In 2011, the life of Portuguese citizens changed.

Changes that appear to be hidden but are smoothly spreading beneath our toes. We feel them, we breathe them, but we don’t obviously see them.

Throughout 2011 we worked to gain a front row seat to the changes.

Is it a spring fog or an autumn drizzle? Sometimes in life things change so fast and dramatically but the skyline will still brighten with the same sunrise or sunshine.

By Jose Manuel Ribeiro

“Hey, sports fans, think you’re tough? Then try out a growing Portuguese pastime that is like playing rugby with a runaway refrigerator. It’s bull tackling, and nearly 1,000 enthusiasts, or “forcados,” from all walks of life love to jump into the ring for a head-on collision with a maddened bull. A mixture of sport, spectacle, high testosterone machismo, male bonding and, some say, art, the rough-and-tumble event is as unique to Portugal as port wine or codfish ice cream,” Reuters Lisbon chief correspondent Ian Simpson wrote in August 2005.

At the time, if anyone mentioned the notion of women trying out to be a “forcado” you would have said they were dreaming or had no idea of the inner workings of the Portuguese bullfighting world.