Playing with fire...

"Quem brinca com o fogo, mija na cama!"

-photo taken in Rynek, Wroclaw-

Art Exhibition in Rejs

Quais CCB, qual carapuça... No Rejs é que é!

Recently, in the 12 of May, Artur (now you know who he is...) managed to gather an Art Exhibition in Rejs, and he also invited me, among others, to exhibit some photos of mine. It was quite nice, because I had lost the opportunity to participate on the Erasmus Photo Contest while I was travelling through the Baltic States and Berlin. So, this way, although not being a contest, I was able to show some of my photos to my friends in Rejs, and I got quite pleased with the result. Besides photo contributions, there were also paintings, drawings (amazingly well done, using coffee as ink), collages, and there even was a slide presentation that was quite astonishing.

All in all, it was great, and the "general mood" of the event was amazing.

Artur

"What have YOU done for Rejs?"
Artur, the man, the myth...

I've already told you about "Rejs", my favourite bar in Wroclaw. One of the people, among others, that makes Rejs special, is Artur, one of the guys that works there! Always ready for a good conversation, and to put a beer in your front, he's already a part of the bar, and "the other way around". He has worked there since the beginning. Today, while in Rejs, I was fooling around with some photos on the computer, and I had the greatest idea: to use the famous PRL propaganda poster, that is also a part of the bar decoration (with some minor changes...), and adapt it, for "a better fit", with Artur's face. So this was the final result. I printed it in the shop next to Rejs, and handed it over to Artur as a surprise. He blushed, and everybody had a laugh! He posted it in the wall next to the previous one, and I was quite happy, because now, I also contributed for the "complex" and rich set of elements that, among other items, makes Rejs such a special place.

The Wall

- Berlin Wall, east part, nowadays -

Royalty

- Nefertiti -

(photo taken in the Bodemuseum , Berlin)

II Trip Report

Bialystok

Vilnius

Riga

Berlin

We had already done south, so in these few days (about a week or more...), we went north. To the Baltic area. The initial plan was, cross Poland until Bialystok, only for a pit-stop, then Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn and catch a flight from Tallinn to Berlin, where we would be only 5 hours away from the starting point, Wroclaw. As we where travelling through the first stops, we heard about the problems in Tallinn, riots and manifestations, and a guy had already died, so we gave up of this destination. We ended our "Baltic Experience" in Riga, leaving from that airport to Berlin, with some extra days on our sleeve to enjoy our visit to the capital of Germany...

Bialystok- What's there to say about this city... East of Poland... Small city. Has I said before, it was more of a pit stop, after 9 hours on a train crossing Poland. Even so, we took a spin at night, before going to bed, on the main avenue. Nice town hall, a lot of advertisements on the streets... But, all the warnings they gave us in Wroclaw were true, it's eastern Poland... It's not exactly the same thing as the western side. Well, it full filled its purpose: to allow us to rest, although the lady in the hostel reception(by the way, the only one in the city!) had some kind of problem with her feet, if I make my self clear. It was hard to breath through all the bureaucracy of the "check-in". Early in the morning in the next day we where already on the move: next stop - Vilnius;

Vilnius- "Slightly" bigger than Bialystok, after all it's a capital, Vilnius was a nice surprise. Calm town, good weather (such luck...), and a very beautiful city center. It was characterized with a lot of medieval remains, and, some new ones: shopping's. I mean, I know that the communist era ended some years ago, but, for Christ sake: Giorgio Armani, Prada, Escada... They were all there. Some years ago, someone sang: "Go west...", but the after all, it's of no use, because West is going East! Anyway, we climbed to the castle, and went up the tower, were we had a panoramic view of the city, even beyond the old city center, and there it was possible to see a new, growing modern area of the city. The hostel wasn't bad... Although no one spoke English there, which doesn't make things easy. The one main problem was that we had a bunch of middle aged Russians, in the next room. Practically drunk all day, when sober, they kept bugging in and asking cigars, or asking for Irina (who the f*** is Irina?")! It might had something to do with prostitution, or some kind of human traffic, but who knows? I don't speak Russian, and I didn't understand also the moans of the also Russian woman back in the next room... So odd it could be a David Lynch movie. Oh, one more thing, Pedro, the girls are nice although not in the same quantity as in Wroclaw.

Riga- We had a blast in Riga. The city is filled with nice details. The architecture is great, and you can see here that the European Union money is being applied in recovering the historical part of the city (and also in the above mentioned shops...)! The Orthodox Church is amazing, Sadly enough, we weren't allowed to take photos inside of it. In the central garden you can find a lot of statues and sculptures, some of them quite comic. Once again there's also the famous costume of leaving locks in some bridges (also in Vilnius). I figured out it should be some kind of ritual for matrimonial good fortune, because almost all of them had the names of couples engraved in them. Before I kept thinking why they take the bikes and left the locks... Regarding the hostel, we broke our record: a 20 bed dormitory. It wasn't that bad. When we arrived there, there was, what I thought to be, a whole strip tease team, sleeping in it... They checked out in that morning... On the door of the room there was a sign saying that the hostel didn't had anything to do with the bar on the basement, so I decided to go out the building and find out what was. Although it was closed, the name said it all: MADmoiselle... So everything was clear then... The strip tease team, with flashy clothes, and the bar bellow the hostel!

Berlin- What a life, what a city! I don't know if I lost a lot by not going to Tallinn, but the extra days in Berlin sure where cool! We decided to spend almost all the first day in a tour (in Spanish, 'cause the group was smaller) around the city's most important sights. We seen it all! And Berlin is also a city of museums, so I had to check some of them too: Pergamon, Bode (the Nefertiti sculpture!), Neue National Galerie, the Bahaus archive, It was great. My feet where killing me, but I couldn't stop. I just had to keep walking! There's so much to see! The Reich stag, Berlin Siegessäule, the Wall (or what still remains of it!), the Bradenburg Gates and so on! Needless to say, I took hundreds and hundreds of photos. Some of them are in these sets of this post, but later on I plan to post some more interesting details... About the hostel in Berlin... Jesus... That wasn't a hostel! I think it categorizes already as an hotel!!! It was called Generator Hostel, and it also exists in London. Its HUGE, a whole block building! It's not in the city center, but it a very good connection by tram or underground: 15 min. I loved Berlin, and since it's "only" 5 ours from here, I just might return there before going to Portugal in the Summer.

There is so much more things to tell, but then again, this is getting quite long, and I know that most of you don't ready the texts anyway. I fell like a writer for the Playboy magazine... One more thing: if you would like to see some more photos from our trip, take peek at Filipa's own blog: Enfezado. Take care!

On the go, once again...

Currently in Vilnius, Lithuania. Previously Bialystok, Poland. Next stop Riga, Latvia. Last one Berlin, Germany. Photos and "history" soon. Keep in touch. Take care.

25 de Abril

"O povo é quem mais orden(h)a ..."

25 of April... In Poland! Who would of say that I would also celebrate the Portuguese day of "freedom" in Poland. It was on a Portuguese/Brazilian party, in a pub called "No Name". A lots of "samba", a lot of "lambada", but what about good old Portuguese music? Concerned with this fact, because this was ALSO a Portuguese party, some of the Portuguese and some "Portuguese speaking Polish" were arguing about this, and someone had the greatest idea of all: we should ask the DJ to play "Grandola Vila Morena", the famous Portuguese "interventionist" song, typically sang in this date. But that was a long shot... Who the hell could have that music, at that time, in an underground bar, in the opposite side of Europe from Portugal... And this is what makes the Portuguese, Portuguese: someone had a CD with the song, with him, at that time!!!... So some minutes later, the above mentioned group was begging the DJ to play that one music! It was quite convenient, warning him that in a mood of samba and lambada, this kind of music would be a little bit awkward, and that he might would had some people leaving the dance floor. So, the Portuguese (and the Portuguese speaking Poles), gathered up, and sang, on the top of a stage, Grandola Vila Morena... I never saw something like this... Some people indeed did abandon the dance floor, but some, "strangely" enjoyed the music and danced, and there were even some couples dancing really tight to each other, like if it was "one more sexy/sensual Latin song"! Crazy night, but what could I expect? Some Portuguese gather, they have some beers, and the next thing you know, they are yelling interventionist songs at the top of their lungs. It happened before... it will happen again! Take care!

Dwarfs of Wroclaw

Try find them all..

I've been planning to post some photos of these guys a long time ago.

"They appeared on the streets of the city in August 2005. Their history is connected with the Orange Alternative movement and the year 1982. It is then that some dwarfs with funny hats and smiling faces were painted as a graffiti covering anti-Communist slogans. The present day dwarfs are statues sculpted by Tomasz Moczek, graduate of the local Fine Arts Academy. There are as many as five dwarfs in the city. Each of the dwarfs has a name, e.g. Dwarf the Sleepyhead in sw. Mikolaja Street or Dwarf the Butcher in Jatki Street. There is also a museum dedicated to the dwarfs in one of the ''Hansel and Gretzel'' houses near the St. Elizabeth's Church in the town centre. Be watchful not to miss its door as it is halfway up your knee."

Classic

Well... do you?

Friends

A new place for Luise.

(we had a great time!)

A tough spirit

Polski Fiat - washing is for pussies...

(notice the blocking device on the steering wheel, great detail...)

Frank Sinatra II

"Day and night, night and day..."

This is the real thing. He sings has if there was no tomorrow... Singing for keeps, in the Rynek, here in Wroclaw. Good voice, only only one problem: in his repertoire (and his portable cassette player) he only has Sinatra. So I hereby launch a initiative in Wroclaw: let's give the man a new tape. A different artist maybe, just for a change, or for the sake of musical variety. It's a waste of a good talent, to only perform Sinatra. I bet that the income, at the end of the day, would be much bigger. Frankie, you make the Rynek a better place!

Polski Euro!

Why was I taking this pictures? Perfect waste of good, cheap beer time...

Who would of know? It was the second time I was celebrating the attribution of the Euro championship to a country. First Portugal, and now Poland! Since there was already a stage set up in Rynek, for the Wroclaw Jazz Fest (Jazz na Odra), they just took the chance, and decided to have a party to celebrate the pick of their country (along with Ukraine), for the Euro 2012. Some live music, latin sounds, fireworks, a LOT of beer, and Polish singing (yelling): Eurooo, Eurooo, Euro, Euro, Eurooo... They screened the clip of the announcement in a huge screen, like 5 times in a row, and each time the Polish heard the name of their country, they went nuts!It was a blast! As someone from a country that already hosted the Euro, although I'm not a big fan of football, I can only tell you that it's one of best moments ever! I had never seen the Portuguese more united than that! 70% or more of all houses had flags of Portugal hanging on the windows! It was a cool thing to see and live. Hope the Polish do the same around here, and all celebrate this huge party that will be here in 2012. It's a nice excuse for me to return to Poland... To see how Portugal & Poland are doing in the Euro, and to check out the other Euro, once that by that time, there shouldn't be any more zloty!!!

Visit to Kłodzko

Going "mole" in Kłodzko!

Finally another excursion with the other Erasmus students. It has been a while since the last time. In this trip we headed for Kłodzko to spent a Saturday there. We all gathered in Ołówek, in departed to the journey we had ahead. Kłodzko turned out to be an interesting small city, with very beautiful architecture, and the amazing fortress on the top. But one of the most attractive things of the fortress itself is the underground tunnels, that go through out all of the area of the structure. built for defensive purposes, they go around the whole area, making a complex web of passages and, sometimes, narrow ways, beneath the fortress. At a point some of us went through quite narrow tunnel, that wasn't more than 1 meter tall... Quite claustrophobic, but so Goddamn' cool! A part of the group, in which i was included decided to stay a little bit more and instead of the designated bus, take a later train back "home". All in all, it was a great day: we got to meet some new Erasmus and keep in touch with some of the previous ones.

Easter

Tanta coisa, e estes gajos não têm amendoas...

During the first days of the Easter season, we testified some events regarding these special time, here in Wroclaw. There was the mess on the street, with a lot of students, following the cross of Christ on his way to "Golgotha" and the mess in Katedra also.After deciding not to go to Portugal for Easter vacations, we realized that we would only come back there during the Summer, about the end of July. The flights were to expensive, only to be in Portugal for a week. But to cheer things up, our good friend Annia, invited us to spent the Easter Sunday along with her family in her hometown , Brzeg. And let me tell you, it couldn't be any better! Since breakfast is the main meal, or the most important, of that special day, we started eating at 10am e ended dinner at around 10pm! During the day we had some breaks to go to mess, and take a quick spin through the city, and its lovely park. We had a blast, and we couldn't feel around family much more than we did. So for that, and much more, we wish to thank Annia and her family- great parents, lovely grandmother and cool brother and sister!

Witness Of Time

Just wonder what he has seen...

(photo taken in Brzeg)

Remains

... they still linger on ...

Hey Tony...

"Come to Wroclaw! I'll make you an offer you can't refuse..."

And you thought they were all from Sicilia...

Park Stanisława Tołpy

Park Stanisława Tołpy - working for a tan...

Saturday afternoon... A sunny Saturday afternoon here in Wrocław. Went for a stroll in Park Stanisława Tołpy, just a few 100 meters from home. Here's what I found there. Old people chatting, children playing, ducks, pigeons and chips, couples "in love", everyday people just taking a break and the first flowers of the year. Spring is here...