time to let go of this story

All of these lines across my face, tell you the story of who I am, so many stories of where I've been and how I got to where I am, but these stories don't mean anything when you've got no one to tell them to... it's true... I was made for you.
I climbed across the mountain tops, swam all across the ocean blue, I crossed all the lines and I broke all the rules, but baby I broke them all for you, because even when I was flat broke you made me feel like a million bucks, yeah you do and I was made for you.
You see the smile that's on my mouth is hiding the words that don't come out and all of my friends who think that I'm blessed, they don't know my head is a mess no, they don't know who I really am and they don't know what I've been through like you do and I was made for you...
All of these lines across my face, tell you the story of who I am, so many stories of where I've been and how I got to where I am, but these stories don't mean anything, when you've got no one to tell them to... it's true... I was made for you
The Story Brandi Carlile

with this song i let go of this blog... DARGELING has left for asia for the 4 month long honeymoon, she is living a dream and on her way to another big one. "i'll be back soon" she said but i won't... so because now each one of us is following a different path, the distances are so much further from our imagination, we will go our separate ways. this blog, or this letter box that we loved to through things in will always be here, maybe one day it'll be a book to keep by our beds, it will always be open and ready for anytime we want to reopen it to remember and relive special moments.
we thought about doing this together because i was moving to Antwerp, and just like my phone was stolen on my last day there, this blog finishes for me also as another adventure is about to happen.

she will probably be sharing her adventure through the asian continent in a new blog, a new book, and i know we all hope she'll let us know soon where exactly... but in the meanwhile i'll be flying away on one way to africa

twice as difficult

when we, A.T. and I did our "goodbye drink" in Antwerp we knew it'd be hard, we knew we had made ourselves go through something we could never control. we knew we'd laugh but cry at the sight of people leaving. we knew we'd have gifts to open but still be so surprised as we ripped the paper away... we knew it'd hurt but not that much...
what if we had to do it again? would it still have that effect?

i did... i said goodbye to the most important people to me in Antwerp again, twice... and twice as difficult.
four days of excitement filled with usual things, the jokes were ours and the gossip also. the looks, the quirks, the tastes, everything seemed just as normal as it was...
but the city was different. this time, it was my city, it was my home... Lisbon. i hope i showed them exactly how i live here, exactly what makes me ME here. i know there as still a thounsand things to show, a million things to see and so much more to say, but even knowing that there would be a second goodbye, we did it, we were together again and that is so much better than anything else. saying "see ya" twice was twice as hard but twice as special.

so, gorgeous girl, thank you, thank you for saying "i will miss you miss portugal" because that is what keeps me going.

another countdown

(30 days) and an apology to SOMEONE who has been having boring days at work because i haven't written here on this blog. hopefully what i will say here today will lighten up your day... or worse.

i spent 1 week just laying down on the couch pretending there was nothing else in the world except the most wonderful channel FOX LIFE, pretending i actually took the problems in UGLY BETTY's world seriously... maybe if it was GREY's world i'd probably wouldn't know the difference. anyway the couch worked for just about 8 days and then i took off. i'm telling ya, the more i stay out of here the more i will need to be alone, so i left the house of FOX LIFE and the house with the pool and crawled into my little nest, where silence is key and alone time is prime time!

just about... if you add to the quiet time a bunch of mails and phone calls i have been having to write or call in order to just UNDERSTAND what the heck i have to do to get everything ready to fly away, then i guess i have to find my silence in the toilet! my skype phone has never been so useful and the most professional tool i ever had. if it could only be so simple and reduced to ONE phone call, i swear it'd be nicer, but nooooooo every time i call someone the info changes or adapts according to the mood. and schedules? ah let me tell you something people... did you know embassies are only open to the public 4 hours a day???? maybe only the one i need, but still 4 hours??? are you kidding? if you can't get stuff done until 13:00 you have to do it tomorrow, all over again. !"

!"#$%&%$#"! my point exactly.

there was a high point in this mess, i had to go get my CRIMINAL RECORD, yup... i had to ask for my legal life to be handed out to me. strange how even if i KNOW i'm a good person and have committed no crime i still felt a bit shy asking for one.
"can i have my criminal record please... today?"
"it depends, have you ever committed a crime?"
"no ma'am, never"
"well... we'll see"
"...ok... sorry for interrupting you day here all alone"
after 2 minutes... it figures
"well, here you go, apparently you were right (she was surprised!) it's €3.00"
"does this mean if i had comitted a crime i'd pay more??? eheheheh ahaahahha" i made a joke!
"goodbye"

so crime pays or not? i should rethink this whole being good thing...

just in case you missed it... it's my 6th anniversary of me leaving home for the first time. my my my... back in 2002!

last sunday without you

: )

posted by darjeeling

last saturday in a'pen

now... this was the ultimate horrible last day, this was it... the last 24hours, the last moments of such a wonderful time. i didn't wake up with this feeling, of the last moment... i woke up with Rosie next to me smiling, and grabing my nose and talking her own language, and it was so nice to wake up to such a beautiful face, our girls' night sleepover was almost over, only a breakfast away.

breakfast at the REVISTA was the moment when i realized it, if i leave this place now and go home to catch a few hours of sleep, it would be the end, but i couldn't keep my eyes open and if i wanted my "goodbye drink" to go smoothly i had to turn off my mind, sleep and wake up again to enjoy this saturday.

it's hard to explain how i felt when i arrived at the CARGO BAR, because i knew i'd see a lot of people that would celebrate with us our new adventure, wish us their best and send us off to africa, but my goodness, i had no idea how many tears i had in me and how hard it would be to hug my friends and say "goodbye"
i know, you'll tell me "you'll see them again", or "we're in 2008, you have email, facebook and skype", or even "you can get on a plane anytime", which are all valid assumptions, only i hate flying so i don't think flying anytime i feel like will at all be possible, but still you're right. but sorry if i ask, what will i do when i wake up on sundays and need a "koffie verkeerd" or just a complete breakfast? what do i do on thursday evenings? who is going to call me on fridays? and how do you deal with a boring afternoon at work and a craving for great coffee?
who will save me from work, home, or even from A.T.?

funny thing is, i know i will manage it, i know by this time next year so much water will have run under the bridge, so many things will have happened, so many feelings and fears overcome, and those wonderful people who i take with me to Maputo will be ready anytime to hear me, to see me, to let me in their lives just as much as i will let them into mine. they gave me so much that i know i will always be grateful, i will always cherish them... i will always take them with me.

i left that goodbye drink with a very empty feeling inside me, as if i'd given away my tears, heart and soul, the empty feeling almost felt good in a way because i had given myself to everyone who said goodbye. i also felt my purse a bit more empty... a groupd of idiots stole my phone just before midnight... funny enough is that they stole it just before i left Belgium which basically means they made my number dissapear the moment i didn't need it anymore. i didn't get upset, i liked the coincidence about it... there was just one detail that made me a bit sad the next morning: they stole the phone with the coolest ring i ever had, the SEX AND THE CITY ringtone!

and so just like that... i left Antwerp.

last friday in a'pen

waking up knowing it's my last friday here was too much for me so i woke up A.T. and decided that maybe just today we could some of our rituals together just before we left. i got so used to having this really nice life independently from him i forgot how wonderful those moments we had together here were.
we rode our bikes to the center and looked at the GROBET window and analized every single camera for sale, the new and the used and especially the one he's like and the one i dream of. lunch at DANSING CHOCOLA couldn't have been skipped, with that juicy hamburger just like we remembered, we only skipped the coffee there because after three years the thing we know about CHOCOLA is that the coffee just basically sucks there!

normally on fridays we didn't see eachother, i'd leave for work leaving him sleeping and he'd only come back already saturday dawn while i was already in my 3 sleep, so having to say goodbye in the afternoon and say "tot morgen" wasn't strange at all.

he went his way to dinner, i went my way to my last sleepover-girls-night, which basically means there is no hour to go home, just a moment when you finally stop talking, stop laughing at SATC episodes and turn around to sleep (this part i know not much about because i don't think i slept... eventhough i heard i snored!), anyway... a wonderful friday to finish off this wonderful week.

last thursday in a'pen

what's a thursday in antwerpen without "Grey's Anatomy", apple crumble and girl's night?
another non tipical day.

last wednesday in a'pen

what can a wednesday spent between lunch with ex-coleagues, biking in the rain, drinking coffee after work hours at Pacificaciestraat and dinner out with A.T. and other friends have to do with a tipical wednesday?

just about everything.
and more... happy 5th anniversary to me and A.T.

(and happy birthday to A.T.'s nephew Fabio, who also turns 5 today!)

last tuesday in a'pen

...i'm starting to think there is no point to this "last day in a'pen" list, because not even today was a tipical tuesday here. i usually spend the afternoon of tuesday wishing it's wednesday so it feels like we're already in the middle of the week. usually it's an insignificant day of the week, because it's all about work and there was nothing ever on tv in a'pen on tuesdays.

so actually if i think about it was a very exciting tuesday this one, if only it wasn't so sad.
we gave, believe me i wanted to throw it in the river, our house keys to the next guy who's going to live there. he's an economy major with a too overdone british accent... and he would've never understood the calendar on the wall... A.T. and I felt it... we gave our house to a geek!

a few things were packed in a car and we moved into Luca's place with our last stuff. a few tears came falling down and we took our last fotos there... it's over.
it was over on this last tuesday of a'pen

SUB POST: eighth step to the future:
we moved out and a geek moved in

last monday in a'pen

so by no means this was a tipical monday, so in reality my last monday in A'pen was a very long time ago... nonetheless i felt it being the last time i'd say "it's monday" here.
i didn't have to go to work, so no monday-morning-blues
i had to pack everything, so no time to shop and drink coffees
i had to be alone in an empty cold appartment, so not exactly my great single-gal-night

i cried, and not because of the rain
i thought a lot, which proves it's not a tipical monday in antwerpen... but still the last.
all that we left in our sint. antoniusstraat 14/3rd floor app. were our clothes. after selling all our stuff the strengh of dealing with our clothes was just too overwhelming, so we're crashing at Luca's place waiting for night time, eating junk food (doesn't fat food feel so good when you're tired?) and remembering all sorts of ridiculous things.

not at all a normal monday

SUB POST: seventh step to the future:
selling all our stuff