Last Friday

I met Sofia, one of the three people behind Clockwork Portugal (steampunk, anyone?) who showed me around, along with Nuno, a little bit more of Porto (I still can get lost easily in that city, though, so hold that victory music a bit more) that I didn’t know about.

We had a lovely lunch at the hipster mall and a great time at our favorite comic book store A.K.A. Mundo Fantasma (MF for friends :P), where Vasco showed his concern about me possibly becoming a fanatic of Morning Glories (just because I told him the main characters of that comic have a twitter account, pfft! - here’s the list, btw :D).

I wish there was a hidden cam or something in that place and that, in the end of a full year, someone edited the footage and made a documentary about it. It’s a very feel good place, all thanks to the amazing presence of Vasco and Marco. 

Afterwards I hangout with Sandro (talking, mostly, about Manga and Anime) while waiting for Joana. As if having these two in the same place and time wasn’t already an operated miracle, it appears that Sandro was missing a football (soccer, for the states’ citizens) match of his fav team. This made the conversation kind of weird at some point, for the game was on the television sets scattered around the mall we were having dinner. So you can get the picture: sometimes Sandro would spit out something football-related amidst a sentence about cinema, games, etc. It was like seeing a tumblr dashboard scroll in a conversation.

 Followed by some crazy running to get to the subway in time (as depicted in the GIF),

me and Joana went to her house where we continued chatting; I showed her my Kindle and got to play a bit on her Nintendo DS (no pun intended; come on, you guys! D: ). Losing at that rhythm game (whose name now eludes me) frustrated me so much I laughed almost uncontrollably for a really long time. This only happened to me once before that day, with the game from the movie Up.

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Last Saturday

I met my wapu-san for lunch near MF, where we went after she picked some new art supplies. You can read more about that, and get all jelly that you didn’t get to hangout with fab old me, at her blog post. :B

Afterwards, Shini joined us for a coffee, where he made *me* feel jelly (about his high-speed internet connection) and told us, among other things, about a cool show called king of the nerds.

This was me, tired of him teasing me about his really damn good internet speed:

 Around 4.30pm a whole lot of other tweeps were at MF, including feantur, another of the 3 famous tweeps behind Clockwork Portugal. All due to the inauguration of a new expo at the comic book store. 

About an hour later arrived Ricardo whom, I figure, was not feeling very much at home. This was his first time at a comic book store and he wasn’t grasping most of our ref’s. At some point, looking at him reminded me of this GIF:

On top of it all, by that time I was already in zombie mode (I only slept 2 hours the night before) so I could barely cope with the social interactions myself let alone give some proper introduction and attention to Ricardo, so he wouldn’t feel so lost. Sorry, dude. Next time I’ll try to pick a calmer and less sleepless day to blackmail you out (long story). ^^;

Boy, oh boy, did that expo gave us something to talk about. I’m still thinking about it. It was a series of panels about architecture and Portugal. A particular panel stroke our attention and defied our interpretation skills. We failed. We’re still to know what exactly did the author meant with the usage of a particular symbol (an anchor) in there. We were like this (try to imagine it also with a glass of Porto wine):

We had the man right next to us, but shyness, I guess, defeated us and we got out of there without knowing why did the crows have anchors. Nuno even tried to push me into asking the man. I mean literally push! I had to run away from him and everything. D:

The day ended with a chat over a coffee and a couple of damn good waffles with Shini - whom, by the way, lent me some more of his comics and gave me a Star Wars t-shirt - OMG, IT’S SO PURRRTY, THANK YOU! *.*

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This weekend’s awesomeness rate was 110%!

Let’s toast to it and hope for more, soon!

I’ve been in Porto two more times in the last 8 days. W00t, w00t! It seems I’m really getting hooked on that lovely city called Porto, comics, Mundo Fantasma and meeting tweeps, as you may recall from my last wall-of-text post.

As I told you previously, this year I had a different New Years Eve (with no resolutions, for the second time in a row). I usually spend it with my family, which makes it just an extension of Xmas (and XmasAntics, whose game results are out already), but this time I managed to escape and be elsewhere from the 29th of December till the 2nd of January. Oh, what a bliss! My first stress-free réveillon - loved it! It should be like that all the time. :,)

Last Saturday, 29 of Dec., I started my journey to non-stress-landia. I arrived at Porto, where I met @agreste for lunch, chat and some comic book lending, by noon-ish. It was a fun afternoon that also got me some comic books (Watchmen and V for vendetta) to read during my time in no-stress-land - or so I thought. Ah! I never got to read them (nor write in my journal nor even pick up my Kindle) while I was away. Next time I’ll just pack more clothes and bring nothing but my mp3 for entertainment.

As I was saying, late 29 I arrived at a gorgeous little place somewhere near Póvoa do Varzim where I met Ju (no link for ya because she doesn’t have twitter nor tumblr), one of my old school friends with whom I had plenty to catch-up. I think that every time, during those days, that we were alone together and not sleeping we talked. Non-stop chatting, my voice still hurts from that (ok, and I got a cold in the last couple of days in there and am now popping pills). ^^; 

30 Dec. was spent with a first hangover, more catching up and, I later found out, Internet-I-miss-thee cold-turkey feelings from both of us. Ju’s friend, Rui, met us later in the night (the poor fella even got some rain on him) and we had a splendid time, drinking, talking, listening to vinyls and making fun of Ju and her way of not really knowing anything about computers to the point that if someone connects a cable and makes it work he/she is a pc genius. *tehe* She loves us anyway, even with the teasing. Aaaand… even if she doesn’t like Gangnam style or doesn’t know how to pronounce memes, we like her anyway too. Hehe. If she reads this she’s gonna be all:

By the 31 I was already on my 2nd hangover straight - something I can’t remember doing since my early university years. We spent the New Years Eve very calmly. We had champagne, salty foods, lots of other drinks… we decided to play cards instead, till 6/7 in the morning (and I had extra lots of fun because for the most part I won. Not only was it a new game for me, I won! :O whoooooa) while listening to my super-secret-awesomesauce playlist (just some random music I threw to a list, LOL) that had +8hours of songs in it. 

Around 8am everyone was sleeping but me. I know this because we were so tired that we stayed on the sofas and chairs and (they) fell asleep. Around 11am of day 1 I got tired of listening to music and looking at sleeping people and got down to a bed and slept. Short after that people started waking up and leaving. Damn. Missed them for just a few minutes. Oh, well. *shrugs*

The rest of day 1 was spent in slow-mode (mostly in front of the tv). I’m too old for this. Ju finally got a hangover (aha! </Nelson>) while I finally stopped having them. By dinner time we went to MacDonalds where I got me some caramel sundae I’ve been yearning to taste since before my surgery in May, and then came back home, feeling very sleepy.

Funny thing happened: We meant to do our bags and then go to sleep, but… by the time I finished my bag I wasn’t sleepy anymore and we started to do this sort of impromptu collaboration on a story that could very well be the script for some fucked-up B movie. I should have been taking notes or record it, though. I can’t remember much of it, now, and it was going very well. :c I started to tell-and-make-up-while-telling-it a story and Ju kept asking questions that were important so the story didn’t have plot holes, and that kept me inspired, which made me invent even more… I really need to start working on putting that to paper and send her, so she can send me more questions and - who knows? maybe one day something complete will come out. ^-^

Day 2 I woke up feeling sick and tired. Ju was still hungover (hers have a retarded effect of sorts, it seems). She was an awesome host all the time. Restless. Even in that state and with so very few hours of sleep within her, she managed to get to the subway station with me so I wouldn’t get lost. Gosh, I love that girl (and you know how I generally feel about people… right?).

Again, around noon, I got to Porto. Decided to visit Mundo Fantasma again, where I bought 2 comics: Grim Leaper (review coming soon because I already read it) and Transhuman. It was a quick-stop in Porto on my way back to Espinho where I met @agreste again and got to chat with him and listen to him rant a bit. :D

When I finally got home I was exhausted. Slept like a rock, after declaring myself officially a survivor. Yesterday, Friday the 4th of January I noted all of this and more in my journal of happy thoughts, read Grim Leaper and started to read V for Vendetta. 2013 is up for a great start, yo! o/