Goodbyes in Portugal

Before coming to Japan three days ago, I spent my last days in Portugal with Maria. In the previous post I talked about our trip to Coimbra. Here I will put some pictures from our time in Vila Real and Porto which was also great.

We enjoyed a very nice weather in Vila Real so we walked to our favourite places near the commercial centre Dolce Vita (the big building in the picture), where there is a nice park with a river and some cliffs. In Dolce Vita we went to watch the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" and we both loved it, definitely a must see.

Life in Vila Real is very calm and relaxing. There are very nice coffee shops everywhere where you can have a coffee and some pastry for very reasonable prices. In one of them, I made a drawing for Maria's flatmate Iva and her boyfriend. They are both from Czech republic (Brno). Iva had lost her Dolce Gabanna fashionable glasses but she was lucky enough to get them back.

Vila Real's library had very modern installations and an interesting architecture. Inside the library, they even had sofas and equipment to watch DVDs.

Although we only stayed in Porto for one morning we had time to see quite a lot. At the old town, probably the most beautiful part of Porto, there were some swedish football fans because that day there was a match against Portugal.

After walking sometime we reached the Crystal Palace where I took this cool pictures with Maria's camera. Inside the building there were University students showing what kind of things they do at their faculties. I found it very useful for future students that are still choosing what degree they want to study.

Maria also took me to a very cool and hidden tea place nearby. She asked for some "magic" green tea and I asked for one that was a bit more expensive because I was expecting to get something cool, but in the end it wasn't that cool. They had tea from virtually every famous tea country in the world, especially from China.

After the tea, I gave a pin with the Basche country flag to Maria and we entered a very old bookshop that had very interesting books and a nice internal architecture.


See you soon Maria ;)

Coimbra

Maria and I went to visit the beautiful city of Coimbra, Portugal. I had already been to this town with my cousins but I only had time to see the Portugal dos Pequeninos model city.

We took the Rodonorte bus from Vila-Real to Coimbra which stops in the centre of the city, near the tourism office and the river.

Coimbra is famous for its University and its Library. In the picture above I'm sitting next to this old library called Juanina.

The city has a very nice architecture and sometimes there are Arabic influences in some of the buildings.

I love the movie 'Lost in Translation' so sometimes I posed in my pictures saying 'whiskey Suntory' or 'Rat Pack' like Bill Murray :).

Maria posing with Coimbra in the background very close to the Portugal dos Pequeninos model city, which is in the other side of the city.

Our hostel in Coimbra (Grande Hostel de Coimbra) was quite nice and centric. Breakfast was included, they had internet and a living room with books and movies to watch. The staff was nice and helpful.

Looking for the keys of her car. Obviously this picture is fake, she is too tall for that mini car :D.

Maria and I use GNU/Linux as operating system and we also like its pet: a penguin hehe

There are very nice views from Forum Coimbra, a commercial centre in the other side of the river. In the commercial centre there are lots of shops (including FNAC bookshop) and restaurants. We went to eat in a Japanese restaurant but it wasn't very good.

Maybe you noticed that this post has great pics. There are several reasons. They were taken by Maria, with a nice Nikon camera and with the beautiful light of Coimbra. In the picture above we see that some costumes (talking in the main square with your friends in a circle) are going to be kept by the next generations :).

Drawjam-sessions

In the beginning of 2008, some friends from Bilbao and me decided to create the drawjam-session website as a place to upload pictures and drawings from our meetings. We share this great hobby of comics and illustration! :)

Some weeks ago I went to Bilbao with Maria to say our goodbyes before I move to Japan for my scholarship. We had a very nice time in Bilbao and although I won't be able to attend the next drawjam sessions in person, for sure I will be there virtually.

More details and pictures here, here and here!

Spring has come to Santander

A few weeks ago Maria came to visit me in Santander. We walked by the coast under a beautiful blue sky and visited most of the interesting places there. For me it was also sort of a goodbye to the city where I have been living for the last eight years.

More pictures and lots of details in Maria's blog!! :)