Musical Mondays: Depois by Marisa Monte

I’m totally cheating here, because I’ve posted this music before here on the blog… but it was over 1 and a half years ago, and I’m really into it again. Depois by Marisa Monte was a part of a Brazilian telenovela that I was a bit obsessed with around that time, called Avenida Brasil. Listen to it. It’s beautiful and sad and lovely.

Depois de sonhar tantos anos,
De fazer tantos planos
De um futuro pra nós
Depois de tantos desenganos,
Nós nos abandonamos como tantos casais
Quero que você seja feliz
Hei de ser feliz também

Depois de varar madrugada
Esperando por nada
De arrastar-me no chão
Em vão
Tu viraste-me as costas
Não me deu as respostas
Que eu preciso escutar
Quero que você seja melhor
Hei de ser melhor também

Nós dois
Já tivemos momentos
Mas passou nosso tempo
Não podemos negar
Foi bom
Nós fizemos histórias
Pra ficar na memória
E nos acompanhar
Quero que você viva sem mim
Eu vou conseguir também

Depois de aceitarmos os fatos
Vou trocar seus retratos pelos de um outro alguém
Meu bem
Vamos ter liberdade
Para amar à vontade
Sem trair mais ninguém
Quero que você seja feliz
Hei de ser feliz também
Depois

And because you should know what all of this means, here are the lyrics in english 🙂 :

Just then, after having dreamed all these years
After having made many plans
Of a future for us
Just then, after many disillusions
We left each other as many couples do
I want you to feel happy
Then I shall be happy as well

Just then, after I passed the whole night
While waiting for nothing
After I dragged myself across the floor
In vain
You turned your back on me
You didn’t give me the answers
That I need to hear
I want is you to be better
Then I shall be better too

You and I
Have had the special moments
But our time has passed
That’s something we can’t deny
It was good
We made up stories
To keep on our memories
And to follow us wherever we go
I want you to live without me
I’ll also make it

Just then, after we’ve accepted the facts
I will change all your portraits for someone else’s
My precious one
We will be free
To love as much as we want to
Without betraying anyone else
I want you to be happy
Then I shall be happy as well
Just then

Tiny Pleasures #2

This week’s Weekly Small Pleasures, seen first at A New Life Wandering, are really simple. It’s all about relaxing here at Cedral, SJRP, Brazil. Between dinning with friends, wondering around the grounds or chilling by the pool with a glass of caipirinha with chickens and cattle on the background, this has been quite a wonderful few days 🙂 !!!

After 24 hours, I arrived!

I’m in Brazil! I’m excited, though it’s hardly my first time here. I came here twice before to visit friends, and that’s exactly what I’m doing now. After 3 hours at Lisbon airport, a 10 hour plane ride, a 6 hours wait time and a 5 hours coach ride, we finally arrived… yeah, 24 hours… you read that right!

But now we’re at a small town in the interior of São Paulo and it’s wonderful, it’s family within a magical place full of good weather, a lot of flowers and trees and cattle.

The 10 hours plane journey was quite alright, I finished reading my book (and cleverly had no other at hand, all of the others were in my very huge suitcase), I wrote a lot of blog posts to post at a coming time, I watched 4 episodes of different TV-shows, until my PC battery died and we were almost landing.

When we arrived at São Paulo, a friend picked us up and took us to have dinner at a nearby shopping mall, where I could not help myself and bought 3 new books… I realized that I can’t get inside any bookstore.

When the time finally came for our coach ride, we were very pleasantly surprised by the beds… yep, they have very huge chair that transform into bed, with a pillow and blanket, and I slept for the whole of 5 hours.

We arrived at São José do Rio Preto at 5 a.m. =)

Things to do, so much things to do (and a lot of procrastination!)

Tomorrow I’ll be on a plane again. Yes, this has been a crazy year so far, I fell I spent more time in airports and inside airplanes that anywhere else… Either way, I’m going home for a few days because my grandmother is turning 87 (and at this point we’re not allowed to miss any birthdays) and then I’m off to Brazil for a week to visit friends with my mom (which hopefully will involve a lot of doing nothing, with caipirinhas and sun bathing by the pool with a good book).

As per usual, with an impending trip, my workload just tripled in this last week or so. Since Sunday, I have been getting to work pretty early and sometimes leaving quite late. Not today though, after leaving yesterday at 8p.m. and being hard at work today at 8a.m., I decided to come home a little early to finish a draft of a paper that I have to discuss with my advisor tomorrow at 8.30 a.m., I just could not work more at work today, I was so tired and needed the comfort of my pajamas.

Turns out, not the brightest move… There’s a party near the residence where I live and it implied very loud (and not very good) music… so, for the last few hours my concentration and ability to work has been at a solid zero! My brain kept busy though, I retrieved a couple of papers that I need, I watched the end of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (I just recently found them… I’m in LOVE!), I added a few more books to my shopping cart at amazon… so, I’ve been procrastinating a lot…

It has to stop now, for realsies! I need to finish this like now, I still have a bunch of other things to do, I have to align some sequences and more importantly, I NEED TO PACK! And I still have to figure out which of my new books I’ll be bringing on my trip.

To top it all off, because I still hadn’t enough going on, TAP (company of all my flights for the next 3 weeks) just announced that they’ll go on strike from May 1st to 10, considering that I’ll be coming back from Brazil to Portugal on the 3rd, and then from Lisbon to Barcelona on the 5th, I’m a little worried… ok, a LOT! Mainly because I have a very important appointment on the 4th, it involves going with my niece and her cousin to the 5 Seconds of Summer concert! I hope they solve stuff before I’m due back…

John Oliver: FIFA and the World Cup

The 2014 FIFA World Cup™ kicks off today, with the Brazil – Croatia game, from group A. A lot of controversy as been surrounding this particular World Cup, mainly because of the ridiculous amounts of money spent in Brazil and the government attitude towards the people in regards to this subject.

 

Still, I’m with John Oliver in this one. For one, I’m really excited about this, it’s football, I’m Portuguese, it’s impossible not to be excited. We have been having a good run for the last few international competitions, and we have such an amazing team.

For the other hand, and I’m not even going to talk about FIFA, because the video below explains it so well, but I’m really doubtful about the organizational success of this cup. I do hope I’m wrong, but I’m predicting that a lot (a lot) of things will go wrong during this next month…

Portugal? Is that near Brazil?!

I’ve been to the United States for three times now and there’re something that don’t cease to amaze me. I’ve been in several places, such as LA, Las Vegas, New York, Atlanta, Miami, Daytona Beach, Cape Corals, Orlando, Palm Springs, …, but it was in Florida that I’ve heard 2 of the most weird things…

So, after hearing a lot of Brazilian people in an outlet near Orlando, we got into a shop where the guy asks us what language do we speak – Portuguese – and “obviously” he asks “So, you guys live in Brazil?” – WHAT????!!! – “No, we live in Portugal, where the Portuguese language comes from” – so, to clarify: “Portuguese language comes from Portugal!”.

Then my mom and I set of for Cape Canaveral (for the Kennedy Space Center) and stopped in a gas station where the guy (once again) asks where we come from – “Portugal? Where’s that? Is that near Brazil?” – SAY WHAT?!!! – “No! Portugal is in EUROPE!”.

It wouldn’t be such a big deal, if it didn’t happen almost every time I say where I’m from in the US!