24 th June: the great festival of São João (Saint John)

São João is celebrayed in many Portuguese cities, such as Porto, Braga( my hometown), Figueira da Foz and many others ...

Madredeus with English subtitles

Madredeus (vocalist:Teresa Salgueiro)

Music from the movie Lisbon Story (Wim Wenders 1995)

The 7 Natural Wonders of Portugal

Portugal is currently voting for its 7 Natural Wonders. There is a list of the 21 finalists in 7 different categories which range from protected zones to caves and which can be voted at www.7maravilhas.sapo.pt.

The winners will be announced in the Azores (itself a nominee) in September 2010.

I have already voted! And you?

The wonders of Portugal

Pictures of Portugal. Music by Madredeus (Portuguese group)



On July 2007 the New 7 Wonders of the World were announced in a spectacular ceremony at the “Estádio da Luz” in Lisbon.

On that same day, in the same location were also announced the 7 Wonders of Portugal, which had been chosen by the Portuguese during the seven previous months.

Portugal has such a rich historical heritage (the initial list included 793 national monuments); consequently choosing the 7 final ones was not an easy task.



Here are the 7 finalists!

Portugal is celebrating ...

World Cup 2010:



Raul Meireles celebrates the first of many. Seven, to be precise. Photograph: Lars Baron/Getty Images

Watch the best moments
Portugal 7-0 North Korea -

José Saramago, the Portuguese writer who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998, died yesterday ...

José Saramago (1935 - 18th June 2010)

Considered by Harold Bloom as the "most gifted novelist alive in the world today" Saramago has combined in his work history of Portugal, myths and surrealistic imagination. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998.

José Saramago was born in Azinhaga, a small village in the province of Ribatejo. In 1924, Saramago's family moved to Lisbon, where his father started working as a policeman. A few months later, his brother Francisco died. Although Saramago was a good student, due to financial problems, he was forced to leave school in order to earn his living. Saramago was educated as a technician, and before becoming a journalist, translator, and writer, he did a number of manual jobs.

He joined in 1969 the Communist Party of Portugal, which was forbidden during the military dictatorship, but he also criticized the party. In the 1970s Saramago supported himself mostly by translation works, and since 1979 he has devoted himself entirely to writing. The author was living on the Canary Islands when he died on 18th June 2010.

Below we can find a list of some of his works.
(Many of his works have been translated into many different languages)

Prose

Memorial do Convento: romance. Ed. Caminho, 1982, Círculo de Leitores, 1984 (English)
O ano da morte de Ricardo Reis: romance. Ed. Caminho, 1984
A jangada de pedra: romance. Ed. Caminho 1986, Círculo de Leitores, 1987 (English)
História do cerco de Lisboa: romance. Ed. Caminho, 1989
O evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo: romance. Ed. Caminho, 1991 (English)
Ensaio sobre a cegueira: romance. Ed. Caminho, 1995
Todos os nomes: romance. Ed. Caminho, 1997
Terra do Pecado : romance. 1947. 2. ed. Lisboa : Caminho, 1997
O conto da Ilha Desconhecida / desenhos: Pedro Cabrita Reis. Lisboa : Assírio & Alvim, 1997
A caverna : romance. Lisboa : Caminho, 2000
O homem duplicado : romance. Lisboa : Caminho, 2002
Ensaio sobre a Lucidez : romance. Lisboa : Caminho, 2004



Read the all article at : http://www.lisbon-guide.info/celebrities/jose-saramago

National exams ...

National exams are taking place in all Portuguese secondary schools for all the students who have finished their eleventh and twelfth grades.

The exams students are taking depend on the course they are attending. My science students are taking: Chemistry/Physics and Biology or Geometry. My art students are taking: Geometry and History of Art. Finally, my language students are taking: a foreign language and Geography.
Today was the day of the foreign languages: English, French, Spanish and German. Students arrived at school loaded with all sorts of dictionaries.

Below you have the links to some national exams. Try them ...

English Exam

Spanish Exam 1

Spanish Exam 2

French Exam

German Exam

Portuguese for foreigners 1

Portuguese for foreigners 2

The Magic of Football ...

The eyes of the world are concentrated on South Africa and on the World Cup 2010.

We are celebrating the magic of football. It's amazing to see the power Football (Am. Soccer) has in bringing the world together.

I hate seeing violence and fanaticism, but I like the sharing of experiences, of cultures and fair play.

I hope the magic of football and fair play will win this competition.

Good luck to all teams.

Portugal, my heart is with you!

http://www.marca.com/deporte/futbol/mundial/sudafrica-2010/calendario.html

Portugal and the Portuguese ...

In this month edition of the magazine Activa, I read a very interesting article about the Portuguese people. The article was written by Catarina Fonseca.

I found it so fun and interesting that I decided to present some ideas.
Free translation

We,Portuguese, are:


fanatic for football

bad at deciding one’s priorities in life- We have a jeep, but we may not have a tooth, because we don’t feel like spending money at the dentist. We have a smartphone, but our dinners are just bread with butter. We spend our holidays at Varadero, but our house mortgage is at risk.

conciliators- There is always a solution for anything. If someone has a car accident, people say : “It could be worse. He/she could have died”. If someone dies, people say: “It was better this way than sit all life on a wheelchair.”

always late- In every classroom or in every workplace there is always someone whose alarm clock failed to ring. Many think: “Why arriving on time?” Then we’ll have to wait for the others. No one likes waiting, we become restless and start thinking about life…

modest- We are incapable of accepting a true appraisal. If someone tells us: “What a nice skirt!” we immediately reply “ I bought it on the sales or “ It’s so old.”

adventurous- Since the moment we set foot on a caravel during the time of the Great discoveries, we feel unable to stop. There is a Portuguese in every corner of the world, no matter how far, hidden or dangerous it is. In fact, the more dangerous the place, the more adrenaline we feel…

sensitive- We always have a tear in the corner of the eye. There is a (bad) poet in every Portuguese. We may have several defects but we have a heart of gold. In fact, we love misfortunes. We are so soppy. We adore love poems (that others write, because we are too macho)

envious- The moment we see someone getting successful and rich, we try to pull him/ her down. If a woman has success, she has reached it horizontally … If a man earns much money, he has licked his employer’s boots. Politicians are all corrupt; laywers are all thieves… Footballers are the ones who may earn more in a second sleeping than we all life working, because they are our reason to be living; besides they are respected abroad.

pessimist- There are no greater supporters of Murphy’s law. Everything that may go wrong, will surely go wrong…

able to find a solution for everything- there is nothing that will not function again if a Portuguese is there. The true Portuguese is the one that had dismantled four laptops, five mobiles and fourteen radios to see what they had inside (when he was only four years old).

insecure- We are afraid of trying, because we are afraid of what people may say about us. We always think that the others will say something negative. Improbably, someone will say: “It was so good you did it, I’m so glad”. No. They will, surely, criticize us. This creates in us a fear that paralyses us. It makes us prudent. Society becomes a litlle bit paranoic. People are too conscious about themselves …

patriotic- We can’t stand hearing someone saying bad things about us. The only people who can criticize us are we, the Portuguese. Obviously.

dangerous at the steer wheel- More than dangerous, we are a totally mortal people: more people die in Portuguese roads than in the battles of Afonso Henriques (The first King of Portugal).

solitary- Catastrophes are our speciality. No one raises funds as quickly as us. We truly like helping. We are good at crisis. We are bad at routines. It’s the destiny of heroes…

addicted – To café (if we don’t drink one in the morning we get furious and start seeing aliens everywhere and start to listening to voices in the elevator; to mobile phones (we have at least four); to food, hmmmmmm!

Free translation

10th June: Portugal Day ...

On the 10th June, we celebrate Portugal Day (Portuguese: Dia de Camões, de Portugal e das Comunidades Portuguesas ("Day of Camões, of Portugal, and of the Portuguese Communities").

Camões, who died on the 10th June 1580, wrote Os Lusíadas ( The Lusiads), Portugal's national epic poem celebrating Portuguese history and achievements. Although it is only officially celebrated in Portugal, Portuguese citizens and also Portuguese immigrants throughout the world celebrate this holiday.

The poem mainly focuses on the 16th century Portuguese explorations, which brought fame and fortune to Portugal. Camões' poem, considered one of the finest and most important works in Portuguese literature, became a symbol for the great feats of the Portuguese nation.

Camões was an adventurer, lost one eye fighting in Ceuta, wrote the Portuguese epic poem Os Lusíadas while traveling, and survived a shipwreck in Cochinchina (present-day Vietnam). According to popular folklore, Camões saved his epic poem by swimming with one arm while keeping the other arm above water.

Although Camões became a symbol for Portugal nationalism, in the year of his death the Spanish king Philip II, known also as Philip I of Portugal, sat on the Portuguese throne. Because Philip was the only heir at the time, Portugal was then ruled by three generations of Spanish kings. Sixty years later, in December 1, 1640, the country regained its independence once again by expelling the Spanish and making John of Bragança, King John IV of Portugal. Spanish kings tried many times to re-establish power over the Portuguese but failed. Since then, because Camões' date of birth is unknown, the date of his death is celebrated as Portugal's national day.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portugal_Day