So now back to my reason why I came here, my desire to explore something different, which is what everything has been for me here since I arrived. The wine, food, language, culture, people, land, government, etc. are all different for me compared to the US, in both good and bad ways. I've been wanting to write about my everyday experiences here, especially for my friends and family back home always asking me about life here, but it is only now that I finally decided to create this blog. I have actually been writing for another blog since last July, called Catavino, part of Catavino Internet Marketing, which is an Iberian wine enthusiast website focusing on the wine, food, and cultural events of both Spain and Portugal. I am currently their main Portuguese correspondent, writing about Portuguese food, wine and culture through my personal experiences. Since my start with Catavino, I have expanded into becoming the database administrator for some of their other marketing ventures, http://wineblogger.info, which is a worldwide wine blog database in which we currently have over 700 blogs inputed in 11 different languages. I am also working on a new database that will host information for all of the Spanish and Portuguese DO/DOC's.
Catavino has been my first attempt in writing semi-professionally; I never thought of myself as a writer before and have actually struggled in the past to write for required term papers and reports in school. I still have a bit of trouble getting myself started and as you notice, I tend to end up writing the same way I talk, A LOT hehehe, something I'm not always proud of. This being said, I created this blog not only to finally document my different experiences living and working here but also to practice and hopefully improve my writing skills- by making a goal to post to this blog on almost an everyday basis and most importantly, keep my posts down to a minimum of 500 words or less, short and sweet! The exception of course are these first couple "get to know me" posts and hopefully it wasn't too overkill for anyone and I'll actually end up getting some regular readers.
Since I will continue to make regular posts on Catavino about food and wine related things, (check them out at www.catavino.net) I intend for this personal blog to be more about my everyday experiences here, learning about the culture, interacting with people, random observations and ponderings and hopefully some humorous recounts of some the things here to me as an American, I have found to be outragious, ridiculous and/or just plain weird. Don't be surprised though if my love of everything food and beverage related slips out from time to time ;) I hope who whoever ends up reading my blog then, finds it interesting at the very least and maybe learns some new things about this unknown country through my own eyes and words. Comments are always welcome, both good and bad- (come one, gimme all you got!) and if you have any questions about here that you think I could answer, I am definitely open to helping enrich people's knowledge of Portugal. Until tomorrow then, BOA NOITE A TODOS!
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