A few years ago i passed through this city that i remenbered today again and again. Stayed here for just 48 hours but it was more than enough for me to enjoy plenty in this old Portuguese colonial city. There's still a strong Portuguese sense and comunity and a Portuguese descendant is owner of the famous Air Asia low cost airline, the biggest in Asia. If you happen to pass near this city in the near future don't hesitate to stop and enjoy a good time. Sweets, some nice eateries and bars and a lady that cuts hair quiete nicely :) (photos after the break)

I came to life on 1976. For people before me i agree that they may look at Pele as being the best. Cruyf could pass. Eusebio scored. Puskas and Di Stefano did it all. There were others. After 1976 there was only one name . Maradona . I enjoyed Van Basten; how he controled the power and still looked so fluid in all his actions. In school between Maths and Geometry, during those 15 minutes in wich we played 4x4 under the Nuns eyes there was only one person to look up to. Maradona. We'll score like him , i'll go through you like him, we celebrate like him. Football was Maradona and Maradona was football. This feeling never changed. I believe this sensation to be like that of a Mother and Son. He may not be perfect, he may make mistakes, he may hurt you ... But , in the end of the day he's the best you could ever had in your life.

BERLIN (early this year)

For a long time i wished to land in Berlin. I finally did it in the beggining of this year for a cold weekend break in Germany. Fast cheap flight and arrive to our hostel amid a few danger moves on ice.  Tried one of this "free" tours through Berlin for almost a whole day. Spanish version ..hehehe. It was quite entertaining, with this spanish guy talking about and explaining a few things on the city and it's history. We walked around the main part of the Easter Berlin for a few hours passing through the Brandenburg Gate, the jewish memorial, checkpint charlie and so on... and a chocolatier that looked amazing and made us comeback by metro on our final day there. It was so sleepery on the sidewalk that it made it dificult to walk around and extremely tiring also. Loads of photos. A few weeks before heading to Berlin i got me and Anna two tickets for a movie session on the Berlinale film festival  "El Mal Ajeno". It was in original language so that was much better than german language that i do not yet master. I may be getting back one day . Who knows?

LISBOA (May)

Surprise, surprise! Everyone knew but me. For my birthday, my Anna sent me on her company to Portugal, Lisboa. My soccer team (Benfica) was about to win their first championship in 5 years or so and i was there to witness it live on Estádio da Luz. I remenbered perfectly the last time we won , how we hit the streets horn screaming out loud. First we had to infiltrate the stadium .. we had 2 tickets to diferent parts of the stadium and that wasn't good ... so, she jumped the fence and just entered without any problems. It was a lousy lousy game .. but , we won! So it didn't really matter cause we were all happy. Maybe i was happier than somebody else ... after horning my way up to the center of Lisbon i met Flip,Paula,Frade, Sara and the guys for the street party that followed the championship win. It was Great!!!

 MARRAKECH (June)

We went to Marrakech for a few days of relaxing on the swimming pool. I found a nice place on the outskirts of the city (15Kms) that made us feel we were in heaven. Birds singing, 3 swimming pools and rose petals everywhere. That's what we call life. One day we also went with a guide to the center of Marrakech to wonder around the old city. We only had 1 day to spend there, that's why we tought of going there with a touristic guide. He took us to the Royal tombs, one amazing palace that in the begining just seemed like nothing and in the end it's wonderfull, with gardens and decorated rooms. We also went to one of this carpet places where they tried to sell us something we did not want. I'm not a carpet person i must say .. but after a tea and a couple of unconfortable moments we safely arrived to the final NO, thanks! We went for some chicken (again) and afterwards hit the souks on our own , so that we could be harassed as much as possible by the people trying to sell stuff. We bought a pair of things , including Babuskas hardly fought for. Were they too expensive? On our last night i asked for a triple chocolate cake from our hotel and they delivered big time ...cause it was absolutely delicious . hmmmmmm

Hoje de manha quando vinha para o trabalho, fiz logon ao Spotify e 2 ou 3 shuffles depois ouvi esta música. Mistura Tom Jobim, com concertos ao vivo com uma boa interpretaçao. Para quem lhe agrade musica brasileira. * Da simpática Ivete Sangalo (na foto) a música "Eu Sei Que Vou Te Amar"

"Eu sei que vou te amar
Por toda a minha vida eu vou te amar
Em cada despedida eu vou te amar
Desesperadamente, eu sei que vou te amar
E cada verso meu será
Prá te dizer que eu sei que vou te amar
Por toda minha vida
Eu sei que vou chorar
A cada ausência tua eu vou chorar
Mas cada volta tua há de apagar
O que esta ausência tua me causou
Eu sei que vou sofrer a eterna desventura de viver
A espera de viver ao lado teu
Por toda a minha vida"

On my quest to continually improve my blog i came across an issue that disturbed me. It still disturbs me. On an innocuous webpage advertising the "20+ templates for your blog you'll love" i found a link to the 10 Must disturbing deaths. That made me wonder. I realize that i like horror movies and although it sounded cheap it worked well enough for me to click on it. There were strange deaths, accidents, etc. On the upper ranks came the famous Nazi doctors with Mengels on the top row. Nothing strange there, anyone a little bit familiar with the European WWII story has heard about these cruel, heartless people and their deeds.  Strange enough the first place on this dubious list was "awarded" to someone/something i had never heard of... Unit 731. What that hell are you talking about? How come i never heard about these guys? Maybe it was just me. Or maybe it wasn't .. maybe a lot of people never heard about this Unit 731.  (Gore Stuff after the break)

I know i shouldn't ... but from time 2 time i heard this boy steps into a deep hypnotic state that throws him onto mp3 downloading frenzy. When i periodically mess up all my music property and (re)start the arduous task to (re)populate my music players .. a question comes to mind : what now? 

Now Lauryn Hill. Miseducation and MTV live. Remember that night "oh so fresh and  crisp"? I was a young apprentice at a computer firm, in charge of putting a million tapes in order. (what was the order... i still ask today...) Every 30 days? Bo-Ring. Now and then this time was used to find new sounds. New Paths. One beautiful night .. a Monday i believe, there was this CD to download on a forgotten internet web page that i still remember. A cute petite girl from a Hip-Hop mainstream group named Fuggees had release an album recorded live on a MTV Studio somewhere. 7 minutes download later i hit play. A deep meaningful voice comes storming in. Speaking. Whispering. Laughing. Singing. Sharing. That night night the word was S-H-A-R-E. The tapes fell lovingly in place. Found slowly my place. My pace.

What now? It seems Lauryn Hill is in Australia these days. Showing up late on some concerts randomly.

GO AUSSIE GUIDE

Flight Anywhere to London : Easyjet

Fly from London to Brisbane : Air Brunei  (the cheapest)

Sleep in Brisbane : Limes Hotel

Eat in Brisbane : Cloudland

The year was, I've been told, 2005. On a city cornering the Peninsula I'm living in. Iberica. A group of people gathered by language, beliefs and aesthetic got together for a concert. It was Caetano Veloso younger sister. Maria. Bethania. I must say I'm an old dog on this one ... saw her frequently in Portugal. As frequently as her own schedule allowed me. 4 out of 4 presences. With her brother on Expo. Alone at least twice .. and i may adventure another couple of times. I miss going to a show like this once again .. once she enters the well prepared stage, my eyes leave her no more. Today wondering the www i re-found people, blogs and such that reminded me of that faraway night in 2005. The very best end of concert i had in a long long eternal time. I don't know about the others .. or how well informed they were on that particular show ... but i was more than pleasantly surprised with the last encore song "O que é, O que é". On the first chords of the song, groups of equally surprised Brazilian stood up (they had flags), followed closely by this Portuguese boy and the rest of the deeply enchanted music hall. I still feel goosebumps on the thought. Or maybe I'm just having a cool never-ending day @ work.  For you all .. or maybe a selective wonderful few .

MARIA BETHANIA LIVE : "O QUE É , O QUE É"

No pants Subway Ride Barcelona

Improv Everywhere ha lanzado una convocatoria a nivel mundial de su acción "No pants!Subway Ride" Barcelona se suma a esta acción.

REQUISITOS PARA PARTICIPAR:

a) Estar dispuesto a quitarse los pantalones en el metro

b) Llevar ropa interior adecuada al evento. Queremos provocar risas e impacto, no que la gente se ofenda. Así pues quedan prohibidos los tangas, slips ajustados, dibujos o frases inapropiadas en la ropa interior, etc.

c) Mantener una actitud natural al respecto

¿Cuándo?

Domingo 10 de Enero a las 16.00h

¿Dónde?

Boca de metro de Marina (L1), al lado de la churrería.