Continental Shelves: Why it is good to know more than just law

Remember when I posted on Sunday afternoon and said I wasn't sure what I would be doing that evening? Well what I ended up doing was watching a Bangladeshi man kick open my door.

Joy and I were going to get some groceries, and I didn't bring my key because I thought Joy would bring hers because she left a minute after me, and she always locks the door. But Joy accidentally brought the wrong key with her. She said she has never done this in the 2 years that she has lived in Portugal. So we are locked out, and my ulcers are starting to fire up as I think things like "I will be sleeping outside on the ground tonight" and "I'll have to show up to work tomorrow in jeans because that's what I'm wearing now." In the U.S., this would be something that some local locksmith could solve, and though they may not have office hours regularly on Sunday afternoon, there is always some amount of money that can buy you the extra-hours service (unless it's a government sercvice, of course). Not so in Portugal. Sunday is Sunday, and small shops are closed. So Joy went to our downstairs neighbor and asked him to help us. He is a friendly Bengladeshi  man who probably knows 100 English words and 10 Portuguese words. I think the only words I understood were "screw," "close," and "better." He apparently understands more than he speaks though, because he understood when Joy told him to kick open the door. He had to get a running head start. It was loud. But it worked. It loosened the molding around the door, and broke a few little things, but hey, nothing the Bangladeshi man couldn't basically repair with a couple nails and screws. I was impressed. If I had been alone in the situation, i probably would still be sleeping under a park bench somewhere right now.

Anyway, Joy and I did our grocery shopping, where I was sort of embarrassed because we bought food for the whole month essentially, which is very non-European (they go shopping every day or two), so we had 10 times the food of anyone else. It was not fun to carry home, although we did take the bus most of the way.

Yesterday I got to go to court with my boss, so that was awesome. Things were pretty different in Portuguese court. For example, the attorneys wore black robes like the judges, the parties whom the lawsuit was about weren't even there, and no one stood when the judge entered the room. The case was about some stonework on a building and how the construction didn't go as planned due to bad weather. I was mostly confused, but I understood the gist of things.

Last night I had to do some paperwork and stuff to get credit for my externship, so I didn't really do much, but I did go into a couple of shops. Today at work I helped a young lawyer in my office named Andreia with a memo she was writing. She had written it in English but there were a lot of phrases, idioms, and punctuation errors for me to correct. One of the things was about how Public Domain in Portugal includes oceans and their beds and continental shelf, but Andreia had translated continental shelf as "continental platform" because that's a direct translation from Portuese. It was good that I knew some science-y words so I could fix the error. It was probably my favorite work assignment that I've done since I've been here. She was very nice about the whole thing, and she started addressing me in the tu form instead of você, which if you know your Portuguese personal pronoun grammar etiquette, that is pretty cool.

Here is a picture of my desk:

Imagine me looking really professional and translating important contracts and stuff. That's what I do. There are 2 other desks in the room as you can almost tell. Also, you can see the briefcase which I bought for 13 Euros at a Chinese shop because I have to bring papers and stuff to work and I didn't bring anything purse-y to Portugal because I was afraid of having my purse snatched.

Tonight, I didn't go out because I stayed late at work to finish a project, and it was already 8:00 by the time I got settled at home. But I'm going to bed early so I can get up early and go to the market tomorrow. I mostly just want to look around. Markets are so appealing to me. I did buy another kilo of strawberries tonight, half of which I ate for dinner. They are only 2 euros a kilo. This, I just calculated, is $1.18/lb. That is a pretty great deal.