I have quite a few friends who can be truly happy for me .

Oh Dear… I am haunted by the things I liked the least at Uni.

First it was spectroscopy. A small chapter in our studies that I hated and was quick to forget. Now I am doing a PhD in spectroscopy.

Now… Now it’s crystallography. It was one of the most difficult modules of the course, most people failed the exams and took more than one year to complete. Besides the subject being difficult, the tutors were even worse. Especially the practical classes one. We called him D’acord, an expression he used a lot. He would sometimes start speaking in Russian, German, French and who knows what else. Some of us realised that he used those languages to swear and insult us. He was quite a character and one of the reasons why I hated General Geology and Mineralogy classes. After I passed all his modules I looked back and laughed because we all had stories to tell about him.

Now I’m paying for it. And I am having to go back to ‘The Bible’ as he called it. The Manual of Mineralogy that he suggested we shoud read as a romance before we go to bed. It’s horrible! I must admit the book really is a ‘bible’. It has a little bit of everything, but what I have to study now to write on my thesis…ewwww this is painful…

Talvez tenha deixado de ser parva. De respeitar quem nao me respeita, de desculpar o que nao tem desculpa, de esperar o que nao existe e de me desiludir.

Chamem-me ma, digam que mudei, que a culpa e disto ou daquilo. Para mim e tudo muito simples: contem com aquilo que me dao. Cansei-me.

A expressao olho por olho, dente por dente tambem se aplica as coisas boas.

Translation

Different? Maybe…

Maybe I just stopped being stupid. Stopped respecting who doesn’t respect me, excusing what has no excuse, and expecting what will not come and be disappointed.

Call me mean, say I’ve changed and try to find reasons for it. For me it’s all very simple: Count on what you give me. I had enough.

The expression and eye for an eye can be applied to good things as well.

English person: So how many medals did we win today?

Portuguese person: So did we win any medal at all this year?

(yes we already won a silver  )

So after a few days looking for the ring and seeing family and friends we headed off for a real, resting holiday.
My stepmum’s family has a small house near a beach in the north of Lisbon so there we went for almost a week of beach, good food (lots of fresh fish, very good bread and local cakes), putting back some weight, and fantastic views.
Russ is not used to being on the beach so he got a bit bored. But I loved the 3 S: Sun, Sand and Sea! Oh and the sea was great!

So the first few days we were in Portugal were spent looking for the engagement ring. We decided we would buy it there because it’s cheaper and the quality is better.

It was quite a task! It is not easy to find a diamond ring for my tiny hands and fingers. One of the people we spoke to even said that there are not engagement rings for children for sale yet! The problem isn’t even the size. That can be changed in a day or two. The problem is that it needs to be in a very specific shape in order to look good on my hands. And for that it couldn’t be the traditional model, which has a very high base for the diamond. It needed to be a very low cut with the diamond very close to the ring itself.

We saw a ring like that. We fell in love with it. We both loved it. It was even the exact size, no changes needed. But it was very expensive because the quality of the diamond was very high (it comes with a certificate) and the model was modern. We went back to see it several times and we started to give up on finding something else. We’ve seen dozen and dozens of rings, none of them looked good.

We finally decided that it had to be that one. It’s a one off thing. We’re only supposed to buy one and spending that much money it has to be perfect. But we had to transfer money from our savings account and wait for it. We are now completely broke but happy It’s so shinny and sparkly!

After a long day of travelling, we picked up the wedding books (took a look-oh dear there is so much to think about), went shopping (didn’t have ANY food in the house), I took a nap, and now we are looking for a theme for our wedding blog (this is news, will give you updates soon).

I am absolutely knackered and I don’t want to think that I have to go to work tomorrow, but the truth is, I am quite ashamed to say, I am very happy to be back home. I really wanted to come back as weird as it may sound. To my house and to my daily life. It seems like this is home now. Just the food and the weather could be a bit better

I’ll write something about the holidays soon

I’m going to Portugal! Wake up at 3 am and I’m on my way

And my flag is back in the office!

Portugal!!!!