PORTO

Had my first day in Porto today. In fact I arrived last night, but didn't get to do or see all that much last night.
We were invited for dinner by the school's headmaster Horácio. And you can't miss it here in Portugal... obviously he took us to a FISH restaurant. Well,... as you might know I am allergic to fish and seafood, but that didn't bother me. I had a nice Colsteletas de Llomo. A good piece of meat.
But,.. when the dish of octopus was brought out, they talked me into trying a piece. I should say I only took a small piece, but didn't even think it was all that bad. More like a piece of chicken with a funny taste.
This morning we walked to the school and met up with all the other guests.
Beside the host school (Árvore) from Porto and us (Sarnico - Italy, Nokia - Finland and my school Wellantcollege) there were three other schools from Portugal represented, and one from Mozambique. Spain had also shown interest but haven't shown up yet.
After some coffee and cake we did an intruction, and every school representative introduced him or herself and the school they represent. I had brought the power point presentation I had made earlier this year for our visit to Italy.
One of the Portuguese schools is also an agricultural institute. We will all visit their school tomorrow for the second meeting. So that will be nice to see. Funny thing was that the school’s headmaster was pretty sure we had met before. Apparently the Dutch look alike.
The host school presented the project they suggested: “Man and tree, reaching a balance”. And all of us talked about the ideas we had on input from our different schools and students.
A wonderful late lunch was offered by the school’s cafeteria.
Unfortunately the weather wasn’t too good today. The first rain since THREE months !
The second half of the afternoon we did some sightseeing and visited an art gallery which used to be part of the school, a beautiful and interestingly decorated church, the Palacio de Bolca and concluded our tourism part with a visit to and tasting session at the Ferreira Porto Cellars. Really interesting. I’m not much of a Porto drinker, but I really enjoyed it.
Again tonight all the teachers and heads present were invited for dinner at a nice restaurant. Pepper steak for me this time!

Enjoy,

HK