Got a call on the Monday from Wendy (Canadian), who had a couple of tickets spare to see Jack Johnson, but I had an evening lesson kick off so had to refuse. Lesson was then cancelled, so I went along with Gisa, meeting Wendy and in we went. It was good night too, I was impressed, not over familiar with his stuff, but really enjoyed it, although fear of being uncovered as a charlatan goldfinishing the words almost tarnished the occassion.

I'd already got my ticket for Ursula Rucker at Lux on Thursday, so arranged to meet (Wendy - Welsh not English as I may have stated erroneously before - schoolboy error, soz) and arrived at Lux at an unseemly 22.30 as per posters. She came on about an hour later, I'll let her off, it was well worth waiting for (if not a little scarey). For the uninitiated, Ms Rucker is a Poet/Singer/ Hip-Hopper with a keen sense of social (and political) injustice, who shares her grievances and observations with the world through hard-hitting lyrics and words in all of the above forms, with no punches pullled, and even a bit of butting and a few low blows for good measure. No subject is taboo when our Ursula's involved.  She lived up to her billing and after a full five encores (milkin it?No) I was reeling on the ropes. Fortunately, we knew a few places to reteat to for a pain relieving remedy, and tonight the prescription was Brazilian. And so, we got well and truly 'Oka'd. So much so that, Wendy decided I should chat to an Italian girl who'd caught my attention (and mine, her's according to Wendy), but I wasn't so brave - Wendy wasn't to be denied though and decided to take matters into her own hands (I think I sense a theme somewhere), a few words in her shell-like (more Whelk or Conch?, I'm still not sure) that she was either unwilling or unable to share with me (I'm still not sure). Well it worked. If the aim was to get her to walk past me an obvious number of times with occasional glances (according to Wendy) that is. Either way, I didn't act on the situation, preferring to remain in my comfort zone at the bar with Wendy and a Caiprinha for company, despite a barrage of urging words/ nagging. Sure enough it was a bit of a late one.

 

Ideal preparation for another personal best winning performance, this time it was a public transport related record attempt, and I manged to clock over 6 hours on, or waitng for, various forms with a total of 11 seperate connections to get to 2 lessons (work that out). So by the time I got home I was a bit tired, so decided to have a little nap before going out. Good plan, until the little nap turned into a big nap and the going out turned into sleep.

 

Woke up around 6 on the Saturday as I couldn't get back to sleep, so took advantage of the spare time and finished some reports before getting the train to Estoril to meet the English (and Japanese, and Portuguese, but mainly English) gang for lunch. Yuko had organised a bit of a get together for Dim Sum lunch, and said it'd be good to do something that didn't involve drinking, the voice in my head had naively agreed too. It seems the same voice had missed its stop when I got off the train at Estoril and joined the gang for an imperial or 2 while waiting for our table, and more with the delicious lunch.

 

Next stop was the Casino, the biggest in Europe I'm told which was funny as I couldn't find a spare machine to spend my lucky tokens and be hypnotised by flashing lights and spinning reels for love nor tokens. But I managed to, somehow. Bored of the gambling lark, we popped to Landy's for a comforting brew out of the rain, yes rain. Spent the afternoon watching Anchorman and sipping Vodka (or were they Gin) Martini's and giggling, before hunger returned. Reunitied with the rest of the gang we went for pizza's washed down with Champagne Sangria- naturally, before heading to Bairro Alto and the shot bar. Surely enough a numberof shots with intrigueling names were ritually downed (Electrico's, B53's, Kalashnikofs' and Vacas Loucas if I remember, but how I remember is a mystery). I wasn't finished though, ended the evening off with Maddy in Oka bar through to four before home.  Just after I got in, Juan appeared in a similar state - so naturally the sensible thing to do was play 3 hours of Pro Evo til the sun had come up, Oh well I'd only been up 24 hours why not?

 

(To be continued - got to go out, already late)

 

I'm back - What was left of Sunday, I spent drinking tea, watching a bit of footy and maybe a solitary pint before returning to the casa - only to have my evening of relaxation interrupted by Joel, part of the dodgy landlord double team, who just popped round to mention that we'd have to leave the place by the end of the month. No apologies, not even an announcement, more a case of 'when you leave at the end of the month' - hang on rewind a second, what did you say. Whether it's language barriers or just intellect barriers I'm not sure, but a sensible decision isn't possible with Joel. I broke the sad news to Juan and Gisa, and we thought of various plans to stay, all of which were scuppered by the owner who'd agreed to rent it to friends of his, he could trust - understandable I guess given several months of non-payment from the Joel/Tomas dream team- they really are something else!

 

Despite the shock and short notice I didn't feel too bad about the situation and thought it'd be fairly easy to find somewhere for the three of us, in a similar area - I was a bit off the mark on that one. I've spent most of my time this week, looking and still we've not found anything. Gisa managed to find a room in Principe Real and has now moved. So the 3 was now 2, but still nothing. Last night (Thursday) was Amy's Birthday do, so a meal in Casa da Indias (Admittedly with this name I was expecting a curry of some description, but the swordfish was good), a few bars, random dog stickers (I was a poodle, hmmm ) and the inevitable Oka bar added up to a good night, but not to an early start this morning. Managed to get up around 10, and after a bit of breakfast and another paper search, we were off pounding the streets looking for a place, the 'we' being me, Juan and Dan - Juan's friend from his Salamanca days. We found some really nice neighbourhoods and even the cheapest beer I've had since I got here (65 cents (40p) for a bottle), but not much in the way of potential places to live - could be an interesting few days on the horizon, I'll let you know how it goes....

 

Ciao - Andy

Ooooh Look, its the weekend again, how did that happen?

 

Well a tough couple of weeks slip by, so it must be update time, Carnaval weekend was a bit of a non-event as far as carnaval went. Kinda like a usual weekend, only with more people in fancy dress. Saturday, went round Bairro, in bedroom, and Fragil, trying to decide if a girl dressed as a trailer-park trash guy is good looking, is quite difficult sober, but I wouldn'tknow. Tuesday involved a bit of a cafe crawl with Eucharia , accidental meeting with Wendy and a trip to 'Woody Allen' park, which led to cocktails and a really nice meal at a Mexican place in Santos, a nice end to a long weekend.

 

Back to the teaching then, which wasn't too bad. Particulalry as we were soon round to Thursday again. Stayed in for a change, you can't beat a good night in! Probably for the best as I was volunteered for monster control services on Friday - it wasn't too bad this time, although I stress that's in comparison to the first lesson which did seem like it was gonna kick off into major world conflict at times. Anyway, it did make me feel like I deserved a few beers, not that an invite was required. Visited Incognito for the first time, with Maddy, Amy and her friend Steffi. It was pretty good too, it was Electronic /Indie but Indie appears to have moved on, no Charlatans or Stone Roses to be heard (I tried explaining this to Gisa, who said 'Who?', I rest my case.) I didn't recognise too many of 'em that's for sure. 

 

Ended up in Lux on Saturday night with Amy and the gang, after a couple in Chapito, followed by a few more in a bar in Alfama, and a (brisk) walk past the local gangsters on our way to the club. It was a good night/morning and we left around 6.30 for home. On Sunday I'd managed a bit of breakfast before playing footy, and was back home trying to decide what to eat when Juan returned with friends in tow, Keko and Anna. So before I knew it I was off out again, why not I'm not teaching til 7.30pm Monday.

 

This weeks gone pretty quickly with a mixture of early mornings, new classses and Champions Leauge games to keep me occupied, and finding a cool bar on the next street with film posters and nice selection of down tempo music, it doesn't seem to have a name though, but that's not uncommon in Lisbon. Met Jorge on Thursday night after a few with Juan & co,in the 'new' bar, and was a bit wobbly by 2am, but my Friday student had kindly cancelled his lesson, so nothing to worry about.

 

We'd been talking about Barcelona the night before, and I'd remebered my intention to look at the dates for Sonar festival in the summer. Found the website and listings, got really excited, tried to look at ticket prices and it said they were all sold out - my heart sunk! Then realised I'd been looking at tickets for 2005, and sure enough this years were still on sale, so fueled with adrenaline put my order in for a 3 day pass. of which I am now a proud owner. So if anyone fancies SONAR, I'll be there 15-19th June, hopefully most of the Barca gang should be around so it's should be sweet, sooo excited now I've booked it.

 

All being well, England will be in the final stages of the World Cup a couple of weekends after, so I'm looking at flights to Berlin then too, this is based on a slim and optimistic probablility but I really want to see Berlin anyway, so I'm tempted to book my trip and if England happen to be playing there it'll be a bonus!!

 

Decided not to waste the free day I suddenly found myself with, so went to CCB in Belem (latest photos), for the Frida Kalho exhibition and managed to squeeze in the Design Museum and a photo exhibition too, before the sun came down. I hadn't been back long when Landy called, to tell me we were supposed to be having a Sushi lesson - ooops, in my defence I didn't get the text message confirming it. A belly-full of the most beautiful (looking and tasting, even if I do say so......(fades to silence)...) Sushi later, and a few Russian beers inside me had made me decided that going out later might not be the best plan. Fortunately Juan had the Playstation warmed up when I returned so, plans weren't required. For those interested we took Spain to the Final only to lose to Brasil. For those not interested, Blah, blah, boys and their toys, blah nerds, blah football, blah, blah.

 

I got a call from Tim earlier today, who was at a bit of a loose end, as he couldn't bare another Sushi session and needed to escape, fortunately we (and a few extras, Bob, Tim(II) and a Kiwi guy) knew a Man's refuge centre in the vicinity by the name of the Pump House which suited the occasion admirably, a few pints later and I'm sat at my computer typing my latest blog entry- wuhhh......aaahhh!

 

I've also spotted myself on Trickski's website, can you find me? (No joke's about where's wally?please, Jo and Wendy also made it onto Trickski's website although I think my achievement is much more impressive given Trickski's blatant favouratism for the fairer species)

 

 

......Did you see me then didya? Ok, I'm off now, further info on Sonar below (you know you want to...)

 

Sonar Details:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haven't you stopped reading yet?......

 

 

 

No, Why.....?

 

 

 

 

There's nothing interesting down here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Told you!