blog to book

a student documentary on the future of print

I'm been spending my evenings editing this blog's content onto Blurb so I can have a printed version of my blog. I'm doing this mostly because my blog is a diary and I don't believe in the eternity of the electronic format. And because it's was on my list... 

Electronics are ephemeral, invisible and disposable. You don't feel it. And if you can't touch it, it does not exist. I need to "touch" this blog, only then I'll believe it really exists and I can store it on a physical and real shelf. Knowing that it's there and that I can pick it up at anytime. If you love books, you can relate. It's human nature. 

This however, is a hard process. Not because of all the copy/paste labor, but it makes me look back at my life in Portugal and it makes me cry with saudade. It's a process. 

ai weiwei

Let me tell you a true story.

Last year I was giving a tour at the Portuguese parliament to a group of Chinese visitors. I spoke in English and had a Chinese translator. I would say 2 sentences and then pause so he could translate. I got to the part of the 1974's Revolution and I explained that with it Portugal had become free of a long lasting dictatorship. I then paused to let him translate.

He looked at me and said - "Dictatorship? What does that mean?"

I naively responded back - "You know when a country is controlled by an autocratic form of government and the people have no rights and no freedom of speech."

He looked at me and listened in perplexity. I don't know what he translated but whatever it was, it was too quick to be a word for word translation.

When you live in countries where you can say anything you please, for the good and the bad, it's easy to discard that there are others who still fight for those basic human rights. 

Sharron Lovell / Polaris

this is Ai Weiwei

watch the movie

follow him on twitter

yes!

 

all photos by Henrique Marques da Silva

after 3 amazing years, we said yes to one another.
you truly complete me.

aaaaarrrrgg

Photo: Henrique Marques da Silva

a quick pic into an amazing week.

more info soon... 

Aaaaaarrrrgg!

a slice of heaven

Slice of Heaven is an association that Pedro and I are members of.

It's current project is to help out Insurupe, a small village in Mozambique. They focus on ways to help the village become self sufficient through sustainable actions. So the first thing they are doing is digging a well so that villagers won't have to walk miles for fresh drinking water. 

More than half the money needed has already been raised but we need your help for the other half. By buying a t-shirt, like the one Pedro is wearing in this promotional stop-motion. Each t-shirt cost 10€ and they come in different colors.
Please spread the word and email me if your interested in helping.

PS: #61 - make a stop-motion: check!

oupas!

I've been meaning to share this recent creative discovery: Oupas Design, 3 very creative designers and their cat, that work mostly with cardboard. This stopmotion is one of my favorite! It's "school of imagination" and you can find more of their work here.

boulangerie á la ancienne

Most people go to Paris to say hello to Mona Lisa and stare at certain metal tower. I went to Paris to check off number 12 and number 7 ;) But on my list of things to do in Paris was also a visit to a special bakery: La Boulangerie par Véronique Mauclerc near the Buttes-Chaumont park. One of Paris's finest bakers... and she's a woman... which makes me feel very inspired!

This is probably the only bakery in Paris that uses a starter, all natural ingredients and bakes the bread in a wood-fire oven from the early 20th century (one of two that still exist in Paris). The whole bakery dates back to that time and still preserves it's original aspect. 

Unfortunately, Veronique wasn't in when we arrived so I wasn't able to ask about her baking process nor have a closer look at the oven. I guess I'll have to go back to Paris someday to have a talk with her, but next time, I'll make sure she's in. (I wonder if she needs an assistant....)

The bread on display is carefully labeled with the flours used. We did buy different types of bread to taste. The weird thing is that you expect the flavors to be out-of-this-world, but in fact they are so simple and natural! Eating industrial bread for so many years has taken away the real flavors of bread and everyone forgot what bread really tastes like. 

# 34 get a decent haircut

For the past 29 years it has been either my mom, my sisters or myself who's cut my hair (yes, I have cut my own hair on many occasions!). I have gone to hairdressers a few times and even done very weird things with my hair specially when I was a teenager. But, in the recent years, it's just been me and a pair of scissors. Until last January when I got my first decent haircut (sorry, no pics). Last Tuesday I got my absolutely favorite haircut in 29 years thanks to the wonderful hands of Jaya. I highly recommend her, she's a talented freelance hairstylist with tons of creativity to go around. 

Merrell Urban Side

After winning last year's Merrel Urban Side competition, our team was back and guess who won yet again...

This year MUS was quite different, with smaller competitions in several other cites and the finale in Lisbon. Pedro had participated in 3 different cities and taken along each team member with him. But this year, the teams were only of 3 members which meant I became formally known as the back-office gal, since my running and ball aiming skills weren't as good as the male members of the team. In the end I was glad to be back office cause they ran a lot!! Poor guys!! And I spent the afternoon anxiously waiting for their phone calls to google this and google that, try to make this and find that, while they ran up and down Lisbon.

 

First prize: to participate in the Merrell Oyster Racing Series in the States!! (Yes, the United States!)

Tartine bread

The book arrived yesterday and it's beautiful. The main bread recipe, which the author calls Country Bread, is the starting point to all the other artisan bread recipes in the book. It's process is very meticulously described and based on ancient french breadmaking techniques before the industrialization of yeast. He calls it the perfect bread. All you need is high quality flour, water and salt. The secrete lies in the combination of a homemade starter, temperature, timings and pacients.

museums are dead, long live the streets

 

Downtown Lisbon this afternoon.

Saturday night

I was supposed to go out Saturday night, but during a quick stop at a super market I realized the Food Bank's campaign was this weekend and I had  forgotten to sign up as a volunteer, like in former years. So I asked if they were in need of volunteers and ended up helping out till the store closed! It felt good.

*2309 tons!!

...to the obtuse things in life...

this post is long overdue

Last summer, Toronto came to Portugal and gave true meaning to the word saudade. 

In between all the work I had, I got 2 wonderful visits from Marisa and Tatiana - friends from back in the days when we looked like this:

cute?!

It was nice to see that both are very European girls who brought along their equally charming husbands! (Vá, Simão e Steve nada de se babarem...!)

They are both extraordinarily joyful and outgoing girls and seeing them brought back many memories. Tatiana and I kept in touch every once in a while through letters and emails, always asking one another who would cross the Atlantic first. She managed to win the race and shared a great big hug right in the center of Rossio. 

I've been feeling very lazy lately...

dinner and a song

Dinner

Monday evening was the kickoff of Alfama-te a 10 and I was invited to have dinner in a household patio in Alfama with  10 interesting strangers! It was a delightful way to start the week! Highly recommended to anyone who wants to discover hidden streets of Alfama and meet new and interesting people. And what better way to do this than around an amazing dinner table... so, sign up!

Song
The singer/songwriter is Luisa Sobral and surprisingly she was one of the 10 "strangers" at dinner. She has just launched her first album The Cherry on my Cake and has an amazing and sweet voice. Here's a sneak peak:

busy...

I've got butterflies in my belly....
There is still so much to do before tomorrow!

open for business

Item # 48 on my list is to start my own business. The idea was to do something else aside from my day job that would spark the crafty/photography side of me. 

For the last few months, I've been spending most of my afternoons surrounded by linen cloths, threads, ink pens, photographs... trying to discover and explore what I most enjoy doing and find myself enjoying different things. At first, I thought I should sort everything out and choose what I most enjoy: I ended up not being able to cut off anything. This was right around the time I learned the meaning of the awful word procrastination...  

But since I now consider this month of March, the month of CHANGE.... I'm going to cut the crap of being shy and insecure and start sharing with the world, cause difficult times call for resourceful and creative ideas: I'm going to open an online SHOP!! Hurray!!

Coming soon... March 23!!

change

Everyday I walk the same path to work, the same streets and views. I used to say "good morning" to the traffic police officer that kindly would stop the cars so I could cross the street. He doesn't work there anymore. I now say hello to a very kind indian shop owner that is hanging out his shop items at the same time I start descending the Rua do Monte Olivete. 

When I get to Praça das Flores, first, I always look up (nice trees that let in the bright sun) and then I look around... usually at the same people... that, for some particular reason, are already sitting around doing whatever it is they do. 

I repeat the whole thing in the afternoon, on my way back home. It felt good for a while, but now I'm a bit tried of it. 

to stay or not to stay, that is the question

buy or don't buy a one way ticket out of here??