Alguma coisa acontece no meu coração

I miss home.

http://www.360cities.net/image/sao-joao-com-ipiranga

My new bookshelf

Still work in progress. But becoming cool. Especially with Super Homer.

Furniture by my dad.

In my place

I finally found my very own street!

Sint-Maartenstraat

Typical night at the Sint-Maartenstraat flat (which I visited back briefly this week).

Overworked, tired, I sit down to have a Jupiler with stuff I bought at the Frituur.

Nice. But it was so much better in summer.

Warioware on Wii

Andrea and Daniel got hooked to the Wii at Michelle's place last weekend.


Michelle watched and tipped them as I took charge of the pics.

CN tower. As I see it.

During the day.


At night.

sherrybaby

I have just watched this excellent film starring my current favorite young actress, Maggie Gyllenhaal. A harsh, raw, yet touching story about an ex-con, recovering addict, and single mom, struggling with life.

Deep, dense characters living less-than-ordinary lives, and a direct, camcorder-like photography immerse the viewer in the world of working-class suburban America. A world in which nobody's perfect, everyone acknowledges it; a world in which waking up and going through the days seem an uphill task in itself.

Hats off to Maggie's intense acting, and to the fitting soundtrack of Dana Fuchs's acoustic songs - that, like the movie, swings from hope to depression and then back to hope. Like most of people's lives, by the way.

Mourn

I never felt like crying before over a public accident.
Not for Darfur.
Not for Gaza.
Not for Iraq.
Not when reading about the near destruction of Flandres in World War I. The same Flanders that hosted me no nicely for the past 2 months.

But I must confess I cried when I read about the accident in Congonhas.

A flight I've taken so many times.

People whose routines look so much like mine.

Bayerischer Sommertag

Things to do in Munich on a summer day:

Go to Englischer Garten and drink loads of beer under the sun,


Chat the afternoon away to catch up with a German friend


And of course ride back on the local pride, Bayerische Motoren Werke!!!

It's a sign of the ages...

Close up on a hi-res Photo of myself taken last weekend in Holland.

They call it too much white hair where I come from.

Late but fun

I should have posted this link to a flickr album of last New Year's Day party in New York City earlier. Some pics are really great. Thanks Arun!

Genesis

It has been almost 3 years now since Sebastião Salgado launched a project called Genesis. In it, the famous photographer wanted to go to all sorts of remote corners of the planet, and give us a glimpse of what life used to be before mankind took over and started changing nature.

In that journey, he has so far taken astonishing pictures of Antarctica, Patagonia, Galápagos, Xingu, Namibia, Sudan, Rwanda, and, latest, Kamchatka peninsula in Russia. A selection of some of these pictures can be found at the Guardian.

All of the trademark black-and-white stills are jaw-dropping. Like these penguins gathering on an iceberg in Antarctica.

Allez le rouge et blanche

Yesterday night I stood on the Kop, holding my red scarf, and sung "You'll Never Walk Alone", as the home players ran around the field thanking the supporters for their intensive cheering during the electrifying Cup semi-final that had just ended.

No, I wasn't at Anfield. No, I'm not fantasizing on it either.

I was invited by my friend Jan to watch his team, Standard de Liege, play Anderlecht on the second leg of the demi-finale of Coupe de Belgique. Standard had won the first leg away 0-1, a surprise result given that Anderlecht is the current league leader and constant Champions League participant.

Besides eating French fries with mayonnaise in the rain while drinking a couple of pints of Jupiler, I watched a very entertaining match with a fantastic atmosphere. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera, so I will illustrate with some pics from Standard's website.



First half

Standard played on a 4-4-2 with a midfield a la anglaise - relying heavily on the industry of their central midfielders, Belgian teenagers Defour and Fellaini. Their strategy consisted of exchaging side passes in the opposition midfield till it reached one the team's two most skilled players - right midfield Sergio Conceição and centre forward Jovanovic.

Backed not only by the relentless chant of the self-called Kop, but also by noteworthy performances of their almost flawless centre-backs (Brazilian Dante, former Juventude player, and Senegalese Sarr), Standard pushed forward, and should have scored on the first half. But actually only Jovanovic showed some willingness to shoot, the others being a bit too reluctant when near the area.

Anderlecht was keeping it tight with a line of three in the midfield, right in front of the back line. And though the three up front were always ready to launch counter-attacks, their most dangerous player was Argentine right-midfield Biglia - who a couple of times cauught Standard's left back lost in marking and appeared to shoot.

Second half

Anderlecht endured till the break but were surprised by a goal at minute 46. I was surprised as well - I heard the crowd yell but I was actually still at the toilet at the time. When I sat, I saw an Anderlecht onslaught - they had nothing to lose anyway - which ended up in a goal by minute 60.

Standard's coach then reacted by taking off Jovanovic's partner in attack (Lukunku, an ineffective tall centre-forward) and replacing him with Portuguese elder Sá Pinto. Guess what, it worked. He helped regain midfield in a time when Anderlecht was regaining confidence. And, most importantly, he earned a penalty "from heaven" when stealing the ball from a centre-back and stopped by the keeper.

The subsequent goal was cold water to Anderlecht but sparked the Kop. From then on, Standard fans were more worried about coordinating the Mexican wave and the Ole chant.

The fans

Liege is in a French-speaking part of Belgium, and hence the chants were another foray into my learning of français. Not that they were too elaborate:

"Hey! Hey! Tous ensemble, tous ensemble!"

"Allez les rouges... allez les rouges... allez le rouge et blanche..."

And also some other chants that I couldn't really understand. Best one was a sequence of sentences uttered by one side of the stadium, and repeated 3 seconds later by the other, that ended up with a massive "Ole ole" chant.



The stadium resembled La Bombonera - tall, steep stands, with ribbons, flags and banners flying, as you can see in the pic above. I was on a seat in the third floor, but the side of the field, not in the Kop. By the way that is one thing I was likened to Standard - they look up to Liverpool, with the stands, the nonstop cheering, and the playing of You`ll Never Walk Alone in the End. Unbelievable.

Saturday, last home match of the season against Club Brugge (who Standard will play in the Cup final, in 10 days) - I'm there!!! Tous ensemble, tous ensemble!!!

Indulging in mainstream tourism

When traveling on leisure, I try to avoid becoming a tourist stereotype. I consider myself past the stage of being a camera-toting vacationer, taking all sorts of pictures to post on fotolog to my mama. And I guess I've also grown a bit old and picky for the rough nights that generally accompany the "off-the-beaten-track" journeys - which, generally, are full of camera-toting vacationers anyway.

Still, it is hard not to indulge myself on a bit of mainstream sightseeing when I had one afternoon to walk around a city as nice as Brugge. Especially when in company of my friends Nicolas and Carolina, camera-toters to the core, but in a way that makes it seem quite a cool thing to do.

So here you have myself striking a pose over one of Brugge's many canals.

North Face jacket, again

So, for those who complained about the lack of pics in here.



This is me posing in front of Moscow State University (one of the seven sisters).

Again the North Face jacket saves me from the cold, just as it did in NY last December.

Menu in Dutch

Actually Flemish. From Belgium.

In the entreés, the gratin de coquille st jacques was sublime.

The second line in the mains block is grilled veal's brain. I went for the first one, veal medallion in red winee sauce.

The last dessert, Ice-cream of Leffe Brune beer, is out of this world.

From the Rockefeller Center

While in NYC, I spent a couple of hours at the top of the Rockefeller Center, gazing at the city's incredibe skyline.

Here are a couple of speculative-nonetheless-beautiful shots taken at different stages of sunset - where you can see the Chrysler building and the Metlife building to the left, and the Empire State Building to the right.

New York City winter

Prior to arriving here in NYC, I thought, "Come on - there is no way this city is better than Tokyo, Paris or London. Maybe it's just hyped".

Dumb me.

It is so much better than any of the previous.

Times Square can't really be compared to anything - It even dwarfs Shibuya, Champs Elysees and Piccadilly Circus (the closest matches).

The assortment of bars and restaurants is unbelievable.

Shopping is just another piece of entertainment, even for the most crowd-averse of beings.

The vibe, ... oh the vibe. It feels as though the whole city has a beating heart, a living soul, an edge. An overwhelming edge.

But the people live up to billing of being a little bit rude.

The UK travel journals - part IV

West Ham United 1 x 0 Sheffield United

Upton Park, East London.

The game from which Tevez ran away.

I was there.

The UK travel journals - part III

One of the greatest moments of my trip was a quick yet interesting visit to the headquarters of my favorite paper, The Guardian, so often quoted in here.

That was all thanks to the lovely Liane Katz, now Liane Dabbous after marrying my good mate from Insead, Alex. While in a lunch with them I found out that Liane is the editor of Guardian Unlimited Travel! I could not refuse an offer to visit, which I did on my way back to Heathrow from Luton.

Follows some pics taken to prove!


Me (yes I'm chubby these days)


Liane, thank you!