Friday was our final full day in Portugal, and this one would be spent in a nearby city called Guimarães. The bus ride was about 30 minutes long and our first destination was the Guimarães Landscape and City Laboratory.

This building was newly built, modern and located right next to one of Guimarães’ many small rivers. Inside, our guide had prepared a presentation of the work being done in the laboratory, a lot of which was focussed on the treatment and prevention of invasive plant and animal species.

Afterwards, we were all shown around the lab by the guide. We got to see and learn about different species of fish and plants that were part of the lab’s work. There was also an interactive three-dimensional map of Guimarães and the neighboring parishes, where areas of, for example, water, forest and city areas or different water sourcing areas could be displayed digitally on the physical map.

Lunch for the day was enjoyed at the nearby University of Minhos. We were offered a variety of foods, but most of us opted for potatoes with fish or rice with lamb. We were all happy with the food. No complaints.

During the first part of the afternoon, we were given some free time to enjoy the beautiful city centre of Guimarães. The buildings were old but very well preserved and the atmosphere felt vibrant and alive. Many of us bought ice cream and we all had a splendid time.

Our knowledge of the city would later expand further when we were divided into groups of 6 and given a scavenger hunt-type challenge, where the aim was to run around the city centre looking for answers to questions like ’The statue in Santiago Square was made in which year?’. The hunt was intense but we all had great fun and could agree that it was one of the highlights of the entire trip.

Our Guimarães experience ended with us visiting the city’s well-known medieval castle. In the setting sun, we wandered inside the structure built around the year 900, and it all felt quite magical.

Well back in Vila do Conde, we ended the day with a farewell dinner involving all the students and teachers having participated in the week-long event in Portugal. Many laughs were shared in the restaurant as we enjoyed our final meal together as a group. By the end of the gathering, some of the happiness turned to sadness as we said our final goodbyes to the group we had gotten to know very well over the six days spent together.

The entire Swedish group is very happy with how the entire trip turned out. We are also very thankful for how well the Portuguese team organised events and field trips and for how welcome they made us feel in their home country.

With this event finshed, we’re all looking forward to the next meeting in may!

The day started with a second degree warning about storm and therefore we could not visit the intended destination. Instead the whole group went to Sea World, located in Porto. There we looked at aquariums and unfortunately we thought that many of the tanks were too small for the marine animals. In one tank a turtle were stuck between two rocks and couldn’t get out. Someone informed the staff and basically you can say that we saved a life today.

Later on we ate a ”lunch snack” at a shopping mall also located in Porto. It was a huge mall with many different stores. The entire day was pretty unclear and due to the weather we had to reschedule the outdoor activities.

After lunch we visited a museum about bio diversity. A guide showed us around and told us about things such as: evolution, Charles Darwin and natural selection. The guide were pretty enthusiastic about the topic and he told us about the importance of biodiversity and how every individual is important. In the end of the exhibition there were pictures of humans with different ethnicities. The reason of this was to show that every person are special and unique. In addition, the guide said that the difference between wild animals and humans are the cultures that exists in our society.

This chilly wednesday started with us joining the other nationals on the bus at 9am. We were taken to one of Porto’s man-made parks, called Serralves. Upon arrival we were greeted by Rita, our guide for the visit.

Inside one of the parks pretty wooden buildings, Rita introduced us to the park, with facts and figues of some of the different plant species that could be found there. We were told that the vegetation of Serralves has been significantly affected by invasive plant species since its opening during the beginning of the 20th century.

We were later brought outside to study the diversity of the trees in the park. In groups, we chose a 10 by 10 meter area inside which we would analyse the amount of native, non-native, and invasive species respectively. As a result we could conclude that the number of invasive plants species, such as the large Eucalyptus tree, makes up close to one third of the plants in the park, which is quite a worrying figure.

The study was followed by a lovely walk through the park of Serralves. Along the way, we saw animals, flower installations and even got to go inside a small cave underground.

For lunch, we ate a restaurant in the city of Porto. Some of us decided to try one of the region’s specialities. This dish is called Francesinha, and consists of a variety of different meats, hams and sausages, all covered in melted cheese and with an egg on top. It was quite intimidating upon being placed in front of the two of us that had ordered it. However, the final verdict was good, even though it was one of the richest and densest pieces of food we’d consumed.

The final activity of the day was a field trip in the beautiful forestated landscape outside of Porto. We walked on a dreamy path overlooking a flowing river at the bottom of the pass. Our activity relating to invasive species was to help locals with the removal of invasive acacia trees. We were taught to remove the bark from the trees in a specific manner, and then given gloves and garden knives to set to work ourselves. Even though this was quite physical work, we all enjoyed it and could walk back to the bus feeling like we hade done concrete work to make the wild Portuguese nature a better place.

Go Baj!

The third day differed a lot with the previous adventures. We started the day along the coast while performing a field study. Together we discovered the many invasive alien species that Portugal has to offer, amongst them we mainly focused on the Eucalyptus trees, pampas grass, ice plants, giant reed and the Sydney golden wattles. The guide that followed us on the walk told us more about these species. According to them, almost all of these IAS (invasive alien species) not only reproduce fast without natural threats but also easily lights on fire. The guides told us that Portugal has a big problem with fires in the forrest mainly because of the IAS’s wide spread. While walking we quickly noticed that big areas had been covered with a certain IAS’s without anything else growing there. For example, the Eucalyptus peels its bark by itself depending on the temperature. For the tree, peeling is only a way to adjust to the surrounding, but to the rest of the ecosystem this bark that falls to the ground prevents anything from growing because of its thickness. Later on during the day we continued our trip with a visit on a big marine center where we got a guiding and two different lectures about IAS’s and how they function in different habitats. However these lectures were meant for students with much higher pre-education than us. Because of this, the fact that the PowerPoint wasn’t readable and because of the horrible acoustic it was hard to understand anything at all. The consequence was a lot of sleeping students, now if we were one of the sleeping beauties is for us to know and for you to never find out.

When the day was over for everyone it continued for us Swedes. We went out to dinner with the whole gang including our dear teachers. After walking a bit we found a nice restaurant and spent the evening there. Anna and Johanna had the time of their lives, it is amazing what youth can do.

It’s scary to know how fast and dangerous these species are for the natural environment. Many of the plants that we saw today were really beautiful until you found out what horrible effects it has had on the surroundings. Maybe looks aren’t always worth it.

Many of you might have slept in today but that’s not the case for us. The day started at five am when we gathered at Landvetter (the airport of Gothenburg) with our luggage ready to leave for adventure.

Our first stop was Frankfurt where we had approximately one hour to switch gates and catch the next flight. However this small task ended up being a bigger hassle than we could’ve ever thought. When reaching our gate we were the last ones boarding the plane, but one of the workers did not let Nicke and Natha take the bus that was supposed to transfer us to the flight. They ended up trying to catch a flight to Miami instead but that’s a story for another time. Our teachers, Anna and Johanna, were in a state of shock and were afraid that the whole trip was ruined. In the end they somehow, in someway, got to the plane in time and the trip continued.

At last we reached our destination, Porto in Portugal. When first arriving and taking the bus to the hotel accompanied by the Belgian delegation we were quite nervous. How was this supposed to go?

We stayed at the hotel for a bit and made sure everything was comfortable before taking the metro into the city. The hotel we are staying at is called Hotel Brazao and is a really nice hotel with an old fashioned style, almost like being in your grandparents house. Brazao is located about 50 minutes away from the inner-city if you take the metro, which is exactly what we did alongside the Belgians. In Porto we roamed freely, had a delicious meal, and did some sightseeing in the rain.

A day packed full of new impressions – bring on the next one!