggest european city which is not a capital.

Huge is the adjective which best characterizes this city.

For you to have an idea, here there are:

5 KFC's;
24 Starbucks;
50 H&M's;
61 Mcdonald's;
91 Subways;
and
623 Hamburger Sparkasse (the bank of Hamburg);

So you can see this is really huge. And as I do have a life, I won't count the Döner Restaurants, which exist in every corner of Hamburg.

Second Week

Diogo, who are you licking?

This is the sentence with which this week starts.

This is actually a sentence wrote by my best friend Catarina, who took care of revealing to everyone in facebook my little secret in a photo of the Bar Paul Sudeck’s in the day of the barbecue.
In this photo, it seems I am licking a Spanish boy, so from there on I got “famous”, which means, everyone of the group started to mock me about that and now I am known as the Serial Licker.

In this week, I had the pleasure of going to a portuguese restaurant in Hamburg.
The food was really tasty and good. It was fantastic to be back in the Portuguese environment for a little while. I loved it.
And then, I met again with my great friend, Piga!
The one who got me drunk last Wednesday, making me also dance, scream, trying to lick everyone around me and put my tongue out and unfortunately…Well I think I can skip on this part. It’s too gross to tell.
After this good, good drinking night, I decided to break my relationship with Piga because I realized she’s not my friend but my killer, who brings up perhaps the best and the really worst of me!
In the next night, we went to Berliner Tor, to a Party in some unknown residence, which was a little bit lame and in the weekend, I stayed at home resting the whole day and Saturday at night I and the group came back to Reeperbahn and we went to a Rock Bar, which was really cool and where I ended up having lot of fun, besides I thought I wouldn’t.

In this Sunday, I stayed at home the whole day, resting and getting ready for another unpredictable week!

Are you ready?


Diogo, who are you licking?