For the ones who don’t know what Portuguese are good at or what are Portuguese at all, for the ones who think Portugal is a Spanish province, let tell you: We are good at everything.

The thing is, we got this skill called “desenrascanço”, here is a definition that used to be in Wikipedia:

“Desenrascanço (loosely translatable as “disentanglement”) is a Portuguese word used, in common language in Portugal, to express an ability to solve a problem without having the adequate tools or the knowledge to do so, by use of imaginative resources or by applying knowledge to new situations. Achieved when resulting in a hypothetical good-enough solution. When that good solution doesn’t occur we got a failure (enrascanço — entanglement). Most Portuguese people strongly believe it to be one of the their most valued virtues and a living part of their culture. Obviously, they know that this subjective feature is not exclusive of theirs.

However, some critics disagree with the association of desenrascanço to the Portuguese culture. They argue that this concept is related to subjective evaluation of oneself, or of the Portuguese people, and belongs to the world of subjectivity and feeling. Sometimes, the concept is related by some to the discoveries period or to student activities in the 15th century. But sceptics doubt there is any substantial proof of that relation.

Some people theorize that in the 16th and 17th centuries, because it was very common for other exploring nations, such as the Dutch, to bring a Portuguese national along during the voyages, because the Portuguese were the most skilled due to previous knowledge and, allegedly, for handling well the occasional emergencies in the ship when the control of the vessel was given to them (what is known among the Portuguese as “desenrascanço”). Serious historians would disagree with the association between a 20th century idea and 17th century events. A part from this myth, desenrascanço, in fact, is the opposite of planning: it’s managing for the problem not becoming completely out of control and without solution.”

Through the several organization of events me and my colleagues found real challenges that we wisely and calmly solved. If it were in Sweden, I am sure everybody would give up and commit suicide the following 5 seconds.

Here’s a fun web page about the Portuguese: http://portuguesefordummies.blogspot.com/

So, last week I got sick on Tuesday. My throat was hurting and my head aching.

3 days like this convinced me to go to the hospital…
I was prepared to wait hours as it’s normal in a Portuguese public hospital.

For my surprise, after I payed the 2.15 € tax, the girl who took the record about me told me to go upstairs and enter office #3.
I was like: “what? to enter like this? without waiting?”
When I got upstairs I was walking on the side of a women in white (who could be a doctor or a nurse I thought, not surely a bride…) and I asked her: “Please, the lady downstairs told me to enter the office #3, is it like this?”
She replied: “Yes, go on! I’ll go and assist you right now!” all with a nice smile.

WTF? I thought. It must have been some mistake. But NO! I got in the office with like the nice Portuguese female Doctor who rapidly assisted me. She used a computer with a fullscreened Firefox and some Oracle application to write my prescription. Man, I felt like I was in another country! Computers in the Doctor’s office! The nice mood and manners of the Doctor! The non-waiting… I got out of there with a smile.

In Portugal we *had* this situation where we’d wait for hours until the Doctor would assist us. Sometimes this Doctor would be still at lunch and some would treat us with real bad manners.
The problem is that some (not so long) time ago and even NOW some people think Doctors are like god. A job above all. The right to treat however they wanted, like you owed them money. People in Portugal still talk to Doctors referring to them as something that can be translated like “Sir Doctor” and all with a little tremble on their voices like if the Doctor could refuse to treat them.

It was also normal for people to refer this way to Engineers (”Sir Engineer”). So, I’ve got nothing against Doctors, they surely helped me a LOT of times. I’ve also got nothing against Engineers (actually I am studying to become one). What I am against is to elitism and sense of superiority when we all need a place in society.

Fortunately this seems to be disappearing.

I came back from Seville last Thursday, I spent the reveillon in there with my girlfriend.

One of the reasons I went there was also to know the place where I’ll work next February - BitRock’s facilities. It surpassed my expectations, the office is great and the people seem to be nice. Plus, it was great to have lunch with Daniel López (BitRock’s founder and my future boss).

I got to revisit the amazingly gorgeous city of Seville and eat tapas over and over.
I need to say, it was surprising to me the Spanish way of celebrating the new year. I thought it was everywhere the way it is in Portugal or in the USA - you go to some place to have fun, to drink, etc. In Spain you spend it with your family! It’s like a second Xmas, then after midnight everybody goes out to watch the fireworks.
Also, every damn restaurant is closed (even McDonalds, BurgerKing, Pans&Company…), except for the few ones who realized that when you have a bunch of starving foreigners, that means a bunch of money!

Luckily, we found a small shop owned by a not-Spanish person and we, some Italians, some Germans and other individuals with a Scandinavian appearance bought something to survive through the night (pizza, water, soda…).

The next day I found that eventually somebody wanted to give me their best wishes for the new year by braking into my car - wrecking the driver’s window and the left mirror - and stealing my radio (he/she/they found the radio front panel which I had hidden in the car). So, I had to bother Daniel and request his help to find me a car window replacement shop. Plus, it began to rain and believe me, it ain’t fun to drive under the rain with your window open… it’s quite an experience.
At least they didn’t steal the car itself.
Anyways, I should watch better where I park because I am used to the safety of Portugal
To all Spanish, I wanna let you know I still love Seville and I don’t wanna invade your country even if mine was a military power.
When I finally got back home to Portugal I found out I had no internet connection (and I was “internetless” since I went to Seville)… For the cherry on top of the cake, when I opened my laptop in my home for the first time in this new year the screen hinge surrounding plastic parts broke and several screws fell from it…
We got a Portuguese popular saying: “Um azar nunca vem só” which I can translate as: A bad luck event never comes alone.

Anyways, I am eager to go live in Seville and become a BitRockStar

Happy new year for everybody, specially car owners with 5 year old laptops and lousy ISPs.

Me and Valério are presenting BluePad at the 10th Hispalinux Congress.

The event takes place at Cáceres - Spain - in December 13th, 14th and 15th.
BluePad’s presentation is on the second day by 06:00 PM but we’re staying for the whole event.

Among the keynotes there will be Mark Shuttleworth, the man behind Ubuntu!
Hispalinux is Spain’s biggest association of Linux users and companies counting more than 8500 members.
It’ll be a great event for all FOSS lovers.

Last Sunday I had dinner with my girlfriend in a Japanese restaurant in Évora.

The restaurant is called Tóquio (Tokyo in Portuguese) and is, at first sight, a regular Japanese restaurant:
- The waiters are Asian and wear some kind of kimono jacket;
- The decoration is Japanese (simple decoration with a symmetric theme of black furniture, hiragana characters, etc);
- It has the rolling lines of dishes (I’m sorry I don’t know the real name).
The place used to be a Chinese restaurant before and the first time I got in it, the waiters seemed familiar and I heard them speak Chinese to each other. Later I figured that the owner was the same guy that owned the extinct Chinese restaurant so… it turns out that the owner must have realized that Chinese restaurants are all over the town and there was not a single Japanese restaurant in here, that’s when he must have had the idea of converting his place to the first Japanese restaurant of Évora. Simply genious! Therefore, I call it Chipanese restaurant!

This was the second time we had dinner in there and it was even better this time. The food is great (I am like a sashimi crazy), the waiters are kind and it is cheap! You can actually have dinner at the price of 8 € (drinks are not included) and you can eat whatever you want from the food (des-) assembly line.
This time we sat at the best place there could be: the place next to the chef where the food is put in the line!
Yeah, we could choose everything before anyone else! I felt like I could control their appetite… and it was cool to watch the chef preparing the sashimi.

What I really like to watch when I go there is the people on the wrong side of the line (the ones that get the food at last place) who manage to sneak and take the dishes from the other side of the line! So it’s like, some people are watching the food coming and planning on grabbing it but the Portuguese Food Ninjas from the *wrong* side of the line are smarter and get it first! I hope I never seat on the Ninjas side or I’ll have to become one myself.

If you’re a guy, let me tell you that you should take your girlfriend there because it’s fun that she will make you her “personal poison tester” - she will make you taste everything she doesn’t feel brave enough to taste and then report to her how is it like. I think mine even chose dishes she didn’t really wanted to try just to watch me eating it… women are cruel!

Anyway, it’s a place that’s worth attending for the food and the laughs.