I have less than a week left in Lisbon now. It’ll be nice to be home again for Easter of course, but will be sad to leave the city I love so much. I need to make sure that I make the most of the time I have left before my plane leaves on Wednesday afternoon.

It feels like Spring now and the clocks go forward this weekend, so clearly summer is on its way. Although, being in Portugal, I haven’t seen a daffodil yet! Not long until I can sit in the garden writing up some chapters on my laptop this summer.

So an update on what I have been up to…

I have been busy getting myself organised. Sorting out trains and places to stay for my various conference trips in April and organising my flying visit to Newcastle next month too. I have also sorted out my next fieldwork trip to Brussels! I will leave on May 4th and go through the Channel Tunnel for the first time in my life and return home again on May 29th. I have sorted out a place to stay in Brussels too so hopefully it should all turn out ok and everything should fall into place.

I have also been busy finalising my conference paper for Reading. I have given a bit of thought to the paper I will be presenting in Bath also, but want the Reading paper finalised and submitted before I move on to the next one. I will have time to sort my Bath paper out over Easter as well as preparing for my progress review. I’m looking forward to my conferences and although I have attended a couple of conferences over the last few years, I’ve not presented at one yet so it will be nerve jangling but I’m sure it’ll be fun. When I go to Reading I have arranged to stay with my cousin, so it will be nice to go out for a beer with him one night. And, of course, there will be ample opportunities to socialise and network with the other conference delegates, which I’m sure, will be fun.

As for fieldwork done recently, it’s dried up a little if I’m honest. But I have already got plenty to work with and have been busy buying lots of useful Portuguese books which still counts as useful research! But I did have lunch with the second in command at the British Embassy in Lisbon. He was very nice and enthusiastic about my research. He gave me the British take on Portugal and how they seem to see themselves and conduct themselves in international affairs. It was a nice day to have lunch outside and having a relaxed sharing of views and ideas. I also interviewed a Portuguese journalist who has covered Portugal’s European integration from the start and has an excellent understanding of the issues at stake. She was particularly helpful as she could give me the view of ‘the man in the street’ better than officials and politicians can. She was very knowledgeable and again showed enthusiasm for my research.

So in my time left I need to pack, of course, and revisit a couple of nice restaurants and make the most of my last few days to have some Portuguese food because I don’t know when I will be returning again. I have an interview with a chap in the Portuguese Air Force on Monday, which should be interesting. It’s good to get the perspectives of military people involved in the policy-making process, particularly those who have hung around Brussels quite a bit.

Well that’s it.
Goodbye Lisbon!
I shall return some day.
Hello again England…

The fieldwork continues and it has been an eventful week indeed!

I started the week with a cold, and am ending the week with it (although thankfully not as bad as it was!). I’m on the mend but it clearly held me back a bit at the start and had to clear my tubes during interviews but these things can’t be helped.

Monday: I had an interview first thing in the morning in the Foreign Ministry European Affairs Department. I talked to two officials who handle Portugal’s bilateral relations with its EU partners. A really useful interview and because the brief has only recently moved to their department I could talk about the transition and the rationale behind it. I think it gave me a fair bit to go on with regard to the ‘Europeanisation’ of the policy-making process. They were both lovely and very helpful. Later in the day I got drenched in the rain (which is not nice when you have a cold) so I went back to bed for a bit before going for my dinner. Knowing I had an interview the next morning I got an early night. Despite being up against it I had a good and productive day.

Tuesday: Still nursing the cold but the change in the weather to dry, sunny, genuinely spring-like conditions (which remained for the remainder of the week) made me feel much better. Another interview, this time in the Foreign Ministry but the section which handles Portugal’s relations with international organisations. I talked to a very nice chap about Portugal’s candidacy for the UN Security Council in 2011-12. A good chat and he gave me lots to think about.

Wednesday: After a bit of lie in and rabbit for lunch in the canteen (which was good!), I worked in the Institute on various tasks including writing up my notes ‘in best’ from my interviews that week as well as working on the conference paper I am giving next month. And that day I received the conference programme and it was good to see my name and paper title in black and white. Naturally, and not for the last time in my academic career I’m sure, I have been put into a panel with someone talking about Spain! I also received official notification that my proposal for another conference in Bath at the end of April has also been accepted, so I will need to prepare that paper. I also prepared for my interview the following day…

Thursday: I took it relatively easy during the first part of the day knowing my interview wasn’t until 5.30. But I knew I had to make myself smart as I was going to talk to a serving member of the Portuguese government – the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Co-operation. I sent a speculative letter to his office in late January and I heard back from them this week to arrange the interview. The secretary said I would get him for 25-30 minutes, but was in there for at least 40! He was really helpful and enthusiastic about my research. It’s so great to have a particularly distinguished person on my list of interviewees and he gave me lots of interesting things to think about and excellent insights.

Friday: So today, and this afternoon was productive once I collected my photocopies from the National Archive and had a nice cake, coffee and fresh orange juice. I got a couple of hours work on my conference paper done in the Institute library before calling it a day. I arranged to meet someone for coffee at 5 o’clock, someone who contacted me some months ago. He saw my Internet page and got in contact as he is a PhD student in Lisbon (by coincidence at the same place as me) and is doing a similar topic to me. So it was good to have living proof of someone who has read my project webpage. So we were brought together by our mutual interest in Portuguese foreign policy and the power of the world’s number one search engine!

Next week: Hopefully busy but a bit quieter. I would appreciate the time to actually just quietly work. I do have one lunch-meeting in my diary with someone from the British Embassy here in Lisbon to discuss the view of Portugal from outside.

Has half of my PhD gone, vanished into history forever? Never to get back those wasted hours?

Is half of my PhD still to come? Exciting times? Stresses? Many chapters still to be redrafted? The printing and binding? The viva? The graduation robes?

Well both are true, March 2010 marks the halfway point. While I don’t in theory need to end my PhD in 18 months time unless I am ready to submit, but I will run out of cash by that point. So it is in my interest not to go too far beyond September/October 2011.

I do feel like I have come a long way in the first 18 months at least. I admit that a lot of the learning has been rapid during my time in Lisbon. I have realised my own naivety, had some of my suspicions confirmed and found no evidence to support other ones. If I look through my previous blog posts I will see lots of different experiences over the past 18 months, particularly the presentations, the teaching and the academic networking. I have enjoyed those 18 months, but I don’t quite feel like I am halfway to a PhD yet!

But the serious business starts now… I’ve got 100,000 words to write and every word has to be perfect and it has to all add up to a doctorate!

Naturally the time ticking on my PhD, and my time in Lisbon (less than 4 weeks left here now!), has kicked a bit of urgency into my day-to-day routine. However, while no-one should be working too hard on a Saturday night, I haven’t been working relentlessly today. I’m coming down with a bit of a cold so I have had to work in short bursts. Writing a few emails, doing some work on my paper and thinking about the overall course of my PhD, punctuated by watching videos on Youtube, Facebook, eating, checking the football scores, talking on the phone to Mum and Dad, and, of course, blogging!

Since my last post I have enjoyed myself, both relaxing and working. I have conducted a few more interviews with people involved in Portuguese foreign and defence policy and I have also had a look round the Portuguese national archive at a few records relating to Portugal’s role in the Marshall Plan in the late 1940s and Portugal and EFTA negotiations in the 1960s. It was good to handle some old documents, although impossible to decipher the handwritten notes scribbled onto various contact cards at dinners!

While my girlfriend was here I made sure I lived the high life, lots of drinks and nice dinners in restaurants. While I shall revisit a few of my favourite haunts alone again before I leave, the bulk of my dinning has been, and will continue to be, in the University of Lisbon canteen. For a mere 2.20Euros I get a bowl of soup, a main meal (choice of either meat or fish), a dessert/fruit/yogurt, a drink and a bread roll. Now that’s not bad! And there are five canteens and the menus are on the website, so you can choose what to do go for well in advance. This is a good thing, but when you see there is something you like and you look forward to having it all and you arrive at the canteen to discover that the canteen is closed because of the public service strike you get quite annoyed! This happened to me on Thursday. Now, I really like bacalhau a bras, and because of the saltiness of the fish it is quite addictive. So Thursday night I was wondering round looking for a restaurant doing that dish. I got what I wanted in the end!!! And it was good!

Right, I’m off to give my nose a good blow and probably have an early night. I need to be on the top of my game again by Monday morning for my next interview!

Will blog again in a week or two!