Thursday, March 29, 2007

Summertiiiiiiiiiime.... (is here!)

Yo!!

Last weekend was spent in the South of Spain, more specifically, in Malaga... 2 days to finally "deliver" a surprise party to J.who had nooo clue, prepared by E., his beloved wife! How cool is that?!?!?!

Basically, 2 days spent... by the pool, preparing Caipirinhas, eating barbecue and oranges straight from the trees! Some partying eventually happened as well!! Mmm... one image is worth a thousand words...


"Improvised" Caipirinhas yet again...


Happy customers!

Carpe SUMMER!

PS - Off to PT tomorroooooooow!!!

Thursday, March 22, 2007

He is coming over...



Carpe Diem!

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Celebrations (II)

Ugaaaa!

The reason for my dillemas...



Carpe Diem!

Spanish snapshots (VI)...

Yo!
Busy weeks lately here around Madrid... Still... Some time to observe the local environment and one of the worst aspects of life in Spain... This is a fascinating country, fun to live in, but that definitely has some room for improvements...
Politics & Media
I have never seen such blatant examples of biased media as in this country... Unbelievable the fact that ALL TVs, radios, newspapers are aligned with one of the main parties and stick to that religiously... There is not one media that can be considered unbiased... Concrete examples:
=> grudged right wing politicians still cling to the idea of ETA being somehow involved in the March 11th bombs;
=> Protests ranging from 300M to 2,3MM people (depending on how left or right wing is the source...)
etc.
Politics & terrorism
Unbelievable to my eyes how something like terrorism can divide and not unite an entire population... Unbelievable how even terrorism victims associations are politized and used as political throwing weapons... Here is an aspect where I think in Portugal we haven't dropped as low as these guys...
Politics & regions
Andalucia referendum for their "regional constitution"... 70% abstention rate! People don't give a damn regarding all this bullshit regarding splitting the country into it's "original" regions... All of this is about, as always, money and power for the political class...
National pride
In the middle of all these fights I think it is a paradox that...
- these guys are enjoying 3,5% sustainable growth for over 5 years in a row (although with the predictable drop in the housing market this might change...)
- Figures like Nadal, F. Alonso, even the national synchronized swimming team are elevated to the condition of national heroes...
Fascinating country...
Carpe Diem!
PS - Happy 100th post to myself!!! :)

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Celebrations (I)

Bon soir,

A couple of weeks ago, that time of the year arrived, when an overwhelming need pops up to celebrate yet another year of survival in this crazier world...

This year, I do believe I had one of the most unforgetable b-days of my life... Many causes contributed for this...
... Being away from home forced me to prepare something special...
... I had part of my sisters at the celebration with friends...
... I had most of my best friends from all the different stages of my life... childhood, high school, Uni, AIESEC and P&G...
... I had ZN taking care of all the logistics...
... we finished in the typical Plateau, a urban myth of 80s music in Lisbon...
... having my sisters sharing a couple of dodgy stories from my childhood...
etc.

When ending the dinner, I suddenly realized I hadn't brought a camera... The first reaction was something like "Ugh!" But then... then I immediately felt that having photos of this moment would clearly be redundant... Then, it was pretty clear, as I walked through the tables, that those memories, the memories of the people sharing that night, would stay with me forever... Those (and many others that were there in other ways than the physical) were the people who helped me get to where I am today... And most of those people will for sure stick around "my train" until the final stop.

To all of you (you know who you are...)... THANK YOU!

Carpe Noctis

PS - After a couple of weeks with technical problems, this blog will be back to normal posting rythm!