Ready for tomorrow

There's a big day coming tomorrow.
Portugal will play against England and Brazil against France and if Portugal and Brazil win they will be playing together in the semi-finals and that's something that doesn't happen very often :-)


The finishing touch it's the Party after that! Tomorrow - the 1st of July 2006 - there's going to be another edition of Sensation White. It's a theme party at the Arena stadium with 40.000 people all dressed in white (I bought my clothes today). Check the photos on the website and you'll see what I'm talking about.

It's going to be my first time but I know for a fact that it's going to be something out of this world! It's not every time that you get the chance to join the biggest indoor dance event in the world is it?
So even if Portugal looses I know it's going to be a nice day but imagine if Portugal and Brazil win! I not even sure if I'm going to be in shape to go to the damn party(!!!) and in case that happens how do you think I'm going to end up?!
Oh gosh! I think it's better not to think about it, tomorrow I'll be going with the flow and we'll see what happens.

Today I'm going to a concert in Paradiso to see Gotan Project!
I hope it's going to be a good one, they usually don't let me down.

neeeeeeeext!!!

The weekend ended in ecstasy! Portugal defeated Holland in the Last 16 round of World Cup 2006 in Germany.
It wasn't the best game to watch but in the end Portugal beat Holland 1-0 and that's what counts.
It also saved me from a lot of trouble with my Dutch friends and colleagues!
I watch the game in a bar in Westerpark (West Pacific) where they had 2 big screens for the event.
Carla and her friends were there but we managed to meet them only in the second half! The place was packed with Dutchies, as one would expect, but it was easy to spot us, we were the loud little group in the corner shouting for Portugal all the time!
If it was a fair game or not it's not for me to say but what matters is that we were all celebrating, Dutch people included, and it turned out to be quite a nice party.
Next mission is England, everything is possible now!

A day to remember

I don't think I'll forget this last Saturday for a long while!
Claudia decided to make a surprise for her boyfriend since it was his birthday.
The surprise was to spend a day in a spa resort and it was amazing.
The problem was to find the place, we were a little bit lost for some time but we manage to sort it out but next time Claudia will not be the co-pilot!

It was my first time in a spa resort but it was one with style :-)
A five stars facility with nice people and good infrastructures. We tried almost everything like sauna, pool, jacuzzi, solarium, hidro massage, you name it!
In the end what matters in the fact that we all had a lot of fun just just being together and chilling out.
The weird part was being naked almost all the time but you get used to it and from now on I always want to have dinner in a restaurant just with my robe on, that was quite an experience :-)
We left the resort after 10pm and headed back to Amsterdam. Vitor was once again organizing one of his famous parties @ The Mansion.
Once again he didn't let me down, the party was pretty crowded full of nice people and good music, lets just hope that the air conditioning works better next time, but hey... the girls were almos naked so I can't really complain :-)

After party was @ Escape (no more after parties at home) and lasted until late in the morning but I was almost dead before the end of it so I left earlier! After a day like this there's not much I could do, my body was asking for a bed since I left the spa!

The most important was that Pedro (the birthday guy) had a great day and, from what I heard, lots of friend of mine have many reasons not to forget this Saturday, it was a day full of emotions ;-)

Evil Friday

Friday I bought my ticket to Dance Valley. it's going to be my first time there, I just hope the weather helps a little bit.
It was a relatively good day so me and some friends started the night in Vondelpark. After a few drinks we went to the "q pasa?" party @ Melkweg and then after-party at home which is probably going to be the last one!
The neighbour downstairs wasn't very happy with all the noise and threatened to call the landlord and tell her all about it to throw us out of the apartment. So this means that I will not be playing guitar too early in the morning, Vitor is not allowed to sing the blues anymore (even without music!!) and Rodrigo will not fall asleep with is helmet on his head again!
I guess now you can see why the neighbors complained ;-)

extra ticket?

Yesterday it was again one of those days...

It started out with an early SMS in the morning from my friend Zuzana!
She lives in Belgium and she was coming to Amsterdam with 2 other friends from Latvia. The ladies were going to see a Robbie Williams concert and there was an extra ticket around so they invited me to go with them, how could I decline that?!

At first I was a little bit reluctant to the invite. Me in a concert with 3 hysterical girls jumping all the time and shouting for Robbie in my ears. It was a risk I had to take but in the end it was nothing like that, they were all very nice and friendly and it turned out to be a very well spent day.

But first there was time to watch the Portugal-Mexico World Cup match which Portugal won 2-1!
The girls met me at the Sport Cafe and still had time to show them around the city, basic stuff :-) and then we went to the Arena where the concert was going to take place.

I have to say that I'm really not such a big fan of Robbie Williams but at the same time he is in fact a real entertainer. The show itself was pretty good and it turns out that I know more songs that I initially thought I would recognize!

Maybe the best of the whole show for me was the opening band! Basement Jaxx played the first part and they also put up a good show as they always do. The repertoire might not have change much in the last few years but it's always a pleasure to listen to them again.

The Amterdam Arena itself is also an excellent venue to host these kind of events! It's where the Sensation party - the biggest indoor event in the world - takes place and I'm still have hope to go there this year see it with my own eyes.

Happy Birthday Juliana

This weekend started really well! Friday it was Juliana's birthday party and I simply had one of the best times with most of my friends!
It started out at Vondelpark at the Blue Tea House and moved on to Melkweg and from then on it went wilder then ever as some would say. The after party was at home and lasted until 8am.

Then Saturday Portugal's match took place and since we won (2-0) we started celebrating really soon, I would even say too soon and it had its consequences.
During and after the game we had too many beers and too many shots! Specially after the first goal and it was downhill from then on!

After the game it was time to prepare for the evening. I was going to meet Christina and her friends in the Vondelpark again. She was having a picnic with 7 other girlfriends of her so how could I miss that? :-)

After some drinks we all went to the Zebra Lounge where Vitor had arranged a table for us on the upper floor and once we got there it was party all the time.
I think that Vitor won't forget this party for a long time :-)

As usual there was an after party, this time at Gledison's place. I still had enough strength to play a little bit of guitar but that was it, I was exhausted and with a huge headache (weird no?!) and couldn't take it anymore so I pulled out to the pits and went home because I really needed to rest.

Sunday was a real Sunday, I didn't leave home just stayed home watching movies and soccer and chilling out despite the good weather blazing outside.
Now it's raining again but hopefully it will get better by the weekend because Vitor his having another of his parties at The Mansion and guess who's on the guest list? ;-)

Trip to Cologne

It's not every day that I can see Angola playing against Portugal in a World Cup event. Since I didn't have a ticket to watch it in the stadium the least I could do was to try to watch it from the closest possible place and where closer than the city itself where the stadium is? So that's what happened I've decided to go watch the match Angola vs Portugal in Cologne, Germany.

If you're wondering why this game is so important to me, well it's because I have very strong bonds with both countries. I was born in Angola and raised in Portugal since I was 3 months old so I felt compelled to go watch the match.
Nuno Sacramento is going with me, he is probably my oldest friend, he is from Mozambique and lives in Utrecht. Bernardo is already there, he and his cousin have tickets for the match but we are going to meet them first in the morning.
I went straight from partying the day before to the train and Nuno jumped on board in Utrecht.

First thing we did in Cologne was to eat sausages and drink beer and we kept doing it for the rest of the day.
The city full of Portuguese and Angolans, it was like walking in the streets of Lisbon you could listen to Portuguese all the time, just amazing
The whole day was great, we ate a lot and drank even more. There was even time for a little soccer game with some Americans from Wyoming. I had a blast indeed and learned that playing soccer when you're drunk might not be the best idea in the world. All I know was that after a quick nap in the grass I felt my sore leg hurting really bad, someone must have kicked me hard in the leg but at the time the alcohol transformed me in superman and apparently nothing could hurt me.

Luckily we were already pretty close to where we were going to watch the game, in a super giant Phillips screen right in the heart of the city.
The match itself wasn't splendid but Portugal won 1-0 which works fine for me! The outcome wasn't really the most important but being there feeling the atmosphere was what counted the most.
I was completely tired by the end of the day but we were still going to meet Bernardo and his cousin to celebrate the victory together. Of course that first we got lost to find our way to Bernardo's hotel. The plan was to sneak into his room and spend the night there but first we went out for some drinks.
You could see lots of people, from all nationalities, on the streets drinking outside and enjoying the lovely weather that we were all blessed with, it's amazing how soccer can bring so many different people together.

In the end we tried to find a decent place opened to shake some ass but It turns out that we were not that lucky and we decided to go back to the hotel and call it a day only to find out the bar at the hotel was booming with life with a nice live band playing some classics from all sort of decades. Ironically that's where we ended up the day after searching for a nice place for hours.

Sleeping at the hotel was probably not the best idea, we had to sleep on the floor (it was a single bed room) and the air co wasn't really working but in the end it was better than nothing, and for that we have to thank Bernardo.
The next day after Bernardo's check out there was time for some more sausages and beers and by the end of the afternoon I was back in Amsterdam ready for another week full of soccer matches to watch :-)

My little dilemma

Summer is here but who lives in Amsterdam knows that it doesn't last much so people try to take the best advantage out of it and so Saturday I went to Blijburg beach again.
Last time it wasn't very warm but this day it was hot! I even think I got myself a light tan.
As always it starts only with a couple of people and when you look back there's a group of dozen people or more goofing around with each other.
The next thing I know is that everybody is going to Hotel Arena because there's supposed to be a nice party going on that day so from the beach I went straight to Rodrigo's place, took him back to the central station on my Vespa and then straight home to get myself ready to party.
Couldn't complain when I got to Hotel Arena, it turns out that there was only girls going out! In the end it was me Tarcy, Christina, Pernille then Joana, Paula, Maria and her friend (which I don't know how to spell) joined us there! Claudia (who works there) and Carla (another crazy Portuguese girl) also were there and it was a very very crazy night!
After Hotel Arena it was time for the after party then a very very tough decision had to be made. Sunday morning I was going to Germany to watch the World Cup soccer match Angola vs Portugal. This meant that I had to go and leave a bunch of beautiful ladies to move on straight to the central station and catch the train to Cologne where the match was going to be.
It was very very hard to decide but at the same time I couldn't let my friends down, we had this planned already before so I had to be strong.
The train was at 7am so there was only time to get my passport at home and carry on with my Vespa in the red line on the streets of Amsterdam.
I was there on time but I desperately needed to sleep, which was something I didn't do much. Nuno caught the train in Utrecht, we were heading to Cologne to meet Bernardo who was there since Friday already and the real trip started.

My 15 minutes of fame

I was astonished when yesterday David called me from Portugal to tell me the news. A Portuguese magazine (Sábado) has published an article about me!
Of course I knew about the interview, I had a nice talk with Rita Duarte - a journalist friend of mine - when I was in Portugal on my way to Brazil. I remember that day, it was very sunny and we had the interview outdoors in CCB, right in the heart of Lisbon.
Rita (or Ritinha as we call her) is some sort of freelance journalist and said that she was going to try to sell the interview but that was a few months time ago and apparently last Thursday it went out.
Today I had lots of friends and family calling me and sending me emails and messages even from people that I haven't met in years.
Having an article about me in a magazine is something I thought it would never happen so for me it's a very important occasion and I would like to share it with the world.
I would like to thank Ritinha and Paulo her boyfriend and photografer, for the very work and most of all for the fun we had while doing this!
Catch you guys later!

Good luck Vitor!

Vitor - my best friend and roommate - is going to be operated today in the OLVG Hospital in Amsterdam.
It's nothing alarming, he has been having a problem since November which prevents him to have a normal diet but he has been under treatment which included other surgeries.
Hopefully today it will be the last time he will have to be cut and if all goes according to plans Vitor will be back home on the same day and he can leave all this behind him.
Looking at the bright side, at least he can enjoy that feeling he so much enjoys when the anesthesia starts to kick in ;-)

Once again, good luck Vitor!

Around the clock

This weekend was again one of those to remember at least for a long while.
It was a long weekend in The Netherlands since Monday was a national holiday so I had plenty of time to party.

Friday started with dinner at Bernardo's new apartment and I already foresee lots of parties on his terrace! Then party @ Melkweg, the traditional "¿Que Pasa?" party with lots of Latin music. We met Carla and her new roommate from Korea and I have to say that I was very well impressed with the lady ;-)


Saturday I went to Blijburg, an artificial beach in Amsterdam, with Claudia, Vitor and his father that is staying over in our place for a couple of weeks.
Then there was the Super Natural party at Sugar Factory which ended in an after party at a Gledison's place where we ended playing Blues until 10 in the morning. After that, and still not happy, we went to search a real after party which we didn't really find so we decided to go play some pool to pass some time and played until 12, do you think that's normal?! Right, me neither!
I did try to sleep but everyone seemed to want a piece of me that day so I decided to meet some friends at the Vondelpark and try to rest there, which seemed like a good idea until the sun went away and it started to get really chilly.

Later, and innocently, I accepted an invitation for a dinner at Joana's place that eventually became a party and didn't seem to have an end. All of a sudden, the house was full of people and pretty loud music.
All I know is that, still without sleeping, I've ended up in Club NL for the "I Love Sundays" party, and what a party that was! Lots of nice people and music to match! Then, as if I wasn't tired enough, it was time to moved on to the next party at club Exit.


So it's now Monday morning and after the last club Maria (a crazy Spanish girl) offered her place to host the next after party! All I thought at the time was that since I hadn't sleep until then, a couple more hours wouldn't harm anybody right?
Maria has a very nice apartment at Keizergracht and we took the best advantage out of it, again lots of booze and loud music.

Finally around 10am I finally decided to call it a day! My body was begging for some rest which was exactly what happened. Monday was a total relaxed day, it helped me to recover after almost 3 days without sleeping.

In the meanwhile I had lots of time to enjoy my new motorbike while I was going to all these places riding on my Vespa. I love, I love it, I love it!

Now lets just hope that the next few weekends will be more easy on the body (and mind) because, after all, I'm not Superman.

My First Vespa

I was sick almost all week, I guess that Poland had something to do with. I was feeling a bit better but today I had some great news, my Vespa was ready to pick up! I got the call late in the afternoon and as soon as I could I went to get it! It's my first Vespa (or motorbike for that matter) and I was quite excited about it! It took me a while to get used to it but it turns out to be pretty easy to manage, after some meter I was already feeling like a pro!
It was then time to meet with Vitor, Rodrigo and Cebeludo for our traditional soup meeting and I've decided to surprise them with the new bike.
I still have to pick up the helmet, the one I'm using now I borrowed from the store but hopefully the helmets will be available next week. By then I'll be able to give you a ride if you dare to seat on the my back and me on the wheels ;-)