yadda yadda yadda:

The ever-present leaving date looms overhead for me. I think of it as a reminder that a few months after we leave Lisbon, we come home back to the lives we had before we started this. The days we have left are full of good memories of times we had here, and pure excitement for the months to come. I cannot believe we stay in an Italian villa with friends for a few weeks - just thinking this puts a smile on my face. I'm getting tattooed on Monday 30th, by the same guy who did the last one. We've both been buying clothes like money is going out of fashion, and also because we are getting so much paint on everything. We all took part in a photography walk, and hopefully will win money. We learnt about Andorra in this movie night thing where you watch a presentation on a country then you get to eat the food and drink the produce. Turns out Andorra is B O R I N G and they make shitty sausages they are really proud of. We have painted the loft with some sort of oil, that is genuinely so flammable that you cannot buy this in Europe. Seriously, I mean like come on. Kate has had a migraine for the past few days, so we haven't done much besides find the gayest bar in Lisbon and have a few drinks there. We also really need to book trains and hostels for Italy.

We went into a bookshop today so Kate could get a Jackie Collins fix that she has been craving so so bad. I found this amazing book on photography and decided to get a photography inspiration fix. It's amazing when you read the blurbs of these guys - most literally take pictures of their friends and display them in galleries. I'll have a look into them more, then write a whole post on my favourites - maybe i'll email some of them, see what the deal is. Some of the pictures were so sexy though, and I'm pretty sure everyone  who was in the book are friends, or connected in some way. Got me thinking a friend of mine, and the projects he has with other artists. I need to pull my finger out on this I think.
Anyone who is interested in getting together to put some photography in a book let me know.

There are a few things that we need to mention we've done, but I find it easier to talk about with pictures, so here they are. Pictures below are form the photwalk thing we did, the Victoria Park that isn't actually Victoria Park, the family, the fresh food market, Kate painting the oil stuff and Kate eating crisps, covered in oil  -

seriously.

The smallest thing reminds me of so many different people; everyone holds a flame in my little heart, and if I'm honest it seems to be the people who I took for granted when I could see them everyday. Being away from our friends and family had yet again made me realize who is important and what is worth doing when we get home. I said to Kate the other day that all I wanted to do is move away now, away from home - literally anywhere. We've hatched a plan, and hopefully with all the skills we now have from the work we've done here I think it'll be pretty easy. Plan is to get home, have a massive party, clean up party, hang out the back of Jared Leto for a day, start work on house. Small things like painting, organising and generally arranging what to do with the rooms back home - I actually feel so excited about painting the doors that I have realised that I am finially an adult.

We've had the Kanye West on all summer, plus the almost disappointing GaGa lp on repeat, with drops of NFG, Midtown and TBS to keep things fresh. I keep thinking about Metallica, and how amazing they are. And seriosuly, 40 Hour Train Back to Penn. Wow, still.

ahhh ahhhhhh ahhhhhhh ahhh the love the throat sincerity

The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month's time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen. Or maybe one that wasn't going to happen, does. 

Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics of Chaos the by Ian Stewart. 

Recently, I've been reading into chaos theory. Basic quantum mathematics, general relativity, including related ideas and sketches by Ian Malcom, and other fictional or non fictional theorists. 
The basic idea is that a slight deviation in the repeat everyday activity of something causes dramatically different outcomes. Popular theory is a butterfly flapping it's wings, causing tornado's a week later in America etc., see above. 
See, initially I called bullshit on the whole thing. It just seemed so far fetched, and purely the wet dream of writers and Ashton Kutcher fan club members. I think the whole slight obsession has been bought on by the narcissistic side of myself, fantasising that the mass effect Kate and I have on the world around us and the knock on effect of leaving a light on in a room somewhere, causing a moth to fly into the room, leaving dust particles from its wings on the surface of a paint brush. That paint brush is then used in the killing of a minor. 
I'll be homest with you, I was going somewhere with my point, but I lost it when I came to the moth. But you get the point right? 


Anyway, besides me reading Jurassic Park and Kate reading Eat, Pray, Love we have both been keeping ourselves busy. Kate has been bitten countless times by mosquitoes, gnats and spiders, cut herself on knives and bruised knees and legs on tables, chairs and toilet roll dispensers on too many occasions. She is having ups and downs about her hair, I think she still isn't used to it so help me out and tell her how beautiful it really is and how much it suits her - don't get me wrong, don't lie to her as she'll kill me, but a little flattery will help her see what I see.  
I have booked another tattoo with the fellow that tattooed me before, this time getting something special for my right thigh. Booked in for Monday 30th May. Pictures at some point in the future, depending how much is done in one sitting. 


We're both aching to get to Italy. Lisbon really has stopped being new to us, and we've settled in here. The city itself is still amazing to me, but it seems so small in comparison to London, New York, Paris and Madrid. It's looking to be my favourite though, maybe we'll move here one day, open a small coffee bar gallery in Bairro Alto and ask people from home to come work in it for free. 
We're used to the language - Kate can basically understand Portuguese; I'm still lagging behind, clinging onto my Two coffees with milk, please. Thankyou like it was going out of fashion. 


A French girl came and left, and the girl who thought Kate was pregnant is coming back in a few weeks. Work has been painting, sanding and cleaning of different rooms and Steph is coming out to visit at the start of June for a few days, then its ten days until we leave for Italy. 
Italy seems to be so far away, yet so close. Switzerland is only a few months away then it's Paris J'taime and home. Whilst we're in Switzerland, we've been offered a villa in the Alps for free for a few days, plus whilst we're in Italy we stay in a villa overlooking local vineyards I think. 
Looks like the last few months are going to be incredible, and I do not want to come home. 


PICTURES SOON. 
KISSUS.

Friday DAY OFF by Kate & Sam

Tempo para Lisboa 28C 

 

Today, we were off ... we decided to head to the Electricity Museum in Belem, we would normally get the train but we decided to walk this took over an hour in the midday sun. When we arrived we found out the exhibition 'World Press Photos 2011' was free entrance. We went into the exhibition, took in the photography from around the world. Incidently, the exhibion will be in London in November held at the Royal Festival Hall. The winner was a portrait of an Afganistan woman who had her nose and ears cut off by her abusive husband, and a group of his friends. You can see all the winners here.

I rememeber reading about this in National Geographic and being shocked then that something so brutal and severe would be done by someone so close to home. Seeing all the images in a such a format really shook me - some of them were quiet hard to shake off the thought of what was going through someones head when they were having their picture taken in the scenario they were in. 

Few things that have happened since the last post - the french girl has a cold, and had a 75euro doctors visit, plus 24euro medicine as she has a bad throat and blocked nose. 

some people 

hayzeus

Read me .....

Saturday 14th may
This weekend we were working our main tasks was to put together a large second hand Ikea wardrobe without instructions but we did have a sketch of what the end product should look like, this was by far the most pain staking task we have had here - the tempreture was in the 80s, we were hot and not in the mood ... after many hours and help from Pedro (the dad) the wardrobe was up and we are using it as our own.

We were told a Portugese girl was coming for dinner as she had requested to stay with Maria & Pedro helpx'ing like us. She was currently doing something called Couch Surfing which means she stays on peoples couches, spare beds etc...
She arrived at 7pm and me being nosey went down to the kitchen to help with dinner and see what she was  like. Her name was Lasandra, age unknown - as she refused to tell us! She had made a bold statement in her emails to Maria advising that she could speak English, due to Sam & I being here till June this is important as we cannot speak Portugese. Maria tried to get her to explain to me in English about herself but she found this hard and couldn't really do it. When we were cooking I commented that my back hurt & she asked if i was pregnant, I said no im not! She seemed to think I was lying!
Pedro was making Shark for dinner - I really didn't want to eat shark caught in the atlanic, I don't like the taste of fish and I had previously watched a documentry on BBC about shark hunting and how it is aggressive and wastefull, & Sam always tells me

"...fish dont live on trees once they're gone, they're gone..."

I didnt like it and ate arond the Shark  .. all the left overs were eaten though just not by me. After dinner we all got in the car took the strange girl back to where she was staying which was a dump & Maria Pedro Sam & I headed to a late night museam & had free coffee, museum closed at midnight & driving back we drove through the centre of Lisbon it was beautiful all lit up with people filling the streets outside the bars & cafes..

Sunday 15th May
9am up and out to family fun day at the sports centre over the road from our apartment. Family fun consisted of inflatable activites like bungee ropes, tramoples etc... we stayed till around 10am had a good laugh at everyone then back to work we were organising the new girls room. A girl called Laurene from France age 27 who would arrive Monday afternoon. 5pm Maria Pedro Sam & myself drove to a local park to attend a Jazz Festival when we arrived Pedro dropped us off & he went off to find a parking space, the park was full with goodlooking young portugese taking in the live music & evening air it reminded me alot of Victoria park but there no security, and no trouble. We walked around for a while until it became hard to ignore the fact that Pedro hadnt joined us .. Maria tried to call him, but he had left his phone at home convinced he was somewhere amougst the revelers! We went looking for him we never found Pedro, but we did get free Nivea products & there was free wine. Sam decided he would check the roads to look for the car, and found Pedro! He couldn't find a space to park so he had be driving around for over a hour .. we all left for home but planned to go back this Sunday and leave earlier to get a parking space! On the way home we stopped at Jumbo ( supermarket ) we found some cheese named KIRI, dinner was Brazilian food, then we filled out forms for photograpy contest we are both in next Saturday.

Monday, we were off we did nothing all day but the French girl came she is okay, she will only be with us for one week she is meeting her friend in Lisbon then travelling to Faro the South of Portugal .

Tuesday 17th May


8am: Porriage - new favourite food!
8.30am: Cut into top of thumb while cutting up a pear... mostly tears and blood!

1st day of work with Laurene we were all up in the attic which is HUGE I will post a photo, we are painting all the wood with burnt oil to protect the wood .. its messy, hot and tiring ....

Wednesday 18th May
8am - 1.30pm work same as yesterday .
rest of the afternoon we have been sitting in a cafe/bar we come to alot in town called Friends we have had some Super Bock ( beer ) & now some coffees ... we will go back around 7pm not before sending some important post England bound too some very special birthday girls in June .We can now comfirm that a friend of ours is coming out to see us in June for a few days & staying with us so that will be nice ...

Maria & Pedro, museum coffee party

Jazz Fest

Jazz Fest

Jazz Fest lesbian dreams

gay as the day

Jazz Fest dreams, duck pond

Jazz Fest dreams

Jazz Fest dreams

carpark kate

cheesy cow

our sexy wardrobe