great-britain trip photo-log part 3: Liverpool and the Lake District

Day 5 - August 3, 2011, Wednesday

It's been really hard to understand people here. Irish people have an accent that is really hard to understand. Hoase for house, dewn for down and other words I could not identify.

Well, it's midnight and we are spending the night at this Days Inn at a rest spot. They have internet here, but it's so late that it's hard to do anything on it at all with a clear mind. I am lucky if I am able to utter intelligible words after midnight.

Ok, by the time we are done with our vacation, I will want to stay away from rotaries, narrow streets, and speed cameras. They have been driving me crazy.

Dean says he does not mind the rotaries so much. Well, if you think about it, it's not really a terrible thing. But I do think they overuse it here. Gee, these people do not know what an intersection is, do they?

oh, another thing that's wierd! There was absolutely nothing telling us that we had entered N. Ireland or Ireland. And while they stamped our passport on the way in to Ireland, they did not do it on the way back into England. I don't get it!

Oh, any way! Let's get to the news of the day:

Today we spent the day in Liverpool. We drove to George Harrison, Paul McCartney and John Lennon's childhood homes. Then we walked to St. Peter's Church, where Paul and John first met. I think John was 15, or Paul was...

We walked to Strawberry Fields and drove through Penny Lane. We wanted to see Ringo's childhood home, or the schools they went to bc it was getting late and I wanted to make it to the Cavern Club.

Before The Cavern though we visited the Beatles Story Museum and took the tour. I did it more for Dean than for me, since I pretty much know everything about the Beatles history. When we were done, just outside the Museum we found those Range Rovers playing in the water.


I enjoyed being in Liverpool, being able to imagine what it was like for Paul, John, George and Ringo to grow up there, walking in those very same streets we were.

I am not the kind of person that thinks it's this magical thing to step on the same place SO-AND-SO stepped. I see nothing special about touching the same objects SO-AND-SO touched. It's not magical or special. If I cared about that I would be collecting objects touched by Paul McCartney and be excited just because I was in the same building he was when I tried to get into SNL. But no, I don't care about that. I might tell you that if I shake hands with Paul, I will never wash my hands again, but you bet I am joking.

But I love history and I love thinking about how history happened just because it happened. I love being in places that are historical. I love imagining that so many years ago this Paul I really like was a little boy in those same streets and lived his life there not having a clue that we would care so much about him someday. There is something magical about being in a place of historical value and trying to feel the weight of that history, trying to imagine those lives that once were there.

Paul really walked along Penny Lane. That street was so influential in his life he wrote a song about it. John really used to go to Strawberry Field as a little boy, and he recalled it so well that he wrote a song about it. About 55 years ago those two boys met in that St.Peter's Church backyard and they had no idea how important that meeting was.

To me it was magical being there, in the same places where history happened. Unfortunately I had to keep reminding myself of what was really happening, because I could not grasp it just yet. Maybe when I get home I will. Maybe I will kick myself for not having understood what this meant today.

After the Beatles Story (where I bought a Beatles T and a lunch pale, while Dean used the internet at Starbucks), we headed to Cavern Club and accidentally found The Grapes, the club where the young Beatles would hide from their fans and have a drink (since the Cavern was not allowed to sell alcohol). I took a picture of a picture that was taken in a corner there, but I could not sit in the corner myself, because this fat old man was sitting there taking his sweet time. I was so mad!!!!!

At the Cavern I found out that Paul McCartney went there a few years ago and the place held 300 lucky fans. And I also found a shirt singed by.... PELÉ!!!!

The street Cavern and Grapes are on is called Matthew Street. Everything on Matthew Street breathes Beatles. They really market it.
We had lunch/dinner at a pub in that street, called the Irish Pub and then headed to the Lake District.


Dean really wanted to see small cities in the Lake District, because some of the cities there were listed as the top ten most charming cities in England. So we picked one that was in the heart of the Lake District and GPS'ed it. The city name was Keswick. Unfortunatelly it was getting dark already, but there was enough light to enjoy some of the beauty of that quaint little place. The Lake District is a great place to spend a holiday if you live in England. Just rent a house there or go camping.

I think my grandma would love it there. The houses are made of some sort of greyish stone and they have flowers hanging form windows. The whole place just looks elegantly old-fashioned. A must-do for anyone who loves charming places. I can't quite figure out what to do during the day though. Do you go swimming?

Today we drank Red Bull in order to make it to the motel. We've been on Red Bull since Ireland, in order to be able to arrive places in one piece.

Oh, this morning we had an issue with the car rental.
See, when we left Liverpool to go to Ireland, the rental place was closed and so we just left the keys in the car, right?
They thought we simply had not returned the keys. Well, when we said what we did, the guy was horrified at us. Would you do that if it were your car? As a matter of fact I do that all the time when I leave my car at the mechanic, replied my husband.
Anyway, so they give us again, what we did not ask for - a Corsa. But we ordered a micro! Oh, but we are all out of micros, sorry!

Can I tell you that the experience at the Hertz rental place in Ireland was one bugillion times better than both Alamo experiences so far? I am so pissed at Alamo, it's not even funny! And he was lecturing us on where to leave the keys, when they gave us no instruction as to what to do with them!!!!! And he looked at us and said that a compact car and a micro car get the same mileage bc it's got the same engine!!! Well, congratulations on your amazing thinking! It's a larger car, so the engine has to work harder, but it does not matter, does it!

At Hertz, in Ireland, we were helped by a trainee who told us every little thing we could possibly need to know including what to do about tolls and how to return the car!!!!!

Oh, the fact that we paid for a micro and got a compact was not the only problem! Nor the terrible knowledge of the teller about mileage, or the fact that he lectured us.

The freaking Corsa's gear box is busted. Tomorrow morning we are driving right into Edinburgh's airport, and, before we go anywhere, we are getting a new car from Alamo.

my b-day in Brazil

The Fam








The BLV - BFFs since 1994











church gang








Me and my baby brother











Me and my nana

BLV singing Cheirinho de Nordeste

great-britain trip photo-log part 2: Ireland, small cars and graves

Day 3 - August 1, 2011, Monday

Today I took a wrong decision, I mean, a couple of wrong decisions that cost us precious time. First of all, I decided we should go find stuff on Dean's ancestors in the afternoon. However, instead of checking the schedule properly yesterday and let the lady know we needed breakfast by 7, I told her 8. Well, in order to fit everything in, we had to leave by 7:30.

We left by 9 and we took the scenic route as the guy who sold us Turkish Delight at St. George's Market had advised. We went through pretty old villages and saw beautiful views of the ocean as we reached the town he had mentioned we should choose as a spot to start our scenic route.

That added an extra hour and half to our trip. A pleasant hour and half, but one I was not counting on in order to fit everything in and be back to Cookstown before city hall was closed.

We went to the Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge, which is a cool rope bridge that was used by fisherman to get to this other island. We went to the Giant's Causeway soon after that, just a short drive from there.


On the way to the Causeway, Dean found this very cute village lost at the bottom of a hill. We had to go check it out. So we figured out how to get there and took some pictures.Here is Dean on he driveway that leads to it:









The Giant's Causeway is another cool place. A wonder of nature! It's a bunch of stone pillars in the shape of hexagons.

We can climb on them, since many of them make natural stairs. The legend says it was a bridge made by giants that led all the way to Mull of Kyntire. Dean is pointing to Mull of Kintyre in this pic.









After pics and games we had at this cutsie restaurant they had.

It was already 4 pm and we knew we would not be able to make it to the city hall. We would also have to skip the walled city of Londonderry. I wanted to go there so bad. But there was still hope that we could make it to the church graveyards.

That's when I took my second wrong decision - I punched in the GPS Presbyterian Curches near Cookstown. Well, the stupid GPS took us to Belfast!!!! A whole our out of our way!!!!

Now we are not making to Londonderry, cityhall or any freaking place at all for that matter.
ok, let's stick back to the plan and go to Corkill Rd. We assumed that was the Corkill his family lived back in the 1900s.

We got there and it was already 8 pm. On the way there we saw a pub called McCartney's. We decided we would get back there to eat. However, when we got to Corkill Rd and asked a boy that was outside his house he told us to go talk to a couple at the end of the street. We did. They invited us in and talked and talked and did not want us to leave.
It was finally close to 10pm when we were able to work our way out the door. Oh, don't take me wrong! it was a lovely time! And I feel like I have been getting better at understanding their accents. However, we wanted to eat. And I wanted to eat at McCartney's.
We looked for McCartney's till 11pm and decided it was time to give up since there would be no pub open at that time anymore. We ended up having dinner downtown Cookstown, at a McDonald's where we were finally able to use the internet and I called home or the first time!

One thing that has been pretty impressive here is the freakishly huge amount of rotaries. Here they are not called rotaries, they are called roundabouts. Whatever they are called, they are everywhere! They don't have intersections here, they have roundabouts!!!

Another thing they have a lot of here are sheep! Sheep are everywhere! Everyone in this country might own sheep. I hope we find some sheep crossing the road!

Dean is enjoying driving on the roads. They are just like we saw on Rick Steves - very narrow and we have to constantly make way for cars coming the other way. It hasn't been real bad, but it's been a little pain in the back.
Tomorrow we are hitting some church graveyards.

Day 4 - August 1, 2011, Tuesday

We traveled back to Liverpool today at 10 pm. This morning we went over to some church graveyards near Cookstown. We talked to people who told us the best places to go and we were impressed!
These guys that were just selling fruits next to a parking lot, when we told them the name of the family we were looking for, they said, don't go to the church grave yard up this street, go to the graveyard of New Church. And as we tried to imagine how many hundreds of years old the New Church was likely to be, we also asked, Why not the church up the street? It's a Roman Catholic church! From then we proceeded to try to imagine how on Earth did they know that!!!!

We hit 1 presbyterian and one church of Ireland churches. We took pictures of the graves that carried the last name Watt. I cried like a baby every time I saw a grave of a baby. It just Think babies and gravestones should never occupy the same space. SOmething has gone terribly wrong. Young people, they should live to be old folks.

Seeing grave stones is a very humbly experience. There it is! The end of us all! Some gravestones were hard to read. Time and nature have taken their tolls on the man-made inscription that some day meant so much to someone, but now it lays there, almost completely gone, on a piece of stone that marks the spot of the final rest of someone that no one remembers anymore. No one cares. Some one who lived on this Earth of God, just like me and you. Someone who was a baby, a child, a young teenager, and an adult. Some who lived and loved and dreamed. Like you and me. Some one no one knows anymore. Like you and me will be someday.

That's it, my friends. That's the end. Fifty, a hundred years after you die, unless you were ubber famous like shakespeare, who will know who you were? Who will visit your grave and lay flowers and make sure the inscription that contains those two important dates of birth and death, and the name by which you are now called doesn't get erased by time? And that grass does not grow all around and make your gravestone almost unnoticed? Who will even care?

Well at least in Brazil the cemeteries get taken care of and gravestones don't get eaten up by grass. But who visits the dead of the dead? Who will visit my great-grandma's grave when my brother and I are gone? Who will know who she is?

Now in Brazil we don't usually bury people in graveyards. We bury them in cemeteries. It's a very weird concept for me to think of churches as a place where normal people get buried.

We went over to belfast and saw the place where the Titanic was built, Harland and Wolff Shipyard. And there, another humbling experience - the size of the thing. I think it's called a dock - the actual place the ship was kept - is ridiculously long and deep. The Titanic was a monster!!!! I shot a video of it and the card ran out before I could finish it. The video is about 40 seconds long. I was shooting is as I went alongside the length of it. I was not even halfway through with it when the video stopped.

We bought a couple of magnets and key chains there in order to get free parking. Great bargain, we figured.

We then headed to Dublin, back to our final Irish destination. On the way back I tried to take pictures of the loyalists and the republicans neighborhoods. On the way up we noticed how the flags changed as we entered N.Ireland. But on the way back we did not find them anymore, so I could not get pictures of the change. On the way up it did not occur to me that pics of those things would be interesting.

But even in N.Ireland you can find places that use the tri-color flag. Those people are called republicans. The ones that use the unionist flag are a called loyalists.
here is an example of a loyalist neighborhood.
At first Dean thought maybe people here were really patriotic like in America, bc they display the flags in their yards and stuff, but we came to a conclusion that this displaying of flags is more a political statement than a display of patriotism.



Dublin on a Tuesday is a much different experience than on a Sunday. There is traffic and paid parking. We went to St.Michan's church to see the mummies of St. Michan's. It was a paid tour, but worth every penny. Our guide was fantastic, he even knew I could only be Corinthians or Palmeiras when I told him I was from Brazil. He was a Beatles fan who claims the Beatles were actually Irish. The mummies were amazingly well kept. We got to shake hands with one of them and see some other graves in the crypt. Some of them were lit, because they were officially inactive. Some were in the dark bc they still might be used by the families that own them, even though they have not be used for over 100 years, they are technically still active and can be used by the families at anytime they wish to do so. So we can't get in or keep them lit, as it is illegal to do so.

We tried to make it to the Book of Kells but we were 20 minutes too late. Finally time to eat though. at 5:30 pm, lolol!!!! We went to the Brazen head, The oldest pub in Ireland, dating from 1198...I finally got to try Guinness. Did not like it!!!! But I tried it!




We brought back from Ireland the phone number of a Watt to give to Dean's aunt who is doing to the family line research.

Back to Liverpool and to our Holiday Inn for a nice reasonable night of sleep. Tomorrow, it's the Beatles Trail.

great-britain trip photo-log

I wonder how anyone can write a travel log on a daily basis.
I can't, I most absolutely can't. Why not? Well, our days usually start at 7 am or earlier, and go well into 10 pm. So this is being written in chunks. I will try to be as faithful as possible and I might come back to ass stuff I missed.

Day 0 - July 29, 2011, Friday

My greatest fear for the past couple of weeks came true. The itinerary is not ready on Friday morning.
We were supposed to leave at 2 pm and I was frantically printing everything I had ready, packing last minute stuff, and trying to not be a bitch to my husband.
He left to go get the UK money we had ordered from the bank and did not realize the car needed gas and air.
So we left late, as usual, and we still had to go get gas and pump air in the tires.
At the train station, the booth lady at the parking lot was begging to be strangulated by an enraged me. Why? Ok, check this out: The booth lady at the parking lot can't freaking count!!!! We told her the days we'd be picking up the car and she said she had no idea how to figure out how long that was!!!!
Well, I had to do it! And, if you know me, you know much I love doing Math under pressure. My mood started to boil. I figured 16 days. 16 x 6.75 ... ... DECIMALS??? Truck!!! (this is my new swear word. I ran all the way inside the station to get cash out of the ATM machine, which cost us 5 bucks. When I came back, the freak of nature suddenly had learned how to multiply and all of a sudden we were a few cents short, because of an extra fee. Then she started complaining that we were 0.75 short, even though Dean explained to her that we were short .75. So I went back into the station get more money, which cost us an extra 5 bucks, just to come back and find out that the lady had decided to waive the .75.
Yes! Thank you for giving me the heads up before I left to get the .75 you were freaking out about!
Our flight left two hours late. That was good news and bad news, since we were about one hour late but our first day in England was jam packed and it had to start at 7:30 am!

Day 1 - July 30, 2011, Saturday. Sherwood Forest and York

The first day of the trip was a forecast on the tone of the whole thing - late for everything, missing stuff planed so carefully, but awestruck by everything we did see.

I had taken sleeping pills the night before, and I'd be lying if I told you I remember the plane taking off.


We got to Heathrow 2 hrs late. Enough trouble? No! At the car rental place we waited 45 minutes in line to get a car that had been paid for about a month ago!!! They did not have the car we had requested. They gave us an automatic 2 categories larger.

Our GPS however, smart little guy, re-routed us when we hit a nasty traffic in the motorway. We were pretty impressed.
Our first stop was the city of Nottingham. Since we were going to Sherwood,

we figured going through Nottingham made sense. We finally made it to Sherwood, aone hour after we should have left. It is a nice park. We saw the great Oak, the tree that is said to be Robin and his band's hideaway, but the great Oak was but a sapling during Robin's time. If there ever was a Robin.We learned that is is very likely that there has never been a Robin Hood, and that there might have been many different people nicknamed Robin Hood. Rob was a very common name at the time, and many outlaws used the forest as a hiding place. Which ever the case might be, by the 13th century there were already many legends about Robin Hood and we really will never know the truth.

Man, I want a time machine!

However standing there, a few meters away from that ancient tree, was a humbling experience. I could not help but think that she has been there for all those years, and maybe will be there long after we've gone.

We headed to York when we should have been arriving there, so about 2 hours late. York has about 1900 hundred years of history. We got there at 6, when we had planned to be there at 4. The York Minster Cathedral we had wanted to visit was already closed. We took pictures of the outside and walked along streets that are older than the ages of both our countries combined.

The York Minster saw the proclamation Constantine Roman Emperor. We ate fish and chips in a place called Hole in The Wall and got free drinks with a coupon I got online from Marston's Inn.

It was hard to leave, since we met a group of fun people that told us some interesting stuff about York and England. The great-great-grand father of one of them was part of the team that fixed up the city walls, and because of the that he was grated an honor title that was passed down to the descendants. We also met a girl who gets her hairs done with the same guy who does Princess Kate!!!!

We don't have history that dates that far back in one same place. We don't have honor titles given to us by our great great great grand fathers. Dean is lucky enough to know the name of one of them. I don't even have that to go by.

We wanted to walk on the city walls, but it was getting late. The pain of leaving is great but it was time to go. Liverpool and a 3 hour drive was ahead of us. We had to make it there, drop off the car and pack our hand luggage. We had to be at the John Lennon airport at 5 the next day to get to Ireland - our second country. And in Northern Ireland we would go visit a completely walled city. So we could handle leaving that one alone.

Good-bye York. Good-bye Sherwood. Maybe we will see you again someday.... maybe ... someday...

Dean, my wonderful husband dove right into the driving on the left thing and was worn out. Speed cameras are everywhere and we were trying to be careful not to speed. But I will not be surprised if Alamo charges us for a speeding ticket. I am, I must confess, I little bit scared that that might happen.

We could not by any means figure out what to do with the car keys, since there was no drop-off box, so we kept the car for that night. While Dean fell asleep (he needed his sleep, since he is the driver), I packed our hand luggage for the flight. I might have slept half an hour that night, since when I was finally done packing, I could not find my sleep. When I finally started having dreams, the alarms, all of them, went off mercilessly!!!!

Day 2 - July 31, 2011, Sunday

We arrived in Ireland today after waking up at an ungodly hour in the morning to catch the flight from Liverpool. We landed in Dublin, capital of Ireland and got our new rental car - a cutie-petiltie Pegeot 107, silver, stick-shift.

Since it was Sunday, we drove right into Dublin. I figured it being Sunday, we would not get much for traffic. We parked on an otherwise paid parking spot, and went to St. Patrick's church for Eucharist at 8:30 in the morning.

Interesting thing about Eucharist: the liturgy at St. Patrick's. They are part of the Church of Ireland, which is an Anglican Church (reformed). They have a very clean liturgy, with prayer, confession of sins, communion, reading of the creed and reading of the Word. They do not however have any preaching of the Word. We wonder how exactly people learn about the truths of sin, and redemption by grace alone, without effective and careful preaching of the word.

Dean enjoyed so much the inside of the church, that he decided it was worth paying for a more thorough visit. And we did, and during our visit we met a couple from - what do you know!!!! - Chicopee, Mass. Yes, believe it or not, we had neighbors in the very same part of the word we were at!

Because St.Patrick's longer tour was not part of the itinerary, we got delayed and could not make it to the Book of Kells. We walked around, saw the Dublin Castle, Christ Church and bought a couple of souvenirs.

Then we drove to Northern Ireland, straight to its capital Belfast, in order to make it to the St. George's Market, a weekly market, much like the Big E, with food and handcrafted stuff for sale. We had a yummy lunch there and walked around the city after that before we headed to our B&B.

Our trip back to the B&B should have included a drive through streets that have the famous murals. We did see a couple, but it started raining heavily, so we skipped the final 3 streets.

I am trying to be conscious that, during this trip, Dean, the official driver, is putting up with a lot. Driving on the left, according to him, is go against everything he has been trained for since childhood. It's a constant re-thinking about the act of driving. Something that, for an experienced driver like him, comes already so naturally, an automated process like walking or thinking in your own language, is now being part of the non-automated processes such as paying attention to cars around you.

Now, when I asked him, how is it driving on the left? He said, the toughest part is to re-adjust the car limits. What does that mean? The lines around the car - we are used to having the left line right next to us and the right one to the far right end of the car. Well, now things are different. The line that must be put to the far end is the one on the left. According to Dean, getting used to these new limits was the hardest part.

I am trying to be conscious of my driver's extreme conditions, because this is his vacation as much as mine. I want him to enjoy it, and not to be constantly worn out and dreading every new day.

He has asked me to drive through small towns so I am getting out GPS to avoid highways when possible. Of course, that was not possible on the way from Dublin to Belfast, but on the way to the B& B we sure did. we drove through farm land and took lots of pictures. Maily pictures of sheep. Sheep, sheep, everywhere!!!!! Sheep graze free in every freaking road here in Ireland.

And the roads! The roads are narrow, so narrow that our tiny car feels big for them. They are also surrounded by walls, walls made of either tall bushes, or trees, or stones. They are interesting, and Dean is enjoying driving on them, but they scare me.How can roads be that narrow. When other cars come towards us, one of us has to allow for the other to go by first. Why would anyone want to drive like that?

Our B&B is in a town called Cookstown, where Dean's great-great-great-grandparents are probably from. Tomorrow we will go try to find some of them.

Today we just want to enjoy being in a bed with actual time to sleep. There is a TV in our room, but we are not going to be watching it. We just want to sleep.

We left for dinner at a hotel in Cookstown, and came back to just crash.

Oh, btw!!! I got to move the car today!!!! I am not allowed to drive it on the road, bc of the rental contract, but I did get to move it from one parking spot to the other!!! I was so excited!

Well, tomorrow is another day!

gotta love roller coasters

Ok, so who in their right state of mind doesn't love roller coasters?
I mean, what's not to love?
The growing expectation on the slow way up, the freedom of the first and most deadly fall...
and the funny feeling in your stomach.

Are you sitting there thinking, "does she spend the whole winter dreaming of roller coasters?"

Yes!!! Yes, you got it!!! I spend the whole winter waiting for Six Flags to open and when it does, I am there! I am right there! First one in line for the Bizarro, and then the Scream, my two favorite rides.

Actually I think Scream might be even better than Bizarro. Why do I say such a heresy, you ask?

Very simple, my friend, very very simple - It's a scream on the way up, and another on the way down. It shoots you up, it holds up for a second, then it drops you down.

Follow the sequence with me: Scream first shoots you up in the sky, just like that, while you are just there, going ladi-lada-laaaah, not expecting anything out of the ordinary. It just catches you by surprise and shoots ya up in the air. Your voice? Ha! Your voice's gone bye bye! Your stomach? You wonder if you left it down at ground level, because it feels like your insides hold nothing but cold air. Then the thing holds you up there for a few seconds, just enough time for you to realize how freakishly high that thing is. Yeah, look around, my love! Good view of the park, ain't it? As you are beginning to enjoy the view though, it drops you down. And then you think maybe your stomach is playing catch with you, because now you wonder if it stayed up there.

Ok, it's terrifying! Which in my language means, "It's freaking awesome!"

Life is hard ... for those who are soft

No, I do not have time to write on my blog today. I don't. And that's just it.
I have too much homework to do, and I have a doctor's appointment at 3. However, I am a procrastinator by nature, and when ideas come to my mind I must write them down, so everything gets pushed for later - well, not everything, usually homework.

Homework is so so boring, that I honestly feel for my students every time I send homework their way. But, hey, it's life. And life is hard, said a friend of mine, to those who are soft. Better get that homework done.

But before that, let's write on this blog. So life is hard, eh. So times are tough. So what? So maybe this is the end of the world. The end the Bible talks about. And maybe it is. Everything seems to be crumbling, everything seems to be falling apart.

(You're wondering if I believe all of that fairy tale about the end of the world and the second coming of Christ. Well, if you still don't know that I am a Biblical Christian, then the answer is yes, I believe that fairy tale story. So if you'd like you can stop reading right now and miss out on the rest of the fun.)

But what if it is not the end of the world? I mean, 2000 years later! Seems like the perfect timing, right? Yeah, right. From a human point of view, duh. Just don't forget we are talking about a universe created by a being that is not human. And His logic is not ours.

Times a tough? You think they have never been tougher? So tell me about the time in which Christians were fed to lions. Or about the time in which the plague almost decimated the European population. Or look at African history and how their prisoners of war were sold into slavery and brought to the Americas in the slave ships. Could things get any worse?

Times are hard for us who became soft thanks to the comforts of modern life. Yes, it could be much worse. And yes, we could come around.

Could this be the end? Yes, it could. But it could be just another cycle. In the end only God knows.

More on John Lennon

It is really hard to convince people who know I am a Beatles fan, that I did not marry Dean because he looks like a Beatle. Really really hard.

The other day, at Ocean State, the cashier called him John Lennon. She said she's been wanting to say that for a long time, every time she sees him at the store. And we go there a lot.

A few weeks ago, when my car broke down and Dean went to pick me up at work, my co-workers were like, “Can I have an autograph?”

Seriously, it is hard to make people believe that this is not intentional. I did not marry Dean because I thought he looked like a Beatle, even though I thought he was cute. I married him because he was a nice boyfriend, so I figured he'd make a nice husband.

One reason why I am awesome

Do you need a reason to believe I am awesome other than the simple fact that I am Vika Winters? Well, my only fault is to have a hard time acknowledging my own faults.

But if you still need a reason why I am the best thing since sliced bread, listen to that – I pretty much succeed at every freaking thing I do.

I went and took that MTEL History test, mostly American history, without having studied, and I passed.

And do you really think I will not pass the General Curriculum MTEL just because a large amount of people take that test one bugillion times? Think again? I will pass – first try.

How do I know I will pass? Simple. Because I am Vika. And I am a Souza. And everyone in the Souza Family is good at what they do. Period.

Young girl kissing Old man in the six o'clock novela Araguaia! Ewww!!!!!!

How does a young girl like Aspásia, waiting for Prince Charming, ends up kissing Genão!!! Disgusting!!! She's in her early twenties!!! He's like 60 or 70!!! Oh! Gee! I don't want an old man kissing me!!! Not me! Not me! Not me!

When I said that to Dean, he giggled, “But you'd want to kiss Paul McCartney!”

“But, but, but,” said I a little unsure of my next argument. But then I knew it! “Paul McCartney is different! See …” and I began to detail the list of differences between my kissing Paul and Aspásia kissing Genão:

“1^st– I'd kiss Paul one single time. Never again. I do not intend to kiss him for the rest of my lifetime (or probably his). Aspásia plans on kissing Genão for the rest of … his life, right! Ewww!!!

“2^nd – I am not planning on going to bed with Paul McCartney. Aspásia certainly is going to end up in bed with Genão! Eww!!!

“3^rd – I'd only kiss Paul out of curiosity. Because, after all, I have always wanted to know what kissing Paul McCartney feels like. Aspásia kissed Genão because she is in love. Eww!!!

“Moral of the story: no old man kissing my lips!!!”

“But what when I get old?” My honorable husband asks, “Will you leave me for a young guy, just because you won't kiss old men?”

Oh, dear! I thought!

“I will be older too! Isn't that how Paul McCartney's song goes? Of course I am not even going to look old, and all the young guys will fall in love with baby here. But I will only have eyes and lips for one person in my life. Moral of the story – old people kiss old people!”

Territorialist? Yes, and proud of it! No one talks trash about my own. Only me.

My brother and my best best friend fell in love with São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, respectively.

Consequently, falling out of love with my Bahia.

And, I grant you both, as son and daughter of Bahia, the right to fall in love with other parts of the country, I must say that, despite all our faults, I'm still siding with Bahia. I'm territorialist, yes. And proud of it.

I am sorry to say the baiano people has very little resemblance to the concept of perfect. But they're mine. And no one talks trash about my own. Only me.

So here's the deal:

• In spite of all its faults, its dirty, unkempt looks, Bahia is beautiful. Please do not say such absurd as “Rio is so much more beautiful than Bahia” because that is a BIG FAT LIE! And I tell you that with all the love a best friend could. I understand taste is personal, and beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, so you can keep your opinions about the degree of beauty of such post-card spots, however, when it comes to number of beautiful places to see, Bahia beats Rio so bad, it doesn't even feel like a fair match.

• In spite of all its faults, Bahia has produced genial minds, actors, poets, writers, musicians, abolitionists that are revered in Brasil and in the world. Please do not address the fact that São Paulo is so much more cultured than Bahia, because their culture is nothing more than a sample of all we can give them. You must not forget where Rui Barbosa, world-wide renown philosopher, politician, statesman, came from. … Baiano.

• In spite of all the lack of manners and all the ignorance and all the ingratitude, beauty, intelligence and artistic spirit grow in Bahia like weed.

And that the baiano excels in everything he does, it is a given. No, no one is like us. No place is like ours. Please spare your comments.