The good-bye problem
The end of the Erasmus semester turned out to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand the weather became so hot I stopped taking leather jacket with me everywhere I go. Well, except for the evenings, after the sun goes down the jacket still comes in handy. On the other hand my friends started leaving Portugal and it makes me sad. We all knew this moment would come, but nobody wants to think about something like this. One shouldn’t, really. I see two different solutions to the “good-bye problem” which are a) just don’t make any friends b) don’t dwell on good-byes, don’t think about how this is the last time you are seeing someone, doing something, going somewhere, because there is absolutely no way to know that for sure. Don’t overdo it, nobody is dying. Try your best to deal with this issue as graceful as you can.
The first friend to leave was Asia (“AH-shah”, don’t pronounce it like geographical location). On the day of Asia’s departure me, her as well as around 30 other people suffered through the exam in cryptography. The questions were hard, they required advanced maths skills along with being able to attack cryptography protocols in my case after about 4 hours of sleep. Afterwards there was a good-bye brunch with a group of friends during which we had to challenge ourselves drawing the flags of our countries. I will miss Asia a lot. She was my Portugal complaint buddy, our interesting facebook event researcher, professional selfie-maker and a travel destination inspiration.
Today was the last time I have seen Jenny in Lisbon. I am trying to convince myself a friend leaving Lisbon doesn’t make me sad. Without much success to be honest. At the same time I had an opportunity to get to know Kathi, good friend of my friend Kathi. In the morning me, Kathis and my flatmate John went to a flee market called Feira da Ladra just to take a look at it. Afterwards me and girls enjoyed the view from the top of the Rua Agusta Arch and went to have a lunch at a fancy hipster place Nicolau. They don’t take any reservations in advance, so we had to gamble on getting inside in less than an hour by standing in a line, which worked out astonishingly well. Jenny joined us later and we talked while sitting next to the river for quite some time. For me it was one of these perfect days spent in the summer heat talking about everything and nothing in particular.
