ticklish_frog

It was sunny morning, one of those luxurious ones that July has to offer in southern Europe, and yours truly put his feet on yet unknown but intriguing soil of the Old World.

I checked into my hotel room, and (being a complete nerd) called the superviser without any delay. So in 15 minutes I was at the stairs of the Instituto Superior Tecnico and the very first alien message I saw was:

I will have one year to decypher it, so stay tuned for the translation and cultural context explanation.

Geographically, the Lisbon is at the very southwestern part of Portugal (and, hence, the Europe itself), climate here is steady: 30 degrees during the day, 25 during the night, no rain for almost 10 days since I got here, which explains that along with regular "leaf" trees they do have palm trees:

Architectural ambiguity is horrendous here. During the glorious times of Vasco de Gama and other explorers the city was flourishing which obviously reflected in the excessive buildings' exteriors:

Note, however, that the present condition of the building is not extremely good; in fact, during the centures of decline Portugal became really poor so it could not support even the reminders of its original glorious lifestyle.

Here's more: