2009

United States of America

January

de Young Museum

 

California Academy of Sciences (only the view from outside)

February

California Academy of Sciences (the view from inside)

Japanese Tea Garden

 

Pacific Ocean Beach

Alcatraz

Portugal

April

  

My City

July

  

 

OPTIMUS Alive Festival - Metallica

Festival Marés Vivas - Lamb

I only have half of the year here, first because I still have a lot of photos in my camera, second, because I took a lot less pictures in the second half of the year. :) 

Nonetheless, it still is a good wrap of the year that just ended.

Shocked!!

Today, was a day filled with tragic news from the entertainment world... The one that is the most shocking for me is Michael Jackson's death.

Like most kids from my generation, I grew up listening to Michael Jackson. My first ever live concert was Michael Jackson's Dangerous World Tour in 1992 at the José Alvalade Stadium in Lisbon, I was only 11.

I loved dancing to Thriller, Beat it, Bad, Smooth Criminal, Black and White... and the list goes on. Despite all the controversy that surrounded him throughout his career, I still respect him as an artist.

Michael Jackson - Thriller (full length)
I wanted to embed the video, but all the videos said Embedding disabled by request.

R.I.P.

Michael Jackson
(1958 - 2009)

P.S. - I know that this not the most updated image of Michael Jackson (actually it is a 27 year old image), but this is one of my favourite images of him.

Golden Gate Bridge by Night

Golden Gate Bridge
(08 11 08)

Just because...

Sunset @ San Francisco Pacific Ocean Beach 07 02 09

The last 24h...

Right know it's 7h58 in the morning... So I have 24h and a few minutes remaining in San Francisco. :)

What to do with the remaining time?!
Finish packing, go for brunch, go around town and most of all enjoy the day.

There were few times that I thought that time was not going by, but, like always, in the end it has gone by quite fast.

Well, I do not have much more to write. See you when I'm back home.

Time goes by fast...

...which is no news for anyone. :)

At this moment I'm still in San Francisco, but the countdown as turned into less than a week. Exactly one week from know I will be approaching Portugal, flying over the Atlantic Ocean. Uau... It's thrilling and scaring at the same time. It's still too early to make sense of everything that has happen for the past 7 months, I need distance to gain perspective, I need time to look into myself without any bias, to take a deep breath and relax. But I can say right now that it was an awesome adventure, with it's usual ups and downs, however I'm completely sure that the final impression will be positive.

My internship is complete. Friday was my last day, such a strange feeling... the time spent there was pleasurable, the people that I met are great and I loved working with my supervisor (the best one that I had by all means!!).

Right now I'm tired beyond measure, I fall asleep everywhere either in the Muni coming home or at a friend's house after dinner. It's really embarrassing!! I cannot really fight it... aiaiaiai

This week will be dedicated to go around town saying goodbye and enjoying the last days in this city. As for the to do list that I talked a few days back it was finally completed today.

• SFMOMA - check
• Asian Art Museum - check
• de Young Museum (not included in the initial list) - check
• California Academy of Sciences - check
• Japanese Tea Garden - check
• San Francisco Pacific Ocean Beach - check
• Glide Memorial Church (also not in the initial list) - check
  
• Alcatraz - check

All these things in 1 month... I had 7 to do all these, but, as the good Portuguese that I am, I left it for the last moment. There where a few times that I thought that was not going to be able to do everything that I wanted... it's seems like I proved myself wrong.

Once I'm back in Portugal and settled, I will post the photos and videos that I made during these visits.

I had so many ideas of what to write in this post, but, as usual, I forgot most of them and got sidetracked...

A very unusual Holiday Season

Through out my twenty something years of life there as been a constant in my Holiday Season: my younger sister... This is the first Christmas that we have not spent together. It's, for a lack of a better word, utterly strange.

In spite of not having spent this holiday season with my family, things were not as bad as I had expected them to be. :) It did not have the feeling of Christmas, but it was not as depressing has it might have been. Maybe because I was able to talk through the day with all my family, and I was even able to see some of them using this fantastic invention called Internet. Since I was able to talk to them things were less difficult. This was really important for me, since I strongly believe that Christmas is the season to be with your family.

Considering the distance to Portugal, we were still able to maintain a few traditions, namely eating a bit of bacalhau (codfish) and some traditional sweets (rabanadas and sonhos de abóbora).

But what was really unusual was the 25th of December... After having eaten some lamb with 3 of my friends, we decided to go ice skating... It was fun!! (I'm still able to feel the aches through out my body from the 1h30 we spent in the ice rink...) Never in my live I would have guessed that I would go ice skating on December 25th...

Macy's store @ Union Square were the Ice Rink is located

Our feet, ready to take the ice ;P

The Christmas Tree at one of the ends of the Ice Rink.

PS - I only fell once and I wasn't skating, I was standing "still" try to do balance my self in one leg (doing aviões)...

The world was watching and so was I :)

I now I'm a bit late, but could not let this pass... On Tuesday, November 4Th 2008 the world had their eyes on the USA and so did I. With the difference that my living room is located in San Francisco...

When CNN announced the projection that Senator Obama would be the President Elect, you could hear everyone screaming with joy and even some went out to express their happiness.

Better yet was the great speech that he delivered when accepting the task ahead. I'm sure that somewhere in the future our children will study this speech in school, as I studied I have a dream by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Lets wait and see what becomes of this, and I wish all the luck to the USA and President Elect Barack Obama.

Enjoy:
Obama: Victory Speech in The New Times (I wanna thank my Sis for giving me this link).