Long lasting sunrise

Do you know the book “The Little Prince”, by Saint Exupery? In the book, Saint Exupery imagines himself in the middle of the Sahara desert, after his small plane broke down. There, he meets the Little Prince, who comes from a very small planet, and they have a number of meaningful conversations about life and love.

All this introduction is to say that I remembered quite a lot of the book recently. That’s because in his planet the Little Prince just needed to carry his chair some steps away to be able to see a sunrise at any time, for how long he wished.

Coming from Buenos Aires to Sydney, I had the longest sunrise of my life – I can precise how long it was, but it was massive! Our flight route passed quite close to the South Pole, so you can imagine. Beautiful!

Learnings from Brazil

Besides the whole “activity agenda” (family catch up, wedding, meeting a few friends, etc), my trip to Brazil involved more emotion that I expected. I thought I would go there, have a good moment and come back to my Australian new world… but it wasn’t exactly like that.

Being in Brazil made me think about a bunch of stuff:

- Values: I really appreciate “countryside” values – friendship, simplicity, commitment, this type of thing;

- People: I think I’d like to participate more of the live of people who love me, especially the ones that know me for a longer time…

- Culture: Brazilian spirit, optimism, openness and entrepreneurialism are really unique. I really think Oriana and I should go further with the Latin American project;

- Work: I do miss a profound meaning in my work right now and I’m definitely putting this in the top of the next decision I’m going to take;

- Life in Australia: it’s really going great, but I should not feel too comfortable about it and remember where I came from and what I’m supposed to do, in terms of contribution.

Reflections go on…

My brother's wedding

Well, the posts that everybody has been waiting for... my trip to Brazil!

The main reason why I went was my brother's wedding. Quite a special date, isn't it? The whole "wedding process" was great! We arrived in the city where my brother is living some days in advance (it's 10 hours away from Porto Alegre), went to the civil wedding and had great conversations.

On the wedding day, a bus and 7 cars arrived with the whole family and many friends. Seriously, I don't remember the last time I had so many people from my family together. Even some cousins I don't see very often, but with whom I have some strong emotional connections. Awesome!!!

In total, there were almost 400 people in the celebration and absolutely everything was thought in its details. Great party!

Lots of happiness to Ju and Pati!

Below some pictures from the civil wedding. Religious ceremony and party to come.

Brazil

"Brasil, meu Brasil brasileiro
Meu mulato inzoneiro
Vou cantar-te nos meus versos

[...]

Deixa cantar de novo o trovador
A merencória luz da lua
Toda a canção do meu amor
Quero ver a “sá dona” caminhando
Pelos salões arrastando
O seu vestido rendado

[...]

Ôi, esse Brasil lindo e trigueiro
É o meu Brasil brasileiro
Terra de samba e pandeiro

Brasil! Brasil!

Prá mim... prá mim..."

Aquarela do Brasil - Ary Barroso

Stories, pictures and thoughts about my brazilian experience soon...

Punk House Party

Certainly, the most successful party we’ve done so far. Just like the previous one, we picked a theme and invited the friends of the 4 of us. This time, we put some more effort on the decoration (there were punk bands posters around the house), the weather helped a lot and people really got into the theme (I dyed my hair green, by the way ;o)). In the end, we counted around 100 people in the party!

Cool, isn’t it? What was not that cool was to sleep about 2 hours and wake up to go to the airport. But it is for a great reason: going to Brazil for my brother's wedding!!! And I’ll be confused about “what time it is” anyway soon…

Hectic week

This last week has been hectic. I’ve been working until 8 – 9 p.m. in order to finish everything at work and enjoy 9 great days in Brazil.

Friday was certainly the pick. Work until 9:30! Everything finished, I headed to Martin’s (Norwegian) farewell, which was a lot of fun! We really had a good time there. Around 1 a.m. some of us went to Rushcutters’ Bay for some more conversations. After, coffee and walk home.

As you can imagine, I was exhausted on Saturday, but found energies to pack, buy some presents and get ready for the last “appointment” before Brazil: our punk house party!

Lucy going to Thailand

It’s strange to say goodbye to new friends. After Steve, one of my first friends - currently in Colombia - now it’s Lucy’s time.

Lucy is certainly one of my best friends in Sydney. She does 100 things at the same time, knows a lot of people, is sweet, a little disorganised, a big dreamer and a fantastic company. She is going to Thailand for 4 months in order to found an AIESEC chapter in Bangkok. (Her blog is http://www.lucysymons.blogspot.com/).

Have a great time there, my friend!

Melbourne Cup

Also known as “a celebration that stops a nation”, this horse racing is happens in the first Tuesday of November, is extremely traditional and really stops Australia.

In my work, we worked until 12 and then went to a restaurant in Darling Harbour, a very nice place. The company sponsored the day, the food was great, free drinks and some betting. Many races went on during the whole day, but the most important one started punctually at 3 p.m. Everybody stopped, ran to a big screen and cheered all through the 3 minutes race. And then? Then the laid back atmosphere returned and people continued enjoying the day and drinking.

The whole experience was quite strange and interesting to me, but what called my attention the most was that people really dressed up for the occasion, buying new dresses and even wearing hats. I can understand that people dress fancily to watch the race in the stadium, but to watch it on a TV in a bar?!?

For the ones wondering if I was lucky, I need to say that… I was! Even knowing nothing about horses, I kept the tradition and won a non important third prize, which allowed me to pay the betting!

Sri Lankan community

Continuing my path on getting to know different cultures, I went to have dinner with Nath's family. Nath is Sri Lankan and came to Australia with his parents when he was a kid.

They received Jhow and I wonderfully, Nath's Mum cooked a banquet for us and we saw many pictures from Sri Lanka.

But the thing that impressed me the most was the fact that there were at least 20 people in the house. Nath told his friends and neighbours that we would be there and they all came to meet us, have a good time amongst themselves and eat great food.

Big Sri Lankan community in Sydney… Thanks, Nath!

Unexpectedly tiring but fantastic weekend!

Last weekend was great! But quite busy! So the post might be a little long…

Colombian Lunch

On Saturday, Liz invited a couple of people to have lunch with a Colombian family in the south of Sydney. As the network worked, soon we were 16 people, from 11 different countries, confirmed to such a fantastic program!

We arrived there around 1:30p.m. And it was just great! Apparently all the family is living is Australia for the last years (I think at least 7 people) and we can feel Colombia in all moments, seeing the objects, looking at people faces, listening to the music and especially feeling the Latin American warmth.

The food was amazing! I had a big Bandeja costena (fish, coconut rice, fried platanos and salad) and lulo juice! No words…

After eating, singing and dancing. It’s hard to describe how much I enjoyed the environment, especially to feel the Latin receptive spirit around. Si, si, Colombia!





Foosball

In order to continue enjoying the great company, he headed to Jhow’s new house, which was quite close. There were some good conversation and bad films going on, but the funniest part was to play foosball (pebolin – the “soccer table” – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foosball). We literally played for hours! And the only team who never lost was… the Brazilians! Oh yeah, Jhow and I are accepting challenging rivals.


Movie Marathon

When we were in the bus to go home (11p.m. already), Sid was thanking Anna for insisting on leaving, which meant we would sleep comfortably in our beds and not in Jhow's floor after some more hours of foosball. Then I sais that I actually liked those sorts of stories, because they were the ones we'd remember afterwards. Sid, then, looked at me and said: by the way, what are you doing tonight?

As he just came back from China with 29 new DVDs, the 5 of us decided to go to his place and watch a couple of them. In the end, we watched 3 movies, until 8 in the morning!


Coffee

After the marathon, a little bit of sleep and we woke up about 10. Completely tired, we decided to go home, but before we stopped in the city for a coffee. Not only the coffee was great, but the conversations, inspired in some of the films we just watched, especially "The interpreter". We talked about how people face unfair situations, the economy in Norway and even how the brilliant people from Atlantis didn't use all their knowledge to survive. As you see, we were extremely inspired!


Seven Bridges Walk

At this point, it was already 1p.m. and the girls decided to go home. Martin and I, taking advantage of the sun and the rest of our energy, preferred to go for the Seven Bridges Walk (http://www.7bridgeswalk.com.au/).

The event was created to promote a heatlhy life style in the beautiful city of Sydney, while you help some social projects. This means that you walk 22 km, passing through 7 bridges and once in a while there is a check point, with sunscreen, water and voluntary toll box. There are quite a lot of volunteers working, many sponsors and around 7.000 walking.

I think I don't need to say I was completely dead in the end. But it was completely worthed. Greatest sleep ever after the intense weekend!