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All those voices speaking something familiar, but different. I was a little bit tired and everything was confused. I didn’t understand what they were saying to me. Autocarro? Paragem? What? I didn’t understand the language. It was tricky! I ask if they could explain it to me in english. Bus? Stop? Got it! The old continent… looks normal. I was expecting something that would shock more. Or at least make that feeling of being outside your home. I look around to the train station and seems familiar. I listen to the people and sound familiar. More like something that you had heard before. Well… I had heard before. I was born and raised with portuguese. I had spoken portuguese for the last 25 years of my 25 years of existence. So how could I be in Portugal and don’t understand them? It was my own language! I blame the accent and the different terms, because even in Brazil that can be a little messy. I had left the land of palm trees where the thrush sings. The land where the sky has more stars and our life has more love. I spent one year feeling like the poet. Singing about my exile and missing my home. It was a dream to see a whole new world with the different cultures, learning and living with people. I left my home to discover and live. Discovering it is not something easy, because you can’t not know what you’re going to find. It’s cover! Under that cover I found jokes and uncomfortable comments. A different way to look and treat me. The adventure turns out to be a series of unfortunate events. It was a year hating all that: my decision, my choice and all that once was part of my dream. It was also a year to understand my limits, understand other knowledgement, culture and learn my own language in a different way. I waited years to realize the dream of studying abroad. I just need to have a little bit more faith, focus and force. The more time went by, more differences came up. How could that? How could we be so different? Me and them. Should we have some empathy? Something in common? Don’t they know a little bit more about their own history? Our history? They don’t. Some of them are stuck in the past with the mythology of glorious time. The old continent had some old ideas. Some old vision. They behave like an old man. They didn’t wanna discover the world. How? 500 years ago they were travelling happily with their boats. That’s how they arrive in Brazil, actually. How could people that once jumped in the unknown ocean settle down so easily about new ideas. I let the time pass and I suffered in silence. Until I decided to try again. Same old country, different city. I’m a brazilian and I don’t give up. Never! New chance to a more sunny place with red roofs. Lisbon is a city that once had an earthquake, fire and tsunami. It almost totally destroyed it, but it was rebuilt. Remade it. I walk to the streets and see life as it is supposed to be: with ups and downs. Like this journey in Portugal: ups that make you lose your breath while going and downs that make you be firme so you don't slip. I see the clothes drying outside the houses and it reminds me of the life inside the buildings. Inside of all there is a home. Lisbon makes me realize that even when you are almost totally destroyed but outside circumstances you can rebuild. You can be left behind and still be a home. This is the city with seven hills, so don’t be tired. There will be ups and downs every way. On my way I see people. I see the culture and the stories. I understand the history. I see the changes and take the chances. I try to understand and allow myself to be understood. Discover and then you will see the whole new world.