Hello everyone,
I hope you are all well and staying safe. I think the worst has passed already, and the current situation in the world is getting better, including in the UK and in Portugal. Here in Lisbon, we have not been in lockdown since 18 May, but since I still had work to do for university, I didn’t need to leave my house until 23 May. Now we are allowed to go out more. Still, for example, shopping centres were supposed to open, and they are not opening anymore. Restaurants are open, but with only 50% of the space available. But today, I am here to tell you about some fun things that I did last week.
I finally had the chance to go to the beach! As you know I am Portuguese, and I live very close to the beach – just for you to understand, I only need to walk 2 minutes to get to the beach. So having the opportunity to go again and swim was something that I was excited about. It was boiling but the water was freezing. I only stayed for 3 hours on that day, but on the following, I went to a different beach where I stayed a little bit more.
My boyfriend and I bought a swimming pool. I always wanted to have a house with a swimming pool and it’s definitely one of my life goals for the future. This year since my boyfriend’s family moved to a new home, they had a lot of space, and with the current world situation, we decided that it was the best time to buy a swimming pool. We bought an inflatable pool, but it was tough to find it since most of them were sold out. We spent two hours filling it with water, but now we are going to use it all summer.
Also, last week I saw my boyfriend after 3 months and had the opportunity to have a date with him. We had dinner at his house, we ordered sushi because it is one of our favourite foods, and we started liking it together, so it is kind of a tradition for us now.
Lastly, but also very important for me, on Saturday I went to have breakfast out in a café. It is a tradition in Portugal to have breakfast outside of your house in a café. On Saturday I went with my family, we stayed outside to be less dangerous. Still, we were able to enjoy a fantastic breakfast with some fresh air.
Let me know what is the first small thing you are going to do when the lockdown is over. This Saturday is my 21st birthday and it’s going to be a different birthday, but I will tell you about everything that I did on that day.
See you next week,
Madalena Ribeiro