Greetings again, a day later than I planned to blog due to the whole thing being down yesterday. But it looks like the blogging is back in business so I shall write my update now.

The reason I was going to write yesterday is that it was a national holiday here in Portugal. Here, rather than tossing pancakes, the coming of Lent is marked with a Carnaval parade (I’ll spell it the Portuguese way). Of course you will have all heard of the lavish scale upon which the Rio de Janeiro carnaval takes place. I didn’t spend the day in Lisbon when I was here in my year abroad in 2005, so when I went down to the city centre yesterday afternoon I didn’t really know what to expect.

The carnival parade that takes place annually in the summer in my home town is a bit of a joke so I wasn’t expecting it to be as bad as that. And the Carnaval I experienced in 2005 in Caldas da Rainha was pretty decent with lots of floats of huge papier mache political figures. So I was hoping for a little bit of satire again this year, particularly as Prime Minister Socrates just gets himself embroiled in one scandal after another.

Yesterday the weather wasn’t great so upon my arrival down town it felt more like the national umbrella convention than a wild celebration (Rio’s being in summer they don’t have this problem). The parade was a huge disappointment. OK credit to those who dressed up in fancy clothes and had their faced painted but that was about it and some banging on drums. I don’t see what it was trying to achieve and there didn’t even seem to be any shameless advertising. No floats at all and it just seemed very poorly organised (even by Portuguese standards).

But despite the weather and the rather lack-lustre Lisbon Carnaval experience, life is still peachy. The research is going well and I am making more and more contacts. The plan is, of course, to get it all done in my last month. I am now at the half-way point of my stay and deserve a bit of a break as I really haven’t had any fun. Aside from watching a couple of Liverpool games in an Irish pub and occasionally going out for restaurant meals on my own, I have been stuck in my room either working or making the most of Youtube to pass my time. My girlfriend is making the trip to Lisbon tomorrow so I’m very much looking forward to chilling out and enjoying some of the nice places of Lisbon, but not on my own. I will definitely be taking her to the Port wine bar where I was when the picture of me on the blogs homepage was taken a couple of years ago.

I am meeting an important official at the Defence Ministry tomorrow and I am meeting another contact in the Portuguese Development Aid Institute on Tuesday. But am looking forward to the weekend and I have promised to take Lizzy around the zoo on Monday. Let’s hope the weather for that will be more like today (fine and with a bit of sun) than like yesterday (wet and horrible!). Although I gather I’m laughing in terms of nice weather compared to back in Newcastle!

Anyway I hope those of you that had pancakes yesterday enjoyed them. I will have some after Easter when I get home to make up for it! I’m not officially giving up anything for Lent, although I haven’t had a cup of tea for over 4 weeks. But this is largely because of not having the facilities and hating the crap fruit flavoured tea or green tea nonsense you get in these foreign places. But at first opportunity to get a decent cuppa I will go for it, so it doesn’t make sense to commit myself to a fast for Lent.

Well probably yes! It’s amazing what wearing a suit and tie and hanging around the Foreign Ministry can do to change people’s perceptions of you!

The fieldwork is still going well and I thought it was time to write an update today after I set foot for the first time properly into the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs for what I am cautiously going to describe as my first ‘interview’ with an official.

It was an interview, despite part of me thinking it wasn’t. I didn’t give him the Jeremy Paxman treatment and it was more an organisational meeting to help me get contacts inside the Ministry for what I will call ‘the interviews proper’. But all my meetings so far with academics, former ministers and now current officials have been really useful. I have been given lots of contacts and have already learnt a lot about how Portuguese foreign policy is understood by the Portuguese. Most but not all of my suspicions and hypotheses have been confirmed. The good thing about my research is that I am coming at it from the perspective of an outsider, but that does leave me open to potentially missing something major and obvious. But so far, so good.

It’s getting towards the business end at last, so lots of interviews to schedule. I only have 2 months left in Lisbon now, so will have to work fast. It’s also difficult to judge how many interviews I could realistically cram into a short space of time as I need time to reflect and analyse as I go. I have a ‘system’ where I scribble my notes down during the meeting and then write them up in ‘best’ in my field diary later. Usually there is still stuff in my head which I remember to jot down. So I am blessed with not recording and transcribing things, but it does mean I have the nightmare of trying to organise my notes into a logical order after the meeting has finished and picking out the key things. But it seems to work, although it is a little time consuming but I guess this is because I am mixing in analysis as I go. Some might say it is a methodological tightrope I am walking with no clear indication of what words are my interviewees and what are my interpretations. But frankly that doesn’t matter, I’m the one writing the thesis! If research training has taught me anything, it is that you can worry too much about methodology!!!

I also had a good trip up to Braga, only really a flying visit. But I got to sample Portugal’s high speed tilting train (and the superb amount of leg room!) and the views from out of my window as well as Braga city centre and all its old churches.

Anyway, I’ll leave it there for now. Doubtless I’ll have lots to update you on some time soon!