Weekend of Ice!

,WOW, I really don´t know where to start. This weekend was just so much fun. Even though I didn´t even leave Viseu I felt like I did so many new things. Okay, so chronologilcally: Friday I had school, then after I went to make some photocopies,(really cool) and then I went to the bus station to pick up my friend Sebastian Lande, who is another AFS exchange student, at around 6. After we met up in the bus station we headed to go get a bite to eat. I know this really good café really close to the bus station that has these amazing things called Lancheiras, they are like these... I dunno, I guess you could call them pastries, with ham and cheese melted together on the inside. They are probably as big as a slice of pizza, the same shape too but they are semi-round and only one unit, not a slice of anything. They dough is done to perfection, a nice light brown, gooey on the inside and just crisp on the outside, the cheese and ham are layered together and moist and melty. They are so good and are only 1 euro and they really fill you up. Well, we took our Lancheiras and went and sat in the plaza and savored our delicious snack. After that I showed him the central city park and we headed home. After dinner we went to this really cool talent show at the local college. The college really reminds me of SOU in that it´s not super prestigious but it´s fun, has a heart and has good education. This talent show was a benifit for Autism and was packed, a really good sign. The first half of the show wasn´t all that spectacular, a bunch of music performances of mixed age groups, none of which would even compete at the AHS talent show. Then there was a little break with free food and drink, and then the second half. The second bit was infinitely better. There was an acoustic duo who performed, one guy with a classical guitar and the other guy with a traditional portuguese guitar. The portuguese guitar is reallt cool, it´s like a cross between a mandolin and a turtle. It has twelve strings and is shaped like a dome, and the neck is really cool with a hook like thing on top. Well this group was really cool and inspiring. The rest were ok but not really memorable, and then the grand finnally. A TUNA! No, not the fish. A tuna is a special kind of college music group with about 20-30 men all wearing big black cloaks and huge, black, wide brimmed hats with guitars, ukalelees, portuguese guitars, basses, flutes, you name it and a really important instrument:Tamborines. Well this tuna was called TUNADÃO (Dão is the region in which I live and where the college is) and apparently they won a tuna competition or something and are well known. Tunas can be found in colleges all over the Iberian peninsula and are the equivalent to pep-bands in America but really traditional and prestigious. Well, all the guys with instruments made a wide half-circle around the center of the stage and started singing and playing really loudly and boistrusly. Don´t get me wrong it was really good music and it definitely recquired skill but it sounded like someone gave instruments to a frat party and started singing the fight song. Now, this is what Tuna is but somehow it felt more full of art than beer if you catch my drift. As the music kept roaring you could feel a definite build up in the atmosphere of the place and then bam! The guys with Tamborines and flags blasted out into the middle of the stage and started, litterally, beating them selves with their instruments in time with the music. After a minute I realized they were dancing and was awestruck. The flag bearers where twirling away and the guys with Tamborines were doing acrobatics and throwing their instruments, and the whole time the music was blasting and everything fit perfectly together. It was really, really, really cool. Amazing, inspiring, what you want. This lasted till about 1 in the morning and then we headed home exhausted and passed out.
Saturday: On Saturday we woke up and made breakfast and then headed out on an epic bike loop of Viseu. We started with going to Fontelo, the biggest city park, then weaved through the narrow city streets to Sé (Central Cathedral area). There we saw that Sé was closed for about another hour and a half so we decided to head out and return later. After this we went around the town and saw all the monuments. We decided we didn´t want to take the bikes with us back to Sé so we ditched them at home and headed back. At Sé we went into the big main Cathedral and were let into the museum section for free, so we went all around and took pictures and admired the view and all the old stuff. After that we went to the Museum Grão Vasco where we saw all kinds of really cool art. Then we hit up the museum in the other church and headed to Forum (a mall in downtown Viseu). We grabbed a quick lunch in Forum and then we had to recharge Sebastian´s cell phone. After this it was really cold so we went home. For dinner we all went out to my favorite pizza restaurant Piazza Di Roma. We ate and merry made there until late and, after meeting up with some friends of Louis and Sofia´s, we all went home. Know before I say this next part let me tell you a little story. Or more, A History. I´ve never been one for sports video games, I dunno, something about them just doesn´t really appeal to me. What that is I´m not sure, or not willing to say risk offending all you sports enthusiasts out there, Kidding. Well, anyway, I´m just not that great at them and, I pride myself as being a lover of the finer things in life and, not to say that video games aren´t, but... So Afonso is really good at this one sports game called Pro Evolution Soccer and he plays it all the time and I would say he has mastered the art of domination in this particular video game. I dared play him once and found myslef sacrificing my players with red cards at the end of the game just to put a little hurt on Afonso´s, albeit virtual, team. I lost a whopping 8-0. After this I haven´t really gone near the game. Well, After dinner me and Sebi headed down to the basement for a game of Foosball, now Fooseball I have grown to like and would normally be down to play it but we were both really tired so I opted for something less arrousing (we tend to shout and jump around alot when we play Foosbal) and offered we play videogames instead. Sebastian was up for that and when he saw we had Pro Evolution Soccer he said we must play. I warned him of my pre-disposition and he said not to worry. Sure enough he wooped me hard the first game and sent me sneaking of like a dog with its tail between its legs. Sebastian felt bad after this slaughter so he offered to train me in the art of PES. After a couple matches of practice and explination I felt I was ready to test my skills in a real game. This time the score was a little more even and I think he ended up winning by only one point. (In hindsight I see he was going easy on me still) Afonso came down after not to long, and jumping at the opportunity to get out of the losers seat I suggested that Afonso play Sebi. It just so happens that the master (Afonso) was ``out of practice´´ and lost to Sebastian by one point in a sudden death shootout. The next couple of games Sebi continued to assert his dominance and I continued to slip lower in my seat. It was time for bed.
Sunday:Sunday we woke up late and headed straight to the farm for lunch. We ate well and I took Sebi on a tour of the place. We played more foosball and a round of ping-pong before leaving. Instead of returning home we were dropped of at the Palacio De Gelo or Ice Palace to walk around. This is one of the Biggest Shopping malls in all of Portugal and is a 10 minute walk from my house. I think it´s like six stories of sheer shopping madness. The Ice palace has a bunch of unique stores but there is one in particular that is really famous. The Minus 5 ice lounge. The Minus 5 ice lounge is a bar entirely carved out of ice. It costs 13 euros for 30 min. and the bar is kept at a chilling -12 degrees celsius. When Sebastian saw this he said we just had to do it, A because we are exchange students and we must take advantage of every experience and B he saw a show about this on tv and he said one time in his life he would go there and tell his grandchildren about it. So, we went in. I only had shorts on but they gave us full gear to survive in the sub-arctic tempuratures, JK. We had a blast and took well over a hundred pictures. After we went back around the mall and saw a for real Formula 1 racing car. After that we ran out of time and had to deliver Sebastian back to the bus station. We got on the bus and made it home fine and we are left with the memories (and ton of pictures) of a really worthwhile weekend!