Ramblings of a Young Adult

The night of Halloween, the time where witches walk the streets but, more importantly, kids get candy. I was one of those kids. At the time of this story I was probably like 11/12? The time when your parents let you go trick or treating with your friends but you can’t go far away. So, it was just me and my 4 other friends. Like every other year we all got together at my house and were all dressed up for trick or treating. We said goodbye to my parents and they established a deadline for us to be back home, normal things. The night was going very well, we had some wet flour that we would put on people’s mailboxes (they didn’t give us candy, that’s a very big crime) and we were getting A LOT of candy actually. As we were walking through a street, I heard someone call my name, my sister. She’s there with one of her friends and gave us some information. Apparently, there was a VERY decorated house on a street close to where we were and a WITCH lived there. She said that if we were ...

This is a history of how I was THE BEST Jeopardy host EVER. The year is 2025. I went to Estonia with my school for an Erasmus + project and it was extremely cool. There were 4 countries there, Italy, Estonia, Greece and Portugal and every night after our activities we would have a cultural night. Normally, during these nights each country presents a little of their culture to the others, brings typical food and drinks from their country and everyone has fun. This time, things went a little differently. Each country would talk about a different country. So, Estonia presented Portugal, Italy presented Greece, Greece presented Estonia and Portugal presented Italy. Each country had different ideas on how to present the other. Estonia did a quiz about Portugal (that we so embarrassingly lost). Italy did a theatre where they played as typical Greek people. Greece presented a bunch of pictures that the Greek people had taken while they explored Estonia before the project. Our idea, the ...

Another story from my young age. I was 9, my school had 3 floors (my classroom was on the 3rd) and a very cool rule, if you finished your assignments earlier you could go have free time earlier. That day, that day was the day the prophecies foretold. Me and my group of friends had prepared the perfect plan. We would help each other in all of the assignments and WE would have the LONGEST FREE TIME that school had EVER SEEN. Everything was going as planned. I was helping them with their math exercises, Daniel was helping us with our art, Rui was helping with the Portuguese, Henrique with the English and Afonso with Science. We were the PERFECT TEAM! there wasn’t ONE ASSIGNMENT left undone after only 1 hour. This would mean that WE would have 3 more hours of free time. THREE HOURS for US to do WHATEVER we PLEASED. We told our teacher and, as per rule, she told us to go downstairs. My friends and I were as excited as we could but I needed to grab some things, so they started goin...

Taekwondo – a martial art that combines self-defence, technique and, most importantly, discipline. At least, that’s what it taught me over the 9 years I did it. This martial art was very important in my life and is also the centre of this story. During my 9 years I went to various competitions of Taekwondo, so really quickly, let me explain how they work: ·        You wear a head protection and a chest protection; if someone hits you in the head (with a kick) it’s two points for them, if someone hits you in the chest it’s one point for them; ·        There’s a limited space, that I’ll call tatami in this story; if you put a foot out of the tatami or fall on it it’s a point for your opponent; ·        Each combat is divided in 2 rounds, each is 1:30 minutes long and, between them, you have a 30 second break; ·        Lastly, if you do a full 360 before hitting...

 This is something that happened in another Erasmus project I went to. This one was in Poland, we were staying in a 3-story building, far away from big cities and in a very mountainous region. The building was pretty, but the most important part of it was a little balcony on the 1st floor, that was connected to two rooms. During this Erasmus, me, Gonçalo and the friends we met started a ‘tradition’. At night, after the activities we would all get together on that little balcony. We would talk, play cards and sometimes just lay down and stargaze. The night sky over the balcony was always filled with stars and in the background, we could see a giant mountain with its peak always covered in snow. I remember playing different card games with them. Talking about the activities we did and the ones we would do tomorrow, about cultural differences, and getting to know more about each other and more about their culture. I remember vividly one night in specific. It was late already...

So, it was scheduled, we would go on the 29 th of November and the Erasmus would start on the 30 th . We would pass a night in Krakow and then they would pick us up from there. I packed my bags, a LOT of cold weather clothing, we were going to Poland in November after all. The day came and to the airplane I went. Our plane landed, it was already dark outside, no one knew polish, we were a little lost and VERY hungry. So, our first stop? Mc Donald’s. Thankfully, it had an English menu, so we easily got our food, paid for it and ate. The food was good, I mean it’s Mc Donald’s kind of hard to mess up. Now, here’s where things get interesting. Since I’m 13/14 years old I have a beard, not a very big one, but I have one. So, it’s VERY normal for people to think that I’m older than I am. But this time… this time I wasn’t expecting it. I get out of the place, I wanted some fresh air and my teacher and friends were right behind me. As I stand outside, the dark streets of Krakow with ...