} missing portugal

i will NOW attempt to write about the whole portugal trip in this entry. :]

Day 1

departed for the airport. my luggage turned out to be the biggest! apart from MET's one lah. i hugged my mum at the airport, the way she taught me to beforehand. so right on cue, we hugged. then i had to escape from her clutches and run to the check-in counter.

not much went on, cos day 1 actually started from 8.30pm. we checked in our luggage, then we met the ARC people and teachers and parents for a last farewell. (wth, like we're gonna die??) seniors, juniors, brudders gave us good luck cards. took a grp photo. checked in.

on the plane

this is in between day 1 and day 2. watched 2 1/2 in-flight movies in total. along came polly, paycheck and some kickboxing movie..but at the final match we reached paris so i only watched 1/2 of that one. i slept quite a lot too.

in paris.. we got off the plane for transit. it was quite boring... took photos, walked around and did some homework while waiting. MET told me the way to do physics mcq is to write the choices on an eraser and then flip it... and i stupidly took his advice.

the plane ride from paris to lisbon was very boring... 2 hrs, without in-flight entertainment. lousy airbus. sat a seat away from MET. he was sleeping almost all the time, so he missed the chance to get refreshments, so he didnt get any coke, HAH. i did some chem but most of it was bull.

day 2 - lisbon

arrived at l'aeroporto de lisboa. took a picture next to the euro 2004 sign. hahah. we're such bad tourists. took taxis to the hotel.. which turned out to be not bad for a 2-star hotel. the rm was quite ok, the bathroom also... the lift is quite creepy though.

the weather in port is very nice.. cooling. quite hot but windy in the daytime.. freezing at night. pleasant, esp. when you have a jacket or a warm quilt at night.

after seeing the rooms we took a train down to the robocup place. the 'metro' station was down a slope.. we didnt quite realise what this meant until later on. anyway..we werent allowed into the robocup place. bah. stoopid people. like we would wreck the place or smthg.

so we left... oh and we had our first lunch in portugal. it was not bad, but i dont think it was even portuguese food. afterwards we went back to the hotel to bathe and blah blah... we faced our evil which is the slope we walked down earlier. then the horror set in that we would have to walk that thing everyday in lisbon...tjl will be proud.

i managed to watch the denmark-czech republic match, but fell asleep after czech scored their 3rd goal, cos by then it was so obvious who was gonna win.

slept all the way thru the night. damn jetlag.

day 3 - set-up etc

they call it the set up and presentation day, but neither happened. we went down to the robocup place again.. we were just testing out our robots the whole day. other teams' robots looked superior to ours.. anxiety set in.

our lunch came to us... big mac! well it turned out that during the whole trip we had to live on fast food... so much for eating portuguese food.

we left the place at around 8+, because MET said we cant stay till 12. we left feeling quite unprepared and scared to face the next day's events... but what will be, will be.

day 4 - preliminary round

i had stomachache that whole day. nerves. our first match was an easy one, cos our opponents didnt even turn up. instant 5-0 win. the second match wasnt so easy... our striker kept scoring own goals and it was all alternate.. so it was 1-0, then 1-1, then 2-1... everytime we get the lead our own goal would get us a draw instead. in the end the whistle blew when it was 10-9. thank God!!!

the next match was the hardest because it was with a team from macau... macau teams are all v. strong. for some reason. one of them was actually the champion last year. the team we played with were quite friendly, but we lost. it was a close match, though, we lost because of our own goals.

the last match was quite easy... with portugal. surprisingly the portugal teams were quite weak. i cant remember the score but it was quite a big difference... so in the end we walked away with 9 pts, same as macau, and we got thru! phew.

day 5 - 2nd preliminary

we didnt play.. it was the other teams' turn. we basically just watched for opponents like the macau teams... japan turned out to be quite strong, and one iran team was very gd.. if we had played against them we probably wouldnt have got thru the preliminary. thank gawd we went through our first round quite easily.

we had to work at the back of the work area cos there wasnt space on the tables... it was hard testing out robots too, cos most of the fields were being used. luckily we didnt have to do much.. just finetune our robots here and there. the other soccer team also got thru, so they were pretty much doing the same thing.

had pizza for lunch and dinner! pizza for good luck. :)) i am now known as the mad pizza fan... cos i asked for pizza for dinner when the others couldnt stand it anymore. ops.

day 6 - rescue preliminary

on this day the rescue team had their preliminary rounds... they managed to get through, they only missed one man on the first try, so their score was 240/250. unfortunately on the 2nd try they only got 190/250.. but luckily their first score was good. all they needed to improve on now was timing...

meanwhile the soccer team people did the same as previous day.. looked at other people's robots, checked scores, looked out for strong teams. watched the primary sch teams play, too. erin's team managed to get through to the finals...yay!!

had big mac for lunch, so the others could get a break from pizza. but we had pizza for dinner again!!! wahhahaha. MET wanted to try all the diff. flavours. that night was quite stressful for the rescue team... delle was going up the wall, i think she was frantic. plus MET forbade her from watching the port-holland match that was playing in the expo. poor girl.

day 7 - FINALS

we had our matches in the morning. very unnerving process. despite gloria's irritating attempts to tell me to 'have faith', i knew we had no hope against the macau & iran teams. after we lost the first match i could tell novita & gloria had barely any 'faith' either... cos they lost interest in the match. it was dull cos the iran team just kept scoring.

the iran team was very friendly though... took photo with us. dunno if it was cos we gave them an easy win, but they were quite friendly anyhow.

the other soccer team didnt get through the round either. it was quite sad.... knowing that it was all over after ALL THAT PIZZA WE ATE. but anyway. got to move on. all hope lay on the rescue team... but they didnt win either. oh well.

watched the final matches. erin's team WON! FIRST!!!!! waahhhh!!!! even though we didnt win.. it was nice seeing a team from s'pore win even though it was the pri sch.

iran team lost to macau in the final though. damn. it was quite sad... oh well. after that we had a nice big grp photo.. all the 30 robocupjunior participants. went outside, took another photo... and then we went back.

... gah. will finish next time. my sister wants to use the com. got to pack for tmr and blah blah... oh well. g'night. i still miss portugal. <3

2004-07-05, 8:44 p.m..
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