knowledge of hell

Bookstores in Bratislava

2009-08-13T11:00:00.005+01:00

Bratislava has goto some interesting bookstores worth discovering. It's not always easy to find them but it's not impossible. Those I will write about are placed in the same street: Panenská ulica (Virgin Street).

Bookstore ArtForum - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

Bookstore ArtForum is at the end of the street and it has got a lot to offer. One can find some Slovak authors translated in English, French or German, as well as a wide range of books on Art, History, Politics, Philosophy... It's a very pleasant place, the books are correctly placed, the staff is helpful. One can buy books there or order by internet. And you can even ask for the most strange authors: the staff will not let you go without answer.

Bookstore next apache - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

On number 28 it's next apache. It's just a wonderful place: all around there are shelfs full of second hand english books. Bookstore is as well a bar/pub and it's set in an old Evangelical Lyceaum building with arched ceilings and creaky wooden floors. The owner is a Canadian who had the idea of making some kind of a cultural centre in the heart of Bratislava: there are also movie projections and live jazz performances. There is also a nice sunny courtyard in which to read books or newspapers and a computer where you can check whatever you want... The name of the bookstore is also interesting. It comes from owner’s attempt to memorize the Slovak language: "Nech sa páči"(next apache) meaning "here you are". And actually there we have a very nice place to spend a couple of hours...

Bookstores in Ljubljana

2009-08-08T09:47:00.003+01:00

It's worth spending some time visiting some bookstores in Ljubljana. I will write here about two of them, that I found lovely.

Bookstore Behemot - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

Behemot is a small bookstore specializing in quality books in English, placed at Židovska steza 3. One can find not only the great authors but also Art, and History books, albuns and some translations from Balcanian authors. Althought the books are very selected, one can find very nice things there. Some prices are atractive and it's possible to find there what it's hard to find in any other bookstore in Bratislava. The bookstore opened in 2005 and has the name of the cat from The Master and Margarita, by Bulgakov. It's a good place for those who love books.

Bookstore D. Cunjak - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

The antique Cunjak is placed at Gallusovo nabrežje 21, just in front of river Ljubljanica. This palce is just wonderful: there are books everywhere together with old typing machines, an old piano, a pendulum clock and picture of Tito and Lenine. There are second hand books and some of them are quite hard to find nowadays - for instance a Slovenian translation of Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo. The place is quite a mess, but actually this caos brings to the place some magical athmosphere. There are also some books in English and German.

Inside the bookstore D. Cunjak - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

Ljubljana again

2009-08-06T18:08:00.003+01:00

The three bridges and Prešeren Square - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

I had to wake up very early in the morning to be here, but finally here I am back to Ljubljana. The city is more or less the same: always some guys protesting in city centre, some homeless playing music and tourists fighting for a place at the cafes. It's nice to be back! I spent a all month here without getting tired of the city and I guess I could do the same again. Despit of everything it's a very pleasant city and it sells very well: more and more tourists each year. That could make Ljubljana an annoying city but actually it creats a very nice environment: the bars are always full, music here and there, always people walking at the streets...
There are some works at Kongresni Trg: they decided to build an undergroud parking and suddently they found Roman ruins. Now the archeologists are entertaining themsleves by destroying the garden and finding new stones. There were also a few changes in streets and roads. But the city didn't change a lot. That's good! It's nice to be back!

Kongresni Trg - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

Bratislava again

2009-08-05T10:02:00.005+01:00

Well, Professor told me he would be out on wednesday, and since I was a bit bored in Martin I've decided to take the day off as well. The weather suddently broke and a storm came to Martin. It was rainning cats and dogs. I decided to go to Bratislava and run to catch the train. After Trenčín the weather was much better, waht made me believe Martin was somwhow doomed.
It was cloudy when I arrived to Bratislava. Anyway I found the city wonderful. The thunders gave to the sky a special magic. Despite of the cold wind, having dinner near the Danube with the view to the old town and that wonderful sky is indescribable. It may look an horror movie, but yet it is magic.

A mamut at the Slovak National Museum - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

I've visited some museums today. The first one was the Slovak National Museum, that is actually a museum of Natural History. I was convinced I was going to see paintings but afterall I saw stones, fossils and animals. Even if the animals look furry and sweety they don't look barroc paitings, that was what I was expecting to see.

No, it's not a Ford stand: it's the National Gallery in Bratislava - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

The National Gallery is not far from the Slovak National Museum. No doubt it hosts paitings, but the organization of the exhibition roms is a bit awquard. The worst is tha bad taste of the corridor connecting two parts of the museum. It's nothing that can't be destroyed. Now tay used it to put outdoor commercials. What else it could be used for?

Having coffee at Maximilian - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

Finally i went to bookstores. It was a nice surprise to find Act of the Damned by António Lobo antunes translated into Slovak. Havinf coffee at Maximilian is another thing you can't miss in Bratislava. It's placed at the main square and it's a very pleasant place. It's also very pleasant to have a walk at the gardens of the Presidential Palace: a very calm and quite place just in the city centre. E finalmente a típica visita às livrarias. Foi uma boa surpresa descobrir O Auto dos Danados traduzido em eslovaco. E tomar café no Maximilian é outra das coisas obrigatórias em Bratislava. Afinal de contas fica na Praça Principal e é um sítio bem agradável. E agradável é também passear nos jardins do Palácio Presidencial: um sítio bem calmo no centro da cidade.

The gardens of the Presidential Palace - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

To the end, obviously because of the sunset, I let the television tower (Televízna veža Kamzík), from where you can have an outstanding view over the city and the surroundings. How beautiful it is to see the sun disapearing behind te mountains!....

View of Bratislava from the television tower - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

Sunday in Bratislava

2009-08-02T11:20:00.002+01:00

Slavin - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

It’s hot as hell: for sure more than 30ºC. The only pleasant place might be the monument to the soviet soldiers who died in 1945 to make Slovakia “free”. On this Sunday Bratislava is empty, very calm and quite. From Slavin one can see the all city. No doubt it is a very nice place. There is some fresh wind and the statue offers a nice shadow. It’s another example of a nice place that could have had other function in the city. That place is supposed to be very mourning and tragic, where it is forbidden to walk the dogs and jogging so the lovely memory of those who fought for the “freedom” of Slovakia can be preserved. But I think that could be the perfect place to feel the spirit of Bratislava: a place where people could meet, see all the city around and the Danube… Bratislava needs some crazy ideas to make a change. Crazy but simple ideas can make the difference. There is a need to renovate the city by giving the spaces back to the people.
The train station is very scary. The train has no air conditioned. I shall buy some bottles of water so I can endure three and half hours inside the train. People go to the train half hour before to reserve the best sits, that are those far from that hot sunshine. It’s 6:10pm. The train leaves on time. It’s a farewell to Bratislava, that starts to disappear on my backs. Soon it will be the sunset. On that moment I thought how beautiful it might be to see the sunset from the Slavin.

View of Bratislava from the Slavin - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

Danubiana

2009-08-01T12:35:00.003+01:00

One of the nicest places in Bratislava stays actually 15 km away from the city. It’s Museum Danubiana, a museum of modern art that is opened for almost 9 years. The museum is placed on the edge of a peninsula where the Danube flows and it is possible to reach it by boat for example. The project is quite ambitious and is the result of the initiative of a Slovak gallery owner and a Dutch collector and art patron.

The building, that evokes the shape of a Roman galley, is surrounded by a garden and several sculptures. The museum has got a gallery of contemporary art where the exhibits are on sale an audio-visual centre, a lecture hall and on the first floor there are shows by leading international artists. There is also a very cosy Art Café that extends to the outer space and allows the visitors to take a coffee right in front of the Danube. The museum tries to be a wave of modernity, for not only its content but also the framework, being a fusion of outstanding natural landscape, modern architecture and contemporary art.

The exhibition of Robert Combas in Museum Danubiana - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

Not far from there is a little channel where it is possible to practise some water sports and also cycling through its banks. Unfortunately there are not so many public transports to Museum Danubiana but it’s worth trying to get there by bus and by foot. Even if you will be lost in the middle of nowhere for some time.

Bratislava

2009-07-31T22:23:00.004+01:00

View of Bratislava from the Castle - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

First one sees some buildings far away. Then the shapes are more defined. Bratislava is 50 km away from Vienna but it’s very different. They just share the Danube. Before Bratislava was part of a very different world from Vienna. It suffered serious damages during the war and then it was swallowed by the socialism. The Iron Courtain started 50 km away from Vienna. After the communism and the Czechoslovak Republic, Bratislava became the capital of new country with a long way ahead. The reforms came, the European Union came and this year the Euro came as well. Bratislava was rebuilt after the war by the socialist regime. The style was the usual one. The socialist kitsh is everywhere side by side with buildings craving for renovation, but yet trying to keep all its dignity. When the 90’s began the socialist was gone. At least apparently. People are not necessarilt different. Petržalka, a neighbourhood standing on the south side of the Danube, was already stocked with socialist blocks. However someone thought it was not enough and new buildings appeared. On the other side of the river they thought the same: the new National Theatre is the major example of bad taste. Fortunately there are less shocking constructions like Apollo Centre, that mixes a very sober architecture with spaces for people.

Apollo Centre - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

One of the major problems in Bratislava seems to be the complete divorce between the city and the Danube. There are lots of projects, there were few international trenders, but the government of the city is always postponing the projects.
The Castle of Bratislava stands in the hill. It witnesses a city trying to renovate itself but that takes the risk of losing its personality. Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav looks to the National Theatre (the old one) on the square named after him. Just a bit to his right, the street is interrupted by a fence. The US Embassy thought it was a very good security mesure. It’s not that bad since they built a wall before. The old synagogue is just a memory. It was destroyed on late 60’s so the new bridge over the Danube (Nový Most or Most Slovenského Národného Povstania – Bridge of the National Slovak Uprising) could be made. However, there is a monument standing on the place where the synagogue existed once… so that everybody could be happy.

The Presidential Palace - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

Main Square - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

The Danube and Nový Most - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

Leopold Museum

2009-07-29T10:21:00.003+01:00

Over the past twenty years, Vienna has solved some of the problems in the cultutral area with very interesting outcomes: MuseumsQuartier is one of them. It's an ensemble of museums, galleries and exhibitions in the centre of Vienna. There are also restaurants and cafes making MuseumsQuartier one of the best paces in Vienna. There was a fusion between old and modern and museums are itself beautiful examples of good architecture (specially the Museum of Modern Arts).

However I visited Leopold Museum. Dr. Rudolf Leopold was born in 1925 and started to colect art during his medical studies. Leopold Museum opened eight years ago and assembls a very important ensemble of masterpieces of the Viennese Secessionist Movement, the Viennese Modernist Movement and the Austrian Expressionist Movement. The museum contains the largest Egon Schiele (1890-1918) collection in the world, together with major works by Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, Richard Gerstl, Albin Egger-Lienz and Emil Jakob Schindler among others. There is a lot of natural light and the big windows allow the visitors to have an outstanding view of Vienna.

Schönbrunn and Freud

2009-07-28T09:47:00.005+01:00

The Schönbrunn Palace - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

I've wanted to visit the Schönbrunn palace (or castle as they call it here) for a long time. The palace is very big but it's not that astonishing. There is an obsession in Vienna with emperor Franz Joseph and Sissi and that fairy tale they imagine thier life was. The palace is full of photos of the old emperor and also some paintings showing him as a young person he might have been a long long time ago. Sissi is everywhere. She was crazy enough to wake up early in the morning in Hofburg and ride her horse until Schönbrunn wearing nothing but her sleeping clothes. Some of the furniture has got an awful taste, specially the fabrics with which some chairs are covered. Those who like death people can see the bed where Franz Joseph passed away and also the young Napoleon II, who was taken to Schönbrunn with his mother after Napoleon had fallen. However there is a very beautiful thing inside the palace: the bed of emperess Maria Theresia and her husband Franz Stephan. The best thing in Schönbrunn are the gardens, the beautiful roses and the pavilion on a small hill from where the view over Vienna is superb.

Pavilion of Gloriette - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

Freud Museum, at Bergasse 19 - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

Sigmund Freud's house was another place I wanted to visit. It is placed in Bergasse 19 and it's the house where Freud lived between 1891 and 1938. The museum has a long story. At is opening in 1971, the museum was limited to few rooms of the former office, because the rest of the places continued to be inhabited by renters who had moved in after Freud's exile. Just on the 80's it was possible to acquire the entire apartment rented by Freud. The most interesting about the house is the house itself. Unfortunatelly just the hall and the waiting room keep some of the original appearance. The walls of the office and studio are covered with reproductions of photos and documents about Freud and psychoanalysis. There were some designers carrying out the concept of the museum. Unfortunatelly, it would be more interesting to see something like an house than simply pictures and documents you can search on internet.

Inside the Freud Museum- © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

The day ended in Karlsplatz. In Kunsthalle, of course...

Vienna again

2009-07-27T19:39:00.004+01:00

Neue Rathaus - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

Vienna keeps al the magic. Even after six years the city is still able to seduce me like the first time. Vienna is much more than simple touristic sight seeing. There is the enormous pleasure of havinga beer at noon in Karlsplatz, a place that could be unpleasant for the people we can meet there. I am talking about Kunsthalle, which was build in the 90's to be for some time an exhibition hall. It stayed until today. It became not only a nice gallery but also a terrific meeting point in Karlsplatz. Karlsplatz subway station has got some strange people. But I am not afraid. I would walk there even by late night. In Kunsthalle people can have beer, lay on the sun and chat for a long time. Sunset makes the day just perfect. There are peope everywhere. By night, in MuseumsQuartier it's the same. White wine is as good as beer. The place is full. It's hard to find a table without reservation. And it's also hard to find a better place to be in Vienna at this time. Time goes by so fast while drinking and eating ham and cheese. It's Monday but people go home slowly. As slow as I walk back to Josefstädt Straße. There is almost nobody at street. Night bus appears. Even for one stop it's worth catching. Six years later I am back in Vienna. It's so nice to be back!

First breakfast in Vienna - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

Karlskirche - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

Kunsthalle, in Karlsplatz - © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2009

Vivement dimanche!

2009-07-26T13:43:00.001+01:00

(Finally Sunday!)

The Good Soldier Švejk and His Fortunes in the World War

2009-07-24T21:32:00.003+01:00

This is an old book and probably the most famous czech book for any foreign reader. There are also adaptations to cinema and TV. Jaroslav Hašek created the most famous czech book not knowing that. However he couldn't finish his work. He died dictating the chapters of The Good Soldier Švejk and His Fortunes in the World War from his bedroom. He had thought of six volumes but there are just four, and the last one in unfinished. He died at the age of 39. However Švejk remained. He is the idiot who exposes the ridiculous of war and militarism. The book is sarcastic and humourous. The Austrian Empire, the Catholic Church, the domination over Czechoslovakia, the war and the militars are the targets. Švejk is a simple person who was declared idiot and became a dealer of stolen dogs. At the beggining he is in Prague but soon he will be at the front, very enthusiatically. He is the anti-hero and through his adventures we are facing the ridiculous war where Czechs are fighting for an Empire that dominates them, the burocracy of an old empire, hipocrisy and corruption, military discipline... It is an huge satire and a very funny one. Švejk seems to be less idiot than all the soldiers and officers he meets, less stupid than all the high respectable people he will be in touch with. Švejk defeats the Empire by being simple. He is more wise than he might look.

It was 40 years ago...

2009-07-20T00:15:00.002+01:00

40 years ago, on July 20 1969, Neil Armstrong, the American astronaut who was the commander of the Apollo 11 oon landing mission, became the first man walking on the Moon: "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind".

Giving and Receiving

2009-06-30T15:17:00.003+01:00

António Variações [artistic name of António Joaquim Rodrigues Ribeiro] was born in 3.Dec.1944 in Amares, a village near Braga in the north of Portugal. At the age of 12 he went to Lisbon to be worker in an office and, after the military service in Angola, he moved to London and then to Amsterdam, where he became hairdresser. Returned to Portugal, he created a band called "Variações", in which he stood out because of his clothing and accessories. In 1978 he signed a contract with the music editor Valentim de Carvalho and in 1982 he recorded his first album Anjo da Guarda (Guardian Angel), which made him famous throughout all Portugal. In February of 1984 he recorded his second and last album Dar e Receber (Giving and Receiving, from which is taken this music). In May, when the album is edited, he was already in the hospital due to breathing disorders. He died on 13.Jun.1984, being known as the first case of AIDS identified in Portugal, at the time known as a plague to punish the homosexuals, what motivated prejudice against his music during several years. However, 20 years after his death, Variações was honoured with several music editions, namely the big sucess Humanos in which were recorded several musics of what would be his third album. His music mix some popular roots of the Portuguese music with his eccentricity and pop music.

Giving and Receiving (1984)

(Music and Lyrics: António Variações)

Giving... Giving
Giving and receiving
Giving... Giving
Giving and receiving...

Giving Giving

(Giving Giving)
Giving and receiving
Giving Giving

(Giving Giving)

It should be our way of living
Giving and receiving

Giving Giving

(Giving Giving)
Giving and receiving
Giving Giving

(Giving Giving)

To make a change not winning or losing
Giving and receiving...

Giving giving...

Giving giving...
Giving the right to every voice
That Respect we want for ourselves

Paying attention to our shaman

Satisfaction of those who listen

Giving giving...

Giving Giving

(Giving Giving)
Giving and receiving
Giving Giving

(Giving Giving)

It should be our way of living
Giving and receiving

Giving Giving

(Giving Giving)
Giving and receiving
Giving Giving

(Giving Giving)

To make a change not winning or losing
Giving and receiving...

Exchanging.....

Exchanging...
Exchanging ideas to get to know
That oil-lamp we want to light

Exchanging spaces
Exchanging dances
Exchanging gestures that widen an alliance
Exchanging bodies
Exchanging voices
Exchanging songs to not sing alone
Exchanging spaces
Exchanging dances
Exchanging gestures that widen an alliance
Exchanging ideas to get to know
That oil-lamp we want to light
Exchanging bodies
Exchanging voices
Exchanging songs to not sing alone
Exchanging bodies
Exchanging voices
Exchanging songs to not sing alone

Exchanging...

Exchanging...

Giving... Giving
Giving and receiving
Giving... Giving
Giving and receiving...

Translation: Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

My postcards (1)

2009-06-29T20:03:00.002+01:00

Coming from the portuguese version, this is a space to show the terrific postcards my friends kindly write to me.

London - sent by José Pascoal on September 2007

Matisse

2009-06-09T19:26:00.004+01:00

The exhibition dedicated to Matisse opened today at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. The exhibition is focused on the period between 1917 and 1941, perhaps Matisse's less known period.

The exhibition is divided in six parts and assembles not only paintures depicting landscapes, balconies in Nice, gardens and portraits of women but also some sculptures in bronze.

The paintures are a very good sample of Matisse's work: the importance of the colour, the form, the shadow and a peculiar perspective.

Landscapes and interiors at the beggining give place to portaits of women, in which the painter is looking for a peculiar composition: we see women and the sea, the room catched from a different agle, the same woman, the same room, but another sea we can see through the window, so far away. On 20's nude eventually became Matisse’s principal focus of attention. The exhibition assembles some of those paintures, and we can realize the transition from the static nudes to the decorative painting and finally to a paiting with two extremes: static forms versus light and movement. Then Matisse returned to the "paiting of intimacy", where lines became simplier and colours less solid. The exhibition ends with some draws Matisse called "Themes and Variations" as if it was a musical play.

Matisse: 1917-1941 takes place at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, in Madrid, and runs until September 20.

Madrid

2009-06-08T03:35:00.004+01:00

The sky is cloudy even if temperature is high. There is dust in the air: a new suburban train station is about to open in Puertas del Sol, calle Alcalá is getting narrower... Madrid is lazy on this Monday. There are not so many people on the street, what is unusual. There are still posters from the elections the day before. Mayor Oreja smiles in a poster on calle de la Montera: "Ahora PP" (Now the Popular Party). The whores don't seem to be bothered with that fake smile. The same happens with the mexicans passing by. Museums are closed today. However there are guests attending to the opening of the exhibition at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum dedicated to Matisse. The Book Fair is taking place in Retiro Park. I can't see the end of that endless line of booths. A poster informs Claudia Cardinale will be there signing books. There are Americans everywhere. Mostly young ones. In Plaza Mayor American girls show up proudly their bottocks. Spain is far enough to make envy their colleagues on school when they are back. King Philip IV look at them from his horse. He's got Winnie the Pooh as company. And Mickey Mouse, of course. Probably there are south american burning under those costumes, but they don't care at all. There is also a woman covered with mud pretending to be a statue. And then it starts rainning. Some chinese women come up suddently, probably coming from a dream, selling umbrellas. They repeat "Paraguas, paraguas, paraguas..." in a parrot voice. Finally the rain is over. The sky is blue again. Still on time to watch the sunset in Debod Temple. Still on time to have a walk in the Sabatni gardens. Now Madrilians run. In Spain Square or in Retiro Park they all enjoy weraing black shorts and red t-shirt. Mercado de San Miguel (Saint Michael's Market) is full. It is a very hidden gourmet spot. But it is trendy anyway. By night everybody will be eating croquetas and huevos rotos in Chueca. Caña (beer) with lemon is vert popular. No surprise, it's very drinkable. Tigre is full. It's always full. Nike just starts to be crowded. Madrid puts itself together after the weekend. Whores are more and more. Yhere are Chinese selling beer for 1 euro in Chueca. Residents are walking the dogs. Sky is clean. Tomorrow sun will be shinning. That's perfect!

D-Day

2009-06-06T11:34:00.003+01:00

June 6, 1944 will be always remembered as a prelude of the end of the World War II. More or less as June 7, 2009 will be remembered as a prelude of the end of European Union. That is not a big catastroph. I'm sure there will be celebrations, music, party all night. But nobody will realize this big dream of European Union will be tomorrow more close to an end. That will be quite clear after all the poles are closed all over Europe and the results are finally known: the majority of european citizens will not vote. That should be an alert to Brussels. But I'm sure that, as usual, everybody will neglect that.

Portugal was a member of EU for 15 days when I was born. That means I don't remember dicatureship, colonial war, empire or poverty. During 20 years I grew up seeing everybody getting rich. People was living better and better. In a short period Portugal changed a lot and was able to adopt european livestyle standards. Country was not more rich: the resources were the same. But no doubt was getting more developed. Portugal can be grateful to the EU. Without the EU Portugal would be the same it was before I was born. 23 years later people forgot all that. They became seriously concerned with the crisis, their lifestyle and all they got. They realized all they got was not for granted. EU is also not for granted. It will come to an end one day, the same way everything ends. The Euro will finish, the European Parliament will be dissolved, the Comission will no longer exist. Everything will be like before the World War. Countries will hate eachtoher openly and Europe will be again a dark continent. That's how things are. Today leaders are happy celebrating the D-Day. tomorrow they will be happy or sad because of the elections and in few years all that will be gone. Nothing is forever. Not even the crisis...

Soon

2009-05-19T17:04:00.001+01:00

35 years after 25th April

2009-04-25T14:03:00.003+01:00

I can't understand some miserable things people say about the Revolution that toke place 35 years ago. Then Portugal was living under a dictatureship, a war against the independentist mouvements in Africa, a country where papers were reviewed by censorship, a country where people were arrested for their political opinions. Prety much a country where nobody wanted to live. Then the Revolution happened. First it was a military coup, something amazing in a small square in Lisbon downtown. A dictator was arrested, he surrendered and was exilated to Brazil. He would never come back. Then the militars toke the power. The people came to the streets demanding changes, demanding rights. That was a revolution, for a revolution is to change a lot of things in such short period. Portuguese have a comparative obsession. Everybody knows that. They compare the amazing revolution started on 25th April 1974 with the democratic transition in Spain, that toke place in 1975. But they compare what cannot be compared. Spain had no colonies and had a prince waiting to succed to a dying dictator. In about a year Portugal would give the independency to the old colonies in Africa, thousands of people sudently arrived to Lisbon with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. There was the Communist Party trying to take the power. There was a climate of civil war, indeed. The righs were, most of them, conquered on the streets. That's a fact. Portuguese people did not wait the rights were given to them: they conquered those rights. Women finally realized their new role in the society. Divorce was allowed. Everybody was divorcing in Portugal during the 70's. It was trendy. No more illegitimate children were allowed: everybody had a father and a mother both responsible for the child's future. If scandalous DVD can be broadcasted during primetime in the Portuguese TV, they own that to 25th April. If the Health System is universal, if all the indicators can make each Portuguse citizen proud, they cretainly own that to the regime that began on 25th April. If now Portuguese have cars, houses and vacations, they can be sure that such thing would be very hard to get before 25th April. Of course, everything was quickly done after 1974. Lots of mistakes were done, as well... as usual. But deep down, I cannot understand some miserable things people in the country where I was born say about the Revolution. 35 years ago Portugal was damned boring and sad. Now everybody can have the tools to build their own hapiness, the way they want. Certainly I agree that more choices could be done by people: the abilty of chosing who they wanna marry, theire representatives in the parliament, their family doctor, where they want the money from their taxes to be spent.... But that is not impossible to get in democracy. You just have to want and to demand it. 35 years after the coup in Portugal I don't think everything was done. Far from that, the most important still waits to be done. So, no more complains can be accepted while so many things wait to be put in practise. That's why sometimes I get annoyed with people here: they always cry instead of doing.

Eastern

2009-04-12T17:01:00.001+01:00

Portuguese anonimous, Ecce Homo, c. 1490, National Museum of Ancient Art, Lisbon

Two

2009-03-30T23:52:00.004+01:00

What shall I write here? I guess it is better not to write too much. I will do as politicians use to do: a few nice words, a promise they will never keep and a nice quotation. Lately, I haven't had a lot of time to wrote here. I would love to come here more often, but sometimes it's just not possible. I hope that will change soon, but the next weeks will be quite much like that. However I will write more interesting things than boring things about my Faculty, because I know nobody gives a shit (not even me). This year, the second year of this blog, I've chosen Rothko to the logo. It is a simple logo and i tried it to be a nice one. Red suits to this blog, so I've changes the picture on top as well. Time to say good bye to Mr. Bacon and to welcome Mr. Rothko. This blog will have more pictures and soon a new travel to be told. I will not tell everything now, I'll just say that it will be in Eastern Europe (again!). Until there keep reading.

“We live, as we dream - alone”
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness

2009-03-15T17:08:00.002Z

Joseph Conrad was a writer by accident... as it always happen. Conrad was born in Berdichev - currently in Ukraine but, in 1857, was part of Poland. Conrad's life was very Polish itself. As almost all famous Polish he emigrated, at the age of 17, and went to France. Conrad wnet to Marseille and joined the Navy. That was a life changing event: Conrad spent most of his life travelling around the world, from Africa to Asia. That a the key point in Conrad's literature: his novels are full of adventures whose narrators are the sailors themsleves. Sailors like Marlow, the narrator of Heart of Darkness.
Conrad have seen a lot in his journeys. His books are depicte all what he observed in Africa and Asia, the storms, the people and specially the deepest fellings in the human soul.
In Heart of Darkness, Marlow tells his visit to the colonized Africa. The travel travel up the river Congo, the slavery, the atrocities comited by the europeans, the exploitation of ivory are depicted in an outstanding way on the novel. Conrad doesn't take the role of acusator, he just writes and shows the reader how ridiculous and mean slavery and colonialism were.

With Marlow, the reader travels up the river until the heart of darkness and meets Kurtz, an idolized white manager. The savagery and the destruction are come under the badge of development to Africa. In Conrad's books it is very common to see the noblest ideals infected with evilness and corruption. That's what happens in Heart of Darkness. Nobody gets tired of claming the development the Europeans are bringing to Africa. It is all this brutality that Marlow tells to his fellows. All this makes the darkness thicker and thicker deep down in each one of us.

Darwin 200

2009-02-12T14:34:00.002Z

Charles Darwin was barn 200 years ago. This doesn't mean a thing. Lincoln was born 200 years ago as well. The acts and not the births make people eternal. But this year - the Darwin Year (much more than the year of the crisis) - also takes place the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, which was published on November 24th 1859. In this book, Darwin introduced the theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. It was this book that put Darwin in History... a book to be revisited this year.

Death in Venice

2009-01-20T00:32:00.004Z

Death in Venice is an adagio. I mean it. I could say it is an adagietto - we heard the adagietto of Mahler's 5th Symphony during all the movie - but the movie is much more an adagio, slow, majestous... Visconti wanted to make a cinematic monument with the novel by Thomas Mann. He tried to make it unforgettable. He picked Mahler's music to fill the silence. Then he thought it would be beautiful if Aschenbach was a composer instead of a writer, as Mann had created him. The plot is nothing that special. Aschenbach is going to spend some days in Venice and stays in Hôtel des Bains, in Lido. Meanshile he falls in love with a Polish boy who is also staying in that hotel with his family. He persecutes the boy with his sight. Then he even persecutes the boy through the city. And finally he dies, eventually because of a disease that is spread in Venice. Viconti made the all movie using several moments I would call interludes, pure visual performances. The young Polish boy is almost a ghost who persecutes Aschenbach. He is the perfction, the sublime, the unreachable. The refined cinematography of Pasqualino De Santi contibutes a lot to the amazing visual show that Death in Venice is indeed. Forever, for the history of cinema, it will last the last scene on which a ridiculous Aschenbach all maked up fades in the beach while seeing the boy, as an angel, dancing on the seaside. And Mahler... always Mahler's adagietto in our ears...

Almost 23

2009-01-14T00:53:00.003Z

I've never written anything about my hometown. tomorow I'll be 23, so I thought it would be good idea to show you how Viseu (north of Portugal) is. I don't really like the people from there. Starting on me, of course.

The Cathedral of Viseu - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

People from my hometown have always shown they are not exactly developed and openminded. They are mostly ugly and they have some viallger features I don't like: moustaches, regional accent and awful taste wearing clothes. As soon as I could I got away from Viseu. Lisbon was my elected city to live. At the beginning it was very nice, but soon I found out the villagers I don't like were also living to Lisbon. So it is not difficult to find settlements of such awful people in here. Girls like to wear white boots and to speak loud on cellphones. Boys love stupid hats, large trousers and they all have the latest cellphones. Lisbon was a much interesting city when I arrived, in 2003. There was another athmosphere, another spirit that was lost as the time went by. Some cinemas, bookstores and pubs were closed and nothing better was opened meanwhile. Viseu, on the opposite, tried to change a little bit soon after I've left. However the people is still the same. They are a factory of people, actually. Everybody is under pressure to be "normal". They hate someone who is not like it should be. So there is no chance of meeting anyone in my hometown who could resist to all the brain wash the locals want to do. They always know better how you should be, who you should love, how you should dress and what is a life of hapiness. I was quite disappointed my brother came back to Viseu after his studies. I won't do that. Now I go there just once in while. I don't stay more than two days. I don't want to. Anyway, I was born there almost 23 years ago. I lived there until I was 17. More than enough.

Travel Journal (15)

2008-12-23T22:50:00.009Z

15 - Last stop: Milan... and back to Lisbon

Venice Train Station: the train that would bring me back to Milan - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

I left Venice by lunch time. The luggage was damned heavy and I was traveling by vaporetto for 45 minutes. Venice train station is small but it was the only way of getting out from "main Venice" for me. From there I would stop in Venice Mestre and follow my way to Milan.
Milan was the beginning and would be the end of all this 40-day trip. So many things happened. It was a very good Summer.
I arrived to Milan around 3:00 pm and decided to take a coffee and eat some cake while reading papers. Strangely I can understand most of what I read in Italian. I just cannot speak. The papers were writting about Eluana Englaro, an Italian girl who entered persistent vegetative state on 18 January 1992, following a car accident. She became the focus of a court battle between supporters and opponents of euthanasia, because her father had requested to have her feeding tube removed in order to allow her to die naturally. A new decision was made public. But the papers worte about Rachel Getting Married as well. As spectator I was interested on what the critics had written about the movie. Not so bad. They wrote Anne Hathaway deserved a nomination for Oscar. I totally agree. There were pictures of her wearing a Versace dress and Bulgari jewlery. Charming!

The Duomo - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

The evening was very nice. I went - together with Stefan and Glauco - to some pub next to the Cathedral (in Via San Raffaele if I'm not wrong) and from there to a pleasant restaurant called Al Valentino II (for those who are interested it's palced in Corso Monforte, 16). Everything nice, everything damned nice. It was a good end of my trip. Being in Milan in good company, tired as hell, smiling and listening to Italian gossip. I shall come back.
The next morning I took the plane back to Lisbon. It was awful weather and there was an accident with some bus: I took one hour to arrive home. But after 40 days I could wait a bit more. Summer vacations are gone. Now let's wait for the next year...

Travel Journal (14)

2008-12-13T22:50:00.011Z

14 - Venice and the Film Festival

What a nice day! Venice is one of those cities that is always full of something: in Summer is full of tourists and in Winter is full of water. I woke up quite early thiking of the crowds that might be in St. Mark's Square (Piazza San Marco). Actually, at 8:30am there was almost nobody there. I was very lucky! I decided to visit the Doge's Palace first. The Palace is amazing, of course. Everything is amazing in Venice.
The Doge's Palace (or Ducal Palace) was the main residence of the Doge - the rulers of the Venitian Republic for more than a thousan years. The current palace was constructed in the XIII-XIVth centuries. however, the palace was badly damaged by fire in 1574. In the subsequent rebuilding work it was decided to respect the original gothic style. However, there are some classical features: for instance since the XVIth century the palace has been linked to the prison by the Bridge of Sighs (that was being restaured when I was there, in the beginning of September).
The Palace was used as both the ducal residence and the headquarters of the political institutions of the Republic until the Napoleonic occupation of of Venice. Venice was ruled by an aristocratic elite, but there was a facility for citizens to submit written complaints at what was known as the Bussola chamber. The third floor houses the Sala del Collegio, decorated with pictures, including several Doges and The Lepanto Battle, by Paolo Veronese. The Palace is giant and full of stories. Almost every chamber is magnificent and we are more and more amazed as the visit goes on.

The Saint Mark's Basilica - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

After the astonishing Palace, I visited the Saint Mark's Basilica. Althought it was already 10:30pm, there was not a big line to visit the Basilica. I waited less than 10 minutes but it was easy to say I would have to wait 30 minutes if I would have come later. The Basilica is the most famous of Venice's churches and one of the best examples of Byzantine architecture. For its opulent design, gilded Byzantine mosaics, and its status as a symbol of Venetian wealth and power, from the XIth century on the Basilica was known by Chiesa d'Oro (Church of gold). When one is inside one understands why such nickname.
The first St Mark's was a temporary building in the Doge’s Palace, constructed in IXth century, when Venetian merchants stole the supposed relics of Saint Mark the Evangelist from Alexandria. The current building started to be build in the XIth century and the Basilica was consecrated in 1094. Pala d'Oro (or Golden Pall) is, together with the ceiling mosaics, the most outstanding piece of art of the Basilica. But, going up, there are also the famous Greek Hourses (the original and the copies) - installed on the Basilica in the XIIIth century - and the view both to Piazza San Marco and Piazzeta San Marco.
There was a huge line to the St. Mark's Campanile and I was completely envolved by the crowd when I went out the Basilica. Thousands of tourists were there. It was 11:30am! I decided to find something better to do than walking among so many people, so I came out with a very good idea: the Venice Film Festival. It was in Lido island so I took the vaporetto and went there to buy the ticket and walk a bit. I passed by bus, on my way to the Film Festival, by the famous Hôtel des Bains, where Visconti shot Death in Venice. Lido has nice beachs and for sure it is not as crowded as the main islands of Venice.

The Venice Film Festival: everything was ready to the premiere of Rachel Getting Married - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

I bought a ticket to Pala Biennale since the main room was sold out, as it usually happens. It was the world premiere of Rachel Getting Married, the latest movie by Jonathan Demme and everyone was expecting the beautiful Anne Hathaway to appear. She did... at 7:00pm that day, in the red carpet.
Comming back to "main Venice", I prefered to walk around and get lost in the city, rather than visit crowded places. I avoided that. So I got lost in Venice and meanwhile I found two or three nice bookshops, one bakery and I bought fruit in some market. Fresh fruit tasts like honey in hot days like those!

Rachel Getting Married in Lido - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

I forgot to mention the Rialto Bridge, perhaps the most famous among all the bridges of Venice, and the amazing thunderstorm later in the night, when I was coming back from Lido to Giudecca. Rachel Getting Married was a nice movie, but it was The Wrestler that won the Golden Lion.

Travel Journal (13)

2008-12-07T22:59:00.012Z

13 - The farewell to Ljubljana and the arrival to Venice

My last week in Ljubljana was spent in a very depressive mood. I did not want it to finish so fast. I spent most of the time drinking beer - my way of saying goodbye to the people I met there.

But not everything was depressive. On Friday I was visited by two friends from Portugal - Lena and Ricardo - who were helding a trip through Europe and had the pleasant idea of visiting me in Ljubljana. I was showing them the city and they were quite lucky because there was some festival on that weekend. I was waitting for them to see the castle of Ljubljana and on that saturday there was some Serbian wedding there. Serbs are so full of themselves that they even take flags to the wedding pictures. It was a big joy!

A Serbian wedding party in the Castle of Ljubljana - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

The view from the castle is breathtaking and we even found some nice tourist to take a pictures of the 3 of us.

In the top of the Castle of Ljubljana - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

There was some open air party with DJ in the Tivoli Park and lots of young people getting drunk.

Open air party in Tivoli Park - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

The weather was not that nice - mostly cloudy - but the important is that was not rainning and we could have lunch and dinner outside: burek and horseburgers were very popular in the festival. Someone was screaming instead of singing, there was some basketball game in the main square. No doubt that Ljubljana was damned funny until the end!

A pink dinosaur during the lunch time - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

They planned to go to Romania so they took the train to Bucharest, via Zagreb and Belgrade on Sunday morning. They would change their minds after crossing the Serbian border. On Monday I met Mr. Drago Jančar, the most translated contemporary Slovenian author. I was very surprised he accepted to meet me because I was not used to such availability from writers. He autographed me two of his books. The last night in Ljubljana was cold. The summer was comming to an end. I was walking near Ljubljanica (the river) and thinking how nice it was my visit to Slovenia. Unforgetable indeed!

Kongresni Trg (Congress Square): my last view of Ljubljana - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

The next day I was ready to leave. I had dinner in Trieste and took the train to Venice. Mateuž drove me there. My backpack began to resent. No time to fix it. The train was leaving. I can remember the sunset in the Adriatic sea. Slovenia was gone. Time to Venice. I arrived there around 10pm and took a vaporetto. I found it damned expensive but Venice is damned expensive so I shouldn't complain a lot. The island of Giudecca lies south to the main islands of Venice. Anyway, the view from there is astonishing. I hardly had time to walk. I was tired. The next day would be a long one.

Travel Journal (12)

2008-11-28T23:51:00.008Z

12 - Trieste, Miramare and... Sistiana again

Again I was invited to go to the beach and visit something more I didn't have time to see one week before. Trieste was the city I wanted to see. I guess just few Italians visited Trieste. I could be sure of that when I went back to Milan and , in a table where 4 Italians were sitted I was the only one who had been to Trieste.

Piazza Unità d'Italia - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

Anyway, Trieste is very charming. There is a very beautiful square, very similar to the main square in Lisbon, that embrasses the Adriatic Sea. They called it Piazza Unità d'Italia (Unity of Italy Square) but it should be called Adriatic Sea Square for I am sure it is one of the loveliest entrances to the Adriatic.

The statue of James Joyce in Trieste - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

The city was residence of several writers, having James Joyce among them. I was very surprised when I saw a statue of Joyce there. Joyce hated Trieste. However Trieste didn't hate Joyce so much. There are several churches and even Roman ruins we can visit there. But certainly there is nothing like sitting in the Piazza Unità d'Italia and drink a coffee while looking at the sea.

The Castle of Miramare - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

The Castle of Miramare is one of the castles placed very close to Trieste. It was built between 1856 and 1860 for the residency of Archduke Maximilian (brother of the Emperor Franz Joseph I). The gardens are outstanding and even today they make a remarkable collection. Maximilian lived there shortly because he accpeted to be Emperor of Mexico. Visiting the Castle and the gardens I guess he might have thought of this lovely place in the moment of his execution. His wife Charlotte came back. She lived first at the Castle of Miramare and then at Bouchout Castle in Meise (Belgium) where she died in 1927.
Then I went to Sistiana beach once more. I shall come back there, absolutely! In the evening I had dinner in Trieste and I got quite drunk with Italian spumante. Bubbles, bubbles...

The Armistice

2008-11-11T20:55:00.002Z

On this picture, which i made pink on purpose, we see Marechal Foch, with white coat, photographed in front of the railway carriage where the Armistice was signed on 11 November 1918.

The First World War (1914-1918) ended 90 years ago, by the signature of the Armistice between the Allies and Germany. The War had changed the Europe and the World. Three Empires had fallen and new countries appeared in East. The USA were rising as leaders of the New World Order. Europe was devastated and thought the Treaty of Versailles (1919) would give the peace the continent needed. However, not even 20 years passed and the World was at War once again...

Travel Journal (11)

2008-11-09T15:20:00.007Z

11 - From Sistiana beach to Zagreb

I should have more time to write here, but the important thing is that - even busy - I can share the rest of my Summer trip with those who have patience to read this.

After my arrival to Ljubljana I slept like an angel (I don't really get this expression because I cannot imagine angels sleeping, but who cares?). I had a very soft day in the Hospital, as far as I can remember I was telling about my weekend to everyone - which means that Prof. Medica and Gavrilo were more or less tired of hearing about Budapest.

Then I was invited to go to the beach. It is not that far from Ljubljana. The coast is just one hour far by car. We went to Italy, near Trieste (Trst in Slovenian). The beach is amazingly difficult to reach but it is very nice. It is placed in an old quarry. It became very popular among both Slovenians and Italians. The feet may complain a bit on the way but it is worth sunbathing there. And, of course, there is the amazing sunset in Adriatic sea. Outstanding! There was no time to visit Trieste then, but Matevž promised me we would come back one week later. The rest of the week was quite calm. I had great expectations about Zagreb. On Friday I took the train, finally. It would be the third European capital of my Summer trip.

Square of King Tomislav - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

On my arrival, the weather seemed to be nice. Sunny and warm. The big statue of king Tomislav (the first Croatian king) welcomes the visitors who arrive to Zagreb from the main train station. My priority was to pay back the oney to my "Savior". I arranged an appointment and I walked most of the morning througouth the city. People were not lying when thay told me Zagreb would be empty. It was damned empty. But is was not just that. I felt Zagreb very lonely as well. Ljubljana was empty during Summer: no students, no people... Summer time. Yet it was a cozy city, with lots of places to go and to spend a good time. Zagreb had tourists and some people who was already working or who didn't have time to go to the coast. I could walk in some streets in the center without seeing a single person. Zagreb was also quite different from Ljubljana. Ljubljana was that tiny cute city everyone likes but with Zagreb we have to make a little effort to feel part of the city. I was told I should come back in winter. Snow and shopping would give a very different idea from the city. Yet I was expecting some kind of a bigger Ljubljana... even a empty one.

Ban Jelačić Square - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

Anyway, I was walking around. Starting in Ban Jelačić Square I went to the Cathedral. It is a very beautiful building, quite magnificent. I noted Croats are deeply Catholic (the same or even more than Polish). So, churchs are very beautiful and thay are always full. I would see the end of the Sunday mass: the Cathedral was full.

The Cathedral - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

There are other churchs in Zagreb: the Orthodox church, in Petar Preradović Square, deserves a visit. And, in front of the Parliment and the House of the President, it stands the St. Mark's Church. On the roof, tiles are laid so that they represent the coat of arms of Zagreb - white castle on red background - and Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia. The roof made me remember St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna.

The Croatian National Theatre - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

There are lots of museums in Zagreb worth visiting. I guess the best one must be the Mimara Museum, which houses works of art of different cultures and civilizations. You cannot miss the building of the Croatian National Theatre, built in 1895 and opened by emperor Franz Joseph. It is an outstanding building which, again, brought Vienna to my mind.

A tram on its way to Ban Jelačić Square. It was a grey Sunday in Zagreb. - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

Trams in Zagreb are quite funny. There are old an more modern ones. They are blue and cross Ban Jelačić Square all the time. If you are in Zagreb and you are not on diet, you can try the national dish (actually is more Serbian that Croatian): Ćevapi (in Croatian) but also called by the diminutive Ćevapčići. It is soem kind of a kebab. I ate that with onions in a somun (flatbread). It is cheap and a good way of trying something local, instead of eating Italian food all the time.

On Saturday afternoon the weather broke. I was having a nap and when I woke up it was rainning cats and dogs. Later I could have dinner and then a beer near Ribnjak park. It was better to have a drink in the bar inside the park than in some pub as I did on the night before: they still smoke inside and it was stinking...

On Sunday morning I had one last walk in Zagreb. It was very decadent because it was rainning and cold until 11 or 12 am. Everything looked grey and dirty. Suddenly the sunshine came. The golden statue of Saint Mary was shinning of hapiness. I had lunch and I came back to Ljubljana. It was nice, but definitely I shall come back in some other season to see the difference. On my arrival Ljubljana was preparing to some festival. There was music in the main square, people sitting near the river, the sun was shinning...

Travel Journal (10)

2008-10-31T00:53:00.011Z

10 - Lake Balaton and the farewell to Budapest

Saturday morning I was awaken by the sound of airplane motors. I realize it was the training session to the Red Bull Air Race it would take place in few days. On that weekend - I forgot to mention it before - it was taking place in Budapest the Sziget Festival. The festival is huge and quite famous, what made Budapest very crowded by those days. The festival would be responsible for endless queues at the train station on Sunday. But I will tell about that later.

Sturday morning I was offered the opportunity of visiting (and swimming) on Lake Balaton, the largest in Central Europe. So I went to the Hungarian Sea, as it is called. The weather was quite nice after all the rain on Friday night and the water is warm and very pleasant. The visit to the lake was good as gold. My first visit to Hungary was being remarkable. I ate the famous gulasz at lunch and I could enjoy the outstanding natural landscape.

Lake Balaton: the largest in Central Europe - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

After swimming in Lake Balaton (at last a picture of me without sunset on my backs!) - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

Sunday was the last day. I had arranged a lunch with the Hungarian friends of mine around midday, so I had time to walk in the morning in Andrássy Avenue (some kind of Champs Elysées of Budapest) until Hero's Square.

Hero's Square - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

After lunch I went to the train station and the nightmare began. This trip started and finished with problems in buying the ticket. The queue was huge!! Because of Sziget Festival I was waiting for two hours with no chance of buying my ticket. So I asked someone from Railway Company if I could buy the ticket on bord. He said yes and I had just time to jump to the train and wave to my friends. «I will be back!» I had 40.000 forints with me. I was told it was enough. But I was not expecting I had to buy three tickets. Yes, that's true: I had to buy one ticket from Budapest until the border to Croatia, another one from the border with Hungary until the border with Slovenia and finally the ticket from the border until Ljubljana. Damn!! The all thing started in the Croatian border since I had just forints with me and they wouldn't accept but Euro or Kuna. I don't have to mention it was not possible to do the payment by card. So I had the money in value but not the right currency with me. What would I do?? The gentleman travelling in front of me was my Savior! He was a Croatian going to Zagreb and he told me he would exchange me the money to buy the ticket in Croatia and even borrow me some to buy the last ticket in Slovenia, because it wouldn't be enough. I was astonished: there are still good people on this world! I promised him to go to Zagreb on the next weekend to give him the money back. We shaked hands in Zagreb and he went out. I had still two or three hours until Ljubljana. I must say the border inspections while crossing to Slovenia are endless. The officers and as rude as it gets and everyone is scared with the lights, the screams and the thousand times each officer compares our sleepy face with the picture on the document. At 3 am, with one hour of delay - I arrived to Ljubljana. I was tired as hell and starving... I bought an hot dog in the Turkish 24 hour store and walked across Miklošičeva Cesta. It was compeltely empty but as I was in Ljubljana I waited in the zebra crossing until the light was green - Slovenian police officers are a pain in the ass: once they screamed at me because I crossed with red light at 1 or 2 am with no cars nor people on the street. While walking back to the dormitory I thought how lovely this trip to Budapest was. I was very impressed with the city and the people and besides all this problems with train tickets I don't regret one second of this trip. I was so tired but I felt like I wanted to go back the next morning. My next trip would be to Zagreb on the next weekend. Meanwhile I had other unexpected trips.

Travel Journal (9)

2008-10-30T11:48:00.008Z

9 - A long journey to Budapest

After having visited the room where Tito died, I went quickly to the dormitory to prepare my backpack and leave to Budapest. I wanted to travel by day so I have chosed to leave Ljubljana at 12:05 am in order to arrive to Budapest Keleti around 11 pm. The alternative would be a train that leave Ljubljana at 2 am and arrive to Budapest around 12 am. Faster but very tiring because I can't sleep on trains. So I slept very well, I went to see Tito's room and I was at the train station of Ljubljana at 11:30 am.

After waitting 15 minutes in the queue I was finally buying my ticket. I was expecting to buy the tickets for the whole trip - I mean Ljubljana-Salzburg, Salzburg-Vienna and Vienna-Budapest - but the lady at the train station was looking to the computer screen and told me: «I cannot sell you this trip because it doesn't appear on my computer». Preaty much like «Computer says noooo». I told here to check in some other computer and I gave here my compelte itinerary. She checked and it existed... but not on her computer. «So, tell me, what trip can you sell me?» «From here to Vienna and then you have to buy the other ticket there». Done! But problems were just starting: the train was 20 minutes late and I had just 15 minutes to catch my connection in Salzburg. «Crap!!». Fortunatelly, after crossing the austrian border, the delay was shorted to 3 minutes! I bought the ticket Vienna-Budapest there and I had time to buy a postcard as well. I was reading most of the trip. In Vienna West (Wien Westbahnhof) I barely had time to change the train. My last train was going to Bucharest and it stinked! I was amued looking at the sunset by the window and wishing the train to arrive. It was a long journey but it was made by day. The train arrived with to Budapest East (Budapest Keleti) a bit after 11 pm and it was a relief: my weekend was finally startinf! I was couchsurfing in Budapest - like I did in Milan - and I still had time to eat something and have a drink before going to bed. Viktor was a really nice host!

Hungarian Parliament - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

15 August: a Catholic holyday... but not in Hungary. So I spent my morning in Buda side, visiting all possible churches and taking all possbile pictures. The view from there is astoniching! Budapest was much better than I expected. It has all the charm from the Empire without being so imperial as Vienna. All the beauty is there: the magnificent buildings, the Danube, the beautiful Parliament, the churches... The Buda Castle started to be crowded around 10 am so I decided to cross the river and visit the Parliament. I crossed the Chain Bridge - one of the nicest I've seen - and I walked to the Parliament. However, there was an huge queue and I had no patience to wait. It was damned hot on that day! I was enough impressed with the Parliament from outside: it's for sure among the most beautiful buildings in the world. Instead, I visited Saint Stephen's Basilica: it's huge and it houses the holy right hand of the Hungarian king. I spent the rest of day walking around. It was very hot and I was buying bottles of water every 30 minutes. The Sinagogue was closed for some reason I could't understand. So I took a long walk in Váci Street: the main pedestrian street in Budapest, paralel to the Danube.

Saint Stephen: the guardian of Buda Castle - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

Chain Bridge over Danube - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

In the evening I had dinner with Peti and Zozo, Hungarian friends I met in Lisbon, and it was a very good dessert to be driven around Budapest by night. On this tour I saw all the main buildings that are not quite in the center: the Palace of Arts, the National Theatre, the Freedom monument and much more. I spent one day in Budapest and I saw so many things that I was thinking I would get bored the next days. I couldn't be more wrong about that!

Travel Journal (8)

2008-10-25T19:47:00.007+01:00

8 - Tito's room

Before taking the train to Budapest I was offered the opportunity of visiting the room where Tito died. I was asking everyone I met if there was any chance of visiting that place, because Tito died in Klinični Center in Ljubljana. Finally, Dr. Šabović was the answer for my question. He is a very nice doctor who had the patience of showing me the room where Tito passed away 28 years ago.
Jozip Broz Tito ruled Yoguslavia for more than 30 years. He was diabetic, so nobody was surprised when on 3 January 1980, at the age of 87, he was admited to Klinični Center in Ljubljana because of examination of his left leg. Doctors from US and USSR were asked to come to Yogulavia and evaluate Tito's medical condition. It was decided to do a surgery. On 14 January Tito was operated and soon after his left leg was amputated due to severe arteriopathy (arterial damage). From then on Tito rested on Department of Coronary Illnesses. It was there this picture was taken: Tito with his two sons, days before his death. It's visible the emptiness under the white blanket. On 21 April the condition was very bad. A sepsis (general infection) was instaled and the bleeding couldn't be stopped. The day after Tito fell into coma. One by one the organs were failling. He was transfered to Intensive Care. On 4 May, at 3:04 pm, Tito passed away.
The funeral was huge. All big personalities of that time were there: Margharet Thatcher, Brezhnev, Saddam Hussein or Yasser Arafat, for instance.
With Tito, it died as well a bit of the Yoguslavia. After him, nothing was as before. Yoguslavia didn't resist a long time. Ten years after Tito's dead the desintegration started. First it was Slovenia. Then it was the civil war in Croatia, the ethnic cleaning in Bosnia and Herzegovina... Yoguslavia was a lovely memory in the 90's. Tito was able, through force of course, to keep together all that people from different religions (catholics, orthodox, muslims): Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, Bosnians and Macedonians. Yoguslavia was possible only with Tito and it was because of that I wanted to visit the room where he passed away: the intensive care unit on 1st floor of Klinični Center. There, two deads took place in the same day: Tito's and Yoguslavia's. Now it's just History...

Travel Journal (7)

2008-10-22T14:07:00.004+01:00

7 - Lake Bohinj and the prelude of a trip

The bank holiday weekend was comming and I started to think of going somewhere: Vienna or Budapest. I already knew Vienna and Budapest would be a new city for me, but it was much easier to get to Vienna than to Budapest by train. I was thinking all the time about the pros and cons...

Lake Bohinj: it was all so quite...- Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

Meanwhile, I was offered the possibility of visiting the Lake Bohinj. Lake Bohinj is not far from Lake Bled and it's very beautiful as well. It was all very idilic: children playing, men and women sunbathing, people swimming... And my hot pepper pizza (really, I couldn't avoid pizza in Slovenia!) fited it very well.

During the week I was doing my lovely rotine. During morning I was in Department of Human Genetics and after lunch I was walking in Ljubljana, or mainly meeting for beer with friends. One of those mornings I remember something Prof. Medica told me. While chatting about how stupidity is so spread, he told something someone told him before: «We must have compassion». He is absolutely right! Even if I am not a Roman Catholic I share this thought of compassion by other people's stupidity. Sometimes people gets on my nerves. But I shall have compassion. As Fitzgerald wrote in the very beginning of The Great Gatsby: «Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had». That is a valuable lesson.

Meanwhile I made my mind: I would go to Budapest on 14 August. What a trip it would be!! I was about to find out why...

Travel Journal (6)

2008-10-21T21:12:00.009+01:00

6 - About rain, the Olimpic Games and much more

The Dragon: the symbol of Ljubljana - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

Everybody was crazy about the Olimpic Games. After getting used to buy every shit made by chinese people, the whole World was in front of TV to watch the Olimpic Games Made in China. I had planned to watch that on internet as well. But first I had another morning in the Department of Human Genetics. Everything was fine when suddently it started to rain cats and dogs. When nothing could be worst than having such a deluge in August, it started the hail. I was watching everything through the window and wondering how I would come back to the dormitory without umbrella. But by the lunch time everything was more calm.

The internet connection drove me crazy so I hardly watched the opening cerimony of the Olimpic Games. That Friday was promising to be great!... Fortunatelly, the weekend was much better. Instead of going to Lake Bled again (with the rest of the people from the Summer Exchange) I stayed in Ljubljana walking around and meeting people for beer . It was a very calm weekend. I got in touch with the Slovenian lifestyle: they never have dinner. Things like pizza slize, burek (a Bosnian dish) or kebab are quite popular among Slovenians. They eat that whenever they are hungry and drink beer the rest of time. Laško and Union are the most popular... and there is rivality. Lovers of Laško use to say: «You drink Laško, you piss Union». I remember I was most of the time drink Laško and pissing every 5 minutes. I ate some burek and kebab as well, and I tried horse burger - really tasteful, I must say.

Ljubljana has lots to offer. Most of the pubs are open until midnight and the popular clubs are closed during summer time because students are out. However, there are some places to explore. Those places get really crowded with English people after midnight but that's nothing you can fight. You just have to gert used to it. I remember quite well the scandals in Wolfova at 4 am or 5 am!... Ljubljana can look boring compared with Ibiza or Barcelona, that are very popular in Summer. But I was not disappointed for one moment. It was different and it was very nice to be there. I will come back as soon as I can.

Laško at lunchtime in restaurant Štorklja, near Klinični Center - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

Doctor! Doctor!

2008-10-16T22:23:00.007+01:00

Yesterday was a damned day.

It all started early in the morning. I swear my bed was asking me to stay, but my duty was to attend to some practical classes of Surgery at 8am. The bed was right, as it knows my Faculty as well as myself. When I arrived to the hospital the lift was broken so I had to climb 7 floors on foot to arrive to the Service of Surgery and get to know that the doctor was "on vacation" so we'll just have the practical classes from next week on. Damn!! I was sleeping so I decided to eat a second brakfast. Meanwhile I took the decison of getting healthier and I went to sign up in the gym of the Universitary Campus. I hardly could move. In few minutes I had pain in each muscle. Lunch was as healthy as it gets: some fried seitan with vegetables (I guess the vegetables were the healthy part of the meal).

At evening I went to the "Night of Medicine". The "Night of Medicine" is a big party that takes place in a concert hall performed by the students of my faculty. They dance, sing, perform little sketchs live or in video and thay have big fun. I went specially because it was the farewell to the 6th grade (2003-2009), on which I was supposed to be if I wouldn't have unpredictable problems. It lasted for almost 5 hours! I was starting to be pissed of when I checked the time and it was 00:35. They did all what thay had in mind. I would be unfair if I didn't say it was very well done and that I also could be on stage huging somebody and crying as I saw some people do. But I don't like so many nostalgy on those moments or telling a story (by the way... that music!!! Bradi Carlile gets on my nerves!) that was not exactly as they told. For instance they love to make jokes with students who study a lot and don't have fun. But, as I know them a little, they do exactly the same. And worst than that: it was always the same people appearing in the videos. I would say the 6th grade just has 20 students. They are the cool ones who make the videos and appear on stage and the rest seems to be crap for them. I was seeing all that and being nostalgic as well - Bradi Carlile was the guilty. I spent 3 years of my curse with them and I don't remember one nice thing they did to me. I am quite asocial but they certainly don't deserve my good company. So I went home at 2am thinking of how life can be different just because of you and not because of the circunstances. What will they be in few years? I guess it's quite predictable: they will all work in a hospital, meeting sometimes and getting old with that. That's one of the things I don't like in my Faculty: everything seems to be so predictable, so planned for life, so unchangeable.

Last Tuesday my Professor of Psychiatry told that he regrets people don't talk more about sex and sexuality in that Faculty. I smiled and thought how unaware was him that one of the major problems of those students is the lack of sex. They cannot talk about something they don't know a lot. The lack of sex explains lots of stupid quarrels on that Faculty. One day I will write a book about that. So that music from Thompson Twins from 1984 (older than me indeed) comes a lot to my mind when I am there. "Doctor! Doctor! Can't you see I'm burning burning?" They all are. Sometimes it's nice to study there. Sometimes it's not. It depends of how early you have to wake up to not have classes.

Travel Journal (5)

2008-10-15T16:52:00.007+01:00

5 - Researching at Klinični Center

The 23 pairs of human chromosomes: this is what we are deep inside - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

The thoughest thing after travelling a lot in a short period of time is to stay at the same place for some days. It was what happened after comming back from Istria. The week was just beginning and I had a research project waiting for me. I spent Sunday sleeping and walking around Ljubljana. I found it very nice city and I was a bit ashamed I had arrived on Thursday and I hadn't had time yet to visit the city that would host me for over a month. Ljubljana is small. That is a fact but I don't get upset with small cities. Ljubljana had everything I needed: good-looking and nice people, cafes and pubs, beer and hot weather. What can I ask more?
On Monday morning, there I was: I was the first going out from the dormitory and I took the breakfast in some trendy and bloody expensive cafe just in the corner. Everybody was going together to Klinični Center (the Universitary Hospital of Ljubljana). I was going to participate in a research project but the majority of the people there was doing clinical exchanges. I forgot to mention I was sharing a room with a Malayan who studies in Taiwan and there were more 20 people in the dormitory from 10 countries, not counting the Slovenian students who were spending the summer there. I took a second breakfast at the Faculty of Medicine and then I went to my place: the Department of Human Genetics. I was introduced to Professor Peterlin and we talked about my expectations about the research project I would be doing for the rest of the month. Soon after I was introduced to Professor Medica, who stayed with me (patiently) during all August. He was working on a meta-analysis on polymorfisms and Down syndrome and I helped him (the best I could do) on that work.
I knew very little about scientific articles and genetic research. I learned a lot there, even if I didn't realize that. To do a Summer Exchange allows you to learn in a very soft way, but no doubt in the end of August I knew the basis of genetic technics used in the labs, the kind of diseases whose diagnosis is made there and the procedures oftaking samples of blood or amniotic fluid, for instance. I even learned, thanks to a young biologist called Žiga, to identify human chromosomes in the microscope. For the first time in 4 years I was in a lab helping Gavrilo, a young researcher working on his PhD, isolate RNA from human samples.
I will write more about this month in Ljubljana and what I did in Klinični Center, but it would be unfair and ungrateful if I didn't mention those who helped me there and made my stay in Ljubljana unforgetable. For them: Hvala (thank you)!

Travel Journal (4)

2008-10-08T23:56:00.011+01:00

4 - Istrian Peninsula

It's Saturday, 2.August. Once again I woke up early in order to make another trip. This turn I went to south, until the sea. It means that I've crossed the border and I was in the north coast of Croatia.

There were, as expected, lots of Austrians, Germans and Italians following the same way. Croatia is very popular on Summer time. My passport became very popular as well: «What are you doing in Slovenia?». The red book I delivered was the most fashion object the lady had in her hands for a long time. So she turned each page carefully and she asked her colleague if a Portuguese citizen needed to pay something to cross the border. You wish!!

The coast is outstanding in Istria and I was told it's even better in Dalmatia. Opatija was a fashionable destination during the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Franz Joseph I used to spend there some weeks during winter. Fortunatelly, many of the luxury hotels have survived to present times, and Opatija remain a very nice place to go. There are the beachs, the hotels, the ice-creams, and the opatija (which means "abbey" in Croatian).The 14th-century Benedictine abbey deserves a visit. Be prepared with some kuna (the Croatian currency) in your pockets. Croatia can be more expensive than you can imagine.

View of the Adriatic Sea in Opatija - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

After Opatjia I went to Rovinj, on the western coast of the Istrian peninsula. Rovinj is just adorable: tiny and tight streets guiding to the church, with its tower and an amazing view to the sea. I went to the beach nearby, outside Rovinj. The water is warm and very pleasant but there was a huge crowd.

View of Rovinj from the beach - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

Back to Slovenia, there was still time to watch the sunset (my favourite part of the day) in Piran. I walked near the sea from Portorož - full of hotels and tourists - to Piran, which stands in the tip of the Piran peninsula, on the gulf of Piran (yet Istria). Piran has a remarkable medieval architecture with narrow streets and very compact houses, that give the town a very special charm. To see the sunset from there is a privilege.

The main square of Piran - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

Sunset in Piran - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

Finally, I must say all the Istrian region is bilingual: both in Croatia and in Slovenia people also speak Italian and all the informations are written in Italian and Croatian or Italian and Slovenian. I don't speak any of those languages. Fortunatelly English saved my day!

Travel Journal (3)

2008-10-07T22:31:00.009+01:00

3 - Little trip in Slovenia

I was lucky! Just after my arrival to Ljubljana I had the opportunity to visit a little bit of Slovenia and I didn't miss it. The trip was quite nice but obliged me to get up early. I took the breakfast somewhere in the countryside, looking at the flowers and watching the green forests around me. The morning was quite sportive since I climbed a mountain until the top to see the outstanding surroundings. It was in Tolmin (West Slovenia) and on my way to the top I found a old bunker from the First World War. On the top there were ruins from an old castle. The view was great!

The amazing view from the top of the mountain in Tolmin - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

The next stop was Kobarid (near the Italian border). Kobarid is mainly famous because of the First World War: it was there the Battle of Caporetto (Kobarid in Slovenian) and the Italian retreat is described in Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms. The battle is well documented in a museum in the centre of Kobarid. This museum is so special that even won a Council of Europe award in 1993. There is a memorial to those who died there, of course, and a Way of Sorrows guides us there.

The church in memory of the Italians who died in the Battle of Kobarid - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

Finally it was time for some rest. Almost near the Italian border there is a small river called Nadiža (Natisone in Italian). The river is really small and the water is damned cold. However it is nice to lay there and get fresh.

River Nadiža - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

After this stop it was time for mountains again: Vršič. On the way there is the Soča river side by side with the road. Vršič is a high mountain pass across the Julian Alps in northwestern Slovenia. It is placed at 1611 m and the weather changes a lot as soon as you are getting higher. Suddently, from a cold bath in Nadiža I passed to the rain and cold. The views are worth seeing. At 1200 m, just off the main road, there is a Orthodox chapel built by Russian prisoners doing forced labor during the First World War.

The Julian Alpes - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

After Vršič the road gets us to Krajska Gora, famous for winter sports. It's not rainning anymore. The mountains stayed behind. However, when I arrived to the Lake Bled the rain came back. But if you have nothing better to do than admire the beautiful lake, the castle and the island, you can always eat a famous desert: Blejska kremma rezina. Quite sweet, but not a problem for those who like!

Lake Bled in a grey but somehow romantic afternoon - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

Blejska kremma rezina - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

Travel Journal (2)

2008-10-06T21:16:00.007+01:00

2 - From Padova to Ljubljana

On that night, it was a huge storm. The hot weather was announcing that all day.

I hardly slept. In my room - I spent the night in Youth Hostel - someone was also trying to sleep: the man of the reception. He was fourty something and obviously was craving for affection, but he was not very wise thinking that he could find it on me. The thunders and the awful idea of his presence were constantly invading my sleep. I woke up very early in the morning so I could take the train to Venezia Mestre and from there to Villach where I would stop for four hours before taking a train to my final destination: Ljubljana. The light was wonderful. I couldn't resist taking few pictures of Padova waking up from the storm. The sky was outstanding!

Prato della Valle, after the rain - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

As usual I was expecting some adventure with Trenitalia. The train was late, but I still had some time. So I didn't get hysterical and I enjoyed the big day I had in front of me. I took the breakfast in Venezia Mestre. There was a lot of crowd at the train station at that time. I would now the reason later: nobody lives in Venice, but in Mestre. So everyday lots of people take the train and go to Venice. In the evening they come back. It was still July, some days before the vacation season in Italy. The train arrived and there I was, finally going to Slovenia. My route was quite strange, but I didn't want to change the train a lot of times, so I went to Slovenia through Austria and not through Trieste as a normal person would do. The landscape was astonishing! The Alpes were my company during some hours, when the train was approaching Austria. Those big peaks and the green hoods were just the best postcard for the trip.

The beautiful mountains between Italy and Austria - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

At midday the train arrived to Villach, the second city of Carinthia. Austria never disappoints you: it was a food festival going on. The lunch was quite austrian: sausages with bread and beer! Prost!

My lunch in Villach... - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

...with the sound of music, of course - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

I visited Villach in one hour and I also had time to write postcards. So I was drinking spritz for almost two hours waitting for my train to Ljubljana at 4pm. When I passed the border I became excited imagining how Ljubljana would be. Fortunatelly for me, Ljubljana is also a kind of city that never disappoints you. For more than a month I would know how charming Ljubljana is. But then I was still in the train listening to Slovenian peasants chatting with each other. I was listening Jacques Brel and looking the landscape. I arrived to Ljubljana at 5:42pm having an old Slovenian man screaming something because of a backpack that was not mine. I spent 5 or 10 minutes looking for the SloMSIC people in the station. They were waitting for me in the platform but I haven't seen them so we met at the door of the train station. It was the sunset in Ljubljana. I remember how excited I was when I saw the Franciscan church (the remakable pink church in the main square): I was finally in Ljubljana! I stayed in Wolfova, in dormitory Oražen. Ivan Oražen was a Slovenian doctor who donated his fortune to the Faculty of Medicine. So that yellow building quite in the center of Ljubljana is a dormitory of medical students.

The dormitory where I stayed for more than one month - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

There was no pillow nor bedshits in my first night. I didn't notice that. I was damned tired. I climbed to the castle to see the night falling over Ljubljana. From the window in my room I could see the castle of Ljubljana. The castel could see me as well, I'm sure. It was Thursday 31.July: I was finally in Slovenia.

Travel Journal (1)

2008-09-24T22:51:00.004+01:00

1- From Lisbon to Padova

It's time to write about the big trip I did this summer. It all started on 28th July, a Monday. I took the plane to Milan. The day started very early and somehow it was a very good farewell to Lisbon. Lisbon looks very nice on sunrise. the light, the people and the fresh air of the morning made me smile. The flight was quite fast and from Malpensa I took a bus to Milan Central Station. The building is very fascist as it was made by Mussolini in 1932. It's giant and it's full of eagles, lions and muscled Roman soldiers all over the walls.

The Cathedral (Duomo) of Milan - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

Milan is a very pleasant city. I must confess I was prepared to find a very ugly city, but I shall not believe in what people tell me. The Cathedral is astonishing, with its assemble of marble statues, and just on the right side it stands the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, full of expensive stores. The church of Santa Maria delle Grazie also deserves a visit. If you have time you can also admire one of the most famous paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper. However, you must reserve your ticked in advance. There are also other beautiful churches, but you cannot miss the Sforzesco Castle and the Sempione Park. It is very nice to walk and lay in the grass during the hot days of August. Something less known about Milan stands in Buonarroti Square: the Foundation for Retired Musicians created by Verdi. He died of a stroke in Milan on 1901 and he is burried in the building that houses the Foundation created by him. Milan is extremely expensive for a student like me, but it is worth visiting. People are very friendly and it's for sure a very triendy place during the Fashion Week.

Prato della Valle, the biggest square in Padova - Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

After two days in Milan it was time to go to Padova. Trenitalia reserves for you the most adorable surprises: you buy a ticket to Padova and you arrive one hour and half late, in a different train from that you have entered in Milan Central Station. Anyway, it was damned hot on that Wednesday. But Padova is really nice! As Lisboner I had to go there even if it was just because of Saint Anthony. But Catholic Church is really into necrofily by exposing Saint Anthony's original coffin, tongue, chin and vocal cords. After all that I've hardly dinner. But Padova has a lot to see. I haven't had all the time I wanted to admire the lovely streets of the old town and the buildings full of history. Padova has got one of the oldest Universities in the World: it was created in 1222. Anyway, I saw the essencial and I must come back. Don't forget to try the students' favourite drink: spritz. It's really nice before dinner. On that night, it was a huge storm. The hot weather was announcing that all day.

Lessons from Ljubljana

2008-08-27T23:46:00.008+01:00

Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

Next week I'm leaving Ljubljana. Later on I will write more details about all this big trip. I came so far away to get to know that all my tiny problems are persecuting me even here. Actually I shouldn't complain about life: I travel, I have home and food, I have people who like me... I can call myself a happy person. I just regret to live in the place I live and to have some awful people in my family. I will change all that in the first opportunity. Ljubljana taught me something very important: we cannot change who we are, we just have to live with that. But we can change what makes us fell bad. I really don't believe people change. I believe that' is the basical idea of fatum people use to associate with Portugal but in fact it came much before. I even tried to change some things on me that people may consider offensive or inapropriate but I just cannot.
Ljubljana taught me no matter how bad people think you are, you shall not give a shit. You cannot be different and please everybody. Ljubljana is so nice and so small you can easily meet nice people here. Slovenians are mostly friendly and good looking. By getting to know new people you can always realize how alike people are no matter where they live. Anyway, Slovenians are not snob as Portuguese. One thing I really hate in Portugal is to observe how people became so snob having so little to be proud of. Portuguese pretend to be rich and to behave well: for instantce, they like to travel with good companies, book the best hotels and buy label clothes. It all so fake that makes you laught. Ljubljana wisdomly taught me that I shall slowly move to central Europe instead of wasting my time looking for fullfilment in such a place.
One month in Ljubljana can make you better than one entire year of Erasmus. First of all the philosophy is different and also it is the kind of things you can do. Being back to Lisbon in September, I will remember Ljubljana as some kind of a old person who gave me precious advises. I will come back, of course. Always grateful.

I FEEL sLOVEnia

2008-08-12T19:29:00.003+01:00

Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

The title was not my idea. Someone got it before and now all the tourist guides in Slovenia got the slogan. I'm staying here for 11 days now and I just can say it has been very pleasant. Of course someone who lives in Ljubljana will think I am too kind but I really enjoy to be here. I've already visited some parts of the country: mountains, lakes, the coast... Now I think I will stay more in Ljubljana and get in touch with people. Those who know me better will find this phrase sarcastic or full of bad thoughts. Whatever... I don't care a long time ago with people think about my intentions. I always get the best intentions.
I've been reading a Slovenian writer in a french translation: Drago Jančar. He has his own voic, his own style and writes very interesting things. The book I'm reading is Joyce's Pupil, a book of short stories. Some of them are true art. When I finish the boo I will write something more about it. Jančar is the most translated slovenian writer but here in Slovenia he's not that famous. I don't know why but I still aim to find out before comming back to Portugal.
I wrote in my travel's journal that people in my life have the same role as dogs with blind people. I truly believe I would walk in the darkness if the people I'm meeting in different ocasions in my life didn't take my arm and put me in a different way from which I was following. It's in that way people ae for me like guide dogs. I have no clue what would I be if I haven't get to know some persons who showed me different things. I've never seen again some of those persons but their mission was for sure accomplished.
Latelly I realized alcohol can be good in two particular situations in my life: it can solve my insomnias and it can make me more talkative. I've never been able of being a very talkative ans social person. I don't aim to be those kind of guys who are "circulating" in parties and getting in touch with everyone. I don't like that at all. I hate people who smile all the time or that speak too much. However when I drink beer here (because here beer has got more alcohol than in Portugal) I get nice and more social. My colleagues here in the dormitory all know each other and go partying together. I don't. I believe groups aim to mask individual incabilities. Not those groups partying, of course. I'm thinking of other groups and of how dependent people are getting on one another. I prefer to protect my freedom of being asocial and sarcastic than smile and expecting a good life for getting in touch with the right people. I don't know why I wrote this today but doesn't matter. Ljubljana is a nice town and I'm going to enjoy it until the last moment. As usual in good company... mine.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

2008-08-05T17:19:00.003+01:00

Photo: © Jurij Filistow

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
(1918-2008)

«I'm not afraid of death anymore»

The world is going mad

2008-07-12T11:26:00.002+01:00

Yes, I know this is not original at all, but this world is going mad, is going into absolute craziness and I wish I could have been born 40 or 50 years ago not to have to pass through this. Everyday I read in the papers and I watch in TV very respectable people telling what they think about the future, and they make me so depressed I would wish an atomic bomb fall right in the center of my living room. People are so pessimistic, but I guess they have no right of making others pessimistic as well. They make me remember those women who see future in cards. They always see something different from reality. It's the same with all those oppinion makers. They always see a darker future than actually it's gonna be. They see difficuties, crisis, war, hunger and several things that already exist for ages but they have never noticed before.
Yesterday I read a short interview with some respectable professor in some Institute of Economic here in Lisbon and it couldn't be worst for a one-page-interview. He said immediately that he thinks this crisis will led to violence in the streets and the unemployment will raise until 15% in Portugal. More: this ciris will last for years, the oil will not stop raising, India will have more population than China and those two countries will demand food and the crisis will be worst and worst... Well, I wanted to go down to the kitchen to drink some detergent and kill the crisis on me, but I was too lazy.
Crisis will last, of course, but I don't need some inteligent people to make things worst by telling me what they think of the future. Their oppinion is as valide as mine since they are the same stupid as I am. If they were intelligent they would be quite and don't let people be alarmed. They love panic and tragedy, I believe. The same I love to write useless remarks on their oppinions about the world...

The G spot

2008-06-19T15:27:00.001+01:00

Witold Gombrowicz

2008-06-18T17:50:00.003+01:00

I think I have never written anything about Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969) here. It's time for Gombrowicz now. He is not very famous, at least as famous as he should be, but he is indeed a very remarkable writer.

He was born in Poland but he hasn't lived there long time. He studied Law at Warsaw University and then he spend some time in France. Back in Poland he start writing: first short stories and then a theatre play: Memoirs from a Time of Immaturity (1933) and Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy (1935). But it was Ferdydurke (1937), his first novel, that brought him some success.
The key date in August 1939, when Gombrowicz took part in the maiden voyage Polish cruise liner Chrobry,to South America. He was in Buenos Aires the day the war outboke in Europe. He decided to stay and wait. He stayed for 24 years. Hard times, those years in Buenos Aires, when poverty was always knocking his door. Thanks to some friends he made, he was able to survive. He wrote some articles to local papers or Polish magazines, he translated his Ferdydurke to Spanish (with the help of his friends, of course), he aplied to a post in the Polish Bank in Buenos Aires... A life full of adventures. In 1953, Witold Gombrowicz started to write a Diary. He did so to not let literature die... since he wrote very little during the Argentinian years. However he started to write a novel the same year - Trans-Atlantic (1953) - and then a play - The Marriage (1953). His Diary, specially regarding the years he spent in Argentina, has remarkable pages on life and art. It has some philosophy as well... and criticism against the Communist regime in Poland. Of course the Diary was banned from Poland's Popular Republic and Gombrowicz banned himself the rest of his novels in his own country until the regime give the permision to the publication of his Diary.
On April 1963 Gombrowicz came back to Europe: first he went to West Berlin, for a year, and then to France, in 1964. There he met the young Rita Labrosse, a canadian student of contemporary literature, and he emplyed her as his secretary. Soon he moved to Vence, in south of France, where he spent the rest of his life. He finally had gotten some success, specially after Cosmos (1965) having won the International Publishers Prize in May 1967.
But life is unfair, as usual. Gombrowicz started to have heart problems and finally he had an heart attack, in the end of 1968. He married Rita, then: she had became her only family. In July 1969 he died of respiratory insufficiency.
His works are remarkable: the theme of immaturity, the deep psychological analysis, a certain sense of absurd, the obsession with the connections between people and their acts, even small gestures... Gombrowicz brought to his novels some philosophical reflections but he do not bother the reader with them all the time, he build truly detective plots instead: both in Pornography (1960) and in Cosmos that is quite noticible. The pages of his Diary give to his readers a remarkable tool to follow the man under the books. Actually, his Diary guides us to his books and to some of his reflections on world, life and art.
Translations? Yes, there are something. Thanks to Danuta Borchardt we can read Ferdydurke and Cosmos in English, Bill Johnston translated Bakakai (the new assembled collection of short stories published in 1933) and Polish Memories (assembled texts by Gombrowicz about Poland written to the Radio Free Europe but never broadcasted).

As a little homage to Gombrowicz I was looking for his house in Buenos Aires. I took the color picture below. The first one (in black and white) is the Venezuela Street in the time of Gombrowicz.

Photo: © Archive Rita Gombrowicz

615, Venezuela Street, in Buenos Aires

The last balcony on top left is the room where Witold Gombrowicz lived.

Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto (May 2008)

The G spot

2008-06-17T14:45:00.005+01:00

The original cartoon was sweet and cute. My idea was to use sarcasm on those sweet and pink things. I am not bad person, I just see things in other way...

No to Treaty of Lisbon

2008-06-13T15:49:00.002+01:00

llustration by Peter Schrank

No doubt: EU is going as bad as it gets...

Strike

2008-06-11T23:35:00.002+01:00

Thanks God I'm not the only one complaining...

Newseum

2008-06-10T20:37:00.003+01:00

What I like the most about internet is the amazing possibility of getting in touch with lots of information from all over the world. Newseum is the an interactive museum of news and journalism, which was re-opended last April, in Washigton D.C.

Inside the museum there are a lot to see and also to experience: there are simulations of TV studios where the visitors are invited to be in the role of journalists, or editors, or cameramen; there is an exausting exhibiton about the history of the American Press and lots of historical films.In the space dedicated to September 11 there is a wall with front pages of newspapers all over the world picturing that day. Everyday there are more than 80 front pages of newspapers from everywhere available on one of the galeries.
The entrance costs 20 USD, which is one of the highest in US museums.

However, the Newseum website has available the frontpages as well. So, everyday, you can just see what is new in each country you want. For example, today, we can see the differences (or not) between the cover of the Portuguese Público and the Polish Gazeta Wyborcza. The Portuguese paper calls the strike of the truck drivers to the front page while the Polish one... calls the strike in the Post Services. The victory on The Netherlands over Italy in Euro 2008 deserves a photo in Gazeta, while Público not even write a line about that in the front page...

After Sabato

2008-05-29T14:36:00.004+01:00

Last week I was reading the beginning of «Before the End», the autobiography by the Argentinian author Ernesto Sabato, and I can remember the following sentence about the signals we have from God:«Showing us that not everything in this life is miserable, squalid and dirty, and that that poor anonimous human being, just like those little flowers, is the prove of the Absolute». Since then I make efforts to catch those signals, that simplicity and that beauty I imagine the Absolute is. But if I could at least be touched by something... I guess no God is to be understood.
Human being is deep inside rotten. I know that since my childhood. I could tell here several examples of how rotten people are and how truly fake is that love people take for granted. I believe one of the human mistakes is to take things for granted. You can imagine how big disappointments people are getting everyday. I listen to some conversations between gales in my faculty and I can just tell those ladies - almost doctors I must say - are nothing more than teenagers with a stethoscop around the neck. Yet they have some ability to amuse me with the things they tell eachother. They have their lives entirely planed. Carreer, family, success. Lovely. I don't use to think a lot about my future. I have some highlights but since I am alive just once I guess it is better to live as good as it gets. I mean don't bother myself about what tomorrow will bring. I remmeber know the last phrase Fernand Pessoa wrote, when he was dying in the hospital due to liver problems. He worte with a pencil in a piece of paper, in English: «I know not what tomorrow will bring». I don't like him so much as people use to here in Portugal but this phrase is brilliant: so simple and so true. I don't know what tomorrow will bring either. So I prefer to be happy everyday than build up a castel with sand that will be easily destroyed by the waves. Again a quotation is coming up my mind: «All life is of course a process of breaking down». This is the beginning of «The Crack Up», by Scott Fitzgerald. He was quite right. People build their lives when they are 18 or 20 and they spend the rest of their lives seeing their castels being destroyed.
Again I remind of Sabato. He must be right about the Absolute, but people look for the Absolute nowadays in a very different way. They try, I guess, to find the Absolute in their belongings. They want to have things instead of trying to be something, and they expect to find hapiness that way. I don't know if they are right and I am wrong, what would be perfectly possible. However I don't see they are happy since they are complaining all the time about their lives. That simple hapiness Sabato described in the beginning of «Before the End» - little birds singing in the morning, the old cat that comes to sleep between his legs or the colourful flowers in his garden - is the kind of thing people just don't care. In this rotten world, this sunset, that can be a consolation, but I am not sure if it is enough to make people look to their lives in a different way. I wrote all this after having thought about how people are miserable and, yet, how great they can be. Sabato will be 97 next June 24. He lives near Buenos Aires paiting, because he was forbidden by his doctors of reading and writing. What a torture it would be for me...

Buenos Aires Design

2008-05-27T14:40:00.002+01:00

Photo: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, 2008

This is Buenos Aires Design, the only thematic mall in Buenos Aires. The name tells everything: it's dedicated exclusively to design and decor. The place is very well located: in the quarter of Recoleta, almost in front of the National Museum of Fine Arts.
The mall is surrounded by the Church of Pilar, the Recoleta's Cemetery, the Modern Art Museum and lots of lovely restaurants and charming buildings. If you are one of those fellows who buy a t-shirt in each Hard Rock Café, Buenos Aires Design is the place to go. It opened there the first Hard Rock Café in Latin America.

The gardens surrounding the building are very pleasant in warm days like those when I was in Buenos Aires. People often sit there and lay reading books or just chatting and drinking yerba mate. During weekend the place becomes really crowded due to some market to tourists and open air performances of street musicians as you can see below.

Sunday - 18 May 2008

Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes

2008-05-24T18:02:00.008+01:00

The National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires is a red building with very remarkable columns of doubtful taste placed in Avenida do Libertador, near the cross with Avenida Pueyrredón, in Recoleta quarter. The museum in its actual location was opened in 1933, and it was placed in the ancient Casa de Bombas, which was renovated during more than 20 years to host the museum.

It was the only museum in Buenos Aires I have visited and I guess it is worth going. Behind those walls it is a very remarkable collection of European paintings and sculptures from 15th to 20th centuries. So we can see Italian, Spanish and Dutch masters from 16th to 17th centuries, as well as the great French painters from the 19th century, paintings from 20th century, holy art from 15th and 16th centuries and some sculptures by Rodin (for instance, a copy of The Kiss and the amazing The God's Hand, which was stollen once, about five years ago). Here is a sample of what can be seen in the NMFA in Buenos Aires.

ANONIMOUS
Pietá, beginning of 16 th cenury

FRANS POURBUS, The Young
Princess Margarita Gonzaga, 16th century

REMBRANT
Portrait of sister Lisbeth van Rijn, 1633

PIERRE AUGUSTE RENOIR
Girl with Green Hat

EDGAR DEGAS
Portrait of Diego Martelli, 1879

AMEDEO MODIGLIANI
Bust of Woman

In the first floor there is a collection of Argentinian paintings from 19th and 20th centuries and a space to temporary exhibitions. Being in May - these year Argentina celebrates the 198th anniversary of the May Revolution - the NMFA presents "The arms of painture. Nation under construction" until June 1. The exhibition assembles pictures of the most important events of Argentinian History, showing painture as a powerful weapon while spreading the liberal ideas. One century later, under dictatureship, this function was again summonned, speacially with the Federal Series by Luis Felipe Noé, who made a reflection on the power of painture to make History happen.

LUIS FELIPE NOÉ
Introduction to Hope, 1971

No ticket is needed: entrance is for free. NMFA is opened between Tuesday and Friday from 12:30 to 20:30. On Saturday, Sunday and holydays it opens earlier, at 9:30. If you visit Buenos Aires, you definitely should go there.

Photos: © Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto

Avenida 9 de Julio

2008-05-23T15:48:00.004+01:00

Keeping the video posts about Buenos Aires, today I will show a very normal midday in the most wide Avenue in the World: Avenida 9 de Julio (Avenue 9th July), with almost 200 meters from one side to another.
This is the cross of Avenida Corrientes and Avenida 9 de Julio just in the point where the big obelisk was eriged to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first founding of the city. As you can see, both avenues are quite crowded with both cars and people.

El Ateneo

2008-05-21T17:45:00.005+01:00

El Ateneo is a very famous group of bookstores in Buenos Aires. The first one opened in Calle Florida and this one is El Ateneo in Avenida Santa Fé. It is placed in an old theatre (built in 1919) that was converted in this very charming bookstore. This is the biggest bookstore in South America and we can easily spend there a couple of hours looking at the books, albuns, magazines and also CD and DVD they have there. There are reading nooks in the boxes and a café on stage, as you can see. I can say I coudn´t resist... but I don't have this oportunity every day.

My monday morning

2008-05-20T04:10:00.005+01:00

This is the famous Plaza de Mayo, a symbol in Argentina. You can see the statue of godess Mayo(May), the Cathedral and the Casa del Gobierno (Government House) also known as Casa Rosada (the Pink House) in the backround. This was shooted on monday morning (yesterday in GMT time) at 11:30 am.

Art and Medicine

2008-05-08T22:43:00.005+01:00

How Medicine can became Art? Well... some people would say Medicine is already an Art, and an old one. However, going back to my classes of Histology (2nd year) I can remember fantastic picture I saw of our cells. Those pictures are indeed pieces of Art, but, as usual, they were shown to us students as boring things full of details we should memorize. That's how do you transform Art in Medicine.
Now, far from that classeroom (I hope so...), I can see the pictures without any kind of refusal. They are beauty even if they picture something awful happening inside our body. They are, this one for example, some kind of a portrait of Death if it would have a face.

The image shows a very advanced state of Barrett's esophagus. This afection is an abnormal change in the cells of the lower end of the esophagus caused mainly by damage from chronic acid exposure (reflux esophagitis). Here we can see an adenocarcinoma, which is a cancer in the esophagus. We can see cells dividing, cells too much coloured and with signs of malignity. Again I say this is a wonderful picture of something horrible. But beauty doesn't belong just to the good things...

It was thirty four years ago...

2008-04-25T12:52:00.001+01:00

Saramago

2008-04-23T11:05:00.007+01:00

The exhibition José Saramago: the consistence of dreams, about life and works of the Portuguese Nobel Prize in Literature 1998, is opened from today until July 27th.

The exhibition takes place in the National Palace of Ajuda (Lisbon) and, after Portugal, will travel to Madrid and several capitals of South America.

Bed and Board

2008-04-07T23:12:00.003+01:00

Bed and Board (Domicile Conjugal) was the first film by François Truffaut (1932-1984) I've seen and I believe it was a very good way of getting in touch with this mater of the French cinema. It's just one (not the first nor the last) of Antoine Doinel's serie. In this film, we can get in touch with Antoine's marrital life... and its breaking down.
Antoine and Christine are happy. However, we start to notice a few marital disagreements over things like whether they really need a phone, but it first appears that the couple is settling into the type of routine that most people endure... until the day Antoine meets a japanese girl in the American architectural firm, where he works mainly remote-controlling miniature boats through a scale model maze of channels and docks. Having an affair, he is quickly catched by his wife and the separation seems inevitable. However, Antoine quickly gets bored and the tenderness of his marriage comes back. The amazing scene at the restaurant tells a lot about affairs: they are like a tasteful dinner that loses its flavor as it gets too long.
I don't think it's true that most viewers would quickly tire of this ordinary couple without the background knowledge of prior movies as The 400 Blows and Stolen Kisses. Of course they are important to understand the character of Antoine Doinel and probably the film would be too bland to stand on its own without the two prior films, but the fact is that Truffaut was an artist able of capturing the ordinary life and relationships in a very charming way.

Zbigniew Herbert (1924-1998)

2008-04-02T00:43:00.006+01:00

Zbigniew Herbert was one of the most important Polish poets from the XXth century. To tell this would be enough. However, I can add that he also wrote essays and theatre plays, and that his poetry is inspiring and meditative. One of Herbert’s most valuable works is a cycle of poems dedicated to Mr. Cogito, a character he created who is at the same time very modern but still sticks to Europe's cultural tradition. It's one those poems I posted below. The photo above is the cover of The Collected Poems, 1956-1998 (Ecco Press, 2007), from where this poem was taken. Herbert died in Warsaw in July 1998. This year was declared by the Polish government the Year of Zbigniew Herbert.

Mr. Cogito and the Imagination

1

Mr. Cogito never trusted
tricks of the imagination

the piano at the top of the Alps
played false concerts for him

he didn't appreciate labyrinths
the Sphinx filled him with loathing

he lived in a house with no basement
without mirrors or dialectics

jungles of tangled images
were not his home

he would rarely soar
on the wings of a metaphor
and then he fell like Icarus
into the embrace of the Great Mother

he adored tautologies
explanations
idem per idem

that a bird is a bird
slavery means slavery
a knife is a knife
death remains death

he loved
the flat horizon
a straight line
the gravity of the earth

2

Mr. Cogito will be numbered
among the species minores

he will accept indifferently the verdict
of future scholars of the letter

he used the imagination
for entirely different purposes

he wanted to make it
an instrument of compassion

he wanted to understand to the very end

--Pascal's night
--the nature of a diamond
--the melancholy of the prophets
--Achilles' wrath
--the madness of those who kill
--the dreams of Mary Stuart
--Neanderthal fear
--the despair of the last Aztecs
--Nietzsche's long death throes
--the joy of the painter of Lascaux
--the rise and fall of an oak
--the rise and fall of Rome

and so to bring the dead back to life
to preserve the covenant

Mr. Cogito's imagination
has the motion of a pendulum

it crosses with precision
from suffering to suffering

there is no place in it
for the artificial fires of poetry

he would like to remain
faithful to uncertain clarity

Zbigniew Herbert (1924-1998)
The Collected Poems, 1956-1998 (Ecco Press, 2007)
Translation: Alissa Valles

Maugham

2008-04-01T19:11:00.003+01:00

I recently got to know William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) and I must say I'm charmed. Actually I guess I'm just one among a lot of people that is now discovering the literature that Maugham gave us. In addition, I have also quite a simpathy by Somerset Maugham: he made a Medical degree (like I am doing) and he gave up for Literature (like I intend to do some day). I am now reading his first novel Liza of Lambeth and I must say he wrote for this edition of the novel (Vintage Classics) a remarkable preface. If you haven't read it, I advise you to do. In the preface, among other things, Maugham tells about the art of writing, the sacrifices, the dangers of doing a bad work and the honesty of the good literature.
We can learn a lot with good writers and not only in his books. Lately I've been very keen on reading writers' testimonials on literature. Some of them are remarkable. The same I can say about some interviews I read. Maugham is for sure on of my favourite writers and I am very pleased he is being "set for a comeback" (as I read somewhere). The first Maugham's novel I read was The Razor's Edge. The Razor's Edge and Of Human Bondage are Maugham's most famous novels.
The Razor's Edge is a charming novel. It is set mostly in Paris and throught the eyes of Maugham (himself a character) we can know some of his most remarkable characters: Elliott Templeton, Isabel Bradley and Larry Darnell. I must mention as well Sophie McDonald, the tragic character of this novel. The plot is quite simple, as it happens usually with the great books: Larry Darnell, a young american man who served in the First World War, comes back to Chicago very changed. He gaves up all the confort to look for the meaning of life. This is quite a risk in a novel. But Maugham is a rare writer and he build, chapter after chapter, a very consistent narrative and a lovely book. I read it last winter and became a fan of Maugham.
Maugham died in December of 1965, in his propriety in Cap Ferrat (south of France), with the age of 91. He was a very successful writer in his days, but became less and less read for no reason I can mention. Fortunatelly I seems to be taken from the shadow and it is very easy to love Maugham's novels because they are not so fusty and oldfashion as I heard. Instead they are daring and timeless. Maugham created masterpieces that are waiting to be discovered. The Razor's Edge is just an example, but I could also mention Of Human Bondage, Cakes and Ale and The Moon and Six Pence. Maugham was a talented writer and, to quote Graham Greene, «a writer of great dedication». His novels are absolutely worth reading.

One Year

2008-03-30T00:08:00.006Z

This is the first anniversary of getting to know the inferno as an independent blog written in english. Every started with the need of making a blog written in english instead of doing the translation of the portuguese blog conhecimento do inferno. I thought of making a blog with its own contents. The portuguese blog, which is the original just for having been the first to appear, had an evolution that lead it to books, culture and some portuguese subjects.
getting to know the inferno was in the beginning a sort of a satellite. Then, I assume it became more personal with all my reflections on Medicine, life and love. It shouldn't be exactly like that, and I promise to make this blog better by giving to it a cultural refresh, just like I had thought in the beginning. Anyway, I can't be unfair to this blog. It has been a very eclectic one. It started with my trip to Poland, one year ago, then with some pictures of beautiful cities, some movies (less than I wanted), and some texts of mine on several subjects. I guess those subjects are not that interesting for most of the readers but it is something I have to live with. I just can assure that getting to know the inferno will be better from now on. Thanks for visiting this blog and thanks for reading.

Note: The picture above is some kind of a logo I created to celebrate the first year of this blog. It will stay in the page (at the right) during the next months. I tried to create something that could translate the next months as well: cinema, art and literature. The O is a picture of The Pickpocket, a film by Robert Bresson. The N is Matador Luis Miguel Dominguin, a paint of Pablo Picasso's first period. Finally, the E is a photo of Joseph Conrad, a remarkable writer whose 150th anniversary was celebrated last December. Cinema, art and literaure is what the readers of this blog can expect. And much more, I hope.

Man with Dog

2008-03-27T17:02:00.006Z

Almost one year since this blog (a english version) began. So I thought it was time to change the picture in the top. The Girl with a White Dog by Lucian Freud gives place to Man with Dog by Francis Bacon. First of all, I assure you I have no special attraction by dogs. I just found this picture lovely and deserveful of being in the top of the blog's page.

Francis Bacon is famous for his austere and often grotesque pictures which I just love. He was born in Dublin in 1909. His father was a racehorse trainer and he was quite severe. Bacon was a ill child, suffering with asthma and several allergies. That made his father very upset and he used to spank him in order to «make him a man». Once his father send him to work in the horse stables. It was there young Francis started his sexual life. Many years later, in 1992, he died of hearth attack in Madrid where he was visiting one of his lovers.
Francis Bacon explored very well the human ghosts: paedophilia, masoquist fantasies, the males' violence, the abstraction of the human body, the homoerotic tensions, the obscure connections between sex and religion, between sex and the human fluids are remarkable features of his works. I guess he was a very unique artist as every good artists are. So, his Man with Dog deserves to be here, in the top, where all the good works should be.

200 florins

2008-03-26T18:20:00.003Z

Today, I'll write here about the 200 florins note. This is perhaps the most curious note I've ever seen. Here it is! In the front we can see king Charles Albert, from the House of Anjou, who reigned in Hungary between 1308 and 1342 as Charles I.

On the back, we can see the Diósgyőr Castle, that was a summer residence of kings and queens of Hungary, until beeing occupied by the Turkish and became ruined.

However, what is so special about this note (still in circulation) is some detail in this landscape. Just notice that little thing that comes from the the ground near the tree.

What is this? Obviously there are a lot of stories about this strange phallic symbol. The designer was Károly Vagyóczky, who did all the serie of notes that circulate in Hunagry since 1998. In my opinion, this is just great! I just regret Euro notes have only doors and bridges. A penis makes a lot of difference!

Easter(n) thoughts

2008-03-22T13:33:00.004Z

Igreja dos Mártires (Church of the Martyrs) - Lisbon

I can't help writing here today. I should be happy because I am lucky with my friends, my future and even my family (whatever it means). Yet I woke up upset and furious with life. No matter how happy we can be, it seems gladness is always running away. So, I live in Lisbon, I study a bloddy difficult curse and I travel and read as much as I can. I have loyal and pacient friends, my mother loves me and all this should be enough to put me a smile on my face. Yet I woke up very upset. Lately I've been thinking about future and I guess all depressions start with this simple thoughts. One of my favourite writers said once «Where it is written "In the beginning was a Word" we should change to "In the beginning was the depression"». I guess he is right.
Today someone wrote me an e-mail. A very nice one. Actually almost nobody writes me e-mails, usually only machines do that to warn me about nice prices so I can spend money in books. Today a real person wrote me an e-mail. I've never seen her but I hope some day I will. That's why I called this post "Easter(n) thoughts" just to play with the words. I am very pleased and grateful for that e-mail, because my mother woke me up with the usual news about my father. I guess he is starting to became a solution instead of being always a problem, in the way he is stimulating me a lot to change my life. I hope some day I can also be grateful to him.
Yesterday I was in the church. Of course I was not htere to pray nor kiss Jesus in the cross. I was there just to watch that amazing ritual, so thrilling, so old, so beautiful to me. I love church for what others hate it: the rituals. There was organ music and a choir. The church was full of gold, pictures and the red costumes of the priests made me think I was in the presence of kings. All that is sumptuous and respectful. I am not Catholic but I love sometimes to attend a celebration so I can see the same gestures, the same old rituals being repeated as the final rehearsal of a very important theatre play.
I've been thinking of how we are always demanding on people to change for us. I guess we can't help doing that. It's deep in ourselves. I've been thinking that can't bring anything good. All the awful demands we demand somebody to do for us (as Ingmar Bergman wrote in A Passion) «will only lead to new complications which will bring on terrible mental disturbances, physical and psychological acts of violence». It is fatal. We can't avoid it. We just have to wait until the building comes down and then start a new one, stone by stone...

A Professor of mine

2008-03-15T17:10:00.003Z

He is so famous in Portugal and world wide and I guess there must be a reason for that. This week, the Portuguese weekly news magazine Visão made him an interview due to the award of University of Lisbon.
Tipically Portuguese, the magazine starts the article by saying: «in 2002, he appeared in Science Citation Index among the 100 most influent scientists in the world». Well, he is 61, his name is António Coutinho. Now he is President of the Gulbenkian Institut for Science and head of Immunology in the Faculty of Medicine... where I study. During the interview, Mr. Coutinho tells something remarkable: «Filosophy today is the same and give us the same understanding than iin the time of Socrates. In two thousand years it didn't make any progress». More: «Filosophy exists where Science hasn't get yet». Of course Wittgenstein and Karl Popper, for inatance, must be very angry now. Mr. Coutinho also says that, thanks to the development in Biology and Genetics, we can expect that very soon we will not die because of diseases but because of old age. «We, the rich countries, because life expectancy in Burkina-Faso will be much lower».
This is what I call scientific arrogance, and it is the wrong way of making things progress a little bit. I believe Science, and Medicine in particular, can be enriched with other areas of knowledge such as Filosophy. Science shouldn't be seen as enemy of Filosophy but both should be faced as complementary areas, and they can both make us wise and show us more of ourselves. In my opinion it is just not true that Filosophy give us the same understanding of things than 2000 years ago, because it changed a lot in XVIIth century and even more recently in the XXth century, when filosophers started to integrate a lot of knowledge from other areas in is reflecions on life and death, for example. Medicine should just do the same, and fortunatelly some doctors have been doing this. António Damásio, a portuguese neurologist who works in USA, writes exactly about human emotions combining his knowledge about the brain functions and the filosophical theories.
Mr. Coutinho is, no doubt, a great scientist and a very famous one, but I guess sometimes he doesn't think twice about what he says. I can just tell about what I remember about his introduction in the first lecture of Immunology. He asked us if we knew where Faroe islands were. And having just silence from us (probably bored with his speech) he just told this very words: «You don't know? What provincial you are!». Just this. Ahead in the lecture he was very angry for a little background noise in the clssroom so he cried he was not paid to be there as head of Immunology, and that he just had kindky accepted the invitation of the Faculty of Medicine.
I want to say that, despite all this, I truly admire him. He graduated in Medicine and went to Sweden, to the Karolinska Institut, to make research. He also was head of Immunology in Pasteur Institut. Just sometimes I don't like the way he says the things, with so many despize, so little respect, such an arrogance... Nothing is true in Science, it's just refutable, as Popper said.

Stupid story about a disease

2008-03-05T19:43:00.005Z

I was waiting for you. Why so late? Don't you have a phone? There's not a call to me? Why such a face? What happened? You are driving me mad. Tell me what happened. Why so many tears? Something awful? I hope it is something terrible because I will not forgive you if you put me like this for nothing. Tell me, was it your husband? Has he told you something? You know what I think of him. He is just the worst person walking on this Earth after my ex-husband. I really don't understand what are you doing with him. I know you don't have sex, you don't like his familly, his way of thinking - for God's sake he's almost nazi! - so, tell me, what the hell are you still doing with him? If there was love I could even try to understand, but I know there is nothing between the two of you. Nothing but mutual despize. So, tell me, why those tears? What paper is this? Do you want me to read it? What is this, just tell me and stop crying. You are making me worried. What is this? You haven't told me you did exams. I will kill you. Do you know what this means? Why? I should know the reason of all this. You never call me and I was so surprised you wanted to see me. I should know you just want me for telling me this kind of things. I f it was something nice I would be forgotten, as usual. Have you called mum as well? I hope you didn't dare, because she will die in the moment. How this happened to you? I'm sure it was your husband who infected you. I know the kind of person he is and I'm sure he slept with half brazilians and chinese whores of this city. If I were you I would put a knife in his stomach, but you are too sweet to do that. I'm sure you will forgive him and kiss him and say it's O.K. This is a plague and this will kill you, but I guess you know that because you are crying for ten minutes. Clean that and cheer up. We are going to dinner out tonight. After one or two glasses of good wine you will be more calm. After three you will be much better and in the end of the night I hope you are drunk enough to go back home, open the door and tell to the bastard of you husband he is the worst piece of shit you ever met and that he will die soon. It will not change anything, dear, but for sure you will feel better after this. Your disease is much better than your husband: it will not leave you alone, at least.

How to be a medical student

2008-02-15T11:55:00.003Z

I know it's not new: I'm doing a medical degree at the University of Lisbon. Since I've chosen this University I've already regreted it for much more than once. I found out I am not the model student of a course like Medicine. I'm sure if my father reads this he can be bastard ehough to use this against me in trial but I don't care with such mean people anymore. I guess I changed enough after getting to the University to tell one I don't give a shit about one's judgements on my actions.
I remember my first year in this Faculty and I feld like a machine of reading medical books. Now I read a lot, but not those kind of scientific books I'm expected to read. I know now much more about Medicine that I knew when I came to Lisbon and I certainly know much more about the bloody nature of people that I knew before. I don't know if I will be a doctor some day, but I'm sure I will graduate in Medicine. The improtant is not to give up no matter how big efforts one makes to show you how bad you are. As I've written above I don't care.
The evidence is that I grew up and University taught me a lot (not only Medicine). It's somehow what I expected. So I don't use to regret anymore the fact I am here. I am and that's a fact. Certainly I would love to experience how other Universities teach Medicine but I am sure I will have sooner or later some opportunity to be in touch with that.
A medical student as to be made against the mainstrem, I think. Most students of Medicine memeorize bones, nerves, diseases and procedures but don't know quite right what a real patient is. I'm not an obsessive defensor of that humanization of Medicine with crys and tears between doctors and patients, but I guess Medicine is in its core something human and all the point is that someone is ill and shall be, if possible, cured. Students are obsessed by cure and they cannot handle the possibility of being unsucessful. So, a student shall be made gainst the mainstream, against the obsession of cure, the absolute truths and the heroes. Somehow I learned that in my Faculty and I am very thankful for that.
A medical student shall read and have a personal life. That is quite improtant in order to not become a frustrated human being as most doctors became. Sport is very nice and increases the levels of endorfins, what means one have better mood and is able to enface daily life with a smile on the face. Literaure save one's mind. Believe me: doctors have the most boring conversations I've ever heard. They talk about patients or their professional expectations which is, I guess, the first symptom of dumpness.
To live, to exercise, to read... and also to study which is the worst part of the course. anyway, it can be a very pleasant experience, specially for the people we are getting to know. A very enrichening experience, more that a simple Universitary course. And, for those who are moving from home, it's so nice to live without parents... specially father...

Regicide

2008-02-01T00:43:00.001Z

Photo: Joshua Benoliel

100 years ago, on 1st February 1908, a saturday, around 5:00 pm, king Charles I of Portugal and his son, the Crown Prince Louis Philip, were murdered by anarchists at Terreiro do Paço, in Lisbon.
This is the last picture of the king alive (on the right behind the Queen), taken just few minutes before his death.

Pop Medicine

2008-01-29T18:33:00.000Z

When I read Eilantha's livejournal I just had this idea. She was regretting she couldn't put the Warhol picture of July Garland on the cover of her work. She studies in the same Faculty as I and I agree it's very unfair we cannot be original and creative while doing our "scientific" work. We write clinical cases all the time, and there are a lot of ethical concernments about the identity of the people on those pages. We use to write just their inicials and, if a picture is needed, we shall put a band over patient's eyes so he/she cannot be identified. That is called anonymity or protection of the patient's data. So, for her work, she would have to show Judy Garland like this

in order to protect Judy's rights and the confidenciality of doctor-patient relationship. This is a pity because, as Eilantha said, her eyes are the most beautiful ever. I regret this rules because everybody can be identified this way. I would say this is Judy Garland with a grey band over her eyes and I guess everybody would say just the same. Yet, I would like my Faculty to accept a clinical case with this beautiful picture on its cover. When it's my turn I will put all my heroes on the covers of my "scientific" works and I want to see who will be the first to tell the picture is damaging the inner purpose of the work which is, I guess, to make me bored and to take from me my precious free time.
So, in honour of Mr. A.D., aged 536 if he was alive, caucasian, married, no children, I put this picture, one of my favourite ones, on the cover of my work.

Lecture

2008-01-18T11:45:00.000Z

I woke up early in the morning to attend to one lecture given by a Professor from Harvard. This is quite vilager, I know. Professors in Harvard are really not different than Professors in Lisbon, but my naivity made me thought they could be. Harvard is a very prestigiated School of Medicine. Lisbon is prestigiated too, but I haven't understand why. Professors in Harvard and in Lisbon can really be very alike. They teach the same things, in the same way. By chance it happened the Power Point presentation of the Professor was actually very boring. It was full of cascades, reactions, molecules and other sorts of things nobody wants to watch at 9:30 am. I sat and I was there for one hour listening about thrombosis and hemostasis. Believe me, you don't want to know about the dreadful things I heard. It was not the first time my beloved Faculty invited a foreign teacher to give a lecture. Some weeks ago, they invited a Professor in London. It seems very snob to have foreign teachers giving interesting lectures - because they were indeed interesting (i'm not being ironical) just about very unatractive subjects - but the reality is that those lectures were not that different from those we have usually with our Portuguese Professors. Actuyally, I realized our Professors are sometimes really talented comparing with the foreigner ones because they can bring some art sometimes to the lecture, some of them make a really good job in their Power Point presentations. I've been unfair with them for years, complaining about all the theorical things they demanded us [me] to know (I'm still complaining somtimes). The reality is that they are right and I'm wrong. Of course they could organize better the non-theorical classes and activities. They are indeed dreadful to attend because we learn nothing there. But the fact is that the lectures are given with dedication and in a very professional way, comparable to Harvard or London. The problem is with me of course. My mind always fly when I attend to those lectures. They are simply not sexy, if I can use this word. Anyway, I've been very unfair to that Faculty that is actually prestigiated abroad. One day perhaps I can learn how to like that Faculty and the things they teach there. Now I just would like to retract myself. It can be very boring to be a medical student, but it's fair enough... it's how things are.

Twenty two

2008-01-15T12:16:00.001Z

Rocket Man

2008-01-11T19:09:00.000Z

I've already written something about David Fonseca when is new album "Dreams in color" was released. Now I will write once more. His new album is, in my opinion, one of the best released in 2007. He improved a lot as artist and composer and he's able even to reinvent other songs. This is an example. This song is «Rocket Man», one of the Elton John's hits. David use to make versions of several musics during his live performances but it was the ver first time he included one of them in a album. This could be enough, but the videoclip is something that deserves to be watched. It's an one-take-shooting and the idea is quite original. David intended to create something he knew it would be controversial. The result is very good. Just watch.

The same again

2008-01-04T21:19:00.000Z

It's now the fourth day of the first month of 2008. It's called New Year but the fact is that it's just new for a couple of days. I'm already tired of 2008 and there are still 362 days lasting. Soon I'll be 22. It seems to me very remarkable such an idiot as I am can achieve this age. I'm still in the faculty of Medicine and I've found out I don't want to be a doctor. I am still living in Lisbon and I don't know if I will stay here forever. I'm writting my execrable english over a blog almost nobody read, writting about all and nothing, writers and painters, poets and pictures. That's why new year is actually just the same as the old year. I've never been fan of the new year's resolutions. So it's just the same for me if it's january of 2008 or december of 2007. Except for the fact I'm getting older. I found already a white hair on my head. I was not as petrified as I thought I would be. Soon I'll have plenty of them. Around these days I use to listen people wishing to one another health, money and peace. Just lasts until it's forgotten. People wish the same every year - me included. I don't know what to wish to people. I wish all the same they wish me. I've no talent to be nice or even talkative. I should wish people to go to hell with their lives more and more equal to eachother and the ambition of being riches and sucessful... What for so big deal if the result will be the same? That's why this seaon is so the depressing to me: year after year it's the same again.

Christmas

2007-12-21T11:52:00.000Z

See you! Happy Christmas!

Treaty

2007-12-13T19:27:00.000Z

The European Union's leaders have signed today the Treaty of Lisbon, to reform the bloc's institutions. The ceremony took place in Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, in Lisbon.

Photo: EU Presidency

From Arthritis to Art

2007-12-07T16:46:00.000Z

Friday morning. It's cloudy over Lisbon and in the dark auditory of my Faculty some doctor is making a speech about Nonsteroidal Antiinflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs). Suddently it appeared a picture of Renoir on the wall. I thought immediatly how trendy was in my faculty to bring art into the lectures. It was giving to me the idea that my professors were smart and quite interesting. Of course I knew this picture had something hidden purpose. Actually it was just an artistic excuse to introduce Rheumatoid Arthritis.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) became seriously affected by this condition around his 50's. In spite of being ill, Renoir painted until the end of life, even when arthritis severely limited his movements, and he was wheelchair-bound. He developed progressive deformities in his hands and ankylosis of his right shoulder - that means that he couldn't move his shoulder due to stiffness of the joint -, which required him adaptations in his painting technique. In the advanced stages of his arthritis, he painted by having a brush strapped to his paralyzed fingers. Renoir also used a moving canvas to facilitate painting large works with his limited joint mobility. At the time of Renoir people suffering with rheumatoid arthritis were treated with antipyrine (somehow the grandfather of the antiinflamatory drugs) and purges (the greatgrandfather of the clinical practise, no longer used fortunatelly). So, in the lack of a very effective treatment, Renoir moved to the warmer climate of Cagnes-sur-Mer, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the south of France looking forward to be better. He died there. He painted almost until his death.
All this made me remind Tolstoi (1828-1910) . He worked to the last and never showed the slightest sign of any weakness. At the age of 82, unhappy at home, Tolstoi took off one night and soon became ill at a rural railway station. Tolstoi died there, alone, writing until the last moment.
Nothing of this is very medical or scientific. But these are the people I admire. They certainly were not attending to Pharmacology classes or writting about painters and writers in internet pages nobody read. That makes them special for me. Forever, as it should be.

A process of breaking down

2007-12-05T00:09:00.000Z

Lately I have reminded for more than twice the quote of Scott Fitzgerlad: «Of course all life is a process of breaking down». How right he was. Of course he was a depressed man, he belonged to the "Lost Generation" but, during the awful 20th century, I guess we can identify more than one lost generation. This one, who born in Portugal after the 70's is damned lost forever. I usually write this kind of things right after having classes in my faculty, so it can mean I am becoming a little bit odd or psychologically afected in some way. I was looking, as usual, to every single person during the lunch time and I realised how lost everybody is. Me included of course. Above all I fell this people I see is going to be a copy of very good quality from their parents waht means in reality they will spend their lives complainning and doing just the basic to survive. It explains a little bit of the misery I see all around my life. But this process of breaking down regards much more to the inner life. They lost their dreams, I guess. I've lost mines, at least. The problem is that, being 21, you need at least a damned stupid drem to go ahead. Doesn't matter if it is stupid or impossible. You need to have at least one to struggle and make things happen. That's exactly what all that people, me included, have lost. They became hopeless - I became, I should write - too soon. Lost forever. So this process of breaking down is bitter, is a completely understanding that things are hopeless and they cannot be otherwise. If a psychiatrist read this he will say I have depression. The hell with depression, I don't have no money nor time to have them. So, after attending to my classes I write this things. Above all because I'm lost. But who the hell has the certitude of finding himself?

About all and nothing

2007-11-23T10:50:00.000Z

Everyone who knows me know I am not a very talented medical student. I guess that's the reason I am not obsessive with certitude. In medicine, unlike what you can think, certitude is fatal. Having a certitude you miss all the rest, and all the rest can be the key between life and death. I haven't chosen medicine to give life or to save lives. Most of doctors don't do that often, and some of them will never do that during their careers. I've chosen medicine because I dream to be a writer and some of my favourite writers were doctors themselves: Tchekov, Céline, Maugham, Lobo Antunes... Of course I found out it's quite different to be a doctor and to study medicine. I've found out how inteligent and brave they were while they studied medicine or how idiot and stupid I am in the same situation. I am not a talented medical student for sure. I just hope I can be a good writer some day. If not I will be just one more ridiculous human being waiting for the end. I've always wondered how easy is to loose from ourselves. Actually it is as easy as giving a glance to the sky. Suddently we don't know what the hell happened to all we wanted for us. I guess that's the difference between young and adult people: young people dream about being adults and adult people try to be young forever. Between dreams and reality there are stollen hope, ilusions and bitterness. I don't know a lot of people, by my own choice. The majority of people are so alike... worst than that, they are so empty! Emptiness is trendy nowadays.
I don't know why I decided to put this picture. Well, I know. It was the last slide of the lecture about opiate. Monet because of drugs. That's always a good excuse. I bet nobody knew who painted this on that classroom. Emptiness is becoming so fashion... But I've always been oldfashion. Even in the way of finishing my prose.

Winter Light

2007-11-22T23:15:00.001Z

This title sounds so Bergman... I guess it's due to the cycle dedicated to Ingmar Bergman in Lisbon Cinemathec.
Winter is slowly comming to Lisbon. It always starts with a little rain session. Then, cold wind. Finally, cold mornigs, cold afternoons, very cold nights... I don't mind so much, since I love cold weather. I just love to wear my warm jackets, my scarfs, my gloves... On Summer I have no way to fight the hot temperature. On Winter I dress as well as I can. And I just love Winter light, not only the movie, but also the light itself. Here in Lisbon it's a shinning light, not like in Summer, because it's a cold one, but at the same time it's the only warm thing we have after the rain. It's a warm-cold light, whatever this can be... In Lisbon rain and sun are always fighting and appearing on and off. It's always good idea to take umbrella, even if it is sunny at morning. It might be rainning at lunch time.
I was born in Winter in the north of Portugal (or center, whatever: Portugal doesn't have regions anyway). I don't know if it is the reason for my "affair" with Winter. But it can be.
Winter is comming. It's slowly arriving to Lisbon, in the end of Europe, but in the center of my world.

Rodrigo Leão

2007-11-17T15:00:00.000Z

Here I am once more writting about music. Rodrigo Leão is a portuguese composer, a very talented musician who knows very well how to catch us in his music. His music is something unique. He composes modern music in a classical way. A sort of moder-classical music, i don't know to explain better than this and I fell ashamed to try to explain something without explanation. His latest work is the soundtrack of the documentary series Portugal - A Social Portrait. His album Cinema (2004) was aclaimed by the editor of Billboard magazine as one of the best in that year. The soundtrack of the documentary is a fusion of nostalgy and melancholy and hope and joy. The documentary is about the changes in Portuguese society during the last 4 decades. It is a very good work. So it is the fantastic soundtrack by Rodrigo Leão.

Autumn Sonata

2007-11-16T23:41:00.000Z

It's always like this when Autumn arrives. A sort of tenderness, a sort of melancholy. Autumn is unbearable with all the nostalgic feelings it brings us. I wonder why so much nostalgy between Summer and Winter. Is all this just because nights are growing? Or because days are decreasing? Why this? Why tears and memories in each corner, waiting for us? The yeallow leafs and the cold wind are travelling together to make our thoughts nostalgic. Nostalgic doesn't mean sad. Means for me past happiness. I don't use to be nostalgic, but Lisbon receives Autumn with open arms and it's impossible to escape. A sort of tenderness, a sort of melancholy, as I told at the beggining. Pretty much like this funicular - funicular of Glória (Glory). Going up and going down. My mood during Autumn is permanently like this. Soon Winter will come.

Ich bin ein Lissaboner *

2007-11-13T23:25:00.000Z

I guess the only one reason someone can dislike Lisbon is love. Almost all Lisboners tell the most awful things about their own city. It's part of being Portuguese, I think. I've chosen to live in Lisbon at the time of my High School. I loved my High School but I didn't like to much my own town: it's love as I told in the beggining.
Lisbon became very special for me, as it may become very special for some 17 year old villager as I was then. I've visited all kind of odd things in Lisbon. I've walked through the most dark streets. i've met the most weird people. Yet I guess I still don't know Lisbon quite well.
Lisbon has its own secrets. My lovely places are cafes and churchs, gardens and stores, views and cemeteries. I love the bridge over the river, the stones on the streets, the old buildings (of course not so old they can fall down...), the old stores - there are a few cute coffee and tea shops remaining on the city -, the bookstores, the music of the trams...
Lisbon is not a very modern city like London or Berlin, not monumental like Paris or Vienna. Lisbon is unique, absolutely unique. The old castle is there and so it is the modern bridge, the XVIIIth century architecture reminds us the earthquake and the eastern train station calls up the modernity.
One of my favourite squares of all I know it's Terreiro do Paço or Praça do Comércio (something like Trade Square). It was there the Royal Palace before the earthquake. Today it's a maognificient square with two arms embrassing the river. It's on that square the picture above was taken: my favourite square.

* I am a Lisboner
[I was trying to make a joke with President Kennedy. When he arrived to Berlin he made a famous speech and said «Ich bin ein Berliner» (I am a Berliner)... Of course I failed my purpose]

Written at 3:39 am

2007-11-11T03:14:00.000Z

I would be very pleased if you let me know what I did to you. Just stop screaming. Soon you will wake up the neighboors. You know how much I hate scandals. Be quite and listen to me. It's over. I don't know other way of telling this. I guess I will use the same words with the children They must understand. Mummy doesn't love daddy anymore. It's soft and it is the truth. If can't take it at least don't scream with me because it won't change anything. By the way I hate your shouts. I really don't know why we lived together so long. Maybe because of the children or maybe because I'm too lazy. I still prefer to wash dishes than face my marriage. It's more bearable, full of bubles and water. No tears, no regrets, no argues. Actually my life on this kitchen was much more happy than on my own bed. No ofense but this sink know much more about me than you ever knew. I should be married to this sink. We have so much in common. Now just stop staring at me and go bed. Tomorrow I will be gone. For sure my mother will let me stay some time till I find some better place. I will take the children, of course. I know you are able to tell them the worst lies about me. You can even tell them there is someone else in my life which unfortunatelly, I must say, is not true. I hope next Christmas some friend of mine can offer me the perfect husband with a big ribbon. It will be the best for me and for the children. I guess they don't like you either. That's why they are all the time locked on that room dreaming about being adults so can choose a life far from you, a little more closed to happiness... wherever this is. Hapiness is a sink with lots of bubbles that transforms dirtiness on shining. By the way let me wash the dishes, let me clean my life.

All Saints

2007-11-01T19:13:00.000Z

Death is not that bad. The worst is to sink into oblivion.

Morning

2007-10-26T10:59:00.000+01:00

«Here we are alone again.»
L.F. Céline, Death on the Installment Plan, 1936

There are days like this: you just woke up and you realize the day is gonna be a big shit. Yet, who cares? You get up and you walk in the very morning in the street. There is anything else than loneliness in the world? I am writing this words in the library of my faculty. I see solitude here. I guess I shouldn't study medicine because I am the one who needs treatment. Anyway, I'm still here, closed in an awful hospital reading novels nobody wants to read. I woke up early in the morning to get known something about antibiotics. Fleming was for sure more intelligent than me and he knew less things about antibiotics than myself. Watson is a good example: he discovered the DNA chain but he seems to be a fucking racist - I guess «fucking racist» is the right expression. Why mental qualities are always above human ones? Where are all this people going? No doubt. This day will be a big shit. Sometimes it's better no not get up and sleep as long as we can. On our dreams every sadness is not forever. It finishes when the alarm clock rings.

Booker Prize 2007

2007-10-16T22:44:00.000+01:00

Anne Enright was tonight named the winner of the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for her novel The Gathering, published by Jonathan Cape.

Enright, 45, is the second Irish woman to win the prize, joining compatriots Iris Murdoch, Roddy Doyle and John Banville who won the prize in 1978, 1993 and 2005 respectively.
Chair of the judges, Howard Davies, made the announcement, which was broadcast live on the BBC Ten O’ Clock News, at the awards dinner at the Guildhall, London.
Howard Davies said:
’The Gathering is an unflinching look at a grieving family. It’s the bleakness of one woman’s vision, a bleakness rooted in her family, her marriage and the death of her brother.’
Davies said that the winning title was ‘bleak’ and ‘depressing’ but went on to explain that the family epic was a ‘very readable and satisfying novel’.
Speaking this morning on Radio 4’s Today programme, Anne Enright admitted that ‘when people pick up a book they may want something that will cheer them up, in that case they shouldn’t really pick up my book… my book is the equivalent of a Hollywood weepie.’
Howard Davies confirmed that the judges’ decision had been unanimous. He divulged that when they had put The Gathering on the longlist they ‘didn’t expect it to emerge as a winner.’ He went on to say, ‘It is a very intense piece of writing which does repay re-reading.’
Anne Enright was born in Dublin where she continues to live and work. She is the author of three previous novels: The Wig My Father Wore (1995), What Are You Like? (2000) and The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch (2002). Reviewers have called her winning book ‘distinctive’ in its ‘exhilarating bleakness’.
Over and above her prize of £50,000, Anne Enright is guaranteed a huge increase in sales and recognition worldwide. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer-bound edition of their book.

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

2007-10-15T12:22:00.000+01:00

Leonid Hurwicz
University of Minnesota
USA

Eric S. Maskin
Institute for Advanced Study Princeton
USA

Roger B. Myerson

University of Chicago
USA

"for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory"

The Nobel Peace Prize

2007-10-12T18:36:00.000+01:00

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Albert Arnold Al Gore Jr.

USA

"for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change"

The Nobel Prize in Literature

2007-10-11T12:08:00.000+01:00

Doris Lessing

United Kingdom

"that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny"

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry

2007-10-10T14:31:00.000+01:00

Gerhard Ertl

Fritz-Haber Institut of Max-Planck Society (Berlin)
Germany

The Nobel Prize in Physics

2007-10-09T17:02:00.001+01:00

Albert Fert

University of Paris-South

France

Peter Grünberg
The Research Center of Solid State Physics in Jülich
Germany

The Nobel Prize in Medicine

2007-10-08T17:08:00.000+01:00

Oliver Smithies
University of North Carolina
USA

Mario Capecchi
University of Utah
USA

Martin Evans
Cardiff University
UK

"for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells"

David Fonseca

2007-10-07T14:44:00.001+01:00

I don't use very often this blog to promote music but I guess I shall start doing that. David Fonseca is a portuguese singer. He sings in english, and he does it very well. His latest album is lauched tomorrow and I'm astonished with its quality. David knows how to make evolution and his work is something you can't miss. So "Dreams in color" is a fantastic surprise and I will listen to it again and again and again...
This video was directed by David himself and was based on a strange dream he had. The first single already playing on radios: "Superstars".

Sputnik

2007-10-04T14:41:00.000+01:00

50 years ago Sputnik-1 was launched by the USSR, being the first artificial satellite to be put into geocentric orbit.

António Lobo Antunes

2007-10-01T00:06:00.001+01:00

Then they arrived at the country of the Ger'asenes, which is opposite Galilee. And as he stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons; for a long time he had worn no clothes, and he lived not in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, and said with a loud voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beseech you, do not torment me." For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him; he was kept under guard, and bound with chains and fetters, but he broke the bonds and was driven by the demon into the desert.)
Jesus then asked him, "What is your name?". And he said, "Legion"; for many demons had entered him.
Luke (8 : 26-30)

My Name is Legion is the latest novel by António Lobo Antunes.