More than one third of 2010 is behind us and before this year ends (ok, I exaggerated.. ) I’ll briefly write about all I have done so far and what is still to come.
January and February:
During these two months I stayed at Leah’s house in Scottsdale, AZ and at her brother’s house in Denver, CO. This period happened to be very positive and productive because I managed to focus on a project I’ve been developing with my business partner, called Cocoon Health. We’ve been working on this website since October of 2008 and only now, May 2010, it’s ready to go live. Cocoon Health is a health social network for health practitioners and their clients. The website will be launched in England and all around the UK.
March:
After 3 months of waiting (since December), I finally came back to Seville, passing through London and Paris before that. Something really nice happened in Paris. The same day I arrived there, Leah showed up at my friend’s house and gave me an amazing surprise. It was excellent to have met her in a city so beautiful like Paris, after being far from each other for two months. I visited the city 10 years ago and I enjoyed to relive that experience again, but now with someone very special on my side.
Back in Seville, I kept working hard while also enjoying my Seville life: eating “tapas”, drinking beer Cruzcampo (which could be better) and hanging out with friends. It was good to be back “home”. The city remained beautiful and started to warm up again. Mach is the month of one of the biggest city events: Semana Santa, or Holy Week. For 7 days, numerous processions take place throughout the city, almost non-stop. The biggest churches can have up to 1,400 people involved in the processions and can take up to 15 hours. It’s something very interesting and exciting to see. Especially when your girlfriend wakes you up (forced) gently at 4am to see the procession.
Taking advantage of the holiday we decided to travel too. We went to Portugal once again, but this time to the south of the country. We had hoped to go to the beach and enjoy a nice weather, but it didn’t happen. We went to Lagos, Faro and to “Cabo de São Vicente” which is the most southwest part of Europe, or also know as “end of the world”. Well, at least some hundred years ago. I love Portugal. It’s a beautiful country, full of old cities and delicious food and it’s underestimated touristically speaking compared to other European countries and I always have fun with the Portuguese accent.
April:
Abril is the party month in Seville. The famous “Feria de Abril” takes place and all the women wear their flamenco’s dresses and the guys their suits and they all party for one week. They dance the “sevillana”, drink “rebujitos” (Manzanilla wine with Sprite) and eat lots of food. The party happens in a wide open place with thousands of “casetas”, or small booths that work as bars/restaurants. The best thing to do is to be with friends and go to different “casetas” drinking and eating. This is life. Trust me.
One of Leah’s friends gave her a dress to wear for the Feria. I don’t have to mention that she loved it, right? But the truth is she was gorgeous.
Like Semana Santa, (one) two or three days are more than enough (probably Leah disagree with me). As we had the weekend free and we were able to find very cheap tickets, we went to Marrakech, Morocco. Since our trip to the Middle East last year, we have a special feeling for the Arabic culture and Marrakech was excellent way to refresh our memory of the chaos, the people’s affection and the excellent Arab food.
Everything went well until the last day when the Eyjafjallajökull volcano decided to create havoc for thousands of people all around Europe and at least two in Morocco. Our flight to Seville was cancelled and we had a long journey to go back to Spain. With an American student’s group, we took a van/taxi to Tangier, north of Morocco. It took 10 hours to get there and because of that we missed the ferry to Tarifa (Spain). We had to wait for the next ferry but we managed to arrive in Algecira, Spain, the same night. Well, at 2am so obviously everything was closed. Guess what? We spent the night all together in front of the bus station until 7am. We survived and after 24 hours traveling we got back home.
And now? What’s next?
May has arrived (and it’s almost gone) and it’s our last month in Spain, at least in 2010. We’re planning to do the “Camino de Santiago de Compostela”. Cocoon Health is pretty much online after some months of hard work. In June we go back to the US for one month and in July we go back to Brazil (I already have the tickets!). In the meanwhile we have the World Cup and it will be my first being outside of Brazil and far from my friends. I think we will do great.
Well, as far as I can see it will be a busy month and full of surprises. Not too different from what my life has been in the past months.
We didn’t want to get our passports stamped from both sides of the border because we could have problems going to other Arabic countries. At the Jordanian side everything went well. They stamped a piece of paper instead of the our passport without asking (otherwise it would be an evidence that we’ve been to Israel). After that, things changed.
It’s not usually cheap to travel by train (specially in Europe), most of the times it’s cheaper to take a plane. Sometimes buses are cheaper unusual plane. But independently of the way you take to go somewhere, taxi is not a usual nor cheap way to travel. Believe it or not, travel by taxi is much cheaper than any other alternative transport, at least when you lose the last bus and it’s your only alternative.
As I said before, we stayed only two nights in Amman so we couldn’t see/do too much. We mainly saw the Citadel, a Roman Amphitheater, tried a few restaurants and a very interesting pedestrian street where you could see (very) fancy ladies wearing fancy burkas having coffee at Starbucks.
Leaving Aleppo was a hard task. We had memorable moments there and it was definitely much better than we were expecting, but we still had many others places to go and see. Right after Aleppo, we had a short stop in Hama to see an ancient roman site called Apamea before we start the trip to Damascus.
When our host arrived there, nothing changed, actually the hospitality just got better. Before we headed to his apartment he invited us to drink his favorite smoothie in one of the many juice vendors around the city. This smoothie later started to be called “Jamal’s drink”, his name. It became famous with other travelers as well. Some minutes later we dropped our backpacks off at this place and he kindly suggest us to visit the Citadel. One of the best I’ve seen during this trip.
Much to my delight, I saw some guys playing football in the street and one of them was wearing a Brazil jersey. I decided to go there to talk to him and when he figured out I was Brazilian he invited me to play. That was the idea. Mission accomplished. I love to play football and it wasn’t different that day playing with these unknown guys. We played 2 against 2 and one goalkeeper. Fortunately we scored 3 times and we won the game but it wasn’t enough for them and they “forced” me to keep playing. Is it necessary to say that I loved it? 
I didn’t really know what to expect from Aleppo but it was surprisingly excellent our time there. The city is chaotic, hot, noisy, smoky (I think 99,9% of the men in Syria smoke), some times dirty, but at the same time the city is beautiful, cheap, kind, with lovely people and delicious food (I had the best falafel of my life there). Also the city is safe. I remember walking in the streets at night in downtown and feeling completely safe and I knew nothing would happen. Unfortunately, most of the time the media says the opposite. Nothing like looking at it with your own eyes.
