Internship PhD
Dear habrayuser, I am not an outstanding narrator, and even not successful, but I want to share my experience with you. With this topic I pursue two goals, first, to open the curtain over study abroad once again, maybe to encourage someone to continue studying, and, secondly, to tell friends and those who are interested in what they had to go through so as not to tell the same thing many times.
It will be about the internship at Universidade Nova de Lisboa under the Erasmus Mundus program in the direction of computer science.
More information about the program can be found on the website . There you will also find universities - participants of the program and all the conditions. But, I hasten to disappoint, according to rumors that have reached me, the program has so far been suspended. In August, the acceptance of applications for the last set of participants was completed and the continuation of the program is still unknown. All paid by the European Union and according to the same rumors, the program has not been accredited, so there is no new set, or not yet.
I learned about it from my professor, then the future professor, last year. He came to the dean with a question about the possibility of internship abroad in graduate school and after the good news that there are enough opportunities, he went to prepare for the entrance exams to graduate school.
With this article, I would like to say that if there is even the slightest desire to continue studying abroad, then you will succeed. Going anywhere is pretty simple. But every year your opportunity to leave decreases. I am not about potential, but about your individual. Every year you get used to the routine more and more. Work, then family, then children. And I'm not saying that you can not leave, you can! But there is fear. I noticed this on myself as well, a year ago I would have left without a thought lag, and this year there was a feeling of fear about how everything would turn out. And older friends asked me the question: “Are you not afraid?”, Although they themselves have rather big experience and internships and travels. With age, the eyes of fear grow larger and, only serious things can make for drastic changes in life.
So, there is a desire - act! If it is not possible to use internship programs, exchange because If you have already completed your studies, then dozens of grants for education in world universities are played out every day. Also, my friend Pavel, with the help of our professor, found out about the University of Trento in Italy, applied for a grant and entered the role of applicant, six months later won another grant, already for full postgraduate education, which is insanely happy, we will remember about it later.
We turn immediately to the university.
Official site and map, where you can find it on the link .
Faculty of Science and Technology is not located in Lisbon itself, but in Monte de Caparica, Almada, Setubal.
So, the entrance to the university.
')
The territory is really huge! A lot of buildings in many of which I have not yet visited, probably will not visit, as superfluous.
Entering not the territory, we see just such a picture. To the right, behind palm trees, is the building in which my “pulpit” is located - CENTRIA (Center for Artificial Intelliegence), department of Informatica of Science and Technology.
This is the same building from two more angles.
The university has a lot of glass doors, here is an example.
I was assigned a workplace in the group that deals with the project where the professor identified me.
Regarding the local post-graduate students, I am not ashamed to call them people engaged in science, not by their ears pulled. The level of English amazes me, I am very ashamed of my English in front of them. I would say that many people speak, even without an accent, without thinking, practically on any topics that were started.
Upon arrival, on the second day, at the university, one of the students of my professor defended his Ph.D. 2 professors from Germany, 1 from the University of Madeira, 1 from the University of Lisbon, and two from the UNL flew to the defense. The defense was really interesting, there was a presentation for exactly 20 minutes and then another 2 hours and 40 minutes questions, then a meeting for 1 hour and then a solemn rewarding with a PhD degree and congratulations. During this time, a lot of questions were asked, turning into a discussion. Everyone knew his work. The questions were why you made such a statement on page 94 or suggested just such an algorithm. It was interesting.
Every Monday at the department are held, something like a meeting. Where are going and professors and graduate students. Basically, one by one, each tells something interesting: he himself invented something and was studying this issue, or saw a new interesting information on the topic of another author, but in order for everyone not to re-read the book, it makes its presentation.
Two words about the project “Efficient Reasoning with Rules and Ontologies”, on which I will work as a team with the rest. It consists in looking in the vast expanses of the Internet, well, or any text, these or other hidden dependencies. In general, keywords related to this project: SemanticWeb, KRR, Belief Change, Ontologies, Logic Programs, Hybrid Knowledge Bases, Updates.
It should be very interesting, but for now I’m joining the project on the topic. At first, it is hard to connect your knowledge base in Russian with new knowledge in English.
I will return to the university and bring some more photos.
There is a small museum at the faculty, although there is a whole picture of one stand.
But the most technologically advanced in appearance, from my point of view, is the library building.
There is also a kind of kindergarten on the territory of the university, is this really the case and who does not leave children there yet.
Next photo of the dining room.
This is a common dining room. But there are also restaurants and cafes in each building. As for prices - lunch costs 2.4 euros. This includes soup, the second with salad, a freshly baked loaf or fruit, and dessert or yogurt and water. The food is delicious and really a lot. It is hard for me to eat everything, after breathing heavily. And the dishes are very diverse every day. Bottom line, I am quite pleased with the food at the university.
There are also sports grounds in the faculty: 1 mini football field, 1 beach volleyball field, 1 basketball court and 2 tennis courts.
About the sport. They probably do everything. There are a lot of sites for football and tennis and it's hard to find time when they are empty. Prices are very affordable: an hour of renting a court costs 3 euros at the university, and in the area where we live, in the park, where, by the way, the courts are much better, the price is 5 euros per hour.
I will give a couple of photos from the university and finish it.
I forgot to mention, I am a graduate student of the Faculty of Informatics and Robotics at the USATT. The dean and, concurrently, my professor, just a gorgeous woman and teacher. She does a lot for the faculty, forging ties with Europe, with two hands in favor of joint projects, internships, etc. Therefore, we have very frequent guests from abroad with lectures and speeches.
I am 25, I have a bachelor’s, master’s degree and very useful work experience. From the third year, i.e. Since 2008, I began to program, so let's say, full-time. And I want to say just a big thank you to my first company in this regard, in which I worked - Ufanet. For three years I have received just a huge store of knowledge, combining everything with full-time education. I will not dwell on the details, technologies and projects. In August last year I went to a startup! At the moment, the team is about 15 people in Ufa. I want to say a couple of complimentary words about this project. The project is really interesting, with a cool team, with huge ambitions and plans for the future. The team gathered really worthy, where you can rely on each other. Here I got a tremendous experience in teamwork. About the project, you can take a closer look at the website by combining all this with graduate school. I will mention again, this is a startup, but you cannot just work in it, either you are infected and immersed in it, or not and leave. I got used to it, we raised it together and I don’t want to leave the project at this stage of its development, so we have already agreed on my role in the further development of the project.
So back to Erasmus Mundus. Documents had to be filed until December 2011. The package consisted of a resume, certificate of knowledge of English, recommendations from a professor in Russia, a letter from a professor from the university where you go (of course you had to choose the area you are interested in, see who does this, write to the professor and convince him that you are You can help and you are interested in research in this area) and, of course, a motivation letter why you want to go on an internship. As a result, in February a commission gathered, considered applications, and points were awarded to each participant. The maximum was 40 points, of which I scored 36. All were evaluated by 4 criteria: your academic achievements, i.e. I took into account the average score, your articles, diplomas, olympiads, etc .; a motivation letter was considered separately; The recommendation from your professor played an important role.
The duration of the internship can be chosen, or rather, you choose it immediately when you fill out documents - from 6 months to 3 years, if I'm not mistaken. I served for 1 year in terms of July 2012 to July 2013, but due to family circumstances, as well as the launch of the open beta system in the end of August, in which I invested a year of life, I postponed the period of internship to the end of September 2012.
Under the terms of the program, after the start of the internship, we cannot refuse it, it sounds kind of harmless, but if you don’t like something, you’ll not be able to refuse. Under the terms of the program, you as a participant are paid by everyone: a trip round trip, insurance, visa costs, allocate 3,000 euros at a conference, and also pay a stipend, in my case, as a PhD student, it is 1,500 euros per month. And if you cancel the program, you will have to return everything.
So, in fact, the collection and visas.
I will be brief here, but I want to dwell on the fact that I was not leaving alone, but with my wife. In addition, at the time of departure, she was in the 32nd week of pregnancy. Yes, soon I will be a father!)) We began to collect documents in June, as much as 4 months and oh, how not in vain. I don’t know why the Portuguese made it up to them, this is actually the country of destination, but the list of documents was simply huge, and all with translations notarized. And our bureaucracy played its part. I needed a certificate stating that I was a graduate student, and they could only give it to me in the 20th of August, because all those who had the right to sign were staff members who have been on leave since July. But, with small nerves, we received our visas 2 days before departure.
This is not the first experience of living abroad. The first time was in 2006 with the well-known and then very popular Work and Travel program. We all really enjoyed it then and we decided to go back to the city of Williamsburg, Virginia in 2007, which we did. My friend and I, from the first year, Pavel pavelk2 before leaving for the second time, knew that we wanted to leave not only for the summer, but to stay there longer. As a result, at the end of the summer, having decided exactly that we were staying, we took an academic at the university with the help of moms, began to reissue documents and stayed there until March 2008. By the way, it was this summer that I met my future wife, whom I took from Omsk to Ufa in August 2008.
Everything was certainly not as purposeful and useful as that of Oleg from this post, but still. It was great, and I would never trade this experience.
For these four years in Russia, English has been forgotten, so it was tough at the beginning.
So, we had a tedious flight and we are in Lisbon.
The apartment was helped to find an acquaintance in Lisbon, so when we arrived we spent the night in a hotel and the next day we moved into the apartment, by the way, here is a link to the advertisement . The amount of 400 euros per month + expenses for gas, water and electricity (I do not know how much it is per month yet).
View of the Costa de Caparica
Panorama
On the right, green is a park where tennis courts are located. By the way, on such a small area there is 1 full-fledged football stadium for juniors, about 5 mini football fields and 5 tennis courts. This is what I met.
The area is very quiet, sleeping can be said. Especially at this time of year. A lot of apartments in the houses are empty, shutters are closed. I would say that half of the apartments purchased by people for the purpose of summer stay here.
The Portuguese, like all Europeans, are good-natured, smiling, ready to help, and their help was very useful to us. The country, like ours, is bureaucratic. To get your wife registered in the hospital, you had to collect a couple of documents - a passport, a fiscal number (something like our TIN) and proof of address. In order to get a fiscal number, you also need to confirm the address. We went to arrange it with a woman who rents us an apartment (she is 68, and her husband is 78). Even she did not know that we need 2 people who will confirm this document, but just that day her husband was not in the city. As a result, we went the next day and ordered this certificate, which, by the way, is given for each institution separately and was issued for 3 days. We already went to the local tax office with her to get a fiscal number, and as it turned out, a person is needed for the residents of the Russian Federation who will vouch for us and again we had to bring these wonderful people closer in the evening to arrange everything. I want to note that they have electronic queues everywhere, everywhere! I speak not only about state bodies, municipal institutions, but even in a pharmacy, in line at Auchan for meat or cheese, just everywhere.
I want to mention a little people who rent an apartment to us. They are really very kind and responsive, and I do not even know what we would do if it were not for their help. In their years, they look very young, like their son, who is 38, and for the first time when we saw him, they thought that it was 27 years old at most. Here they somehow made it so late to marry, have children, and at 35 they look like us at 25 in Russia. Similar and appearance, and thinking and goals, but more fundamentally or something. Those. This is the norm of the first child of a man in 35 and older, and probably this is why children here love and idolize very much, and it’s not important whether your child is a child or not.
Let us return to my beloved's pregnancy and queues, for us they are not here)) seriously, when they see a pregnant woman they miss and help everyone everywhere and how they can, at the checkout in the store, in the hospital, just everywhere. And yes, even medicine during pregnancy is free, absolutely. Even taking into account the fact that we are not citizens of Portugal, and we do not have a residence permit yet, having issued the documents described above, we checked in at the hospital and got to see Dr. Ramil Ramazanov, and he is Russian and he came from Bashkiria and finished our local BSMU. By the way, there are a lot of Russians in medicine here, and they are valued more than local ones.
Transportation here is mega expensive by Russian standards: one trip of at least 1.5 euros, provided that tickets were purchased in advance, the driver had more than 2 times more expensive, we had an unpleasant experience when the tickets ran out. Basically, everyone uses travel cards, but also the one whose cost depends on the district where you need it, i.e. something like a radius in which it will operate and varies from 25 to 60 euros per person per month. As for the transport, they are joking that it was not the Portuguese who introduced him here, because he is mega punctual here. On the roads there are special lanes for buses and you almost always arrive at the same time. They are joking, because it seems like the Portuguese are slow. Although, among my friends the Portuguese, I have not seen such. Both the university and our friends are quite punctual and responsible.
Here everything is very cheap by European standards. Prices for all or in Ufa or below. For example, going to the store for fruits today cost 300 rubles for Russian money, and it bought: watermelon (6kg), grapes (0.5 kg), mini melon for 0.5 kg, 4 persimmon, 1 kg of apples, tomatoes (0.8 kg), eggs (12 pieces, which are by the way mega expensive 60r) and greens. Also, for some reason unreal cheap pork and mega expensive beef. The stores sell small animals simply by taking off their skin.
Pork
Beef
Rabbits
I also liked Auchan, the greens are neatly irrigated with cold, moist air .
As I said, they are actively engaged in it here. Let me give you a couple of photos taken at half past eight on Saturday.
And runners
By the way, about running. In Russia, I had attempts to start running, but every time I literally forced myself to do it and therefore rarely succeeded. In addition, after a kilometer I was ready to lie down and lie down. Immediately, due to climatic conditions, I started jogging from 3.5 km and I would not say that I was tired. For example, today I set my record for the length of a distance of 6.62 km in 32 minutes. And I even like it.
And also surfing. I have not had time to try, but I will definitely do it. There are a lot of surfers here! I go out for a run at 8 am, and there are already 30-40 people per 1 km in the ocean. The waves here are gorgeous, but the ocean is cold, almost the whole year the water temperature is around 20 degrees, a little warmer in summer, colder in winter.
Here telecommunication services here are quite expensive. For example, the Internet costs the first 3 months 15 euros and the next 21 euros per month, this is ADSL with a speed of 12 MB / s, but a stable speed and a landline phone is a gift. Mobile communication is mega expensive. How I miss the MTS with the Super MTS tariff, in which I spent 100 rubles a month for a month. Immediately tariffing per minute, with an average cost of 1 minute of 20 cents, i.e. 5 minutes of conversation is 40 rubles, although this is for calls to a subscriber of another operator. We are lucky that for international students, the university provides a special rate with a subscription fee of 5 euros and all unlimited within the tariff.
Particularly expensive cars to meet hard, dominated by Class C. And diesel, about diesel, here it is on all cars, even the Japanese, and then diesel. I think I have not yet met a car with a gasoline engine. And a lot of small car, in particular, Smart.
I would like to once again note the knowledge of English among the local population. I can not say that everyone knows him, because it will not be true. But, it is possible to express oneself on it practically everywhere: in shops, on the market, on sports. cloak, bus, hospital, etc. But people under 30 know the language very well. There are several factors here, and I will mention one important one: here in the cinema all the novelties are only in English, though with Portuguese subtitles, all new and popular American TV shows are without dubbing and this, in my opinion, is cool!
Instead, I would like to repeat again, there is a desire to continue my studies - Go ahead !!!
After 3 weeks, I will say that we like. Like a country city. Lisbon is a great place with interesting architecture. A huge number of museums, monuments and just interesting places. But you can write about the whole article separately.
Daily walks along the ocean are also wonderful.By the way, there is still 25 in the afternoon, but the truth is, in the evening there is a cool wind.
Plans for the future - I will not disclose them completely, but for the next year I have 2 postgraduate studies, Russian and Portuguese, and work on a part-time project, as well as a small participation in the local GDG, but so far they are not very active.
I will give a few more photos where we managed to go.
PS Football. I forgot to mention their passion - they are sick with football. At the time of the matches, even the local championship, people disappear from the streets.
It will be about the internship at Universidade Nova de Lisboa under the Erasmus Mundus program in the direction of computer science.
A little bit about the program Erasmus Mundus
More information about the program can be found on the website . There you will also find universities - participants of the program and all the conditions. But, I hasten to disappoint, according to rumors that have reached me, the program has so far been suspended. In August, the acceptance of applications for the last set of participants was completed and the continuation of the program is still unknown. All paid by the European Union and according to the same rumors, the program has not been accredited, so there is no new set, or not yet.
I learned about it from my professor, then the future professor, last year. He came to the dean with a question about the possibility of internship abroad in graduate school and after the good news that there are enough opportunities, he went to prepare for the entrance exams to graduate school.
University of Lisbon
With this article, I would like to say that if there is even the slightest desire to continue studying abroad, then you will succeed. Going anywhere is pretty simple. But every year your opportunity to leave decreases. I am not about potential, but about your individual. Every year you get used to the routine more and more. Work, then family, then children. And I'm not saying that you can not leave, you can! But there is fear. I noticed this on myself as well, a year ago I would have left without a thought lag, and this year there was a feeling of fear about how everything would turn out. And older friends asked me the question: “Are you not afraid?”, Although they themselves have rather big experience and internships and travels. With age, the eyes of fear grow larger and, only serious things can make for drastic changes in life.
So, there is a desire - act! If it is not possible to use internship programs, exchange because If you have already completed your studies, then dozens of grants for education in world universities are played out every day. Also, my friend Pavel, with the help of our professor, found out about the University of Trento in Italy, applied for a grant and entered the role of applicant, six months later won another grant, already for full postgraduate education, which is insanely happy, we will remember about it later.
We turn immediately to the university.
Official site and map, where you can find it on the link .
Faculty of Science and Technology is not located in Lisbon itself, but in Monte de Caparica, Almada, Setubal.
So, the entrance to the university.
')
The territory is really huge! A lot of buildings in many of which I have not yet visited, probably will not visit, as superfluous.
Entering not the territory, we see just such a picture. To the right, behind palm trees, is the building in which my “pulpit” is located - CENTRIA (Center for Artificial Intelliegence), department of Informatica of Science and Technology.
This is the same building from two more angles.
The university has a lot of glass doors, here is an example.
I was assigned a workplace in the group that deals with the project where the professor identified me.
Regarding the local post-graduate students, I am not ashamed to call them people engaged in science, not by their ears pulled. The level of English amazes me, I am very ashamed of my English in front of them. I would say that many people speak, even without an accent, without thinking, practically on any topics that were started.
Upon arrival, on the second day, at the university, one of the students of my professor defended his Ph.D. 2 professors from Germany, 1 from the University of Madeira, 1 from the University of Lisbon, and two from the UNL flew to the defense. The defense was really interesting, there was a presentation for exactly 20 minutes and then another 2 hours and 40 minutes questions, then a meeting for 1 hour and then a solemn rewarding with a PhD degree and congratulations. During this time, a lot of questions were asked, turning into a discussion. Everyone knew his work. The questions were why you made such a statement on page 94 or suggested just such an algorithm. It was interesting.
Every Monday at the department are held, something like a meeting. Where are going and professors and graduate students. Basically, one by one, each tells something interesting: he himself invented something and was studying this issue, or saw a new interesting information on the topic of another author, but in order for everyone not to re-read the book, it makes its presentation.
Two words about the project “Efficient Reasoning with Rules and Ontologies”, on which I will work as a team with the rest. It consists in looking in the vast expanses of the Internet, well, or any text, these or other hidden dependencies. In general, keywords related to this project: SemanticWeb, KRR, Belief Change, Ontologies, Logic Programs, Hybrid Knowledge Bases, Updates.
It should be very interesting, but for now I’m joining the project on the topic. At first, it is hard to connect your knowledge base in Russian with new knowledge in English.
I will return to the university and bring some more photos.
There is a small museum at the faculty, although there is a whole picture of one stand.
But the most technologically advanced in appearance, from my point of view, is the library building.
There is also a kind of kindergarten on the territory of the university, is this really the case and who does not leave children there yet.
Next photo of the dining room.
This is a common dining room. But there are also restaurants and cafes in each building. As for prices - lunch costs 2.4 euros. This includes soup, the second with salad, a freshly baked loaf or fruit, and dessert or yogurt and water. The food is delicious and really a lot. It is hard for me to eat everything, after breathing heavily. And the dishes are very diverse every day. Bottom line, I am quite pleased with the food at the university.
There are also sports grounds in the faculty: 1 mini football field, 1 beach volleyball field, 1 basketball court and 2 tennis courts.
About the sport. They probably do everything. There are a lot of sites for football and tennis and it's hard to find time when they are empty. Prices are very affordable: an hour of renting a court costs 3 euros at the university, and in the area where we live, in the park, where, by the way, the courts are much better, the price is 5 euros per hour.
I will give a couple of photos from the university and finish it.
A little bit about yourself
I forgot to mention, I am a graduate student of the Faculty of Informatics and Robotics at the USATT. The dean and, concurrently, my professor, just a gorgeous woman and teacher. She does a lot for the faculty, forging ties with Europe, with two hands in favor of joint projects, internships, etc. Therefore, we have very frequent guests from abroad with lectures and speeches.
I am 25, I have a bachelor’s, master’s degree and very useful work experience. From the third year, i.e. Since 2008, I began to program, so let's say, full-time. And I want to say just a big thank you to my first company in this regard, in which I worked - Ufanet. For three years I have received just a huge store of knowledge, combining everything with full-time education. I will not dwell on the details, technologies and projects. In August last year I went to a startup! At the moment, the team is about 15 people in Ufa. I want to say a couple of complimentary words about this project. The project is really interesting, with a cool team, with huge ambitions and plans for the future. The team gathered really worthy, where you can rely on each other. Here I got a tremendous experience in teamwork. About the project, you can take a closer look at the website by combining all this with graduate school. I will mention again, this is a startup, but you cannot just work in it, either you are infected and immersed in it, or not and leave. I got used to it, we raised it together and I don’t want to leave the project at this stage of its development, so we have already agreed on my role in the further development of the project.
So back to Erasmus Mundus. Documents had to be filed until December 2011. The package consisted of a resume, certificate of knowledge of English, recommendations from a professor in Russia, a letter from a professor from the university where you go (of course you had to choose the area you are interested in, see who does this, write to the professor and convince him that you are You can help and you are interested in research in this area) and, of course, a motivation letter why you want to go on an internship. As a result, in February a commission gathered, considered applications, and points were awarded to each participant. The maximum was 40 points, of which I scored 36. All were evaluated by 4 criteria: your academic achievements, i.e. I took into account the average score, your articles, diplomas, olympiads, etc .; a motivation letter was considered separately; The recommendation from your professor played an important role.
The duration of the internship can be chosen, or rather, you choose it immediately when you fill out documents - from 6 months to 3 years, if I'm not mistaken. I served for 1 year in terms of July 2012 to July 2013, but due to family circumstances, as well as the launch of the open beta system in the end of August, in which I invested a year of life, I postponed the period of internship to the end of September 2012.
Under the terms of the program, after the start of the internship, we cannot refuse it, it sounds kind of harmless, but if you don’t like something, you’ll not be able to refuse. Under the terms of the program, you as a participant are paid by everyone: a trip round trip, insurance, visa costs, allocate 3,000 euros at a conference, and also pay a stipend, in my case, as a PhD student, it is 1,500 euros per month. And if you cancel the program, you will have to return everything.
So, in fact, the collection and visas.
I will be brief here, but I want to dwell on the fact that I was not leaving alone, but with my wife. In addition, at the time of departure, she was in the 32nd week of pregnancy. Yes, soon I will be a father!)) We began to collect documents in June, as much as 4 months and oh, how not in vain. I don’t know why the Portuguese made it up to them, this is actually the country of destination, but the list of documents was simply huge, and all with translations notarized. And our bureaucracy played its part. I needed a certificate stating that I was a graduate student, and they could only give it to me in the 20th of August, because all those who had the right to sign were staff members who have been on leave since July. But, with small nerves, we received our visas 2 days before departure.
Previous experience
This is not the first experience of living abroad. The first time was in 2006 with the well-known and then very popular Work and Travel program. We all really enjoyed it then and we decided to go back to the city of Williamsburg, Virginia in 2007, which we did. My friend and I, from the first year, Pavel pavelk2 before leaving for the second time, knew that we wanted to leave not only for the summer, but to stay there longer. As a result, at the end of the summer, having decided exactly that we were staying, we took an academic at the university with the help of moms, began to reissue documents and stayed there until March 2008. By the way, it was this summer that I met my future wife, whom I took from Omsk to Ufa in August 2008.
Everything was certainly not as purposeful and useful as that of Oleg from this post, but still. It was great, and I would never trade this experience.
For these four years in Russia, English has been forgotten, so it was tough at the beginning.
Portugal
So, we had a tedious flight and we are in Lisbon.
The apartment was helped to find an acquaintance in Lisbon, so when we arrived we spent the night in a hotel and the next day we moved into the apartment, by the way, here is a link to the advertisement . The amount of 400 euros per month + expenses for gas, water and electricity (I do not know how much it is per month yet).
View of the Costa de Caparica
Panorama
On the right, green is a park where tennis courts are located. By the way, on such a small area there is 1 full-fledged football stadium for juniors, about 5 mini football fields and 5 tennis courts. This is what I met.
The area is very quiet, sleeping can be said. Especially at this time of year. A lot of apartments in the houses are empty, shutters are closed. I would say that half of the apartments purchased by people for the purpose of summer stay here.
The Portuguese, like all Europeans, are good-natured, smiling, ready to help, and their help was very useful to us. The country, like ours, is bureaucratic. To get your wife registered in the hospital, you had to collect a couple of documents - a passport, a fiscal number (something like our TIN) and proof of address. In order to get a fiscal number, you also need to confirm the address. We went to arrange it with a woman who rents us an apartment (she is 68, and her husband is 78). Even she did not know that we need 2 people who will confirm this document, but just that day her husband was not in the city. As a result, we went the next day and ordered this certificate, which, by the way, is given for each institution separately and was issued for 3 days. We already went to the local tax office with her to get a fiscal number, and as it turned out, a person is needed for the residents of the Russian Federation who will vouch for us and again we had to bring these wonderful people closer in the evening to arrange everything. I want to note that they have electronic queues everywhere, everywhere! I speak not only about state bodies, municipal institutions, but even in a pharmacy, in line at Auchan for meat or cheese, just everywhere.
I want to mention a little people who rent an apartment to us. They are really very kind and responsive, and I do not even know what we would do if it were not for their help. In their years, they look very young, like their son, who is 38, and for the first time when we saw him, they thought that it was 27 years old at most. Here they somehow made it so late to marry, have children, and at 35 they look like us at 25 in Russia. Similar and appearance, and thinking and goals, but more fundamentally or something. Those. This is the norm of the first child of a man in 35 and older, and probably this is why children here love and idolize very much, and it’s not important whether your child is a child or not.
Let us return to my beloved's pregnancy and queues, for us they are not here)) seriously, when they see a pregnant woman they miss and help everyone everywhere and how they can, at the checkout in the store, in the hospital, just everywhere. And yes, even medicine during pregnancy is free, absolutely. Even taking into account the fact that we are not citizens of Portugal, and we do not have a residence permit yet, having issued the documents described above, we checked in at the hospital and got to see Dr. Ramil Ramazanov, and he is Russian and he came from Bashkiria and finished our local BSMU. By the way, there are a lot of Russians in medicine here, and they are valued more than local ones.
Transportation here is mega expensive by Russian standards: one trip of at least 1.5 euros, provided that tickets were purchased in advance, the driver had more than 2 times more expensive, we had an unpleasant experience when the tickets ran out. Basically, everyone uses travel cards, but also the one whose cost depends on the district where you need it, i.e. something like a radius in which it will operate and varies from 25 to 60 euros per person per month. As for the transport, they are joking that it was not the Portuguese who introduced him here, because he is mega punctual here. On the roads there are special lanes for buses and you almost always arrive at the same time. They are joking, because it seems like the Portuguese are slow. Although, among my friends the Portuguese, I have not seen such. Both the university and our friends are quite punctual and responsible.
Nutrition
Here everything is very cheap by European standards. Prices for all or in Ufa or below. For example, going to the store for fruits today cost 300 rubles for Russian money, and it bought: watermelon (6kg), grapes (0.5 kg), mini melon for 0.5 kg, 4 persimmon, 1 kg of apples, tomatoes (0.8 kg), eggs (12 pieces, which are by the way mega expensive 60r) and greens. Also, for some reason unreal cheap pork and mega expensive beef. The stores sell small animals simply by taking off their skin.
Pork
Beef
Rabbits
I also liked Auchan, the greens are neatly irrigated with cold, moist air .
Sports fields and sports
As I said, they are actively engaged in it here. Let me give you a couple of photos taken at half past eight on Saturday.
And runners
By the way, about running. In Russia, I had attempts to start running, but every time I literally forced myself to do it and therefore rarely succeeded. In addition, after a kilometer I was ready to lie down and lie down. Immediately, due to climatic conditions, I started jogging from 3.5 km and I would not say that I was tired. For example, today I set my record for the length of a distance of 6.62 km in 32 minutes. And I even like it.
And also surfing. I have not had time to try, but I will definitely do it. There are a lot of surfers here! I go out for a run at 8 am, and there are already 30-40 people per 1 km in the ocean. The waves here are gorgeous, but the ocean is cold, almost the whole year the water temperature is around 20 degrees, a little warmer in summer, colder in winter.
Internet and telephone
Here telecommunication services here are quite expensive. For example, the Internet costs the first 3 months 15 euros and the next 21 euros per month, this is ADSL with a speed of 12 MB / s, but a stable speed and a landline phone is a gift. Mobile communication is mega expensive. How I miss the MTS with the Super MTS tariff, in which I spent 100 rubles a month for a month. Immediately tariffing per minute, with an average cost of 1 minute of 20 cents, i.e. 5 minutes of conversation is 40 rubles, although this is for calls to a subscriber of another operator. We are lucky that for international students, the university provides a special rate with a subscription fee of 5 euros and all unlimited within the tariff.
Cars
Particularly expensive cars to meet hard, dominated by Class C. And diesel, about diesel, here it is on all cars, even the Japanese, and then diesel. I think I have not yet met a car with a gasoline engine. And a lot of small car, in particular, Smart.
English
I would like to once again note the knowledge of English among the local population. I can not say that everyone knows him, because it will not be true. But, it is possible to express oneself on it practically everywhere: in shops, on the market, on sports. cloak, bus, hospital, etc. But people under 30 know the language very well. There are several factors here, and I will mention one important one: here in the cinema all the novelties are only in English, though with Portuguese subtitles, all new and popular American TV shows are without dubbing and this, in my opinion, is cool!
Conclusion
Instead, I would like to repeat again, there is a desire to continue my studies - Go ahead !!!
After 3 weeks, I will say that we like. Like a country city. Lisbon is a great place with interesting architecture. A huge number of museums, monuments and just interesting places. But you can write about the whole article separately.
Daily walks along the ocean are also wonderful.By the way, there is still 25 in the afternoon, but the truth is, in the evening there is a cool wind.
Plans for the future - I will not disclose them completely, but for the next year I have 2 postgraduate studies, Russian and Portuguese, and work on a part-time project, as well as a small participation in the local GDG, but so far they are not very active.
I will give a few more photos where we managed to go.
PS Football. I forgot to mention their passion - they are sick with football. At the time of the matches, even the local championship, people disappear from the streets.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/154777/
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