sitting at a French cafe'

I had an amazing time in Montpellier. I just got back to Portugal today.

I was so afraid about going back to where I have been living for so long and finding things changed, relationships that were not so strong anymore. Instead, everything was even better than what I could have hoped for. I spent a lot of time with my friend and it was quality and fun time.

There is no comparison. I regularly talk and exchange emails with my friends who don't live where I currently live, but in these occasions it is more about sending and receiving updates. Having the chance to actually live things with my friends, normally, talking about whatever we feel like, it is all another story. I enjoyed it so much.

And the best thing of all, the thing I realized that I am missing a lot about France and especially Montpellier, is the chance to sit outside in the sun at a cafe' with my friends. I had quite a lot of that in these days and I enjoyed any minute of it and I wished I could transfer the whole atmosphere (including my friends, of course :-)) here in Portugal. I don't think that there is such a thing like the French cafes anywhere else in the world...at least not in the parts of the world where I have been living so far. In the spring, in the summer, it is just a perfect set up for spending a nice moment chatting with friends.

I am missing that already!
 

Happy and scared

I am not sure what really happened, but for the first time in a long time, I am really, truly, deeply happy. I feel the kind of happiness that makes me walking around with a smile.

I am back to Montpellier for a short work stay and I am spending a lot of time with close friends, who keep showing me how happy they are to have me here. The same for the people I used to work with. It is a nice feeling. Plus, I found the strength of stopping a very unhealthy and painful interaction and even if this decision still makes me sad for a lot of reasons when I think about it, overall, it makes me also feel lighter and happier for having taken a step toward my own happiness, instead of always putting someone else in front of me. Last thing, I think that finally, after long long long time, I feel able to love again. I just can't stop smiling.

Unfortunately, I am also quite scared....It has been so long since the last time that I felt this way for more than just a short moment or one day, that I am afraid that this feeling will end soon......

Totally predictable

....it may be totally predictable to an average Portuguese man, but it was not totally predictable, nor expected to me.

Let's start from the beginning.

After waiting for two months for someone to come to repair the windows in my apartment from which I had water leaking inside in any room any time that it was raining, after missing many work days to be at home because some imaginary man should come to repair my windows, after getting very angry at my landlord, after a lot of frustration, finally last friday afternoon someone came to fix the problem.

I was working from home while he was doing what he had to do to solve the leaking problem. I have to state here, up front that I am very very naive.....but sometimes I think my being naive is very close to be stupid and unaware of things.....I don't know how someone could theoretically not trust anyone, but at the same time believe that every single human being is a good person.

Anyway, back to the story. I was working and this guy started to talk to me.
I thought that it was bored, so I politely replied. The conversation went more or less like this (in a mixture of Portuguese/Spanish language):

Him: since how long I lived in Portugal?
I replied.
Him: for how long will you stay in Portugal?
Me: none can say it, with this economy......
Him: do you live alone?
Me (starting to feel very nervous and politely smiling very nervously): mmmmmmm
Him: alone...I mean, no husband, no boyfriend....
Me: eh????
Him: do you like Portugal?
Me (feeling kind of relieved because I thought that we shifted the topic of conversation): Yes I do for most things.
Him: and Portuguese men?
Me (blushing from the toes to the top of my head): eh?

......it must be said that sometimes I thought that I misunderstood the Portuguese and that he really didn't mean what I thought he was asking me....but no....he was really hitting on me....

Me: I have to work, sorry.
Him: you are at home.
Me: yes, I am at home to let you in to finally repair the windows, but I have to work.
Him: You have very beautiful eyes.
Me: uh?
Him: so clean, like the eyes of a baby.
Me: ok enough.....I really have to work, sorry....
Him: are you on facebook?
Me (and I was actually telling the truth): no. I hate facebook.
Him: you should get on facebook.
Me: sure, after I am done with work, ok?

Finally I think he got the message....but I was feeling very very uncomfortable. I mean I don't like to be rude, but come on.....
I told this story to a couple of Portuguese people I know here and the guys who listened to the story told me that it was obvious and totally normal......Normal??? I mean, someone comes to repair something in the apartment and I should expect that he is going to hit on me? normal according to which planet???

But at least it looks like that while he was bullshitting with me, he also did what he was supposed to do and the windows are apparently (and I really hope so) fixed.

Pole pole

A friend of mine is currently learning to adapt to a different life style and culture and she often needs to repeat to herself this thing "pole pole" that in Swahili should mean something like "slowly" or should indicate that things come gradually to the ones who are able to be patient.

Well, I keep repeating this to myself too in these last days. I don't know. She wrote this "pole pole" a couple of times to me and now it is stuck in my head. Maybe because this motto is made of two repeated words and sounds like a mantra and has really the effect of reminding me to breath and slow down....so "pole pole" to myself.

"Pole pole" to the fact that I will be in France in less than a week to work with one of my ex-boss and he forgot that it was a National holidays exactly on the day that we planned our meeting. Pole pole because I still don't know when I will meet him and I am going there to meet him and work with him. Pole pole because I still don't know where I will be staying, except for the first two nights, and how long I will be stay, because it all depends on when I will be done with the work I have to do there and because I don't want to just abuse of my friends' hospitality. Pole pole because it looks like I will be leaving my place and after two months, I still have water leaking in every single room from the windows every time that it rains strongly. Pole pole because I am excited and I look forward to go back to the last place where I have been living, seeing my friends, etc., but I am also very scared because things will be different, as I don't live there anymore since already many months. Pole pole because my family is facing a lot of economic problems due to the general crisis in Italy and not only I don't know how to help them, but I get frustrated by sitting without being able to do anything when I see the country collapsing and sinking. Pole pole because some days I wish I could receive an hug from someone special to me and I know that I have to wait for that.

Pole pole for all this and much more.....and thanks to my friend for telling me these two simple, but with quite an effect on me, words.

PS. I just saw this movie and there is one sentence in there that is just brilliant. It is "I don't need to think, I am catholic". Brilliant!

jumping contact lenses

My current week started in this way:

- Monday. After one month and a half we got the decision about a work we submitted.....more, much more work is still needed...considering that this specific work has been started some years ago...well, it is a never ending story.

- Tuesday. I received the response to a job I applied to and for which I strongly hoped to at least make it to the interview. I didn't. My previous boss wrote me to say that he cannot imagine what was wrong with my application that I didn't make it to the interview....neither can I.

- Wednesday. Today. I woke up to find water in the kitchen and a lot of water in the living room. The water in the kitchen was to be expected, as when it rains with wind, the rain leaks inside the windows and accumulates on the floor. I have this problem only since two months now....which I guess for Portuguese standards is too little time to deserve to be fixed. The water in the living room instead was a new entry. I was lucky enough to have a lot of water but which didn't got to touch the furniture, which are all in wood of course.....So, my morning started with drying the water here and there and moving the furniture in the only place with no windows where for now it seems to be the smaller risk to have rain also there.....The landlord came to my place, got angry at the person who did the work with the windows recently (15 years ago??? 20 years ago???), made many phone calls and solved nothing before leaving again.....

- Wednesday. Still today. Around 10.30am I got an email from a collaborator of mine. The subject of the email was "bad news". Just what I needed. Apparently the experiment that he was setting up for our work went very very bad...none fault. Actually, the poor guy was feeling very sorry. But it was not his fault....just bad luck....

I would say that so far the standard of bad news that one can get in a week is already pretty high.

To cheer myself up, I went for something that I want to do since very longtime, but I was actually too scared to try until now (and I am still too scared). Trying contact lenses. I don't mind wearing glasses, but I like my eyes and I wish I could show them more. But this is not enough of a reason to push me to try the contact lenses. No, it is the b-boying course I started. Even if I suck so far in b-boying, I enjoy it a lot and I want to continue it. And doing that with glasses is a nightmare. So, I forced myself and I went to try the contact lenses. I didn't succeed. I am just too scared of damaging my eyes and I can't stand having anything remotely close to my eyes....I tried to put them in for about 5-6 times and then I decided to take a break and try again another day. My approach to the contact lenses is to get them on my finger and close enough to my eye, but not too close and hope that something will happen (like my eye sucking the lens in???) to put them in place. After trying this strategy many times without actually any success, I decided that my stomach was already upset enough from the whole effort and to call it a day for now.....

Can someone invent some jumping lenses that op! can fit directly into the eye with the minimum effort and without nothing having to get too close to the eye and op! same thing for removing them???