kungshamra71

Have a similar story to share. On that same World Cup I was invited, in Lisbon, by a couple of Erasmus german friends I helped to integrate in my university, to watch the game between Spain x Germany. I was supporting Spain (because Portugal was already eliminated). The interesting part is that the invitation was to watch the game.... at the German Embassy So I watched the game in the middle of all the germans, drank their beer, got some nice pretzels that they offered me, and then... celebrated spanish victory haha

To me the favorite one was the 2010 final between Spain vs Netherlands (contrary to probably all portuguese, i always loved Spain - have some family there - so I was chearing and celebrating for Spain, not knowing that one day I would move to The Netherlands haha) I also liked the 1998 between Brazil vs France, probably because it was the first big football competition I watched.

Can't imagine TISC without the classic voting/points drama! (also, somehow this reminds me of when Voldemort made his "surprising" return in the Harry Potter series )

I must admit, this return is quite an unexpected plot twist

Seems like Eurovision was called off, as expected https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/nederland/artikel/5060746/eurovisie-songfestival-coronavirus-verplaatst-2021-2020

No, and I can take this opportunity to tell the story of this girl! (i think i told before, not sure if in this version of the contest or the algerian one, but I think is a nice story so I will repeat it ) She run to the Voice of Portugal contest, where she didn't pass the "blind audition" phase of the contest. At the end, she said that she likes to write their own songs, and jury asked her to show one of the songs she wrote, so she did it, singing a bit of a song that she had been working on. Not only it became incredible popular by then, but the very own juries who had failed her before, recognized that it was a good song, so they put her in talks with music people, who helped her preparing a single with that song. As a result, when the single was released, it reached the top and made her famous, which is ironic since she was actually rejected by that music contest

Never thought i would be this sad for getting the news that Portugal gets to be European Champion for an additional extra year haha

Almost daily routine now unfortunately.... (although quite good way to practice dutch )

Almost 300 new cases in the netherlands.... hopefully in a week or two (when the national lockdown that started today starts to have effect) it will stagnate but i fear next days will continue to increase a lot. In Portugal numbers are increasing but not in such alarming way (for now). There has not been anyone dead so far. Intention is to close the borders soon, together with spain. On wednesday our President will decide if national emergency state is declared or not.

As for Portugal , they passed the 100 barrier today (112). Government declared state of alert, and people seem to be more scared, which is good because it means they will behave with more responsibility. Also my sister works as nurse in the biggest Lisbon hospital and say's that they are having infected people with problems that are not old at all (like 30s), which is a surprise as they thought it would affect only old people.

Trains are definitely more quiet. I use to go on a packed train that was very much empty, and Bijlmer station (which usually is busy as hell) looked as if it was a sunday morning. Lot's of people are working from home (I know for example Bol employees were ordered to work from home until the end of the month). Also all this cases are the tip of the iceberg as they only test people with fever > 38 degrees and that have been in contact with corona patients/corona countries (which is now all the countries), but that is also because they dont have enough tests to do it anyway. Just heard now as well that Netherlands is forbidding flights from China, South Korea, Iran and Italy. And in the meantime the education minister came to say that "there is still no reason to close schools"

i dont know about the last one but i think i remember the h1n1 (swine flu) being declared as pandemic about 10 years ago or so

Also they are putting brabant in quarantine and stopping football matches there but then keep trains going to/from that province and keep all the other football matches where probably brabant people will attend as well....

A very interesting article in why there has been this escalation of cases now in the netherlands: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/how-dutch-false-sense-of-security-helped-coronavirus-spread-1.4199027 Meanwhile in Portugal they still have 59 cases but i'm afraid is just the tip of the iceberg, as they're starting to find out infected people also in hospitals. Also because people are super irresponsible and just decided today to crowd the beaches ignoring government warnings... (because temperature was 28 degrees today)

Just sent the votes. Quite a few really good songs for me, really like this contest, i found a few new things to listen I must say that i knew I had my 12 points immediately after 20 seconds of hearing the song! Really nice music!!

Isn't that guy Rui Pinto? The portuguese hacker? That guy hacked and exposed the corruption of the biggest portuguese football club, as well as some stuff regarding angola's ex president's daughter Isabel dos Santos who owned many companies around the world. Football in Portugal, and specially football clubs, have a lot of power in my country (unfortunately), it's kind of like a mafia that has tentacles everywhere, so they are never sentenced to nothing even though there are clear evidences (like wiretapping or emails of people corrupting referees or judges). So when it got known that all this corruption revelations were result of actions from a guy living in Hungary, they immediately run to get his extradition and jailed him to stop any more revelations. It is ridiculous that while he is in jail all the corrupted people (like Isabel dos Santos or Benfica's president) are still free as if nothing happened...

Portugal had the final today, where this year’s TISC participant (Barbara Tinoco) was also in contest. She was the most voted by the public, but not by the jury, so in the end she got the second place and it’s Elisa with a song called “Medo de sentir” that is gonna go to Rotterdam. The song is nothing special but still way better than the one from Barbara Tinoco. In my opinion the best song was the one who got almost al the votes from jury, but he looked weirdo and I guess audience didn’t liked that haha

Draw for Nations League is done. League A has quite interesting groups, with potentially really great matches. This year each group has 4 teams instead of 3 like on the first edition, probably because Germany ended up last on the previous edition and would have to go to the League B, which does not happen now that each group has 4 teams haha

We dont have dubbing culture, and when i was a kid I used to think that was just a spanish thing, until I travel further away and realised we were actually the "weird ones" as most of other countries were dubbing haha Some family of mine lived for years near Barcelona, and I still remember the shock of having to go to the cinema watch "Bruce Almighty" in spanish.... I mean, Morgan Freeman... speaking spanish......

Really sad that there is nothing for Portugal, but if it was I would guess that it would be that.... we are always complaining?

I honestly think that many countries where you travel to and then realize not many people there speak english (france, spain, germany) is not because they don't know or they don't learn, but because there is no real practice level, as everything in foreign language is dubbed (tv shows and movies). From all the places i've been to, the ones where english was better spoken was Sweden, Denmark and The Netherlands. Guess what they have in common? No dubbing culture!

I saw a priest wearing a mask yesterday in Nuremberg while giving mass. Kind of useless when you see that everyone left the church and took turns touching the "holy water" and putting it in their face

we have two finally. Pastel de nata reveals to not be as not invencible as it seemed haha

it’s quite frequently on the radio on the past months, but it’s horrible (for my musical taste at least) so better keep it that way haha

yeah one of the reasons I like it is because I can easily understand their Dutch haha kind of like the als het avond is, also easy to get for Dutch beginners. still I’m glad your choice didn’t went for hij is voor mij