"Almost" Spring

Complain! Complain is part of the human condition, part of our permanent lack of satisfaction, no matter how positive our life may be.

The easy way is to think that there is someone that is worse than us…

So… for those of you that have a good life, but insist in complaining about the fantastic Portuguese weather, I advice to see this movie. While spring doesn’t arrive, see how it could be so much worse…



Filmed in Amsterdam, Monday, 19th March 2007.

Back from holidays

In a vacation of 3 days, or a month, is inevitable to feel a shock on the return to work. Is hard to concentrate, the body complains when returning to the daily routine.

Short ones, but was enough to rest; mentally at least. Putting the routine machine back on, one comes back with more clarity, one makes introspection to life, one focus on what is essential and eliminating what was superfluous.

It was great to gather with old friends! Yes! Yes, it worth’s to invest in friendships with people from different countries! Although is impossible to maintain contact with all, due to the long distance, that small percentage which I keep contact worth’s for all others!

I returned with my heart and mind full of wishful thinking! I quote sentences said or written by the ones I love and that love me:

“It was great seeing you! We both send you hugs! Keep in touch…”

“Acredita em ti! Tu consegues! Tu tens o que eles querem!”

“Tenho pensado muito em ti!... Quando voltas?!”

“…é bom ver-te animado! Vá lá, uma sms! Jocas”


And finally a sentence considered the most shocking / funny of all Amsterdam visit:

“Since I don’t want to jump from the window, i don’t have too many options, I’ll be here!”

When a trip goes "wrong" - Part II

Polska – 2004

During my Erasmus semester in Krakow, Polska, I wanted to take advantage of a long weekend in November for a trip to the northwest of the country.

Historical note ___________________________________

Between 1918, end of World War I, and 1939, beginning of second, was the short period when Poland was independent as country, after centuries of occupation and invasion of their neighbors (German, Russian, Swedish, Turkish, and the list doesn’t finish).

11th November of 1918, the day when Poles commemorate the return to the map of Europe after centuries of fight and resistance for their lost territory.
_____________________________________

I made myself responsible for organizing the excursion, mobilizing people, to see schedules, to arrange accommodation. With my early experience in organizing tours for the Erasmus in Lisbon, EIN , I learned that in the beginning nobody enrolls to the trips and wait to see who is going. When the deadline arrives, everybody shows interest, when it’s already late to reserve anything.

And it happened like that; I ended up going only with 2 Italian friends who were living with me. Andreas and António:

The bigger group appeared one day later, but with no accommodation reserved, they all had to return home sooner.

The initial plan was Wroclaw and Poznan. For those who are interestes in geography of the trip where goes, click on the map for bigger view:

For more tourist information and more visit the follow site:

http://poland.gov.pl/



There were innumerable small details, that made the visit to 2 interesting cities out of "the typical" tourist destinations went real bad. Adding to the fact that tourism in November it’s out of time, the constant fog and the difficulty in arranging accommodation and transport, due to the holidays, had lain down to earth the flexibility of the trip. Is necessary to have adventurer spirit to travel in Poland anywhere different to the already tourist oriented Krakow.

It seemed that we met only the disagreeable people of the country, when asking information, buying tickets, very hard communication. By the way tourism to a large extent of Poland is something still very recent and is frequent to find intolerant or impatient people with the tourist’s questions and doubts, that insist on talking English.

Well… it isn’t so different for tourists coming to Portugal on a trip to Castelo Branco or Bragança during November.

Although all this, the spirit of the group was high and, as it is verified in the photo, we had a lot of fun. The military parade related to the Independence Day that we attended just after our arrival to Wroclaw was incredible!

Not only troops on the parade, also schools with children carrying masks of known figures of Polish history were on the picture.

Funny that the children when noticing the presence of the 3 tourists started to shout: "Wlochski! Wlochski " that means "Little italians".

Almost all cities of Eastern Europe are proud of their central square (rynek glowny), therefore is common that the city hall buildings are always interest points and to have the most varied forms and colors.

Rynek Glowny in Wroclaw:



The negative degrees temperatures and the intense fog turned the visit to "really fast".

Although, the magical athmosphere of the foggy buildings, Os graus negativos e o nevoeiro marcaram a rapidez, mas no entanto, a atmosfera mágica da visita à cidade, tornando incríveis as fotos à fachada do antigo edifício universitário:

Then we had saturday night fever in the great student's nightlife of Wroclaw, that made my health situation worse. But only in Poznan the fever got higher.

After our arrival to Poznan we only managed accommodation for one night, so trip became shorter one day.

Almost all day i was visiting friends that i knew in town and because it wasn't my first visit to town, i only joined the other travellers in the next morning for a tour on downtown.

In my opinion, excluding Kraków, central square in Poznan is the most beautifull of all polish cities. The narrow, straight houses are fresh painted and give a pitoresc look to it all. The main building (Ratusz) in the centre looks more like a cathedral then anything else. Looking to the next photo it seems that hundreds of peple are looking amazed to a public WC.



No! Nothing weird... The most touristic moment in the Poznan square, is the 12pm ring clock of Ratusz, where 2 goats come out and clash their horns 12 times. That's for what all tourists were waiting for...

UUUAAAUUUU… Impressive… Fantasticzny!



For the tourists without a guide book or without previous planning, the tourism information points are like oasis in a desert of uncertainly, doubts and anxiety. So our last drop of patience on a dificult trip, was in closed information office in Poznan during the weekends. Anyway who's gonna need tourism informations on a weekend?

The roll of paper that is hanging on the door locker is a reclamation in "strong english slang" that some revolted tourist left to the authorities.

And i think again to myself: "Don't complain! The Ask me about Lisboa information point in Rua Augusta is closed 2, sometimes 3, hours for lunch and is closed on sundays..."

No more options we had to return to Kraków in a trip of 4 hours in a full train, with the central heating broken and with 38º of fever. Thinking: "Next weekend i stay home and study for the exams". It's easier...

I reinforce again that although there are good and "less good" moments in all trip, the last ones are the ones that stick harder to our memories. The problems and dificulties give great funny stories to tell later.

When a trip goes "wrong"

Fact:

The memories we keep from our trips are, most of times, associated to something that went wrong!

Why?

To have a trip plan is normal, but it exists to be changed and adjusted. Well… those changes, those errors or detours from the initial plan are the ones that make a trip unforgettable. For example, the small village that was an amazing good surprise, while the city that all the guides were recommending were nothing special. To travel is really that! A jump to the unknown, with a mindset to adventures and experiences!

A sentence from the book “The beach” that lead to the movie with the same name, click it:

"search for experience, the quest for something different"

All my “peregrinations” have stories with examples of good and bad surprises and I will describe one of them to reinforce the initial catching phrase.

Italy, Summer 2001.

Oh oh, what a trip full of surprises! Although we planned the accommodation and tickets in advance, there were the amazing and unexpected episodes. Together with Tiago and David, we visited Rome, Florence, Naples with a short visit to the island of Capri, all in 15 days.

While we were programming our trip, a stranger hearing that we were going to Rome in August, was shocked with the heat that she knew that we would feel. The next dialogue occurred somewhere in central Lisbon:

Stranger – Are you going to Rome?!?! (Eyes wide open, voice a bit too loud)
David – Yes, we are! 4 days!
Stranger – Are you really going to Rome in August?!?!
David, Tiago and I – YES! (Looking to each other with suspicious faces)
Stranger – You GONNA BURN in ROME!!!! UUAAHHAHHAHAHH… (Eyes drained with red, hands in the air, changed voice and with those typical horror movies laughter)

Said and done!

Or she was a witch, or a sociopath or simply an experienced traveler, it happened what she said. We caught a heat wave on that trip, if we didn’t burn, at least we melted trough those kilometers we walked. We remembered that lady all the trip…

From all those Italian tourist clichés, I was only impressed and still keep memory of the Roman Coliseum and the cupula of the chapel Du Duomo in Florence, that has impressive roof paintings with images of Hell.

But going back to the unforgettable moments, the salt and pepper episodes of the trips:

Without expecting, we passed a terrific day at a huge lake surrounded by mountains, 40km north of Rome. It wasn’t planned, but an invitation of 2 new friends from Holland came in handy, to escape to the routine: roman ruins, pizzas, wine and art galleries with kilometers of paintings with “Madonna con Bambino” or Crucified Jesus.

Tiago and David together they are authentic musical stars of the improvising and of the stand up comedy. I recall that end of afternoon in the lake with a session of Fados (typical Portuguese folk song) improvised by David and followed by Tiago’s guitar. See yourself this mute VIDEOCLIP… real soon on the TOP chart of Youtube.

In the night in the way back to the youth hostel in Rome, we had to make a quick run to catch the last night bus. And why run around Saint’s Peter circular square, when was enough to jump over a small wooden fence and cross the square in straight line? While crossing that sacred place we notice the agnostic look of the people that were passing on the other side of the fence. We were just too in a hurry to stop and go back.

Bright lights turned on! They were from a police car on our left side! Those lights came closer till the car stopped in front of us, blocking our run. The window comes slowly down. After talking something in Italian, the officer decided to change to English:

Carabinieri – Where are you going? You jump the fence?
We – We have hurry to catch bus. We didn’t jump, it was open!
Carabinieri – Do you know is against the law crossing Saint’s Peter Square?
We – No!... Long silence… (Few seconds that seems hours)
Carabinieri – Ah! Follow the car!

Curious people were gathering on the limits of the square, to see who were the “wise guys” that challenged authorities and violated Vatican soil. Some shaked their heads, other made commentaries that we didn’t understand. We didn’t want to. And there we went, followed close behind by the police car with their lights “guiding” our way and to open the fences…

Humiliating? Hilarious? Ridiculous?

Doesn’t matter… we caught the bus!


The best story to finish. Train arriving to Florence. We saw a sign saying “Firenze” and: “Go out! Go out! It’s here! It’s here!

3 of us out of the train and we noticed we were wrong. It was train yard to fix carriages. The train restarts his run on the way to the right main station and all other travelers looking to us trough the windows with surprise expressions on their faces.

Now try to imagine what might felt or thought a worker from that yard when he saw the image of 3 lost souls, with their backpacks coming from nowhere in his direction in middle of the train tracks under a suffocating heat… One decided to come to us and tell us the way out of the train tracks to the streets. But not before we was “showing” us around to his colleagues to have a serious laughing.

Before finally we arrived to our accommodation, we still had to cross a highway running, walk some more kilometers, go out on the wrong bus stop and walk more.



Personal message to my fellows of that trip: A lot can be done with bed sheets taken from a youth hostel…

“Look out with the mosquitoes Tiago!” – “Nah…I will leave the window open, it’s too hot…”

Some years already pass, but these stories, I will never forget. And these are the moments and give us funny coffee conversations full of laughs.

Carnival in Lisboa

Although the Carnival celebrates the “Entrudo” (ancient tradition to disguise of monster and scare the winter bad spirits away), with the weather that we been having i still sigh for warmer and dryer days. And about the current month here goes the Old Portuguese proverb:

Março Marçagão, manhã de Inverno tarde de verão. (March Big March, in the morning is winter in the afternoon is summer)

Perfect weather to take a lighter new, just bought, coat and return home at night with a cold, or take warm clothes and sweat all day at work. HEI! Too much writing about weather…

…back to Carnival…

When I was a child I loved this celebration, after i was some years disliking it, but in the last ones, amazingly, i recovered the taste again for the fun of that special Tuesday.

This year was in Bairro Alto, Lisbon. There weren’t train dances with popular music, and there were no watching samba parades on the streets, but the environment in Velvet Bar was fantastic! Some lost frames from the Carnival of this year:

I introduce you to Filipe Sinatra, private detective and amateur singer:

The women were wild with the caracter and the Old Spice smell:



Now a photo that nobody ever tried before, what an inovate new way of photoshoot:



Velvet Bar in Bairro Alto: