AND93

I will start this thread by showing you my local station. I usually take the bus but the stop is really small and not worth showing. So I decided to show you my local subway station. It is the Alvalade Station in the Lisbon Metro green line. Located in center-north Lisbon, Alvalade is a great neighborhood with nice buildings and well-planned main avenues. Behind the buildings we see some upper or upper middle-class city-sized villas. It is a quiet neighborhood even though I live in West Alvalade (the other side of Av.Roma) and that is good, and expansive (yeah that's right, but the house is inherited) but with a much bigger crime rate. Finally, after you're tired of see me blabbing around, here are a few shots of Alvalade station. FYI the last shot was took during the Lisbon Metro 50 years exposition in 2009/2010, where Alvalade's platform 3 (abandoned at least for the next 5 years) received an old Metro train (from the 70's and 80's`) so our trains are not that old. So I hope you reply and enjoy each other's local stations and hubs

Well as a resident of Lisbon I can't really define it only as a government city because it's history takes it to a whole other level: a capital with 800 years that evolved from a castle that we took from the muslims to an incredible metropolis of 2 million through several stages like the worldwide recognized status of co-capital of discoveries (with Sevilla) It really is a beautiful city filled with monuments and mixed commercial and residential areas that actually have it's own beauty. To conclude, I believe historical capitals should be included as a kind of city

Só comecei a acompanhar agora mas gosto do realismo e do conhecimento histórico demonstrado Saudações do outro lado do Atlântico

The station you want is Oriente Station which can be found in here I'd recognize it anywhere as the original one is located 3 km east of my house in Lisbon

So, I guess this isn't really a major topic for me or anyone else in the world, but I guess most soccer fans agree, it's a pretty entertaining sport, and I'd love to discuss it with people around the world and especially europeans in this time of the year. So... What do you think about the european competitions semi-finals? In the UEFA Champions League Real and Barça have the most expected games of the year coming with them both being the favorites to win the competition. Also Manchester United is favorite in the other semi-final, but can Schalke 04 make this their best year ever and surprisingly reach the final? And how about the Europa League? This season my team reached a european semi-final for the first time in 17 years and now, SL Benfica is going to play against our national rivals SC Braga for a place in the final. Also, Portugal reached a record with 3 teams in the semi-finals of a european competition and FC Porto (our greatest rivals at SL Benfica, who are the favorites to win this competition and have already secured the portuguese championship) are going to fight Villareal for a place in the so wanted final So what do you think about it. Let us hear your opinion about it

And now, it is official. F.C. Porto (our greatest rivals) have conquered the UEFA Europa League, in Dublin. Falcao scored the only goal in the game but it was enough and Porto is now officially recognized as one of the hardest teams to beat in europe (I send this message as a warning to all Barcelona and Manchester fans for the UEFA Supercup) Here is the team picture:

As the starter of this post I must confess I love the city much more than rural areas. This might happen because I am still young, but the reason I prefer the city is that everything from culture to sport is avaliable in a few minutes, and that is a great part of my life. For example, when I am in Lisbon (the capital of Portugal), I can easily acess the subway or the bus system that takes me to movies and other shows, football matches or most notably to the downtown (touristic center, great to hang out). When I am in my father's house, near a village in West Portugal, I have to walk at least 15 minutes to take a bus which only stops every 30 minutes to take me to the closest town in 16 minutes (and it has almost nothing to do). Still, rural areas have some advantages like better health (in general) or the calm they provide. But this is the portuguese situation where health, security or technology are acessible to everyone, even in most small villages. So what do you tell me about cities and rural areas in your country? Which one do you prefer? I leave you with two pictures, the first one from the crowded commuter rail, subway and ferry station of Cais do Sodré (downtown Lisbon, where you have a sample from everyone in the Metropolitan Area, even though I believe this is summer time, and people taking the train to the beaches of Cascais and Oeiras) and the second from Monsanto, the most portuguese village in Portugal.

I guess my local store is Continente Telheiras, in Northern Lisbon, Portugal. It was originally built as a Carrefour Shopping Mall but when Carrefour closed it's stores in Portugal (2009), Continente bought all the stores that used to belong to them. It is a large mall, with a very organized Continente franchise and some other known franchises (Toys R'Us, McDonalds...). It has some portuguese franchises included (Worten, Companhia das Sandres...) but most of the mall is composed by small stores all of them offering something cheap and good. It is not even compared to the Colombo mall, 2km north of it, especially in what comes to size and utility (cinema, bowling, fnac, music stores, game stores, sports stores...), but it is much safer and nicer to walk (it is also surpassed by Colombo in accesibility, because Colombo has a metro station and a bus terminal in the ground floor) There is another store, much smaller but much cheaper located near Alameda, Lisbon, in one of Lisbon's finest avenues (Avenida Guerra Junqueiro). It is located in the ground floor of a 1950's building. It is a minipreço, a cheap supermarket company made for Portugal by spanish company Dia. In portuguese these words mean small price (just for a comparison with bonpreu)

So I decided to re-dinamize this post with some pictures taken by me from my daily commute (on the phone, so you can't really expect much quality but they're not that bad) First of all a green area in central Lisbon that I have the privilege to see every day (close to where I study). It is called Alameda D. Afonso Henriques (after the father and first king of Portugal) and it is a very central area in Northern Lisbon. You can also see the subway entrance in the avenue between the green areas http://img545.imageshack.us/i/foto0005m.jpg/ After walking about 2 minutes down Alameda, I catch the subway in the Alameda Metro station. This station is very large and very important as it connects the Eastern line (Red) with the Green Line (Urban line that connects north Lisbon to Baixa to Cais do Sodré train and ferry station, where regular trains to Oeiras and Cascais, and ferrys to Cacilhas and Seixal leave from) and it is used by 10,000 people a day in the worst of chances. It is a place where you can watch all of the different cultures in Lisbon. I couldn't catch an image of all the cultures because it was lunchtime, so that means almost empty station but there are 2 pics from this station http://img121.imageshack.us/i/foto0006mr.jpg/ http://img859.imageshack.us/i/foto0007a.jpg/ So after this I catch the green line train to Telheiras (northern Lisbon). Here are some pics from the train and some stations (the first station is Areeiro and the second is Roma) http://img4.imageshack.us/i/foto0008rl.jpg/ http://img713.imageshack.us/i/foto0009c.jpg/ http://img600.imageshack.us/i/foto0010x.jpg/ So now I catch the 755 bus to Sete Rios. I usually walk home, but as I don't pay more to ride the bus (30 day pass) I decided to catch it and take some pics. The first pic is from Alvalade square, the second is inside the bus and the third one is from my neighbourhood's grocery http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/135/foto0011d.jpg/ http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/2213/foto0012f.jpg http://img859.imageshack.us/img859/203/foto0013i.jpg Due to my few privacy issues I won't get any closer to my house but I hope you enjoy the pics

So it looks like we have the finals decided. While the UEFA Champions League mantains it's tradition of presenting a strong final (with two of the best teams in the world in my opinion), the Europa League has a portuguese final that opposes Porto to Braga in what seems to be a really strong game. I must confess that I'm disappointed with Benfica but Braga proved their value by eliminating my team. So my bets are going to Barcelona (best team in the whole world in my opinion) and Porto (they're really strong and Falcao has already scored 17 goals in this year's EL) Who would you bet in these finals?

This is going to be awful... Now he's a martyr and al-Qaeda will get their revenge. I hope I'm wrong but this is very dangerous. I would prefer the arrest, even with it's danger but it wouldn't be as dangerous as killing him

Well as a fan of José Mourinho's work, I have to say that was actually the worst press conference ever... I mean he's usually arrogant but that's part of his psychological manipulation (believe me, I'm used to it), but that was a really unusual press conference even for him. And yes, even for a Benfica fan like me (we lost 5-0 in Estádio do Dragão... and we were second place this year) this was a real surprise. Oh and finally I agree that Schalke can make a surprise. I mean Manchester is probably unprepared to suffer any goal and Schalke can still make the surprise.

So after this week, both the UEFA Leagues have now only two more games to be played before the so wanted finals In the Champions League, Manchester United has beaten the surprise candidate Schalke 04 Gelsenkirchen by 2-0, a game that is not over, but it's mostly finished if Schalke are going to keep playing like this. Also, the most watched game in years, Real Madrid-Barcelona ended with a 2-0 victory for the Catalans, and a red card to coach José Mourinho, that won't be in the bench against Barça in Camp Nou. In the Europa League, the portuguese final is a dream really close to come true, after Porto beat Villarreal by 5-1 after a surprising game which started with a 1-0 halftime win for Villarreal. Finally my own team S.L. Benfica has beaten our northern rivals S.C.Braga for 2-1 in an exciting match actually pretty predictable, even if Braga has surprised Kiev and Liverpool before (but this is not over yet) So what do you think about these results?

I understand. East of my neighborhood in the heart of Alvalade there are about 700 townhouses isolated from the rest of the city, yet connected to two main avenues, both close to all the metropolitan area, and they have all the business they need there. It is very expansive but it is surely a paradise to it's inhabitants who get to live a "suburban life" (the american concept, not the european one...) in the center of the city

How about folar? It is one of the most appreciated traditional cakes in Portugal, and foreigners always seem to enjoy it. It doesn't look really good but has a remarkable flavor and it is not really hard to make. In the last few years it has been adopted in other countries as Spain, France and Belgium, outside the portuguese communities It is a traditional Portuguese bread served at the Christian holidays of Passover and Easter. The recipe varies from region to region and it may be sweet or salty. It is traditional to offer folar to godfathers and priests at Easter, in imitation of the distribution of bread at the Last Supper. Folar is sometimes served with a boiled egg, that symbolically represents rebirth and the Resurrection. Folar de Chaves, popular in the north-eastern Portuguese regions of Chaves and Valpaços, is stuffed with pork, ham, salpicão and linguiça (this is the salty version). Folar de Chaves

Glad to hear that! I love countries who have a huge diversity in what comes to sport, because in Portugal people only care about soccer (we used to care about rink hockey, and now rugby is becoming really important between high-class members) and it is really hard for me to play any other sport. I also happen to love hockey and I'm very curious about other sports. And anyway, thanks to a friend of mine that used to live in Canada (His parents emigrated for about five years) I already knew that about soccer (All of his neighbors in the portuguese neighbourhood of Toronto (I guess it's called Little Portugal or something) were crazy about Porto and Benfica. Also, I love how most of you people from actually developed countries (Were not really developed in mind) support your local team, because everyone here supports the big three and it's quite annoying (well, I support Benfica but they live 1km away from my house)

I'm now working on the region of São Verde It is now democratic but it has a long history 1926-1931: New Portuguese Republic (in response to Portuguese army dictatorship) 1931-1933: New Kingdom of Portugal (Paiva Couceiro takes the lead) 1933-1938: Socialist Republic of São Verde (Bolchevists win the war) 1938-1965: Socialist-Democratic Republic of São Verde (Social-Democratic leader Alfedo Silva takes control and approves a left-wing democracy 1965-2005: Democratic Republic of São Verde (almost a full democracy but only portuguese-verdian catholic white men could vote... which were only 30% of total population) 2005-present: Republic of São Verde (after 20 years of protest, São Verde became a full democracy... still quite the dictatorship as I control everything) But after all of this, São Verde is still corrupted by wild capitalism, in contrast to the communism which also destroyed much of what the country could offer. And the fascism regimes... Well it didn't work for our neighbors and their own neighbors (Portugal and Spain) I guess this won't work anyway (we're southern europeans, this could never work)