This Is (Almost) The End

5th February, 2018

I am not very good at ending things. 

I am also not very good at starting them - most of the times I find myself in the middle of something because I never think much of my next steps in life, I just go with them. 

"The True Nature of Anthropologists Comes Out", Braga, 27/01/2018

So I guess this is probably why, at the beginning of my fifth month of Erasmus and with only ten days left, my mood is on a swing worse than Trump's Twitter feed and I sometimes struggle to find the bright side of things. 

Alice and Andrea in Guimarães, 28/01/2018

As I predicted, this last month has been very, very weird and long - January lasted centuries, from my point of view. 

First I was studying for my final exams (while struggling with a flue, which has not been nice - thank God my friends were here and in the same situation as me so we could support each other making soups), then my international friends started to leave and my Italian friends came to visit, then I was wandering around Northern Portugal and now here I am, in Lisbon again for one final fortnight. 

Maybe I should start, once again, talking about Lisbon, because this city has so much character that, for me, is as much part of my Erasmus as my friends. Mid-January has been an intense, emotional time for me as I started to say goodbye to people and when I left the city to go to Porto with my friend Alessandra and to start my final trip in Portugal, I felt like I was saying goodbye to an other friend - which is stupid, because I am now back here but I somehow feel like my relationship with her is different, now that my friends are not here. Relationship are what makes life worth living it and they shape the space we live in, and I have never seen it more clearly than now: those places I spent so much time with my friends in are almost empty and senseless without them. Nevertheless, they hold a familiar feeling which makes them dear to me and it will be hard leaving this city once again, this time for a longer period. 

You have no idea of how much wind was in Cabo de Roca on the 25/01/2018. I was not posing for a picture, I was trying not to fly away.

I remember that, before starting my Erasmus, I was reading a blog post on the end of the experience and they said something that I think is very true. Despite keeping in touch with their friends and seeing each other again in different cities, they said, no place ever belonged to them, was "theirs", like the city where they lived their exchange. This thought came to my mind the day after me and my friends had our final night out all together (there would be an explicative picture of what I am about to say now, if Someone hadn't had his phone stolen before sending me the photo). Anyway, in this lost picture we five (me, Alice, Andrea, Tomáš and Jara) were all together on the couch of "our" bar, the Crew Hassan, and it was just perfect, you know, because it was us in the place that best represents our Erasmus (we spent an uncountable number of nights there). We will see each other again in Milan, Berlin or Prague, but no place will ever belong to us as much as that couch in Crew Hassan. It's where we started to know each other, it's where we wrote our story and got to be friends,  and it was very well fitting that we ended this part of our life there, together. I will always be amazed by the thought that all of us, during our life, had to take some decisions, sometimes little, sometimes big, that had us meet in Lisbon and eventually led us there, on that couch, sharing nothing but the pure joy of being together for one last time before who knows how long. 

(So yes, I am truly broken-hearted that I don't have this picture. Instead, you can admire us in the first picture we took together, in which we are very much younger and innocent and prettier)

"The Beginning of Everything", or "Wtf Happened To Us In The Last Five Months", 20/09/2017

I must be prone to this kind of soppy stuff lately because I remember that, back in December, I had an other moment of enlightenment while we were all together at Andrea and Jara's flat for dinner. Some music was playing in the background, Alice and Andrea were chatting, me and Jara were drinking wine and Tomáš was cleaning the dishes and suddenly, out of the blue, I thought "I really love these kids"; and the same happened when I came back to Italy and I was out with my friends and *bam*, suddenly there it was again, massive love for this crazy bunch that I have known since forever. But it's good, you know, to have these moments in which you feel the love for the people you are with, because moments like these are what makes you go through difficult times.

I must be the worst misanthropist ever, considering how much I am talking about love for friends.

To sadden the mood, have some Lisbon with fog, 23/01/2018

Enough with the soppiness. After my last exam, I just had the time to go visit Jesus (it's less spiritual than it seems, we just went to the Christo Rei statue on the other side of the Tejo river) and then my friends Patrizio and Nati came to visit me, soon joined by Ale. I loved having them here and sharing "my" city with them, even though I was a little bit sad that, for many reasons, they didn't get to meet any of my other friends but Alice. I had a very weird moment when I realized I was in my Portuguese living room and my friends from "before" were there. Seeing the two worlds overlapping like this, with almost no one from the "now" testifying it was not all a dream, was a strange experience.

Nati, Patrizio, Ale and Me in the Castle of Lisbon, 24/01/2018

(We need to work more on our selfie skills)

Me and Ale left for Porto and we spent a day there together, then she flew home and I joined Alice and Andrea in Braga. The next day we moved to Guimarães (which is super nice, I really wished I had spent more time there) and then it was just me and Alice in Porto again. I have never been a big fan of Porto, but after visiting it better I appreciated it more. As Alice had to be back in Lisbon and I didn't, I stuck around for one more day and I spent a lovely afternoon by the ocean, completely mesmerized by the waves and the scenery. I am a Romantic (like the artistic movement, not that I am very romantic) at heart and I felt like a heroine from the 18th century, trying to sort out myself in front of a rocky ocean.

Except, I only half-managed to get things sorted out (I'm proceeding by baby steps), and there was no brooding English man waiting for me on the cliff. The gothic novel that is my life kinda sucks.

(Yes, I watch way too many period dramas)

Foz Do Douro, 30/01/2018

My trip ended the next day in Óbidos. Gosh, I loved Óbidos - there were not many tourists around so most of the time I was alone in these medieval alleys and the magic was real, I expected someone to come out and shout "The Moors are coming! The Moors are coming!" or to throw their faecis out of the window like they did in the Middle Ages any moment. 

I had the need to be alone in the good way, you know, the way when you are not lonely but you crave loneliness. It was nice. It helped me understanding some things. I read a lot. I wrote a lot - which was super nice, considering that, for someone who keeps saying that loves writing, I have been writing very little lately. 

Obidos, 31/01/2018

I better wrap this up or no one will get to read the end of it. 

In the end, I think Erasmus (but generally speaking any experience abroad) is exactly this - not only finding friends and visiting and learning a language, but also finding a little bit of yourself in every place you go. I learnt how to be alone with myself, which has not always been easy, and I discovered a lot of things about me, my weaknesses, my flaws but also what makes me...me; I have always known that some experiences I had in the past had influenced me, but seeing it at work, shaping the way I think of myself and the way I live relationships with other people, was totally different. I think I know, now, where I have to improve to be a better friend and to like myself more. I learnt a lot about friendship, and love; love may suck at times, but being in love - with someone, with your friends, with a city, a country, a tv show, a song, take your own - is the best feeling ever.  Friends sometimes hurt each other, and you can tell you have good  friends if they stick around and try to heal you.

Foz do Douro, 30/01/2018

So, this is it. I rambled a lot as usual - sorry about it. In case anyone is interested in it, I will soon publish a post about the themes of trauma and resilience in Broadchurch, starting a series of pieces about anthropology and tv shows (or movies, or books, or anything that I like actually). 

I hope this was not too boring or pretentious, if so please throw rotten tomatoes at me - and please let me know if there are many big errors. 

Thank you so much to those who keep reading my ramblings,

Beijinhos!