Wednesday, 30 April 2008

Reality (check)

It sounded like a movie I saw - there is this girl sitting at Café Europa in a remote Czech town who notices that this guy on the next table is reading Borges. They meet each day in town and do stupid stuff such as signing up for a beauty pageant or starting a race to the top of a Gothic church. Damn poetic.

It was not intentional, it was talk-over-sushi with the kiddo, the only current person I know that is still up to be amazed.

So I came home feeling like doing a reality check. Too many things that might well belong to a sitcom/movie/Kafka book/Venezuelan telenovela have happened to me and I keep them as small memories that make me smile, but I do not realise often that they sound... weird.

I love making lists, so here's my first share of 'life is like a movie':
  • Once in an airplane, I sat by the side of a Serbian DJ who stole his friend's grandma sleeping pills to knock himself out through the 11-hour flight.
  • I have been in an ambulance, going full-speed against traffic in one of Mexico's main streets.
  • I met a Brazilian girl with the only 30 cms tattoo that I consider tasteful (it was the silhouette of Matahari).
  • I have been inside of a 'Chaika' for some minutes (the Chaika is the big 50s car used by the Communist big shots during the Cold War).
  • I saw the head of a camel in a market of Casablanca hanging upside-down.
  • My great-grandfather had the gun of Sandino. It was a gift.
  • A Danish soldier took me and Alicia to 'number eight', a members-only underground club in Copenhagen. I was completely out of posh-ness... and out of place.
  • On December 2006, I sat on my party dress at the bridge in Christiania (hippie commune) and drank an elephant beer. It was 5 a.m. That was the day when I actually met Mike.
  • Lynda and I used to have lunch by the sea. Just like that. Have a sandwich and go back to the real world.
  • Buddha Bar in Beirut. Still dreaming on that night.
  • I was in Swaziland just one week after the birthday of the king - he had just picked a new wife (damn!).
  • The best gin and tonic of my life was made with local tonic water (quinine included). It was in Malawi right before Madonna put it on the map.
I wonder which amazing things will the next 'season' bring... eyes wide open, heart ready to believe.

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