30th of Movember

The month is almost over and my moustache is almost gone. I did my best to grow it and this is the end result minus a few hours:

From Movember 2010

It has been a fun activity to let the moustache grow, unfortunately it doesn't grow enough to allow me to go wilder and to crazy stuff with it, but at least I made an effort to help this good cause.

I have raised 64£! For that I have to thank everyone who has donated to my page but I would also like to thank everyone who have donated to anyone's page. I hope the end result is good and that the money is well invested in necessary research.

You can see a list of people who have donated in one of my previous posts. Thank you very much again! =)

If you haven't donated and are feeling like doing it, just do it! =) You don't need to give a lot, and you don't even have to tell me your name... any pound counts! =)

You can donate through my page: http://uk.movember.com/mospace/823716/ and I've even written some guidelines to help you out: http://omeio.blogspot.com/2010/11/movember-how-to-donate.html.

I hope you have enjoyed my pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them! =p

#UPDATE
I have now raised 111£! =D Thank you all!! =)

Movember: How to donate!

Before Movember ends I thought I should do a quick tutorial on how to donate, you will see that it is very simple and I assure you that I don't even smell the money! ;)

Anyway here it goes:

1- Go to my page (or other Mo-brother or Mo-sister page)
2- Press "Donate to me" or "Donate to my team"
3- Choose the amount: for example: 5.00 (don't forget to add the '.00' otherwise you will get an error)
4- Enter your card details.
5- Enter your billing address.
6- Press continue
7- Press Process payment. And confirm by pressing "OK".
8- Add a message or select the box that will make your donation and message private.
9- And then choose "Submit Message and Collect Receipt" or "Skip And Collect Receipt".

And that's all! =)

Try it!;)

Movember 12th - Back to the Seventies

Today I had a football match with St Johns and I thought this would give an amazing picture. Too bad my shorts are a bit longer than they would be on the seventies... but the thought is there.

It is also sad that we lost the match today... but we're getting better, today was just 1-0. But I would really love for us to win a match for a change...

Hope you enjoy the picture... and better yet I hope that it gives you an urge to donate! I've already raised 40£! =)

"Senhor do adeus" RIP

"O senhor do adeus" or Mr Goodbye (in my own translation) was a man that lived in Lisbon and that for who knows how many years went most, if not every night, to Saldanha (a place in the city of Lisbon) and stood in the side walk waving to the people that passed by. He did this for so long that he became part of the city and was quite well know.

There was a blog about him created by a Portuguese jazz musician, Filipe Melo, who was his friend and used to go to the cinema every Sunday with him and with another guy called Tiago Carvalho. Filipe and Tiago used the blog to write the "senhor do adeus" views on life and reviews of the films they used to watch. "O senhor do adeus" was also invited to a quite famous radio show called "Prova Oral"(this link doesn't seem to be working...will try to find the correct one later), from Antena 3 a youth focused radio station.

This week "o senhor do adeus" has died and many blogs and newspapers have reported it. In one of the news articles I learned that something really touching happened. A group of more than 100 people got together tonight in Saldanha to wave at the passers by in memory of "o senhor do adeus". Rui Zink (a Portuguese writer, that was there tonight) said this was probably the best "funeral" he has ever seen, and I must agree with him.

The only time I saw "o senhor do adeus" I had already heard of him. At first I had thought that he was kind of weird, and maybe he was, but then I came to believe that he was just one of those characters that make a city unique. Today when I heard that he had passed away I read a bit more about him and got the idea that probably a bit of Lisbon is now gone with him. Later when I saw this news article I felt that if I was in Lisbon at this moment I would have been there tonight. I felt that someone like him who has been there for so many nights trying to help people in a very simple way, waving goodbye at them after each day of work, probably making them smile, deserves a goodbye like this.

Goodbye "senhor do adeus", Rest in Peace.

Movember 2010 - Evolution

As you might have noticed I've added a Movember dedicated space to my sidebar. There I'll put pictures of the evolution of my facial hair. =) Also there's a nice button to donate! ;)

Halloween 2010

Today is Halloween here in the UK and yesterday I went to a party at Darwin College. As always I didn't prepare anything in advance to dress for the party, but in the afternoon I went shopping with Mariana and came across an immitation of a Freddy Krueger claw, and so I decided to dress up as Freddy Krueger.

With a hat, some skin make up and the claw I was ready to party! =)



I should add that the make up was quite a challenge to do, first I painted my face red, then cleaned it a bit, then added black and gray, then cleaned a bit more, and in the end I added fake skin make-up. Now I know that I should've started with the fake skin, and then paint a bit with red, or something like that. But I think the end result was quite scary...

Movember - Request for donations!

It starts tomorrow! =)

Please donate to Movember through this link: http://uk.movember.com/mospace/823716/
.

I'll post my first day picture tomorrow! =)

#UPDATE#
Here I'll list the donations that I receive, sorted by donation date.

1- João Silva, 10£
2- Luís de Castro, 10£

3- Mariana Domingos, 20£
4- Chris Endres, 10£
5- James Cox, 4£
6- Maria Lourdes Domingos, 10£
7- Carlos Fernandes, 4£
8- João Oliveira, 33£
9- Tiago Brandão Rodrigues, 10£

Total: 111£!! =D

Thank you for donating! =)

Chang's Extreme Makeover

Imagine being away from your bedroom for a week and returning to see everything covered in foil... but in a stylish way.

I'm too lazy to tell the story, so please read it here.

Movember is almost here!

Have you heard of Movember before, if so move a paragraph down, if not you should go to this website and read all about it (or just check the end of the post...). Now that you know, you can also go to the next paragraph!

Are you taking part on it this year? You should... it's a very easy way to help, and it's not that difficult to do. It's not like you have to feed it, for it to grow. You just need to style it! I'm going to participate! Join the Movember and bring your friends along! =) Girls can also participate with support and by not laughing... =)

A short explanation: Movember is a portmanteau of the words 'moustache' and 'November' (in Wikipedia). It is also an event run by a charity named Movember Foundation, that aims to raise awareness and funds for fighting against prostate cancer and other men's health issues. The event takes place in different countries, and although it doesn't take place in Portugal it is never too late to bring more countries into this fight. It's very easy to participate just shave your face clean on the 1st of Movember and then let your moustache grow during the whole month. Take pictures and have fun while you help! And don't mind the mockery... I know I won't mind it. =)

I'll let you know how my participation goes!

Protected Planet . Net

Last week on one of the many side events of the Convention on Biological Diversity's tenth Conference of Parties (COP 10) was launched the website Protected Planet.

This website has information about a huge number of protected areas around the world and hopes to inform and alert people to the importance of having these protected areas and of biodiversity. It also wishes to involve people in the improvement and development of the existing information on the different protected areas.

In the Protected Planet website you can edit the geometry of a protected area to match its real form, you can share the pictures that you took there, share your experiences and comment on the information provided by others. But maybe the video on this page will explain it better than me. The same for this page.

This is a new place where people can contribute to the Conservation of Biodiversity and to expand the knowledge on our Planet. And they will be collaborating directly with different experts and scientists that will make sure that the data introduced is correct and accurate.

I think the website is amazing and you should really give it a look. I am also proud to say that this website was developed at UNEP-WCMC, the place where I work, here in Cambridge. =) But you need not worry, because I didn't take part in the project... ;) but James did... and that might not be good =P (joking).

This project has been around the news both in the UK and in Portugal on the last week. Unfortunately most, if not all of them, seem to forget where was the tool built... so I thought that I should let all the 17 of you know, so that you can spread the word. ;) eheheh

Don't forget to visit it!

PS: Another thing I forgot to mention, the website was built in Ruby on Rails.

The Fall is here

I still haven't finished tiding up my bedroom, so still no pictures of my house... sorry about that!

But this post is just about a picture that I've been wanting to take for a while. The trees that surround the road that leads to my work are are covered in the colours of Fall. And it fills me with such a good feeling when I leave work everyday that I really wanted to share with you. I almost forget that the dark Winter is approaching and that it won't be long until I leave work in the middle of the night...

Hope you like it!



PS: It would be much better if the sun was shinning, but when it was... I didn't have my camera...

10

10 months have passed since I moved to Cambridge, 10 months have passed since I started working. And this last week I have been missing Portugal, my family and my friends a lot. And even Mariana is in Portugal this week... so "as saudades" are in huge values.

So to celebrate 'as saudades' of my loved ones (Mariana, Family and Friends) I felt like posting these pictures that I took at the "Praia do Navio" in Santa Cruz, this Summer. In a pseudo-poetic way... =P

Intra-roads: Alcácer do Sal

Alcácer do Sal

New house \o/

I've just moved to a new place here in Cambridge and after one week and a half without Internet I'm back here!

Moving houses was quite the task, it's amazing the amounts of things that one is able to collect in 9 months in a house. But, even so, the biggest challenge has been to find furniture, buy furniture, assemble furniture and even disassemble furniture to assemble it again. Yes, because I've moved to an unfurnished house. But now it's almost perfect! Still lots of boxes to send to recycle and some things left to buy, but it's looking good! =)

I've moved to this house with two Portuguese guys who I met here in Cambridge, and things are running smooth so far, I must say that I'm really enjoying this, even with a back pain.

With the moving I ended up having to drive two vans, which is very cool. I could own one of those... it's the closest I've been to driving a lorry.
I drove an Opel (Vauxhall here in the UK) Vivaro:


And a LDV (I didn't even know this brand):

(The smallest one, I think).

Besides driving these lovely vans I also spent 8hours in IKEA... and I must say that it is too much... way too much! But we got some nice things. =)



We managed to fill 7 trolleys in total, but 3 of them were with big pieces of furniture... but still it was a challenge to move them around.

In this week and a half my bedroom has gone from a perfectly balanced pile of clothes, bags and papers, to an almost 80% tidy bedroom. But there's still some work to do! =)

Now our next challenge is to handle our garbage... here in the UK each house has two bins 'assigned' to them. A blue one for recycling (everything from cardboard, and plastic to glass) and a black one for general waste. Each of those bins is collected every other week, and the collection dates are different from street to street and zone to zone. On my previous house they collected at Wednesdays at 9am, so last week I put the blue bin outside on Wednesday, 'cos I thought I saw some blue bins from neighbours outside... but that wasn't our day. On Wednesday night I saw and confirmed that the bins were outside to be collected in the morning, and I went to my neighbours bins and checked the colour... it was the general waste one... So I thought 'tomorrow morning I wake up at 8h and put the bin outside... and so I did, but the collection truck had passed... at 7h! So now we are stuck with the general waste bin for another week without collection... and the previous tenants left it full... no fun in that.

At least we were able to get rid of most cardboard tonight and the bin is already outside waiting to be collected.

And that's it!

PS: I know I said that there would be some pictures from my vacations, but without Internet it would be a very cumbersome task... ;) Maybe now I'll be able to do it!

Vacations

My first vacations as an employed person are over. I was in Portugal for two weeks and returned yesterday to Cambridge.

During those two weeks I did more than two thousand kilometers by car in Portugal... this map shows the places where I've been.



So my itinerary was:

Porto -> Lisboa (stayed overnight) -> Alcácer do Sal (lunch) -> Sines (shopping and a swim in the ocean) -> Beach of "Ilha do Pessegueiro" (to remember my vacations as a kid) -> Vila Nova de Mil Fontes (for a swim and almost staying overnight) -> Sagres (to watch the lighthouse) -> Lagos (stayed overnight) -> Carvoeiro (lunch) -> Aljustrel (for almost 5 minutes) -> Beja (for shopping and wandering around) -> Évora (stayed overnight) -> Sesimbra (lunch) -> Lisboa (stayed overnight) -> Porto (to change luggage) -> Viana do Castelo (popular party - stayed for two nights) -> Braga (pick up my cousin) -> Porto (to change luggage again) -> Tomar (Music Festival "Bons Sons") -> Santa Cruz (stayed for three nights, beach, family, cards games, and general fun) -> Porto.

It was really nice to wander around without no specific destination, being able to change course whenever I wanted to. I shall do this again, maybe for a longer period. =)

Future posts might contain pictures! =)

There are things that never change...

In my last post here I wrote that I would finish changing my blog's template. But I haven't got back to it yet... and am feeling so lazy lately that I don't think I'll get back to it before September. Hope it doesn't hurt your eyes too much.

Life is going pretty well here in Cambridge. Until last week the weather was amazingly good, which made this city feel even better than it did before. The only downside of it were the colours of the city. The gardens and park didn't get enough water in July and are now a bit more yellow than they were. This made me realise how complicated it would be to have so many parks and gardens in Portugal. Here they don't have watering systems, the rain does the trick... Still I would love that Portugal had have a tenth of the green spaces that we have here. Maybe when I return. ;)

In the Summer the colour of the grass is not only that changes, but also the city crowd. The undergraduate students have returned to their home towns, but the city isn't empty at all. An uncountable number of tourists and "English courses" students have invaded the city and clutter all the streets and roads, specially in the centre. And in the evenings they fill up the parks... and make me think how nice it was to be a teenager. =)

Well now I have to go have dinner at the Jamie's Italian restaurant.... so maybe I'll write some more some other day.

Yes you're in the middle (right place)!

Sorry for the change. I'm just messing around with the new Blogger template designer. I was a bit tired of my old template so I decided to change. But now I feel more like sleeping than trying things out, so I'll leave it as it is, and will back to it later. =)

And this is an amazing chance to put this image in my blog:



A good old "under construction" image! How lovely is that? Taken from here. Oh the 90's! =)

PS: Obviously if you're using a feed reader you probably won't even notice any change. =) Good for you!

Taste of London

Last saturday I went with Mariana and Edward, a friend of ours to a food festival in London, called "Taste of London".

The event took place in Regent's Park and consisted of different stands from some of the best restaurants in London, where they sold or, in some cases, offered their specialities.

There were different types of food, from japanese to argentinian and everything that I tasted (and that I can remember) was very good. =)

Unfortunately there wasn't any portuguese restaurant in the event. But there ware Portuguese wines in a wine testing stand, unfortunately that was on Friday, and we went on Saturday.

The best things I had was some japanese noodles, a lamb hamburger and an amazing beef steak from an argentinian restaurant called "Gaucho". I have to go to this last restaurant to have a complete steak. Some friends' of mine have told me that is one of the best steaks they ever ate. So I need to check it. =)

It was a really nice and yummy saturday evening. Thanks Edward for the idea. =)

And now I'm hungry!

Go Portugal!

The FIFA World Cup 2010 has started in the 11th of June and it has been full of emotion and surprises.

Portugal played their first match today and they got an amazing victory by 7-0 against North Korea. It was an amazing match and very different from our first match against Ivory Coast which finished with a 0-0 draw.

The only sad thing about today's match was the place where I watched it. Since it was at 12.30h I ended up watching it in my computer at work, unlike the first match which I watched in the pub with a bunch of portuguese people that live here in Cambridge. And so you might imagine how annoying it is to see your team scoring for 7 times and you not being able to scream even once. I've all these goal screams packed for the next opportunity now. Hopefully Portugal will have score more goals for me to unleash them.

Anyway it was cool enough to bug my co-workers everytime Portugal scored a goal. =)

And mind you I know the match was against North Korea, but at least until Friday no one can stop me from celebrating this amazing victory! =)

And next Friday I hope to be in the pub to watch Portugal against Brasil!=)

Enjoy the World Cup! And if by any chance you feel like buying me a world cup official ball (the real thing) just do it, because I'd be more than glad to have one! =D

Go Portugal!! =D

British spirit

Doing a barbecue even if it's raining! Because this is the English Spring/Summer!

This was a fine weekend. Thanks to João for welcoming me in Coventry and to Matt to rescuing us from Coventry and inviting us to a barbecue in Oxford! :)

Nice city Oxford, but I still like Cambridge more! :p