DID I MENTION I MISS TRAVELLING?

More of my new year's travels around Itaúnas and Vitória. You can catch the first post here.

Much love,
V.

A brief history of (my) hair

At first, I had beautiful fluffy long brown hair (June 2012).

I had purple tips for like, three days in July 2013 (N. dyed them for me when I visited her in Melbourne <3), but then I was back to normal hair. I felt bored. I felt like I needed change. Actually I felt tremendously lost and didn't know where to go with my life or what kind of future I'd have, so just to feel like I could decide something I decided to bleach my hair tips and dye them salmony-pink (September 2013).

It got completely blond about a month in. So I went acqua blue (October 2013). 

That also faded away fairly quickly, leaving me with violet... (November 2013).

 

(yeah my "friend" took a photo of me out of the blue, nice guy). Then acqua again in December, then it faded  while I was at the beach for new years and I just had fugly damaged bleached hair. Thus I cut it all off on January 8th, which is actually one year after I took a plane back home after the exchange programme. COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT. Was I leaving my past behind and getting ready for a new life, letting go of that feeling that life-not-in-Paris couldn't possibly be good? Perhaps.

Or perhaps I was just tired of all the split ends and frizzy hair. We'll never know. All I know is that, even if sometimes I miss having long hair (especially to perk it up in milk braids and all), I look waaaaaaaay better with short hair, PLUS I spend less than ever with hair products. I used to think that I could never cut my long hair off because, believe it or not, I thought I was ugly and it was the only beautiful thing about me, it was kinda like a shield or a security blanket. NOW I THINK I'M BEAUTIFUL. Confidence. I haz it. You go, you. I'd like to state that I cannot stand self-deprecation. All my friends make bad comments about how they look, even when there's seriously nothing wrong with them - so I promptly cut in with compliments and rational comments to try and make them see how crazy they are for thinking "their shins are too thin" (whut).  Eventually they started doing it with each other and some peeps started calling us the "support group" <3 <3 <3 SPREAD THE LOVE, EVERYONE. YOU'RE ALL LOVELY. Oprah, where do I sign?

A pleasant evening to you,

V.

Adventures

On the early morning of January 2nd, 2014, me and my friends decided to see the sunrise over at Itaúnas dunes. It may seem like the coolest adventure ever, but we were actually scared to death of getting raped on the pitch-black road there and then we were eaten alive by mosquitoes when we got there. Then the sun came out and it was all worth it <3 These are some photos I took with a disposable camera. Good times! I miss travelling so, SO much. I wonder when my next trip will be! N. is having the time of her life roadtripping the hell outta Australia right now, I miss her so much ahaha. I hope she's having tones of adventures with her bf :))
ps: after spending the whole night out and then watching the sunrise, we got to our tents utterly tired (we were camping). I entered the tent and lay there for a whole 10 mins before my tentmate came in and spotted a GINOURMOUS SPIDER in there. We got out screaming like mad people, my hair got stuck in the tent zip, I cried, it was 6am and we woke everyone else up in the camping site, including the hippies who permanently lived there. One of them came our way asking if we needed help and we said there was a huge spider in our tent, he totes thought we were exaggerating (we were not) and picked up one of the tent sticks (you know, the ones that allow it to stand up straight in a tent shape) and went inside our tent. When he spotted the spider he yelled and started manically hitting it until it died. One of his hippie friends came by and said "you can't hurt the animals, dude" (reaaaallly slowly) and the one who helped us said "it's just sleeping!". Yeah, right.

A pleasant night to you,
V.

Lately

Woah! sorry about disappearing. I'm sure y'all know how it is, both me and N. were going crazy with exams to study for and essays to write. Now it's all over <3 N. is travelling with her boyfriend and I miss her so much! I'm sure she's having tons of fun though, so it's ok! She worked really hard this semester and deserves the time off.
So, in the last couple weeks I spent most of the time at home studying with my cats taking naps and nibbling on my toes. Mia (that's the name of the black and white one up there) sometimes forgets to put her tongue back in her mouth, it's SO cute! Did the cat get your tongue?



On Thursday it was my last exam and, for some of my friends, their last day of being an undergrad. I still have one semester to go, it was really sad knowing that we won't have classes together anymore and will no longer see each other that often. So after our last exam, as a celebration of some sort, I bought us bem casados (a Brazilian pastry made with dulce de leche usually given away as souvenirs after weddings, it means "well married") but named them bem formados ("well graduated")! It was a hit!

On Friday I worked from home and then joined some friends at São Paulo's historical center to watch the game. Did you know that people don't have to work full hours here when there's a game where Brazil is playing in the world cup? hahah. That was actually the first world cup game I watched, I really don't care for soccer... but I must admit that just feeling the energy other people send out while watching the game was pretty cool. They get so worked up, it's hilarious!

Then on Saturday morning I participated on a ~photoshoot~ with my friends/partners with whom I'm opening an online store! The photos are gonna go on our hot site before the actual store comes out. I'm really excited about this project and I'll talk more about it soon, if I can :)) I'm really rooting for it to work out, opening firms in Brazil is so complicated and expensive :((

After seeing the fish on the way to the location, we met this cute moustachioed cat on the way back to the metro! 

On Saturday night I invited my uni friends for a slumber party at my place. We ordered pizza, had tons of wine, some beer, and talked a lot about  a lot of nonsense, and then decided to sleep all in the same bed (we were 6 people haha). That didn't go so well, but it was so cute! After they left this morning I spent some time in the backyard reading drinking some leftover beer and my cats apparently enjoyed it as well! Drunk cats <3

A pleasant beginning of the week to you,

V.

Graffiti me, graffiti you

A couple weeks ago someone told me São Paulo wanted to be the graffiti world capital and I was like "WHUT we barely have any", but then I started noticing and it's actually everywhere! I really like discovering things, along with long walks on the beach, travelling and cats, and this is totes my dating site profile. I mean, seriously though, that it's always cool finding out things about the city you live in or about people you know. (Unless it's something like, they're murderers, or something, then it's not pleasant at all). I don't particularly like graffiti, but I guess it's better than a blank wall.




Me and my friends went to Tulipa Ruiz's concert yesterday night, even though we're all swallowed in school work and probs shouldn't be going out. Tulipa is so great! She has a great great singing voice, and is really fun onstage.




After the concert we went to a bar called informally "The Priest's Ass", because it's behind a church haha. I really liked the décor, specially the little beach painting you can see on the pic above! It left us all in a very tranquil mood and less desperate about uni. Unfortunately today I'm back to my desperate state.



Anyway, we might not really be the world capital of graffiti, but some dude decorated his trash picking vehicle with graffiti (yes, no name for it - if you're reading this and it's not familiar to you, good for you, chances are you don't live in a country with great inequality like Brazil! Yay! This is a little cart people with no other means of living go around with trying to collect something from trash that's hopefully worth some bucks) along with a really scary doll sticking out its tongue. He should totes be on Pimp my Ride - Terrible Reality edition.

A pleasant week to you,
V.

green, yellow and blue

I gave my mom some daisies for mother's day, about a month ago. They've died. So I figured, WHY NOT MAKE SOME POT POURRI? I guess I don't really know what that means, so I just tied a bunch of branches together with a cute ribbon. Is this pot pourri?




Anyway, I hung the bouquet in my bathroom, in the hopes it might smell less bad after I poo. Not that my poop smells that bad, it smells like regular poop I guess, but it's always nice having some perfumed dead flowers in the area. Also, I missed the World Cup's opening while doing this. I was so sure it started at 4pm!!! Oh well.

Boogieing down all night long

For the last couple years I had been hearing about this nightclub at são paulo's historic center in an abandoned building, sorta like a squat. The actual thing ended up being way cooler than my expectations! That night they played a type of Colombian music called cumbia, which is very fun to dance to. There were also lots of other rooms playing different music styles, one with a live band even, and some "sitting rooms" with bathtubs as couches!

I hadn't been to a nightclub in 8594379573495 months, indeed I think since visiting N. in Melbourne in July last year. Almost a year! So I danced the night away and hopped on the first train in the morning, really tired from all the dancing. I fell asleed and woke up with some creepy dude touching my thigh asking me to wake him up before we got to Jabaquara station (??). I was like, "dude, wtf, don't do that to people in the metro" and he started chitchatting with me "oh, were you at a party?" and I said (sarcastically)(it was 5am) "no, I was working" and he said "oh, what do you do?" and I refused answering because he was obvz a retard or something, but he thought I was playing a game and his best guess was that I was a transvestite. I was like "YES DUDE, THAT'S WHAT I AM, IT'S MY JOB". He then asked me if he could add me on facebook. I said no and left, thankfully that was my station hahaha. Good times!

To many more weird anecdotes!

A pleasant day to you,

V. 

YAYoi Kusama (wow, my titles are so funny).

On Saturday I had the pleasure of visiting Yayoi Kusama's exhibit at the Tomie Ohtake Institute here in São Paulo. It was so fun/crazy seeing what she sees: polka dots everywhere (although she doesn't see that aaaalll the time, just sometimes). I'm not sure if I'd be that bothered if it were me, really! She was also a very hip young lady in her pre-hot-pink-wig-wearing-time, hanging out with Andy Warhol and all. I didn't like her paintings as much as I liked her installations, like the one under here, called "Sea of Dicks", or something. As you can see, I tried to become one with the environment.

But the other installations were pretty cool too.

I don't have that much else to add, except that I had a great time with J., who is visiting (he's been living abroad in the last 4 years). I had a huge fight with him a couple years ago, and we finally made up this year - so, yay! [Insert Oprah-like sentence about the power of love and absolution and friendship.]

Hope you've been having fun too!

V.

Une année studieuse

Last week I finished reading Anne Wiazemsky's autobiography, "Une année studieuse". I must confess that when I bought the book I had no idea who she was, nor that it was an autobiography haha, I think I read something about it online and put it on my "To read" list and now here we are. The book covers one year in Anne's life, a young student who is studying for her BAC (which is sort of France's SATs, I guess) while picking plums in France's provence during the summer months, at a friend's house. Then we find out she had acted in a movie the previous semester, one called Au Hasard Balthazar, directed by Robert Bresson, and that she had then met several famous people, like Jean-Luc Godard - to which she feels she has been continuously rude in their 2 or 3 encounters in Paris. Thus she sends him a letter saying how much she admires his work, specially Masculin Féminin and Pierrot le Fou, and apologized for always being so rude. Who'd have thought that not only he did he forgive her but that he also would come to pick her up in southern France because he had been in love with her since seeing Au Hasard Balthazar in the movies?

"Oui, je souhaitais ce mariage et en même temps, j'eus soudain une étrange intuition: "Je veux vivre le plus longtemps possible avec toi. Mais je sais que ce n'est pas pour toute la vie, que j'aurai d'autres amours et d'autres vies", lui dis-je dans un souci d'honnêteté."

The story goes on for the year following their encounter, when she starts studying philosophy and Jean-Luc goes on shooting films. My favourite part was definitely reading how Jean-Luc was while filming, how did he feel about the way things had to be, how did he treat actors and crew, etc. And also, of course, reading about all their friendships to Famous Intellectuals of the time, like Cournot and Truffaut.. She mentions Sartre's work all the time, which was cool because I love reading his books too (not that I actually understand what he's trying to mean though). Also, it goes on in 67, so we see how things are hitting up to what one day would be May 68.

"Puis, je me glissai nue dans le lit, bien décidée à ne pas le réveiller. Satisfaite, je m'apprêtais à sombrer dans un profond sommeil quand je sentis une main étrangère se poser sur mon épaule et une voix, qui n'était pas celle de Jean-Luc, marmonner: "C'est toi, Sabine?" Mon effroi fut tel que je crus que mon coeur s'arrêtait de battre. Je connaissais cette voix, je l'avais souvent entendue au cinéma et au théâtre, c'était celle de Jean-Pierre Cassel qui occupait avec sa femme la chambre voisine de la nôtre. Je demeurai quelques secondes paralysée à l'idée qu'il se réveille complètement et me découvre dans son lit. Mais heureusement Jean-Pierre Cassel me tourna le dos et se rendormit. En une seconde, je fus devout. J'attrapai mon linge, ma mini-robe, mon pull et mes sandales qui traînaient éparpillés sur le plancher et me retrouvai, toujours nue, dans le couloir de l'hôtel. Un peu de lumière filtrait sous la porte de la chambre voisine et j'y entrai précipitamment. Jean-Luc lisait sagement dans le lit et de stupéfaction lâcha son livre quand il me découvrit, collée contre la porte, nue, avec mes vêtements serrés sur ma poitrine."

The whole book reads as fiction though (I'm not sure if all biographies are like this, but it was a pleasant surprise) and we're inside Anne's head all the time, while she ponders if she's really in love with Jean-Luc, if he's not gonna fall back in love with Anna Karina, if she should pursue higher education, etc. I liked seeing how she fluctuates around loving him to death or wanting to be free, because I think that if I ever fall in love with someone (never have) I'd be scared of growing too dependent on them as well. And how awesome would it be to date Jean-Luc Godard in Paris in the 60s??? I felt so nostalgic about Paris that I decided to download an app called Fake GPS and set my location to my old apartment there, and then turned Tinder on and started talking in French to all these hot french guys. Still not sure if that's too crazy or not, but hey, at least I'm practicing my French! (They do get disappointed when they find out I'm not going to have sex with them though haha).

Anyway, it's a great book and I totes recomend it if you like:
1. the 60s
2. Paris (or France in general)
3. Godard
4. all the options above.

A pleasant day to you,
V.

Ramona

On Friday we celebrated my friend M's 22nd birthday at a nice restaurant called Ramona, located in the heart of São Paulo's old town, or historic center, I don't know how to call it in English - we just call it "center" here. It's funny how our friendship went back and forth during the last five years we've known each other from uni! I guess I've always been a little mistrusting of people before I met N., but since I met her a couple years ago my approach towards people changed a lot, specially girl friends, which I sincerely thought I could never have.  Crazy right? These days I get along way better with girls than with boys (as my sad love live can attest to), and I wouldn't be able to live without them (I mean, of course I would, but it wouldn't be the best life ever). Just spreading some girl love <3 <3 <3
Anyway, since I was talking about the restaurant, I really like its décor. It's full of these crazy stairs and vintage furniture, but I think my fave part is the mirrored-brick wall you can a bit in the back of the second pic! The ambiance is really great too, full of hipsters, and great service. I didn't eat anything but my espresso was pretty decent haha. I'm totes bringing N there when she comes to são paulo :))

Z and her adventures

Recently, my good bud Z left Melbourne for bigger and better things (of course). She won't be back until 2016, unless she is able to find a way to renew her visa or finds out that London sucks and wants to come back. She's currently travelling at the moment, seeing, eating, drinking, absorbing and experiencing all these amazing things in Europe but will eventually settle down in the land of bangers and mash.

As a goodbye present, S (the third installment of the trio) and I got us Rocky Horror tickets and made her a journal/adventure book. We named it The Extraodinary European Expedition (vol.1) and filled the pages with activities and prompts to help her write. We came up with things like "how many drinks did you have today?"; "draw your dinner here"; "what are you thinking at the moment?"; "continue: Dear N.,"; "what's your plan for today?". We even got educational: "what is the number for the police in the country you're in at the moment?" And musical: we had Amsterdam - Coldplay; Norway - Beach House; Ni**as in Paris - Kanye; Polish Girl - Neon Indian; Postcards from Italy - Beirut; Another Brick in the Wall - Pink Floyd on our playlist.

We even stuck the Oyster travel card on the front of the book, covering the BY:__________ part. We thought it'd be a cute surprise to give her a chance to make it hers.

We had fun. Probably not as much fun as Z will have filling the book out, but I'm looking forward to the day I see this soon-to-be tattered, weathered and ripped book make its way back home.

N.

Au revoir Simone + Cibo Matto

On Sunday it was mother's day here in Brazil, but it also was Au Revoir Simone and Cibo Matto's gig at Cine Joia. I really thought I wasn't gonna be able to go because I wanted to visit my grandma (after all, she did have 8 children, including my mother) and she lives an hour away, but then I woke up after what was supposed to have been my prom (I didn't graduate because the exchange programme in Paris set me back one year) and I just couldn't get out of bed. My mom had never seen me hungover before, it was so embarassing! I blame my chepastake ways, I paid $$$ for the prom ticket and I thought I should enjoy food and drinks as much as I could (I even saw some people stealing the centerpieces hahah). Anyway, on Sunday I woke up vowing never to taste a drop of alcohol again, and my family left for my grandma's city leaving me dying in bed here in São Paulo. I slept until 5pm and studied a little, ate some papaya and felt strong enough to see the concert after all haha. Au Revoir Simone were so cute! 3 beautiful girls who dress really well. Cibo Matto were unbelievable though, it's so weird seeing a petite Japanese woman rapping hahaha. and they danced so well! Don't Honda's electronic instruments (mixing plate? I don't know what's that) look like a robot from a cheap sci-fi movie? So many cables! and they kept on speaking Portuguese, Cibo Matto even sang a whole Brazilian song. In love <3 <3 <3

A pleasant beginning of the week to you,

V.

Stuff

  

I won't lie. I have a ton of stuff. It's like, everywhere you look at around my bedroom, it's stuff, stuff, stuff. Sometimes it's useless stuff, like a huge plastic pineapple hanging from the ceiling. A lot of it's clothes! I'm a big time shopaholic, seriously, it's a problem. Specially since I started a new internship in February and got myself a credit card of my own (meaning I wouldn't have to ask my parents if I could buy a little dress or little shoes online), I've been FUCKING POOR. Like, my credit card bill totaled more than my wages last month haha. I can't help it though, it seems like money you spend on the internet is like magic money, that comes out of keyboard cat's mouth into my pockets after travelling through a ton of "what's in my bag?" videos on youtube. 

I guess I should really come down to earth and realize what a huge idiot I am for thinking like that haha.There's seriously no more room in my bedroom for any new stuff, there's barely room for my cats to play around in :(( (in the last pic you can see Mia and Meowth, my new babies!). It's just such a mess all the time, even when I tidy up when guests come over they still say mean comments like "OMG YOU'RE LIVING IN A BLACK HOLE" and I go like "BUT I'VE LITERALLY JUST CLEANED UP, IT WAS WAY WORSE" - I really need to get my shit together hahaha.

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

I guess I was part of a pretty cool event last weekend. You may not know this about me, but I'm a huge nerd - like, full on anime-quoting, manga-referencing and sci-fi-geeking. I think it all goes back to having studied in a high school whose student body was mostly formed by Asians. So, anyway, when I heard there was gonna be a Star Wars Night Run on May 4th I was like "OMG SIGN ME UP RIGHT NOW", which my mom was more than happy to do (and pay for hur hur) since she's always trying to get me to exercise with her. In the running kit we got storm trooper masks and I guess they had a huge army of storm troopers running in mind, but seriously, who can run 6 km with a plastic mask on? I wouldn't have worn it anyway, since this was finally the opportunity for me to borrow my brother's Yoda backpack (one that emulates the scene in episode IV where Luke is learning how to be a Jedi at that swamp planet and runs around with Yoda on his back!), and went as Luke Skywalker ahah. They hired people to dress up as some of the movie characters to cheer the runners along the way, and they were holding signs saying "run, darth vader, run!" and "Do or do not, there is no try" hahaha. 

The best was definitely the run's location, though: it was on a famous viaduct here in São Paulo called the Minhocão (the Big Worm, in English). It's considered one of the ugliest parts in the city; as you can see in the second pic it's like it was placed in the middle of a bunch of buildings and the people who lived on the first floors basically lost all of their privacy. (Also, doesn't it look like the world is gonna end and people are running away? ahah). The buildings around it are all falling apart now, since the region lost a lot of its value after the viaduct's construction - I must confess that everytime I drive by them I always take a peek inside the buildings, so this run was almost like a dream come true for me and my voyeur ways haha. I had to stop to take the last pic because the person had placed a tiny Darth Vader toy along with her plants, how cool is that? 

Sundays are the worst

Sundays are the worst. I always feel like I wasted my whole weekend (WHERE DID TIME GO???) and didn't do any of the things I had/wanted to do, like studying or watching movies or reading magazines. It's also always a time when I get really nostalgic, usually because I spent the whole day without much more social interaction than yelling at one of my cats for peeing on me again - so I had the whole day all to myself to think about all the things that are wrong with my life, hahah. That does not summarize to getting peed on, unfortunately. 

So it's really good to have things around me that remind me that good times are coming, or that there are good things in life in general. Usually it's something that reminds me of N. A care package of hers just came in the mail last week (or was it the one before that?), loaded with love <3 and cute gifts, of course! She gave me the red dress in the first pic, it's so beautiful - and the tights in the third pic I picked up in Melbourne when I visited her last year. The best in her care packages are always her cards though <3 HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE SOMEONE WHO SENDS YOU A CARD LIKE THAT???

Thanks for always cheering me up, N., even from so far away :))

David Bowie's exhibit

A couple weeks ago it was the David Bowie's exhibit's last day here in São Paulo. I had already seen it in London August last year with mine and N.'s dear friend A., so I thought "why not relive those joyous moments?" and made my way to the Museum of Image and Sound with my mom (who was the only person willing to stand in line with me for FOUR hours. Yes, that's right. You have to be a big David Bowie fan to endure that).

Of course, she didn't really stay in line with me for four hours, as she quicky found a bench she could sit down on. On the back you can see the David Bowie studio, where I recorded a karaoke version of "Ground Control" hahah. (Also, you can note how the light changes from the first pic to the second one: the day was over by the time we managed to go into the museum).

David Bowie: what a man. He called this outfit "ultraviolence in Liberty fabrics", how awesome is that? (He's a big fan of The Clockwork Orange). My mom kept on making comments about how people actually wondered wether he was a boy or a girl at the time (so I guess "Rebel"s lyrics are autobiographical haha). I guess I just love how he sends out a message that everyone can be whoever they want to be. So can I be David Bowie, please?

Indeed, he was so many people throughout the years. I wonder how he feels about that. I always think about how actors have to really become a character to make it believable to the audiance, can you believe how hard it'd be to actually be a character 24/7? How does one decide what their new them is gonna be like? And how do you know what you really are like after you're done with a character, how do you know what's your true self like? Anyway, ignore my musings about David Bowie's possible identity crisis ahaha.

 

Like I said, I had already seen the original exhibit in London. It was SO MUCH better than the one here :(( the V&A one actually covered Bowie's whole life, not only his music career, and generally had more than costumes and pictures of him. Sigh. 

At least I got to be in a real recording studio pretending I was Bowie, something I didn't do in London! yay <3 My love for him goes way back, in fact I even forced my friends to be in a remake of his video for Dancing in the Street with Mick Jagger (I was Mick Jagger though).

I'm not gonna post the videos of our remake because I really don't think J. (the friend I made play David Bowie's part) would really appreciate that being on the internet, but here are some stills you can enjoy (I think that for a one-night project made by three 18 year-olds, it's pretty good hahaha). I wish I still had friends who'd be willing to play with me like this, people seem so self-conscious nowadays (both J. and K., the friend who taped it, are living abroad now) :(( Anyway, we were dancing in the middle of São Paulo's Korean neighbourhood, so I guess that doesn't apeal to a lot of people (we did go karaoking after the shoot though, who doesn't like that?). Sometimes I think that I really need to get new friends!

A pleasant end of Sunday to you,
V.

Top 4 Songs for Procrastinating

Committing to 30 hours of independent study a week is always a challenge, especially when you're at home surrounded by Easter eggs, a fluffy bed and the internet. It's even harder when you can enjoy all three at once.

I've come up with a number of ways to get myself motivated, such as a study timesheet to monitor my study hours and leaving fresh flowers on my desk to lure and keep me there. I've even created playlists of my Songs of the Week (yes, I have a spreadsheet of that too) to get me to work whilst the snazziest tunes are in the background. They also help me achieve arbitrary goals, like being able to work 10 songs in a row without opening 2048. Sadly, I've come to realise that these songs are Procrastination Songs that only distract me from working. I'll tell you why.

#4 Amber, Dick Diver
A gorgeous afternoon song. Everytime it plays, I want to eat bikkies and tea outside in the sun whilst it drips of syrupy afternoon gold. But I can't right now because it's autumn and cold. But the bikkies and tea still happen.

#3 Looking for the Magic, Dwight Twilley Band
I don't know. It kinda makes me want to dance.

#2 Twin Rivers, Big Scary
I think the first few lines of this song summarises my feelings for the day. Except I'm going through study apathy in place of a break up. I wish I could break up with my thesis sometimes.

#1 Wild Love, Gossling
This super fun song by Australian artist Gossling just gets me so giddy. Especially because I am soooo smitten at the moment. By many boys. But also one in particular.  And this song makes me think of how I want to make him fall in love with me. Not really. But really.

What are your Procrastination Songs?

N.

Lollapalooza Brazil ~~~~

Last week we had Lollapalooza here in São Paulo and it was really awesome: three of my fave bands played, two of which I had already seen before (Phoenix and Vampire Weekend), and, for the first time, ARCADE FIRE!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so excited, seriously. I had been waiting to see them live since I was 14. 

 

The festival was at São Paulo's racetrack, where Formula 1 happens. I had obvz never been there (racing ain't really my thing) so it was cool getting to know it. I couldn't help thinking "imagine how many people have died here!" all the time though. 

 

On Saturday, the best concert was definately Phoenix. They were so much better than the last time I saw them live, back in 2010. I also saw Julian Casablanca's concert, but I must confess it was a letdown. The Strokes were my favorite band for a good part of my life, so it was really sad for me seeing how Julian kinda sucks live - or maybe it's just his solo work that didn't work for me at all, I don't know. He did play two Strokes' songs, and they sounded really good. A little later that day there was Muse, but their singer was sick and didn't sing any of the choruses so...

 

On Sunday we decided to get there really early so we could enjoy the "Chefs' Stage", where a bunch of Brazilian chefs were making some good grubs. I had a burger from a place called Vinil Burguer, it was really good, and the best french fries from Bra.Do. The best was definitely a brownie milkshake from Barbar Confeitaria, so yummy! I guess I must have gained about 4 kilos that day. Totes worth it! Then my friend M. wanted to see Ellie Goulding with all the other teenagers, and everyone was going apeshit for her haha. She actually sings pretty well live!

Then it was Vampire Weekend's turn! Me and M. were really excited to see them together, because we also saw them together back in 2011, so we got there super early to get good spots. Then I saw two guys with a tshirt that said "production" and I was like, "Excuse me mister, can I help you in anyway?" and they said "Actually, we need someone to dance and sing along to all their songs in the VIP area so we can film them", to which I answered "Well sir, you're in luck, because I have more energy than a gogo dancer". So yups, me and M. stayed comfortably at the VIP area getting photographed and filmed by cool guys while firefighters offered us water hahaha. Good times!

 

Then, finally, there was Arcade Fire. Dang, what a fucking good show. They are so theatrical, so full of life. I even dressed up party style for their concert <3 I think it was one of the best concerts of my life (and indeed I have many to compare it to, as going to concerts is one of my favorite things to do!). Their new album, Reflektor, is just so good. And they played all my favorite songs from their previous albums, and even some Brazilian songs in between! They actually started their show featuring scenes from a great Brazilian movie called Orfeu Negro, which has a similar energy to their music - if I'm not mistaken there's also a version of one of their video clips for Afterlife that features the same film. Anyway, I still can't find the right words to describe how that concert went, it was just so good that I can't describe it!

On the second day I brought my fujifilm Intax with me and took a few pics! They're so cute, I love how everyone looks more beautiful in them. They just feel so special. I can't wait for N. to come visit me so we can take a million together!

And, finally, since I'm so famous, here's a pic of me looking gross during Vampire Weekend's concert! Ew, right? I was having the best time! 

And that's it! What a great festival. I must confess there were way too many people though (like, 170 thousand per day)... The next concert I'm going to now is Eddie Vedder's, yay! So good to have things to look forward to :))

A pleasant day to you!

V.