Sábado de sol

Acordar cedo, ir para a praia, encontrar com os amigos, almoçar em Ipanema.
Calor de 40o.
Minha amiga não vai mais voltar para o Haiti.
2007 acabando.
Altas expectativas para 2008.
Feliz Ano Novo!

December is...

... Renata's birthday,

Kim in Rio,

Summer & Ipanema,

Party with friends,

Ana Luisa smiling.

Live from NY!

Hey guys, just arrived in NYC and went straight to the Apple store at 5th Av. I have to admit that it's being very difficult to resist to buy a new iPod touch. I've bought a classic one through Amazon, but the touch is really awesome. 

I'll have only two days here and I'm glad I will finally be able to see the Central Park with leaves!!! Tonight I'll go to Cyrano de Bergerac, with Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garder. I'm really excited for that, can't wait for tonight!

Will let you know how it goes!

See you!

My weekend at the TIM Festival

This was my first time at TIM Festival. I can't believe I worked at TIM for 5 years and only after I left I decided to go to the festival. This is one of the most important music festivals in Brazil, if you consider the kind of artists it envolves.

It's a mix of jazz-rock-punk-techno and each year everyone waits to see who is coming. So, this year I decided to attend it, and went both Friday and Saturday. The first day we saw Hot Chip and Arctic Monkeys. It was a night dedicated to UK rock (even if the first band was more related to eletronic music). I will not dedicate many words to them; after the third music I thought it was all the same and wanted to kill time until the Monkeys started.

It was a shame that the concert started so late. It was around 01:30AM when Arctic Monkeys appeared at the stage. The concert was good. They are really good. But we only waited for Fluorescent Adolescent and then went home. Marcos had to work on Saturday, so we did not wait for the end of the concert.

The next day was even better. Starting with Juliette and The Licks, followed by The Killers. I must say: I always liked Julliette Lewis as an actress. Most of the characters she played were deep, troubled, giving her space to show her talented. But I never thought of her as a rock'n'roll star. She impressed me. And all of us who were at Marina da Glória on Saturday. Even Marcos who is not a rock fan, like it so much that was downloading their songs the day after.

It was a great responsibility for The Killers to take over Juliette's performance. They were fine, of course, everybody knew their songs and all, but for me, and according to some critics, that was The Lick's night. I'm glad I was there.

Call The Police!!!

Yes! Finally they are coming... This morning we bought our tickets for The Police's concert in december!!! We wanted the premium seats but they opened the sales yesterday only for HSBC customers and the premium seats sold out.

Anyway, this year I will have a different birthday celebration: at Maracanã with Sting, Andy and Stewart.

Alive and kicking!

Hi, I'm still here. Been absent for a while, busy with work.
Nothing much going on, except the possibility of spending 11 months in São Paulo.
Can't say I'm happy about it...

Long weekend in the mountains

Last Friday we celebrated our Independence Day. It was a long weekend, and we decided to take a small trip to Penedo, a small city near Rio, in the mountains, known as the Brazilian Finland.

We went with my brother Mauro and his girlfriend (my friend) Cris. The place we stayed in was their suggestion, once they had been there before, at the beginning of this year. It was a really nice place, very quiet, good food... And we were very lucky with the weather. During the three days we had sunny and warm days; at night the temperature dropped a little bit, but it was ok. We had so much fun... This was the first time we traveled with my brother, but for sure it won't be the only one.

The hotel accepted small dogs but Marcos did not want to take Ping, that's why she's at my dad's place. But he promised me that the next time we'll take her. There was a couple there with a yorkshire, so cute, she would be a perfect friend for Ping...

At the end of the holiday we had eaten a lot, drank a lot and rested a lot. It was a nice holiday!

The garden is even more beautiful

One of the things my mom liked the most was to take care of her garden. She spent hours watering it, planting new flowers and I think that the roses were her favorite ones.

I thought that maybe after she's gone, my dad would not be able to take proper care of it, not like my mom did, but I was completely wrong. He says that her garden will always be taken care of, even more, and today when I went there to leave Ping with him for two weeks, I couldn't agree more.

The pictures confirm what I'm saying. I think that this is the only part of the house where I still feel confortable, maybe because it's the only place that is quite the same as before...

Nice to meet you, I'm Luly Darcy

I would like to introduce myself, I'm Luly Darcy. I work for a famous web agency and right now I have a big challenge: to develop a marketing plan for a big Brazilian company to launch its services in Second Life.

My friend Renata lended me this space so I could exchange some ideas with her friends. At the moment we are just evaluating some ideas and starting to use Second Life to understand how this thing works. Let's say that it was a little bit disappointing when I installed the software, started to personalize myself and suddenly the computer froze. I will try again later and will publish a picture of my avatar here. Maybe I'll try to convince Renata to do the same...

I'll keep you guys posted about this... Keep coming here for news about my Second Life experience.

Sunny weekend in Rio

I decided to go back to my long walks (something that I started doing in Melbourne and helped me loosing some weight) and went with Marcos to Lagoa yesterday. It was a sunny beautiful day and we walked for more than 7km (the whole lagoon). I thought I was going to be very very tired, but was surprised that at the end I was fine.

After walking we had lunch at one of those kiosks, it was really a nice way to start the day. While we were walking, something caught my attention. Someone in the apartment in the next picture likes to show their art pieces through the window. I decided to register this... Very curious.

Today we will walk again, but at the beach this time.

Yesterday my friend Flavinha went to Haiti. She will spend 4 months there, working. I really hope everything will be fine with her and that she finds what she's looking for and come back soon. I'm gonna miss her a lot.

It's Indie Rock and Roll for me!!

So this is one of my favourite songs from The Killers, and I decided to use it as the title of this post, because today I got tickets for their concert here in Rio in October. And also, I got tickets for Arctic Monkeys concert, another indie band... Cool! I can´t wait!

Thanks to my friend Tania, we will go to these concerts with 20% discount! They will play at the TIM Festival, and TIM employees can buy tickets with discount and before everyone else! Once I'm no longer an employee, I have to ask my dear friends to use their benefits in my favor.

Bem-vindo Max!!!

O post de hoje é em homenagem ao meu querido Max, filho de meus queridos amigos Maria & Stephan.

Max, que você seja um menino muito feliz e que traga muitas alegrias para seus pais. Seus tios Marcos & Renata não vêem a hora de apertar você, ainda mais sabendo como você nasceu fofo!

Beijinhos,
Tia Rê

Finally I finished it

I have finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last Thursday. Honestly, I think the end was a little bit disappointed. I'm not sure if my opinion was influenced by a couple of friends that had already finished it and told me that they didn't like the end.

But the fact is that the book was good and at the end I think the author tried to make sense of something impossible to explain. I don't know, even if we consider that everything in the book is about magic, I think that she could end it in a more real context. Anyway, I think that the 4th book is the best of all seven, it's a turning point in the story and is still my favourite.

Now, I started reading The bookseller of Kabul. It will bring me back to the real world...

PS: I can't find out the reason why the book cover is so large in the picture below...

What goes around...Comes around

Lately I've been obssessed by this hit from JT. Actually, his last album is really good, I like all the songs, but especially this one.

Everyday when I'm going to or coming from work, I listen to it, because it's almost impossible not to. The radio is playing it all the time... People on the streets must think that I'm crazy, because when the song starts I increase the radio volume and it's impossible to avoid singing and dancing.

Now I want to put it as my ringtone, just have to copy it to my mobile. It's not that I identify myself with the lyrics, of course not, but the music is so good... I think he is one of the most talented artists at the moment. I read that he's doing a concert in Brazil this year, not sure when, but wherever it is, I'll be there.

"Don't wanna think about it
Don't wanna talk about it
I'm just so sick about it
I can't believe it's ending this way
Just so confused about it
Feeling the blues about it
I just can't do without ya
Tell me is this fate"

Busy weekend...

Gosh, I'm tired. This weekend was really busy...

On Saturday we had Julia's costume party, at Marcos's father house. You can can check our costumes out in the next pictures. The first picture shows me and Marcos with his grandmother, dressed as a witch. She is so cute.

The second picture, shows us with Marcos sisters Julia and Maria, and Chico, Marcos's brother-in-law.

And the third one, shows me and Maria with three of Julia's friends, dressed as the Blue Men group (they have inpersonated the blue men until the end of the party, they didn't talk at all). Cool! It was really fun! It was the first time I went to a costume party and I think it's really fun when everybody adheres and dresses up using creativity. Marcos said that next year, at his 35th birthday he will throw a costume party.

We stayed at the party until 2:30AM, because Marcos was going to do a barbecue at the next day to celebrate his birthday and we would need to wake up early.

We did the barbecue here at our building. They had done a very nice area for barbecues and it was the first time we used it. Our closest friends are all having babies now, so there were many children at the barbecue. The baby in the next picture is Gabriel, our good friends Denise & Alfredo's son and the cute little girl is Isabela, my good friend Marcia's daughter.

New toy

Yesterday I bought a new toy: a mobile phone Nokia N95. It's also usefull to make calls :) Until now, every spare moment I had was dedicated to learn how to use it. I have forgotten how addicted I was to these gadgets! The phone is simply unbelivable!! Definetly a good choice!

Next saturday it's Julia's birthday party, it will be a costume party. This weekend we (me and Marcos) went to a store to rent our costumes. We did not know exactly what we wanted, and honestly, I did not like the place at once. I wanted to go away the second I got into the store... But Marcos insisted and we asked for the Zorro costume and a spanish dress for me. The lady at the store said that they had the dress similar to the one that Catherina Zetta-Jones wore in the last Zorro's movie, so I asked to see it. It was ok, but I think I will have to explain my costume to everybody at the party. Let's see... Wait for the next post to see pictures of both of us with the costumes.

Finally it arrived!

Yesterday my new Harry Potter book arrived! Unfortunately I had to wait until late at night to start reading it, because we spent the day visiting Ana Luisa (she becomes cutter everyday...).

I think this will be the best book of the series... I only read the first two chapters but it was possible to have an idea of what is coming ahead.

Changing the subject, this is the last week of the Pan American games. We still have two events to attend: masculine volleyball tomorrow night and athletism next Saturday. We thought about going to the closing ceremony on Sunday, but we would have to pay a lot of money for the tickets.

I think we can be very proud of this edition of Pan American games. People from the organization comitees are saying that these were the best games so far and this increases our chances to host the Olympic Games in 2016!

Pé frio!!

We went to Maracanã today to watch the soccer game between Brazil and Ecuador. This was the first time I went to Maracanã to watch a match, actually this was the first time I watched a match in a stadium.

The day was beautiful, very hot and sunny and we were very excited to watch the game. We were in 7 and everybody thought that this game was going to be an easy one for Brazil. We couldn't be more wrong... This team played badly and we lost the game by 2x4 to Ecuador. My brother started calling me pé-frio (cold foot), that's how we call a person that does something for the first time and brings bad luck, in this case, because it was my first time in Marcanã to watch a game.

We didn't even wait the end of the game, we left right after Ecuador scored the 4th goal. But the experience of being in the largest soccer stadium in the world made the day!

It's on the way!!!

My Harry Potter book was posted today!!! Hopefully it will arrive here on Monday! I can't wait to start reading it!

Hummingbirds at home!

This is really a miracle. A hummingbird did a nest at my father's house. I had never seen a hummingbird completely still, and now we have the opportunity to see it taking care of its eggs. It's so cute. Here you are some pictures of mom hummingbird and her kids!! (They were born last weekend)

Let the games begin

The Pan American games began last Friday, with a beautiful opening ceremony at Maracanã. The picture shows a little bit of the colors and lights that were used to celebrate this event that is touching all the cariocas.

But for me and Marcos, the games began yesterday. In the morning we went to Copacabana beach. We wanted to walk and enjoy the sunny day, and also, I needed to get another T-shirt at the Pan store. The day was really beautiful, the beach was crowded, very far from a winter day. Check it out in the next picture.

It was the perfect way to get prepared to our first participation in the games. At night we went to Marcanazinho, where volleyball is taking place. As I mentioned here before, the stadium is renewed, but being there and having the opportunitty to see that everything is really well organized, was a different experience.

Here in Brazil, especially in Rio, we are used to lack of organization, lack of security and people that are unprepared to deal with huge events like this. I was surprised with the organization of the games. For the first time, I had the proof that is just a matter of will, I mean, there were no "flanelinhas" around Marcanã (people that ask for money to take care of your car while it's parked at the street - non-official activity that gives the feeling that if you don't pay maybe your car could be scratched or even stolen when you come back), no parking on forbidden spots, tons of policemen. Why can't be like this forever?

Anyway, going back to the games. We had problems to find our seats, this was the only negative point of the night. We paid for the most expensive seats, hoping that they would be located near the court. But for our surprise, they were located at the top of the arena. We had a good view from there, but I wanted to be close to the teams. At least we will be at the lower part of the arena to watch the masculine volleyball game next week.

The first game was between Cuba and Puerto Rico. Of course everybody was cheering for Puerto Rico, once the cubans are the most famous oponents to the brazilian girls. Was a nice game, and obviously Cuba won.

After the game we had to wait for almost one hour and half for Brazil and Peru. But it was ok. We could feel the excitement in the stadium. It was a great game. And an easy one too. Brasil won by 3x0.

Countdown to Harry Potter

Tomorrow we will watch the opening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I can't wait!!!

Pan games and the Christ

We are all excited for the Pan American games. Our tickets arrived this week and next saturday our marathon will start. The first game we will watch will be Brazil x Peru, feminine volleyball. The Maracanazinho stadium is all renewed and is now is at the same level of the most modern stadiums in the world.

Today, after we arrived from my dad's house, we went to Copacabana to visit the Pan official store, which was built at the beach. We bought so many things!!! T-shirts, caps, postcards, a huge brazilian flag that we'll take to the games, and miniatures of Cauê, the symbol of the Pan American games in Rio. You can see Ping with Cauê in the picture.

The whole city is dedicated to the Pan, and the atmosphere could not be more exciting! Especially now that we won the contest for the new 7 wonders of the world, and our Christ is one of them! The result was communicated yesterday during the Live Earth at Copacabana beach...

Unfortunately there was the episode with the press manager from the US delegation. His comments about Rio were absurd, writing "Welcome to the Congo", comparing Rio to Africa... Nothing against Africa, but this only demonstrated his prejudice and lack of consideration with the people of Rio and the Pan games organizers who are putting so much effort to make everything right and pleasant to our guests. Anyway, he was sent back to the US by the US delegation and they wrote a really nice public apology to the brazilian people. The problem now is: the US athletes, who have nothing to do with his declaration, will suffer the consequences...

Welcome Ana Luisa!!

Today Ana Luisa was born! She is the daughter of our cousins Alexandre and Claudia.
She is so cute and small and we are very happy to have her in our family!

There is nothing going on

It's been a week since I wrote my last post. This means that either I don't have anything interesting to say or I'm working a lot.

I would say both things are true. Since I started this new project I've been very busy and arriving home late at night, due to the traffic between Barra and Botafogo. Also, my weekends have been boring, nothing interesting to do, once Marcos has been very busy studying for his MBA.

This weekend will not be different but at least we have two parties on Saturday, I hope to dance a lot!

Ah, and next week we'll go to Marisa Monte's concert, for free! We were invited by Citroen, as VIP customers, hahaha. They don't know that we sold our car and don't intend to by a new one for a long time now...

Just to make this post worthy I would like to register my support to the lady that was beaten by the 5 guys last weekend. I hope that justice is made and these animals stay in jail for a long time. Unfortunatly we know that in our country those who have money are above the law. But I hope that this time they will get what they deserve!

Friday night and no movie

Today we decided to go to the movies with a group of friends and Marcos was responsible for buying the tickets on the Internet. The movie was Ocean's thirteen.

After work, we met with everybody at a restaurant before the movie, the session we would watch was at 9:30PM. We were not in a hurry because now at almost every cinema in Rio we can buy the ticket with the seat defined. After dinner we went to the cinema and what was not my surprise to find our seats already occupied.

I asked the people that were sat at our seats if they were sure about their seats and they answered "YES!". Ok, I was going to ask the management about this problem, thinking that the website application was not working properly when suddenly I remembered that some months ago Marcos had bought some movie tickets on the Internet for the wrong session. Bingo! He bought the tickets for the midnight session!!!

We were so frustrated... No George, or Brad or Matt tonight... We ended up exchanging our tickets for invitations for another session, and maybe we will watch the movie on Sunday...

Now we have to win

Right now it's all about the Pan American games! The city is a mess, constructions all over the place, because as good brazilians, especially cariocas, everything is left for the last time.

I hope everything is ready in time!!! Anyway, we've bought lots of tickets to watch several games, from volleyball to soccer, beach volley and athletism (I don't know if this is right). I'm very happy because we got tickets for the soccer finals!! They started selling it yesterday night on the Pan American games website and we got it!

The only problem is that now the Brazilian team has to be in the finals, otherwise it will be really bad... At least we got tickets for Brazil x Equador.

I have news: I'm not projectless anymore. Tomorrow I'll start a new project. The good news is that it's in Rio. But, it is in TIM. It's karma, there is no other explanation... But I'm ok with it, I have to be. Deep breaths and everything will be fine... The italians follow me everywhere, or I follow them, I'm not sure...

Ready or not, here I come...

Yesterday was a strange day... We woke up and decided to go to the beach. Marcos left earlier because he went running and we were going to meet at the beach. When me and Flavinha arrived there, it was so windy that it was impossible to stay. We were being covered by sand even before stepping on the beach.

So we decided to come back to our place and stay at the pool, but when we got there there was no sun at the pool anymore, so we just gave up. But the day was so beautiful and warm... We just went home, had lasagna for lunch and watched a good movie: Little Children, with Kate Winslet and Jeniffer Connelly. It was a bit depressing but I think that it tells about things that really happens in life, so it was a good choice.

I was excited for the night because we were going to Lauryn Hill's concert. I'm not a huge fan of hers, but I liked Fugees and loved her first solo album. The concert was scheduled to start at 21h with some unknown band that opened for her and Lauryn's concert would start at 21:30h. Considering that it would be delayed we left home at 21:30 and when we got to the place it was crowded and the line to get in was huge. It was so unorganized that we stayed at the line for about 15 min without going forward.

I noticed that it was because people were cutting the line at it's beginning and nobody did anything... I was so pissed, this is so wrong but it was the organizers fault. So we started to be worried about the time and decided to go to the beginning of the line and do the same. It was a shame, I was embarrassed, but unfortunately in that situation there was no other way...

The first show started at 22:30 and it was 00:30 when Lauryn got at the stage. The audience was not happy at all and we were very tired of standing for almost 3h now. But anyway, the concert was really good, I danced a lot and she sang many old songs from Fugees and after she sang Killing me softly we decided to leave.

It is really annoying not to be able to go to a small concert like this with a minimum of organization. I wonder how it will be in a few days when the city will be full of people because of the Pan American games. I'll prepare myself for the chaos.

Keeping Australia close

For those of you who read this blog (me and two more people maybe - thanks Maria and Kim), I have included a new section on the right showing what I'm reading at the moment.

And I'm reading a book about Australia (thanks Kim again!). I started reading it quite a while ago, while I was in Melbourne and it seems that I don't want to finish it. In some sense it's like it keeps me close to there. So, I'm almost at the end but I keep reading just a few pages each day, and this is weird. Usually I'm a fast reader and like to start thinking about the next book to read.

Also it's kind of sad, because as I move forwad in the book and the author talks about places I didn't go, I get the feeling that it will take a while before I will have another chance to actually be there. Anyways...

But I already have a list of books to read after this one, some of them I got from friends and others we bought. Here are some examples:

- The Bookseller of Kabul (Asne Seirstad)
- When Nietzsche wept (Irvin D. Yalom)
- O homem que conhecia as mulheres (Marcelo Rubens Paiva)

The only problem is that I already bought the 7th Harry Potter book, which will be released in July 21st, so I better read these books until then, otherwise they will keep waiting on the shelf...

Valentine's day?

Today is June 12th and here in Brazil we celebrate Valentine's day. I think that the real one is celebrated in February, right (a little help from my friends from the north hemisphere is appreciated!)?

Well, last year we tried to go out for dinner and it was terrible: all good restaurants were booked, we went from one to another and there was no place, until we finally ended in a really bad restaurant. So this year I decided to cook dinner for Marcos at home. Actually for Marcos and Flavinha, because we will adopt her tonight - that's what friends are for :)

But the reason for this post is because this afternoon, while I was going to the supermarket, I was listening to the radio and they were explaining how this date started being celebrated in Brazil. And there is no romantic reason behind it.

It seems that by the end of the 40's, a store asked for a marketing campaign in June, in order to improve the sales during the worst month of the year, by that time. The campaign theme was related to what in Brazil we call Namorados (boyfriend/girlfriend) and was a huge success. Since then, June 12th is Valentine's day in Brazil. Isn't it awful???

So tonight we will celebrate it having dinner at home with our good friend Flavinha and maybe watching a good movie, while thousands of other people will wait on huge lines to go to a restaurant and satisfy this commercial date.

It's all about fashion

This week in Rio is all about Fashion Rio, the main fashion event that happens here. I'm not very into the fashion world but I like to follow the news and watch the especialized TV shows. And I definetly love to buy clothes!

Gisele Bundchen is in town, because she is the main model for Colcci, and their fashion show was yesterday. So today's newspaper had some articles about the party for Gisele. They had an area for the vips and I laughed so much this morning when I read that there was this guy trying to get into the vip area and the promoter was saying "No way! Never heard this name before!". The guy was the editor of Vanity Fair. Hilarious...

But this year the Fashion Rio has a different meaning for us because Marcos's sister Julia is working for a brand that will do a fashion show tomorrow. She'll be there, being part of it and we are all very proud of her.

The vacation is over

So, my holiday is over. Today I was assigned to an strategic planning activity for an area I have never worked at. But that's ok, this is part of the challenge. I'll will be working on it only for a few days. From June 14th on, it seems that I'll be working for a huge cosmetics company in São Paulo. I don't have many details, but I like their products, they have a similar business plan as The Body Shop and I think it'll be really good to work with a different industry from Telecom.

The sad part is that it's not in Rio. I really hoped that I could be home for a while but because I had to come back earlier, I did not have time to find a project here and right now I just can't say: "sorry but I want to stay in Rio...". So, São Paulo here I go!

It is not thaaaat bad. Ok, SP is bad, no beach, lots of pollution, crazy traffic jams, etc... But at least it is only 40 min flight from Rio and I have some friends there! And, I hope it will not be for a long time. Let's see.

I'm still missing my Melbourne life so much... It is not that I didn't want to come back home, honestly I'm really happy to be home: I will not mention that I missed my husband because it is obvious, but now I can meet and talk to Flavinha whenever I want, I can hold my Ping all the time, I can sleep in my bed and have Brazilian food!!! So it's perfect. But I can't deny I miss my Melbournian life... And I started feeling really sad about it this weekend.

With the sadness came the guilt. But thanks to my dear sister-in-law Maria now I know that this is perfectly normal. After spending a long time away from home and kind of having "another" life, it is normal to miss it. She said she felt the same after she came back from her one year experience in Belgium. And at that time there was no Internet that could make possible for her to keep in touch with her family in Brazil or her friends in Belgium, whe she came back. She's a psychologist so I guess she knows what she's saying.

So now I don't feel that guilty anymore, but still a little bit sad... Hope it will get better with time.

Back to life, back to reality

So this is more or less how I'm feeling now - back to reality! These past 5 months were awsome! I was in a wonderful city, I met new good friends, went to incredible places, and worked too :)

But now, it is time to go back to my life in Rio, at my home. And this feels really good! I know that my family and friends are missing me and I miss them too, a lot.

At this point some of you must be thinking: why is she blogging in English? I started blogging when I went to Australia and wanted to let my family and friends know what was going on with me there. Now that I'm back in Rio, my old blog doesn't make sense anymore, so I decided to create a new one. But I want that my new friends, the ones I met in Melbourne, can read it and know what is happening to me here. That's why I decided to post in English. Ah, and in this way, I will be practicing the language as well.

That said, let's go back to my arrival in Rio. After almost 30h, I got home. Really tired because I could not sleep at all during the flight from Auckland to Santiago. I could not believe, but there were two crying babies at Business Class. And they were just beside my seat. I could not stop thinking about Kim, she would want to make them stop so badly! So, I got home at 2AM, very tired but could not sleep.

I was very excited too because Marcos made me a surprise! I was telling him some days ago that we should by a new TV and, as usual, he was like: "No way, we don't need a new TV!". Well, guess what? When I got home this morning there was this HUGE LCD TV in our living room with a red lace, just waiting for me! I was so excited!!! Can't wait to watch my movies, and concerts, and TV series! This is Marcos, always surprising me...

So, I think it is good to be back in reality...