(Dark) Green

A green sign. A sign of hope. A hope getting hopeless. A less getting lesser. Days getting longer. Distances growing bigger. No remedy, still. A small flame still burning and spoiling it all.

The garden

A garden of statues. I wish I could be in this room just by myself. No other visitors and, especially, no museum guards. Just me wondering among the statues, enjoying their beauty, listening to their silence. Sharing their sadness and conventional smiles.

Telmo´s smile

So many things could have gone wrong in his life. He didn´t let it happen, he´s fought hard against it. Seeing his big smile again today was like a reassurance. It´s gonna be OK.

Fear

"It´s the small things that scare us. Big things, those that can kill, fill us with courage".

Absence

"We tend to confuse emptiness with absence. They are not the same thing. Emptiness is before. Absence is after".

At the beach

Peace. Poetry. Pleasure. Pause.
Come rain or come shine.

Stubborness

The sun was mocking me this morning. I ignored it, there´s nothing it can do. I am determined to be gloomy. I am enjoying cold, grey mornings. And that´s that. For as long as I like.

Lack of...

I miss the times when I would embrace things with enthusiasm, without second thoughts.

It´s the lack of three things that turns people bitter, I read in my book: love, attention and justice. Having one of them, doesn´t seem to compensate for the other two. It should.

Funchal

It´s a beautiful summer evening down here. People are having dinner on their terraces and there´s a huge moon on top of the city and on top of the immense sea. One mushroom risotto and one glass of cold white wine later, I feel dizzy, loose and happy to be back.

Words (more words)

"She´s back. It was one week ago, when we were descending on a wicker basket from Monte to Funchal, with the taste of disgrace in our mouth, that I noticed that Maria João had come back. To herself, to me and to the world she was living in. Even on the days she was sicker, she would visit me whenever she could. Now she had come back to stay.

On a terrifying turn, a well-planted photographer took a photo of us: the best we´ve ever had; a happy couple. In the risky run, in the acceptance of danger and in the laughs of fear and pleasure, someone had turned her back to cancer and death and had reappeared on my side, in front of me and in my heart, the same as on the day I fell in love with her, exactly as I remembered her and as she – even at the worst moments – never let me forget. In October she stopped being sick. More: she started psychoanalysis with Frederico Pereira, with the intention, dear to her since she was a child, to be a psychoanalyst too.

She has come back. And I´ve come back with her, not as the worried lover anymore who took care of her but being once again the passionate lover that knows nothing but love her.

Love is always here. Wherever we are, it doesn´t run away and it´s not taken by surprise. But it is she who has come back, and I – and the ungovernable freedom to love and be loved, without changing a bit how we are or how we behave.

Maria João is back. She brought me back with her. And we go wherever we want. Like before. Like from now on. She´s back."

Miguel Esteves Cardoso warmed our hearts and brought tears to our eyes. For what it is. For what it was. For what it might be, again.

Absence and silence

And I, that I like words so much, that languages fascinate me, that I infinitely admire those who know how to use them well... suddenly all I can think of is how much I would like to go to a country where I wouldn´t know the language, where nobody would be able (or willing) to communicate with me and I with nobody. Absence of words (but in my head, only those) and silence.

Words (again)

"I thought you woudn´t be coming anymore, it was late, I shouldn´t even be there, but suddenly, in the middle of the rain and the cold, you moved towards me, it was your hair, your tone of skin, a hat similar to yours, that covered the nose and the eyes, you moved towards me, in a flagrant diagonal, I jolted, or almost, there wasn´t even time, she lifted her head, she because it wasn´t you, and I turned the other way, ashamed, why the hell did I still think that you would come to me, on the twenty-fifth hour, in the middle of the cold and the rain?

While I am moving away, slowly, I think that during all this time I was like a man who asks God for a sign. A man who believes but cannot take the silence any more, or doesn´t believe and challenges a fictitious god. But this bravado isn´t telling us anything about God. It´s the man that has to come forward. He has to come forward to himself, choosing the life he´s leading. A man is not a divinity: there´s no doubt he exists and there´s no doubt he´ll stop existing soon. We just don´t know if he chooses freedom or despair."

Shameful, painful expectations. I whish I could write like this.

There´s more, here.

Envy

It was a beautiful autumn morning this morning. I looked outside the window, I saw the gardener among the trees and roses and yellow leaves on the ground and I envied her.

Later on, I thought about the young man who found out that he´s not allowed to dream of anything anymore. He just needs to put his affairs in order. How can that feel? I didn´t envy him, nor his loved ones.

I am a fool, I know. But it doesn´t help to know.

The Seventh Gate

"Efficiency as her antidote to despair".
I said it last week. I found it in my book today.

Words

Why do we get so attached to words? As if the truth lay within them. We go back to them, again and again. We read and re-read them, wanting them desperately to 'be' the truth. We close our eyes to everything else and we just want to believe in words.

Short and long distances

The city is full, packed, vibrant as always. Then you step into one of its parks and you get a chance to pause, feel, take a deep breath and think again of how you wouldn´t like to be anywhere else in the whole world. Just here.

Invitation / Provocation

Weiwei´s sunflower seeds or how something that could be just beautiful grows in front of our eyes and fullfils you

Feeling good, in one´s place

The same feeling for years now, when the time comes to take the tube back to Heathrow.

Room with a view

It was these small, peaceful gardens what I loved the most when I first came to this country at 18. They are still very special, their view always comforting and welcoming me.

Every time I come back it´s as if I´ve never left. The beloved city greets me with the same smells and sounds and instantly makes me feel at home. Comforted. A place I belong, without effort. A place where everything else can stay behind, forgotten or definitely ignored. And it does, for a while.

Then, there is again that pressing need to walk, to keep walking, to pass from all the places I love or mean something to me, to take the whole city in. Because the countdown has started.

Coming soon

An injection of happiness.

One-way road

A relationship called 'friendship' is a two-way road. If it´s one-way, it should be defined as humanitarian aid.

Lux

By brazilian artist Laura Vinci. It´s absolutely beautiful when you see it. But in the photo, is seems to be gaining movement too.


At Carpe Diem, Palácio Pombal.

Kepele

I intensely thought of this movie today. It´s one of my favourites. For Nicole Kidman´s accent. For Sean Penn´s hurt look. Both submerged in their grief, alone. And far apart. Two units. As if each one carried a sign saying "don´t touch". Even when they´re looking after each other, they are "kepele" - on opposite sides of the river.

The interpreter, by Sydney Pollack

For a week only

". . . One afternoon at four o’clock we separated
for a week only. . . And then—
that week became forever."

From The Afternoon Sun, by C.P.Cavafy (transl. Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)

Trust

"Dazzling... Profound and urgent", was the quote from the Observer review on the cover. I was reading and reading, but I coundn´t exactly find 'my' Ian McEwan. Until I reached page 206. And there he was! Marvellous, frightful, charming, repulsive, addictive. I wanted to close the book to breath, but I couldn´t, I kept reading. I doubted him, I shouldn´t have. Sometimes we can simply trust.

Sous la pluie

Rappelle-toi Barbara
Il pleuvait sans cesse sur Brest ce jour-là
Et tu marchais souriante,
Épanouie, ravie, ruisselante
Sous la pluie
(...)
Un homme sous un porche s'abritait
Et il a crié ton nom
Barbara
Et tu as couru vers lui sous la pluie
Ruisselante ravie épanouie
Et tu t'es jetée dans ses bras
(...)

Barbara, by Jacques Prévert

The eye of Bamako

Two of my favourites, by Malick Sidibé. Couldn´t find the rest online. I love views from the back.

The antidote

"Dream", they say. "Don´t stop dreaming". But what if you listen to them and you dream the wrong dream?

To be or not to be...

To be brave or to be intelligent? Is there a way of being intelligently brave? Or bravely intelligent?

It doesn´t matter really. One way or the other, the result will be the same.

One of those things

We met by chance almost a year ago. We shared a table. An hour of interesting conversation and a genuine feeling of closeness that made a big difference in that trip and that has stayed with me. We barely know each other.

I don´t know why, but a couple of days ago I thought about that trip and about her. And then yesterday there were more references reminding me of her. So I wrote. Briefly, openly. And it seems that I did it on the right moment. She wrote back and her words felt like a hug. How do these things happen? How to explain this kind of connection and closeness with an almost stranger?

Maybe there is no need to find an explanation for everything. It´s just one of those things. I thinks it´s safe not to try to undestand and to simply enjoy it.

Shirin

The day started beautifully. The hotel looked as if it had come out of the 30s. For some reason it made me think of Tender is the Night by Francis Scott Fitzgerald. Very special atmosphere. It really felt autumn.

I have to admit that even when I am trying to avoid it, it is almost impossible not to get into a museum. And I am so glad I did. First of all, because walking through its almost empty rooms I felt peaceful. And then because I had the opportunity to see Marlene Dumas´s Against the Wall exhibition. Two of her paintings drew particularly my attention.
"Living on your knees" - A praying muslim or a humiliated palestinian?
"The sleep of reason" - Us all?

And then, meeting Shirin Ebadi. Many people were waiting to enter the auditorium and she passed among us. Tiny, looking shy, but still, I could imagine her wearing the obligatory scarf and defying in court her country´s brutal regime. Once she´s on stage, once she starts talking, she grows bigger and bigger. The expression becomes tough and determined, the voice is strong, steady. She´s and imense woman, she belongs to all of us.

Not a good photo, but all mine.

And now, putting aside, just for a while, politics, brutal regimes, human rights, brave people, culture, religion, freedom of speech, I can confess which was the other passage from her book that touched a chord. Talking about her elderly mother after voting for the first time in years:

"When we were coming out she told me: 'I wish your father was still alive.' She would rarely say that. It was her way of saying that she was feeling happy at that moment."

Iran awakening

"(...) some of my friends and relatives suggest that I should spend some time outside the country. But I am asking myself how I can be better off outside the country. The nature of my work, the role I play in Iran, could I carry it out from a distance? Obviously not. And then I remind myself that the greatest threat of all is my own fear - that it is our fear, the fear of the Iranians that wish for a different future, that turns powerful those who oppose us."
Iran Awakening, by Shirin Ebadi.

I am looking so much forward to seeing and hearing her on Saturday.

September

It´s autumn. On a chilly morning, the lake is shining under the sun. Absolute calm, the rowers taking a rest in their boats. This music is coming out of the loudspeakers and involving us all. And I have a feeling of absolute happiness. Someone likes me.

It was September, centuries ago.

Kiri Te Kanawa sings "September", from the Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss.

Non, ma fille...

Almost every character in this film is irritating. They piss you off. And yet, it´s a nice film. Even if it was only for the part where you get to see how it may end up. If you are fit enough to dance.

Non, ma fille, tu n´iras pas danser, by Christophe Honoré

The oblivion we shall be

Hector Abad Faciolince´s The oblivion we shall be is a token of love, unconditional love, the way we expect a parent to feel for a child. In this case, it´s the testimony of a son´s love for his dad.

Nevertheless, there was a passage that touched me particularly and didn´t have to do with this father-son relationship:

"I found out, years later, that from that date onward my father and my mother never made love again, as if this pleasure had also been forbidden to them for ever. They continued being loving to each other, there´s no doubt about it, some sunday mornings they would linger in bed and all of us could see them hugging warmly, brotherly, but what we didn´t know was that their full intimacy had been lost with Marta´s death."

The word 'intimacy'... Its presence... Or absence... Gaining it, losing it or never having it.

It made sense.

The castle

Its walls seem to be growing taller and stronger. And even if some stones are missing, it doesn´t fall. The architect is wiser and knows how to cover the holes.

What was it?

What made the difference? What was it that all of the sudden made everything look alright? That we are going somewhere? That we are getting somewhere? That there´s nothing in the world that can spoil it for us? I don´t know. But it feels damn good. It´s gonna be OK. Nobody said it to me. I am saying to myself.

The season is officially open.

Weather forecast

Not exactly sunshine, but a nice breeze. Fingers crossed.

Raining

It was raining. Outside and inside. And now?

Grey tones

The first grey day. The lake always at its best. I love it, any time of the year, in every possible tone of green or grey. And I miss it already.

Cruel

Why is the sea always at its best on the day we're leaving?

For Colin

Who loved that mountain. Who wrote the most beautiful poems in ancient greek. Cambridge and Tomaros will miss him, as well as his many good friends.

Luxury

From 7.30 to 9.00 I have this beach almost to myself. Ten days, 7 really good books, lots of thinking, peace. I could get used to it.

Breakfast by the lake

Early in the morning, without annoying music and hordes of barbarians. Sometimes I dream of this peace when I am far away.

Road to exile

Road to exile is the name of this work by Barthélémy Toguo. It's so elegant, it looks so fragile and it refers to such a harsh reality. Bottles of vodka form the sea beneath the vessel. It instanly captivated me. It's part of the exhibition Islands never Found at the State Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki.

Before I found out what is was called, when I first looked at it, I immediately thought of Eldorado, by Laurent Gaudé, one of my favourite novels, on illegal immigration in the Mediterranean.

Back home

Funny... We are back home and all of the sudden it's as if we were sixteen years old again.

But at the same time it's not as if we never left. Taking the plane from Athens, I don't know any of the passengers anymore...

Survival manual (iii)

"I wept like a child. It was not because I was overcome at having survived my ordeal, though I was. Nor was it the presence of my brothers and sisters, though that too was very moving. I was weeping because Richard Parker had left me so unceremoniously. I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things a meaningful shape. (...) It´s important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go."

And thus, the story ended.

Life of Pi, by Yann Martel.

Survival manual (ii)

For those who haven´t read Life of Pi, it is the story of a boy, Pi, who spent 7 months on a lifeboat, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, together with Richard Parker, a tiger. As you can imagine, the survival manual did not, could not, cover every aspect of what lay ahead of them. And it didn´t prepare them (or us) for this:

'"I love you!" The words burst out pure and unfettered, infinite. The feeling flooded my chest. "Truly I do. I love you, Richard Parker. If I didn´t have you now, I don´t know what I would do. I don´t think I would make it. No, I wouldn´t. I would die of hopelessness. Don´t give up, Richard Parker, don´t give up. I´ll get you to land, I promise, I promise!"'

And with this outburst he took my breath away.

The huge tanker had just passed next to them, without seeing them.

Survival manual

"(...) Don´t let your morale flag. Be daunted, but not defeated. Remember: the spirit, above all else, counts. If you have the will to live, you will. Good luck!"

From Life of Pi, by Yann Martel.

Breathing

Already breathing Greece, all over... Almost there.

Lava, by Alkestis Protopsalti.

Acceptance

Definition: Acceptance is when a person agrees to experience a situation, to follow a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it, protest or exit.

I am almost there. But there are exits and there are 'exits'.

Dogtooth

Very original, disturbing. It´s so shocking, I feel bad for having laughed so much. I´ve become an expert in black humour...

Kynodontas (Dogtooth), by Giorgos Lanthimos.

Thorns

There is this expression in greek, "going barefoot on the thorns", which means getting into a difficulty unprepared. Couldn´t it also mean getting knowingly hurt? We know thorns are sharp and still we go ahead, barefoot, and step on them. Can we then blame the thorns?

Where did I put my shoes?

A flare

A flare explodes in the night
And my heart breaks, I saw you in the light
The pieces became a new land
And in the change I see with different eyes

All things are the same if you don't love them
All things stay the same if you don't fancy them
And all those that are, become again
Through your own eyes...

From Fotovolida (Flare), by Orpheas Peridis

Reflexions

Reflexos - Movimento Circular, by Bernardo Sassetti (from the album Motion)

Being 5 (II)

"- Mum, you know I can fly."
"- Are you a bird? Have you got wings?"
"- I have a dream that flies and takes me with it."

Being 5

"- Son, today we started our day fighting and that left me very sad."

"- Forget about it, mum. That way, we can be happier."

I wish I was 5. I wish I could simply forget to be happy.

Come back

Come back often and take hold of me,
sensation that I love, come back and take hold of me -
when the body's memory revives
and an old longing again passes through the blood,
when lips and skin remember
and hands feel as though they touch again.

Come back often, take hold of me in the night
when lips and skin remember...

Come back, by C.P.Cavafy (recited by Elli Lambeti)

Night in the highlands

The puma comes by night
(quichua poem)

Comes the puma
through the night
across the highlands
on feet of silence
seeking blood
comes the puma.

Comes the moon
through the night
over the highlands
with fingers of light
full and round
comes the moon.

Comes the constellation of the Llama
through the night
over the highlands
with eyes made of stars
born in shadows
comes the Llama.

Comes the wind
through the night
across the highlands
with mouth wide open
shouting, wailing
comes the wind.

Comes the ice
through the night
across the highlands
with crystal fingernails
sparkling with cold
comes the ice.

Puma and moon
constellation of Llama
wind and ice
beautiful enchantment.
Night in the highlands
thus am I fed.

A good week

After all, what makes a week good? That´s what I´ve been mainly thinking about, trying to put together all the little pieces. Just in case I might be able to repeat it, some time soon.

A good week is made of the absence of previous plans; lots of good films; good books; small discoveries; time alone; dreaming of travelling. Putting all the rest aside. For a while. For ever?

Estômago

What a sweet expectation I feel when the lights go out in a cinema room and the projector starts working.

This one is the last in a row of great films I watched this week. It´s intelligent, funny, beautifully written... Delicious.

Estômago, by brazilian Marcos Jorge.

La teta asustada

How to take the fear out? By trusting, by dreaming, by being able to accept a gift smiling... By singing songs.

La teta asustada, by peruvian Claudia Llosa.

Whisky

It´s about lost opportunities, feelings untold, routines, a wish to dream, to break free. It´s beautifully sad. It makes us laugh, if we don´t see ourselves in it.

Whisky, by uruguayans Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll.

Los viajes del viento

"... and then a miracle happened, as they usually happen in the south of the world", said Luis Sepúlveda.

Los viajes del viento, by colombian Ciro Guerra.

Partir

Silent holes

(...) a palavra de água se dissolve
na palavra sede, a boca cede
antes de falar, e não se ouve (...)

Os buracos do espelho, by Arnaldo Antunes

Intimacy

A man is getting ready to leave his wife and children. It begins like this:

"It is the saddest night, for I am leaving and not coming back."

Page 4:

"Soon we will be strangers. No, we can never be that. Hurting someone is an act of reluctant intimacy."

Page 80:

"It is my yearning for more life that has done this, and we are yearning creatures, a bag of insistent wants."

Page 94:

"No wonder everyone wants it [love] - as if they have known such love before and can barely remember it, yet are compelled ever after to seek it as the single thing worth living for. Without love, most of life remains concealed. Nothing is as fascinating as love, unfortunately.

I know love is dark work; you have to get your hands dirty. If you hold back, nothing interesting happens. At the same time, you have to find the right distance between people. Too close, and they overwhelm you; too far and they abandon you. How to hold them in the right relation? (...)"

Intimacy, by Hanif Kureishi

Metropolis

It´s a very special experience watching Metropolis at Gulbenkian Foundation´s open-air theatre. The story, the actors´ intense and exagerated interpretation, so typical of silent movies, and also the music (especially composed by argentine Martín Matalón), which becomes much more powerful when planes approaching for landing pass over us and enhance its intensity.

But it was cold, terribly cold... I couldn´t help thinking of warm summer nights in greek amphitheatres...

Marina of the Rocks

You have a taste of tempest on your lips—But where did you wander
All day long in the hard reverie of stone and sea?
An eagle-bearing wind stripped the hills
Stripped your longing to the bone
And the pupils of your eyes received the message of chimera
Spotting memory with foam!
Where is the familiar slope of short September
On the red earth where you played, looking down
At the broad rows of the other girls
The corners where your friends left armfuls of rosemary.

But where did you wander
All night long in the hard reverie of stone and sea?
I told you to count in the naked water its luminous days
On your back to rejoice in the dawn of things
Or again to wander on yellow plains
With a clover of light on you breast, iambic heroine.

You have a taste of tempest on your lips
And a dress red as blood
Deep in the gold of summer
And the perfume of hyacinths—But where did you wander
Descending toward the shores, the pebbled bays?

There was cold salty seaweed there
But deeper a human feeling that bled
And you opened your arms in astonishment naming it
Climbing lightly to the clearness of the depths
Where your own starfish shone.

Listen. Speech is the prudence of the aged
And time is a passionate sculptor of men
And the sun stands over it, a beast of hope
And you, closer to it, embrace a love
With a bitter taste of tempest on your lips.

It is not for you, blue to the bone, to think of another summer,
For the rivers to change their bed
And take you back to their mother
For you to kiss other cherry trees
Or ride on the northwest wind.

Propped on the rocks, without yesterday or tomorrow,
Facing the dangers of the rocks with a hurricane hairstyle
You will say farewell to the riddle that is yours.

From Orientations, by Odysseas Elytis

Going around in circles

I am going around in circles. And I hate going around in circles. And I keep thinking about it. That I am going around in circles. And that I hate it.

I´ve been trying to "fight courageously my defeat". When am I allowed to declare it though? So that I can stop going around in circles...

Do I hear someone whispering "acceptance" in my ear?

Nothing personal

"I won´t ask you anything and I won´t talk about myself." Now, that sounds just fine.

Nothing personal, by Urszula Antoniak.

Mother

She´s hiding in the closet, where she thinks she has found some evidence. From her hiding place, she has to assist her nephew´s lovemaking. When the two lovers finally fall asleep on the mattress on the floor, she quietly comes out, holding the evidence in her hand. The camera films from the top. We see her passing next to the two young people, we also look at them from her point of view. We are holding our breath... We gasp! She´s stumbled on a bottle of water. It falls and the water is spilling. The camera films it as it is slowly reaching the fingers of the nephew´s extended arm. It touches his fingertip and we are breathless once again. It doesn´t wake him up. And she´s out of there.

A brilliant south corean film, Mother, by Bong Joon-ho.

Warm nights

When the nights get warm, I start thinking of home. And of a beautiful holiday on the island of Spetses. It was the end of a warm day and we were sitting at Café Orlof. There was a very pleasant breeze - like only the greek summer breeze can be -, we could hear the sound of the waves - the way only the greek waves can sound - and we were enjoying the beautiful music of Evanthia Reboutsika.

Enjoy poverty

Although there were moments I thought he was taking things to the extremes, questioning situations that were not really the point, the truth is he does have a harsh, cynical, almost unbearable point.

Enjoy poverty, by dutch filmmaker Renzo Martens.

The time that remains

Nazareth has surrendered to the Israeli Army. Palestinian fighters hand over their arms. An intellectual faces the army officer and gives a small speech.

"Either a life to bring happiness to our friends´ hearts or death to torment our emenies´hearts". And he quickly, dramatically and ridiculously shoots himself in front of everyone.

Some people in the room laughed at this scene. It is very special the sense of humour born under oppression.

The time that remains, by Elia Suleiman.

Tuesday nights

Tuesday nights are Grey´s Anatomy nights. And I like them, just because of that. I am not that hard to please after all...

Radio Muezzin

There were moments I closed my eyes and found myself again in bed in a Cairo hotel listening to the muezzin calling for prayer at 4 in the morning.



Radio Muezzin by Rimini Protokoll

Death in Persia

I finally started reading Death in Persia, by Annemarie Schwarzenbach. It´s not exactly the travel book a had expected it to be.

"...because we can only count with other people´s compassion and understanding if our failures can be explained, if our defeats have been courageously fought until the end and if our suffering is the inevitable consequence of these two reasonable causes. If sometimes we are happy without a reason, we can never be unhappy in the same way. And, at such a critical time as the one we are living, one is expected to choose the right enemy and a destiny according to one´s strengths. But the hero of this small book is so far from being a hero that he can´t even name her enemy and is so weak that she gives up on the fight apparently even before his inglorious defeat has been decided."

And further down:

"'- What do you expect from Persia?', Malraux asked me. He knew the ruins of the city of Rages. He also knew about the enthusiasm for archaeology. He thought clearly about human passions, he was inclined to despise everything that had to do with them, apart from what was left from them: suffering. He asked me: '-Just because of the name? Just because it ´s too far?' ".

Do you remember...

Do you remember our quiet hours,
when it was us and just us?
Hours of triumphe! The two of us so free and proud
and aroused and flourishing and clear
in our soul and heart and eyes and face,
and both in divine peace side by side.
Friedrich Hölderlin

To paralyze

Definition: to bring to a condition of helpless stoppage, inactivity or inability to act.

Fear paralyzes. So does pain. The fear of pain must be a deadly combination.

Looks like velvet

I was crossing the bridge by bus this morning. The ladies in front of me were talking about the river. How beautiful it looked; it gave the sensation of velvet, inviting you to jump into it. And I thought: if you jumped from here, you would discover that what looks like velvet is actually hard as a cement wall. It seemed they heard my thoughts, because they suddenly started discussing every suicide case they knew.

A bright sun, a warm morning and a river looking like velvet is not the guarantee of a beautiful day...

Berlin - Day 4

And on my last day, the sun shone in Berlin. I had the time to walk along a remaining part of the Wall, the East Side Gallery, and to visit one more museum, a great one, the Deutsches Historisches Museum. It mustn´t have been easy to re-think this museum. Is it ever easy to 'think' a history museum?

The 'suspension' is officialy over. Not to get dizzy or anything.

Berlin - Day 3

How much I love good museums. And how I love them even more when they know how to create a lot of drama around an object, when they know how to create expectations and when in the end they know how to live up to the expectations they´ve created. The museum is the recently refurbished Neues Museum and the ‘star’ is Queen Nefertiti. She stands alone in a dark green round room with a dome, beautifully lit, the rest of the room quiet dark. Crowd control in the museum means that visitors are naturally spread around its different floors and rooms. So there are never too many people at a time in ‘the queen´s room’ and, given that this is the only place in the whole building where photography is not allowed, everybody is here to really look at her, to adore her.

On the other hand, how much I hate museums that make me feel I am supposed to know everything and, if I don´t, it´s because I am a big idiot. Contemporary art museums usually fall in this category. I usually come out the same as when I went in, just a bit more tired. Definitely more upset. This was the case of Hamburger Bahnhof. And could someone explain to me why in almost every museum in this place guards are barking instructions to foreign visitors in perfect german?

It didn´t stop raining today. It got colder too. But on this cold rainy day I discovered a different Berlin, more colourful, more animated. After all, it´s not just an ex-eastern-block city on a permanent bank holiday. I discovered 'my' Berlin in Prenzlauer Allee and the streets around it. And I had a very special dinner in Restauration 1900. A great way to enjoy my last night here.

Berlin - Day 2

Day 2 started disappointingly and ended divinly.

It was 8.15 when I arrived at Reichstag to visit Norman Foster´s Dome. And the queue was as long as it had been the day before. Nobody went to sleep? It took me one hour to get up there. But it was worth it.

Next stop: the famous Jewish Museum. Which is more of a famous building of a famous architect than anything else. What a pity. So totally confusing, both in terms of orientation and of storytelling. Great design, not very visitor-friendly.

I then walked to Checkpoint Charlie to assist more of the kitsch scenes I had seen yesterday in front of the Brandenburg Gate and to visit the Mauermuseum, that is the Wall “Museum” (huge robbery; why doesn´t any guidebook say so????). How can a city with such an intense historical past allow for so much bad taste? I keep wondering how ex-East-Berliners feel about all this.

My meeting with history was at the Topography of Terror, a very good information centre on the site where the SS and Gestapo Headquarters once stood. It opened last week. A different environment here, different visitor attitudes as well. And a well-told story. Then another four museums during the afternoon, the highlight being the discovery at the Neue Nationagalerie of Ernst Ludvig Kirchner and his delicious painting “Potsdamer Platz”.

After having walked all these kilometres, I totally deserved my delicious turkish dinner at Hasir´s. Beautiful restaurant, excellent food. My nationality triggered even better customer service and lots of smiles.

And now, bed, sweet bed. If I try hard to dream of foot massage, will it have an effect in the morning?

Berlin - Day 1

I was out of the airport by 1.30 pm. It felt as if it was a Sunday or a bank holiday. The streets were practically empty; shops, cafés and restaurants closed. The more we approached the centre, the more eastern-european it felt.

By 3 pm I was already in a museum. A dream came true and I was finally at the Pergamon museum. Got my ticket, went through a small door and... I held my breath! I was already in front of the altar. Who could ever think that such a small door would take us to such a great, imposing, beautiful monument. I stayed were I was for a few minutes, just looking. Eventually, I started walking around, recognising little by little all the figures I had studied so long ago.


Three museums later and having argued with two guards about stupid rules (they in german, I in english...), time for a pause at Einstein Café in Unter den Linden. Cappuccino (the best ever outside Italy and Greece) and delicious apfelstrudel. Then, ready for a few more kilometres. Kitsch scenes in front of the Brandenburg Gate, with idiots disguised as GDR officers or American soldiers and other idiots (tourists) going along with it and taking photos next to them... Huge cue to see the glass dome of the Reichstag (I´ll leave it for tomorrow morning). On the way back to the hotel I entered the Staatsoper. The performance was finishing and the usher let me go in to see the room, since... that´s all I can see. Everythings is sold out.

Dinner time and, although this time I was unfaithful to my usual companion (the Lonely Planet), I followed the Rough Guide´s suggestion and ended up in a 1913 tiny café-restaurant called Metzer Erk. Just Germans, which is always a good sign. It makes us feel less tourists and more at home. Curry sausage with fries and horrible german white wine. I am dizzy and I am done for today.

On a plane

Nothing more uplifting than the prospect of getting on a plane tomorrow at 7am. It always does miracles for this girl.

The discovery of a city

One of the most exciting, most thrilling, most forget-about-everything-else things in life is getting ready to discover a city we´ve never been before.

It´s small things that bring us happiness. But then again, it´s equally small things that can easily take it away.

Afghan women

Mountstuart Elphinstone, a young Scotsman, arrived in Afghanistan in 1808 and wrote about the then kingdom. Among other things, about women and their importance as a means of exchange. In her book Caderno Afegão, Alexandra Lucas Coelho included a passage from Elphinstone´s An account of the Kingdom of Caubul:

"Among western afghans, the atonement of a murder is made by giving away 12 young women, six with a dowry and six without. The dowry of each one is 60 rupies (7,10 pounds), partially in goods. For cutting a hand, an ear or a nose, they give six women; for breaking a tooth, three women; for an injury above the head, one woman; for an injury under the head (unless it takes a year to heal) or any other small offense, atonement is made with apologies and submission. Oriental afghans give less women and more money. There are fixed equivalents for a woman in money, so the person to whom a compensation is owed can choose what he prefers."

DV8 - The cost of living

Long silences, short breaks.

Every single day

He´s carefully and meticulously getting dressed. Getting disguised into what people expect of him, into what he used to be. And then he takes a look and tells his reflection in the mirror: "Just get through with the God damn day". And we know it´s not just that particular day. It´s every single day.

Colin Firth in A single man.

Morning Sun

Edward Hopper, Morning Sun (1952), Columbus Museum of Art

"...The sun beholds her nakedness,
but it cannot hold her in its arms.
It cannot kiss her tightened lips
and force its golden tongue
to free her inner primal scream."

Bill Alberti on this painting.

Leaving Tangier

Leaving Tangier is a novel by moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun. And although I bought the book because it´s a story about illegal immigration, hope, deception, disillusionment, this is the sentence that spoke to me the most:

"...On the trip home they barely spoke, wrapped in a fine fatigue and completely absorbed in their sense of each other."

This is just beautiful to read; and when it happens too.

Pororoca

"Pororoca is a natural phenomenon caused by the meeting of river and sea water... It can uproot trees and alter the course of rivers, but it is also a fragile process resulting from a delicate balance of natural factors. Pororoca is a meeting of counter currents. It forms waves and alters shorelines, creating noise and calm. It drags, mixes, shocks and invades."

There is no music in this choreography by brazilian Lia Rodrigues. Just the sound of bodies colliding, the dancers´ fast breathing, shouts, cries... It´s tender and violent, it´synchronized and fluid, it´s loud, but there are silences that enhance all these feelings and sensations. It was pororoca.