Welcome Aboard People

On May 22nd of 2021 after a long long long looong period of confinement and social distancing we were finally able to make some “welcome party” to receive Pedro Lucas the new enforcement to the internal dev core team (another geek) which in fact enter on November 2020 but due to the COVID’s stuff we had to wait all this time ?

This welcome consisted of a hiking, picnic and two small tours.

Meet and greet at the awesome MD3 office also the headquarters of Marvel and DC superheroes and supervillains (shhh it’s a secret ?).

Start point – “Pia da Ovelha” – there is no translation for it I guess ?‍♀️ - a nice trail in the mountains of Serra D'Aire e Candeeiros, this place is well known for its deep cliffs and nature-made giant holes carved in mountain walls. We spent around 1h15 minutes down the cliff and up to another making a stop in the “Pia da Ovelha” sanctuary (I confess it was a little bit intimidating).

After the trail, we went into “Baloiço da Barrosinha” and made a swing out of ourselves in a beautiful place also in a ravine. And then to a small village “Alqueidão da Serra” - known to live the last pavers that work with art “pedra da calçada” - in we check the famous windmill with a sight almost to the sea (west zone) and very very windy. This activity opened more the appetite so … of we went to the picnic!!! Ending up making a small picnic in a garden in Batalha near a creek (of Nabão river). The best part was the handmade cake that Pedro gave us – so delicious!!! ? ok ok moving on.

To make food digestion we went to check the Monastery of Batalha well known for its gothic architecture and its famous giant statue of Nuno Alvares Pereira on a horse.

After some preaching in Batalha, we went to the greatest giant smallest town in the world Leiria (ok ok I confess I’m biased to this quote ?). Here it was possible to make a tour in some of the major tourist/important points – like “rua direita”, “praça rodrigues lobo”, “parque do avião”… no description will be added here because it would make this blog entry close to an encyclopedia (and yes Leiria have all that amount of facts/curiosities ?) – finally we made “Polis” city trail near to city “Liz” river (to be honest the river itself is somehow calm but have some health hazards – please don’t swim on it without asking first even if the many duck families live happily there).

In the end, it was a nice, sunny and funny day! The main goals were: people to get to know each other away from cameras and headsets; create some memories and moments together; learn things about other places and of course, make some physical activity to fight the idleness that the current situation makes a living.

Links and places if you to to check and go - we walked around a total of 16km give or take (not counting car drives):

• Pia da Ovelha (16 km +/- from Leiria), Reguengo do Fetal, Batalha
• Baloiço da Barrosinha (16 km +/- from Leiria), Reguengo do Fetal, Batalha
• Moinhos do Alqueidão da Serra (18 km +/- from Leiria), Porto de Mós
• Batalha (11 km +/- from Leiria)
• Leiria (0 km from Leiria)

If you want, take a look at some of our photos.

P.S: It was mandatory that we all wear masks, make as much as possible social distance (the 2 meters thing), and use a lot of hand gel (until the skin starts to crack – this is when you know that you are doing things correctly ?)

P.S.2: I want to thank all of those that participate and make the effort to go and also to have a special guest of a former employee – once MD3 forever MD3 ?? 

P.S.3: “Não percam o próximo episódio que nós também não” quote from Dragon Ball Z (all episodes)