Have you read it?

Have you ever heard an owl cry at night? Maybe it was a banshee! Discover who they are in "The Roommate".

Melissa just moved into her new dorm. She hopes that new friendships will help her forget the events of last year that brought her there. But while her past keeps on creeping in and a chain of mysterious murders start happening around her, Melissa is left without knowing who to trust.

An Halloween short-story, based on the world created in «Sombras», with new characters.

Available for free at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/677136

If you read it, don't forget to leave your opinion in Goodreads!

Samhain a short-story

There is so much about the origins of Halloween we still don't know. Find out about some in "The Roommate".

Melissa just wants to forget that there are dark things happening on Halloween, but a chain of mysterious murders won't let her forget.

Available for free at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/677136

If you read it, don't forget to leave your opinion in Goodreads!

Halloween story

Are you a fan of the gore and the supernatural? Then you're gonna love this short-story, "The Roommate".

Melissa just moved into her new dorm. She hopes that new friendships will help her forget the events of last year that brought her there. But while her past keeps on creeping in and a chain of mysterious murders start happening around her, Melissa is left without knowing who to trust.

Available for free at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/677136

If you read it, don't forget to leave your opinion in Goodreads!

Halloween short-story

Melissa just moved into her new dorm. She hopes that new friendships will help her forget the events of last year that brought her there. But while her past keeps on creeping in and a chain of mysterious murders start happening around her, Melissa is left without knowing who to trust.

Have your heard about «The Roommate»? It's available for free on Smashwords.

If you read it, don't forget to leave your opinion in Goodreads!

Short-story: The Roommate

Melissa just wants to forget that there are dark things happening on Halloween, but a chain of mysterious murders won't let her forget. 

Check out this Halloween tale, «The Roommate», and enter the spirit.
Available for free at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/677136

If you read it, don't forget to leave your opinion in Goodreads!

Halloween Tale - The Roommate

For a while, I've been hearing my friends constantly say, "You're a writer? Are your books in English or Portuguese?" And when I reply, it's usually followed by the usual, "Too bad, I might read them if they were in English."

Of course, being an avid traveller has turned my circle of friends wider, but most of them are also foreigners, thus all of them being able to speak English but with little knowledge of Portuguese.

Last year, I then decided to try something new in my writing. I had an idea for a Halloween story but I wanted to try something different, and see if I could reach more people with my stories. So I decided to pick up the world created in «Sombras» and «Chamas» in a very subtle way, but with completely different characters. 

And so was «The Roommate» born. A short-story with only 6,000 words that happens during Halloween times. 

Since I only had 2 days to outline it, write it and revise it, I didn't have a lot of time for marketing before the publishing day. 31st October, but hopefully this year I will get some more readers to enjoy it!!

You wanna know what it's it about?

Melissa just moved into her new dorm. She hopes that new friendships will help her forget the events of last year that brought her there. But while her past keeps on creeping in and a chain of mysterious murders start happening around her, Melissa is left without knowing who to trust. 

Hope you like it! It's available for free at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/677136

If you read it, don't forget to leave your opinion in Goodreads!

Pick Up A Weirdo - Portugal is important to Chinese

I came to Beijing to spend some holidays with my family, who came to visit me, and look what I found in our hostel.

Yep, there were only two pillows and both from Portuguese speaking countries, Portugal and Brazil. Chinese love flags, but usually the most common are UK and US.

Obviously, this is all a coincidence, but I never did tell you the episode when my roommate and I were in mandarin class trying to find out how to say the Chinese names for our countries, Portugal and Spain.

We were using this app that kinda saves our lives in a lot of situations, Pleco, and we discovered our countries:

The assistant translator at the time, overheard our conversation and explained te meaning of the name: the first characters mean grape, grapes, and the last one ivory. He added that Spain had no meaning because it was just a country, Portugal was important to Chinese.

Well, after so many months of being mistaken for Spanish. Being mocked by my classmates and my constant tantrums saying “Portuguese is not Spanish!” And even being nicknamed Consuela, the Brazilian speaking Spanish girl”. I must say this was a victory. I turned to my roommate and said: “Ah! You’re just a country, chinese don’t care about you.”

I still love spanish people though!

Pick Up A Weirdo - Lost in China... And Pandas!!

Day 11: Because of jetlag and different time zones (8 hours difference) I ended up wasting one and a half days in Beijing, not very important for me when I’ll have a lot of time to explore, but mildly concerning for those who want to fit a lot of activities on a tight schedule. 

So what to do when I only had half a day left to enjoy? Visit the Beijing Zoo and finally see Pandas for the very first time. The Giant Panda Bear is my absolute favourite animal since as far as I can remember so it was a very important mark in the history of my life to finally see them upfront. And an  opportunity to cross something off of my bucket list. I expected them to be bigger, but wasn’t disappointed. 

Going there was quite easy, the subway system is similar to London’s and the stations have the Pinyin translation underneath. But when I went back to the hostel things turned out mildly sour. 

Most tube stations in Beijing have four exits, something I didn’t know so I didn’t pay attention to which exit I got in. So after getting out at a random exit and walking a little, I realised I didn’t recognise the place I was in and turned back to enter the subway again and exit through another.

I was still lost!

Finally, I started asking people that didn’t know where my street was, or didn’t speak English, or simply didn’t want to help, because everyone just shook their heads and repeatedly told me “bu”! A nice gentleman agreed to help me and put the address on maps. The map indicated I was very close but none of us knew which direction it head towards. He ended up telling me “it must be that way”.

Ahead I asked another man and this one seemed more certain but didn’t speak a word of English, I only understood from his crossed fingers that he meant to say a crossroad and turn right.

I kept walking and when the crossroad arrived I still didn’t recognise the street and asked again. A guy from a hairdresser gave me some directions, that ended up being wrong and caused me to get lost again. So when I got to the end of the road, saw there were no more alleys and still no sign of my hostel, I tried again.

"It's backwards," pointed a lady at a pharmacy. "Backwards," pointed another boy.

HOW CAN IT BE BACKWARDS? I JUST DID THAT STREET AND SAW NOTHING!  I was starting to get really furious!!! And for those of you who know me, you know it's not pretty when I start getting furious over being lost (maps get torned and thrown into the garbage).

The maps on the streets of China don’t have the Pinyin translation, so that feeling that you might be saved by those beautiful murals full of roads that tell "you are here", are rendered completely useless… 

I started getting desperate and stopping the taxi drivers and showing my address that I had saved on the iPad, both in English and Chinese, but the taxi drivers refused to take me for some reason I didn’t understand because they only spoke Chinese...

The fourth taxi driver I stopped seemed to recognise it but didn’t want to take me, he kept gesturing number 2 and pointing backwards. Still, I sat on the front seat, closed the door and pointed at the road. "Let's go!" He started yelling at me in Mandarin what I can only assume that meant he didn't want to take me cause he continued to gesture backwards and signaling 2. "Some say forward, other say backwards, I am tired of being lost!" I yelled in English. He must have understood I was stubborn cause he put down the taximeter and drove.

After driving the same road I had walked on foot twice, turning and stopping in an alley he pointed forward. I still couldn’t see my hostel and there was no chance I was going to pay and keep on being lost. So I pointed forward too and told him to keep going. He started arguing with me again in Mandarin and I argued back with him in English that I was tired of being lost. I ended up winning the argument again cause the car, which he was afraid was not going to fit in the tight space, did fit, and I found my hostel.

The point is: had I payed attention to the exit I entered at the subway, the way to my hostel would have taken me 2 minutes instead of 2 hours... And, I finally saw Pandas!!

Pick Up A Weirdo - Auschwitz

When I found out that there were direct flights to Beijing from Europe, my immediate thought was to visit a city I had never been before. But the cheapest flights I could find were from Helsinki, Warsaw, and Copenhagen (all cities I have already visited). That’s how a new idea emerged: I’ve always wanted to see Auschwitz and last time I went to Warsaw, almost eight years ago, I promised myself I would go back to Poland just to see the concentration camp.

And when my sister wanted to spend her Carnival break in Amsterdam, we decided to put two  and two together and visit Anne Frank’s House ---» Concentration Camp.

Beds in Bikernau

                                    

The first thing I thought when I got to the camp was: “I’m wearing a jumper and a shirt, two jackets, a beanie and a scarf, and Timberland boots and I’m freezing. How did those people survive with just stripped pyjamas?” While we were walking to the entrance it started snowing. The blood I my veins seemed so tick and soon enough the places where the flow was slower were beginning to burn. It didn’t take long till the simple act of taking my gloveless hands out of my pockets to take pictures was restrained to what was absolutely necessary.

Auschwitz I is divided in blocks, and some of these blocks are open for exhibitions about the life in the concentration camps. The story in some of the signs are atrocious: “the bodies of the prisoners trying to flee were displaced here as a warning”, “here is a site of mass murder, please keep silent to show respect”, among others… 

But those are not the stories that make my throat throb and force me to swallow hard, the solidarity stories do. The one that tells the story of a mother separated from her daughter who later, after the camps' release, was reunited with her, due to the kindness of strangers that took care of the little girl and protected her. The stories of surviving children in Auschwitz telling how adults made them toys out of rags, stones and wood. The story of a priest who volunteered to die in the starvation cells to save a family man. The horrors that those people were subjected to do not surprise me, but seeing that protective instinct that characterises our species does. Seeing that there were people that never abandoned hope, kindness, and solidarity while suffering cruel acts? Those are the times I discover the true meaning of “humanity”.

The museum was full despite the cold and the occasional snow. Some people carried bouquets of flowers, perhaps people that empathised with what had happened or relatives of someone who had been forced to live there. But those people, with those flowers serve as reminders that these stories aren’t made up, that what happened there doesn’t come from a horror book. Those were real human beings with real families. How did things like fear, hate, thirst for power and abstinence allowed for such stories to become a reality?

        

      

The museum is not harshly severe for the faint of heart that might believe they could never visit it. We see more gruesome things on television on our daily lives. But there are some things less merciful. Rooms showing from one end to the other the two tons of women hair that were retrieved from sacks the Germans intended to sell as textile.Thousands and thousands of dusted and ratty shoes, taken from the people on their arrival when they were delivered wooden clogs. In the middle of so many shoes it is almost a miracle when you find one with a pair.

When we visited the gas chamber in Auschwitz I was waiting to feel that distinguished smell of burnt that so many people talk about when visiting the camp but it didn’t happen. It was only after we caught the free shuttle that takes us to Birkenau (Auschwitz II) that such smell became present. Dozens (maybe hundreds) of crematoriums are displaced in one side of the camp, broken and burnt. On the other side are the prisoners’ barracks, where they were force to sleep in three levelled bunks, squeezing against one another because of the lack of space.  Some even wrote their names on the walls, afraid that someone will forget they were there, afraid that history will mark them as just another number that died in the holocaust. 

            

For those who wish to know: from Warsaw’s train station (Warszawa Centralna) there are direct trains to Krakow (Kraków Glowny). The price ranges from 60-200 zloty (15-50 euros), depending on days and time (my advice is to go to the information centre and ask which one is the cheapest train). The journey takes 3 hours.

When in Krakow it is possible to stay in a hostel for one or two nights. Krakow is a beautiful city and there are some Free Walking Tours that tell the story of the city and guide you through the most important monuments (this works specially well if you’re anything like me and suck with directions and are constantly getting lost with maps).

It is possible to catch the train to go to Auschwitz (the stop is 2km away from the museum and they are less frequent than buses). My advice is to take the bus (the bus station is in the same shopping centre as the train station). The tickets are more or less 12-14 zloty (+/- 3 euros) and the buses stop in the museum. You don’t need to buy a return ticket, there are a lot of companies with buses at different times so you don’t need to depend on the same one. The Polish name for Auschwitz is Oswiecim so this is the name you should be on the lookout when trying to find the bus.

The entrance to the museum without guide is free. 

Pick Up A Weirdo - Anne Frank's House

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single minute before starting to improve the world."

- Anne Frank

Today we went to Anne Frank’s house. I was surprised by the fact that until this day, people still don’t really understand how empowering and meaningful words can be, at least not until we experience things like this.

When we start the tour to the museum, in this little room, there are four televisions where a girl’s voice is relating the uprising of the Nazi-Germany and how they have started treating the Jewish people, leading many of them to emigrate. 

There isn’t a single whisper. Not like in school when the teacher is passing a movie and there is that occasional naughty kid who has to keep talking. Or when we are mourning those who’ve perished in a terrible accident or attack by offering them a minute of silence and there is that hush-hush sound a few seconds before people understand what is happening.

You can only hear the British accent of the girl portraying Anne and the sound of people breathing around you. And, when she stops talking, you see dozens of people staring at a black screen, not daring to move, to speak, some have even forgotten to breath for just a few seconds. A few seconds before normalcy takes over and you think: “if people are so moved by what happened, if those words have touched them in such ways they have even forgotten about everything else, then why can’t we feel moved by things happening right now? Why do we still allow horrors like this to go unpunished?”

Anne Frank's room

We continue the tour, and although I feel deeply about what happened to Anne and felt even more when I read the book and found out that she didn’t have her happy ending, I can’t help but wonder if it wasn’t her death that made her silent voice heard by thousands. I read a smilar book to Anne Frank’s diary, called Clara’s War, about a girl who kept a journal while she and her family were hiding under the floorboards of a friend’s house, who was hiding them. The life conditions that Clara and her family went through where much harsher than Anne’s, and they almost suffocate a child to death over fear of being caught, but she never had the public knowledge Anne Frank had. Perhaps, is due to the fact that her book was published later on, when the war was a distant thing, when the pain of it was just a scar that didn’t hurt anymore. Or perhaps, her survival didn’t quite get the catalyst factor that drove Anne to fame.

The bookcase that hid Anne Frank and her family

She wanted to be famous even after her death. She wanted to leave a mark that would last even after her eyes were closed and she got her wish. But why are we only moved by those who’ve suffered when it’s already too late to help them? 

Racism is not a thing completely in the past. Discrimination against religious believes are as present now as in the anti-semitic times. War horrors are still allowed in some countries, where people don’t have anyone fighting for them. And what was the first thing the USA did after WWII? They created a segregated country. South Africa created the apartheid Jerusalem started a war with Palestine… 

And now we have countries refusing to admit the Holocaust ever existed, telling us it’s a made-up story.

Will humans ever learn from their mistakes?

Pick Up A Weirdo - The Beginning

You are never to old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.

– C. S. Lewis

Perhaps I should start with an explanation of what led me to travel. 

At this very moment, my friends and family simply ask where I intend to go next, but it wasn’t always like this, I think I really took them by surprise at first. Except my mum, she always saw right through me and my adventurous spirit. She knew, for example, that in order to get me to do something she would just need to flap her arms and yell “chicken, chicken, chicken” and that would get me to do whatever I was afraid of doing. But the others? They saw me as a little shy girl that liked to sit in a corner with a book.

I didn’t like to talk to strangers, I spent a lot of time in my room and I didn’t go out much (not exactly what you would think of the free-spirited). 

But I did like travelling. I was my mother’s faithful companion, while my siblings complained of tiredness and boredom when we watched “rocks and more rocks” I was always eager to learn more and see more. So that was the beginning.

When I was nineteen, I was overwhelmed with a sense of not-belonging, of not wishing to be home. I didn’t like what I was studying, I really didn’t want to go out with friends and I felt a sudden urge to run away. So I did, with my mother’s permission and support of course. I moved to London to study a knew field and leave in a new place, somewhere where I could start fresh and finally live the adventures I was looking for in books. 

I started by moving into a house possessed by a ghost who was trying to kill us by making us all fall down the stairs. Or so my housemates said. He must have taken a liking to me or maybe he enjoyed the fact that I had a predisposition for supernatural things, because he (or she ,let’s not be sexist here) never pushed me down the stairs – although there was that event when the vacuum cleaner fell down the stairs and onto me.

Later, feeling better but still not feeling like I belonged there I decided that I wanted to learn Spanish and the best way for me to do it was if I went backpacking through South America. I met amazing people, and not so amazing. I saw old friends and family again. I had great experiences and some bad ones... But I finally started feeling that sense of belonging.

And so began my story…

Pick Up A Weirdo - D-Day

If it's both terrifying and amazing, then you should definitely pursue it.

My leaving day is here. I start looking around my bedroom and I have the sudden urge to close my fingers around my hair, not because I'm anxious or scared, although I think those feelings are not really helping, but because the drawers are opened, the clothes scattered, the books on the floor, and my desk filled with latte mugs.

I skim the check-list and I am certain that there will be something left forgotten. How did I leave everything for last minute?

Oh, I know! Because it's me!

Which leads me to that feeling I often find myself ruminating over: anxiety or lack of preparation? It's natural to feel slightly nervous before a trip, but all the time and that much? If you had prepared your itinerary a little more, seen how to get there, planned your days better, packed your bags sooner (and I mean everything, not just for the picture), wouldn't you feel more relaxed? Anxiety or lack of organisation? If you had prepared a list in advance, with the items as they appeared and not on the last day, hoping you'll remember everything and yelling profanities when you remember one on the way to the airport, maybe you wouldn't be so stressed.

And then I think: it wouldn't be me if I did. I wouldn't be that person who went to South America with nothing planned, with only the two first nights reserved and no idea of how to catch a bus to go to Bolivia (I hadn't even bothered to learn that the travel system in South America is amazing). That girl who found the next place she wanted to see only after someone mentioned it was nice and interesting (although to this date, I still regret my lack of preparation and the fact that I was robbed prevented me from seeing the Salt Flats). The one who only knew when she would buy the next ticket on the day itself and sometimes arrived at cities with unbooked hostels.

I hated that girl, she left my nerves running wild every day before a departure, but I loved that girl and her spirit of adventure. (Or perhaps, laziness, I bet on laziness)

The first week is already planned, not only because I won't be going alone but also because in Europe not planning costs you much more, but from the 14th (the day of my flight to Beijing) I am going to celebrate Valentine's Day and I'm going to date that girl again, because although I hate the little nerves, I love not having plans or knowing where to go much more.

Pick Up A Weirdo - Moving Again

If we wait until we're ready, we will be waiting for the rest of our lives.

- Lemony Snicket

During these last days at home I have been gnawing at my finger nails, looking at the box my best-friend gave me for Christmas thinking wether I should or not open the "I need a hug" gift or the "Open when you're stressed or worried"...

I'm about to embark on one of the biggest adventures of my life: a trip to China where I will learn martial arts and will propably change my life.

The feelings are ranging from "I can't believe this is actually happening" to "a whole year in China? Are you mental? Have you thought about the cultural shock? You know you're socially awkward and meeting new people leaves you anxious! You don't even like new people." Okay, so this part may be a little streched but doesn't mean it hasn't crossed my mind.

But one thing I am certain: this is the kind of thing that if you don't do it now, you will regret it for the rest of your life!

P.S.: I couldn't resist and I had to open the "I need a hug" gift to see if the stuffed animal my best-friend gave me was a panda after our "no boyfriend of mine would ever be allowed to give me a teddy bear that isn't a panda" talk. I can't believe I will finally see my favourite animal for the first time.

Pick Up A Weirdo - La Ronda

Since, my old Aussie couple and the British girl left, I've found a another Aussie guy to be my dinner mate. It's nice, because unlike Paracas, the lodge is not full of volunteers so I don't have that many opportunities to socialise and that is something that brings me down a little, since I already miss home like crazy!!!

So, the Aussie just does his life during the day, sometimes we will share a tv show in the afternoon, and go out for dinner at night, since he is travelling alone and is a bit stranded here waiting for the girl he likes to get some free time, I guess he is also a little bit lonely.

We decided to finally see La Ronda, very popular at night in Quito. It is quite a magical place, and it reminds me a little of Bairro Alto in Portugal, with its steep streets, little bars and restaurants, vibrating with music and some people talking outside. But it is also one hundred per cent South American with its typical latino music.

We dared trying the costumary "vino hervido". I can't say it goes well with food but I'm not the best wine appreciator and my dinner mate is still deciding wether he likes it or not. It's quite fruity and sweet similar to the one I had tried with Mo and David back in Cusco.

With the effects of the wine working on us we start ranting about our latest failed attempts on romance whilst travelling, he tells me about the girl he came to Quito for and I tell him about my experience from Paracas, the only person I ever told about was David when we met in Cusco so it felt nice to have someone telling me how the lost was all on the other dude (since the only thing David can tell me is "Trish, I can't believe you have feelings!!)

Later on, the restaurant starts to get its karaoke machine pulled out and a line of anxious singers starts to form. "I think it's time to get out of here," my dinner mates rushes before we have to listen to the desperate untuned singers.

Pick Up A Weirdo - Compliment more

Today the strangest thing happened. Strange for me since it's not something that happens to me everyday...

I was having my day off at the Huasi Lodge where I am now doing some Workaway experience, and I started talking to this old guy staying there. He was telling me how he had a fake stamp on his passport and was worried that he might get deported. 

I listened, not being able to do much else since immigration is not really one of my specialties and knowing that the only thing I could do was to offer to do some translation from Spanish, but also compeletely aware that my boss would be a much wiser choice. 

He just ended up thanking me and explaining me his whole situation and asking me my plans for the future. I can't say I have anything planned out, right now I am torned with the fact that I don't have money to go to China like I want to and doing some travelling in the US of A!

He seemed excited about the idea of the United States, offering me his brother's contact if I ever passed by Virginia.

The point is later that day, he came back and told me something:

He told me how, without meaning to sound flirtatious he complimented a young girl in the same dorm as him, saying "Hey, the beauty sleep must be really working for you." She was surprised and told him that as weird as it seems it wasn't something she heard that often.

He then decided to come back to me and tell me how beautiful I was and that that morning he was having a really rough morning and somehow I made it better with my contagious "bubbly" personality. That was something that I was quite shocked to hear because as an introvert who is quite sometimes confused as arrogant, being happy and bubbly is not something I hear a lot.

"Right! People normally thing that of you cause they don't know you and misunderstand you. I feel blessed because you've decided to show your extroverted side with me and made me start my day on the right foot and gave me a lot of confidence to deal with my problems. And sometimes you might not have the idea of the effect you have on people, so I just wanted to share that with you."

How wonderful would it be if people all decided to be like this old hippie man, who just wishes to spread compliments everywhere he goes, if instead of being so afraid of how we feel or what other people might think we would just be honest and smile to strangers, compliment on others beauty, others clothes, instead of being so focused on what they have of negative, or what they have that we envy.

Pick Up A Weirdo - First day in Cusco

I hiked through Calle Suecia with my heavy backpack with one thought on my mind “why had I brought so much?” Let’s face it, if I spent 4 months – if I lasted the four months – without jeans would that be that much of a big deal? And why had I packed running shoes? And who’s idea it was that writers needed computers to write? Why not use paper anymore?

I walked past by 499 directly to 565. Where the hell was 504? Was the universe on some kind of conspiracy against me?

I asked two men passing by if they knew the hostel. One of them, the youngest, took out his phone and searched it on maps. I wanted to take my rucksack and put it on the floor so I could rest my shoulders, but I didn’t want to look weaker than I already was with my fluttering voice and quick breath. I was still getting used to the altitude in the Andes. Instead, I shifted constantly the weight on my back.

The hostel was ever further. I kept walking and when I finally saw it, it was on top of a steep staircase, every time I lifted one leg to take another step I felt the weight of the bag leaning me backwards.

Cusco was a city that seemed to not have been touch by time at its fullest. You could hear the occasional noise of cars but they were mostly muffled by the sound of screaming children playing, the birds chippering, and tourists talking all over the restaurants. Sometimes even the clock made its presence duly noted.

I sat on one of the park bench people watching while I wrote on my notebook. Everyone was travelling in pairs or with their families and I never felt more alone. How was I gonna make those four months when every second that passed I was constantly reminded of something I had not allowed myself to think about for so long? When there was no distraction, no one to keep me busy?

An old woman sat next to me asking me if I was writing on my diary. I tried to explain to her in the little broken Spanish I knew that I was a writer, I was surprised when more Spanish words came out of my mouth I had never been able to have a conversation with Spanish people when I’d tried before. I guess it really was true that you need to be in the country to learn a language. But as she started talking about how she was a divorced women with the same number of children my mother had, and go figure… one of them even had my name, I realized I was being scammed. Still I did not accept to buy anything from her, gave her a few alms and she left contempt.

Soon after that I called it a day and returned home. Home! That was a joke. I had no home. When I went back, where was I gonna go back to? Portugal wasn’t for sure. But I still didn’t know my place in the world.

Why writers lead better lives than others

As I was reading an article on writing I came up with an advice that said “turn the lights and music off, and listen to the rain”. This advice especially moved because on that very same day as I was leaving the house I had been attentively paying attention to what I like to call “the sounds of London”, my brain just kept working as I was trying to absorb all in and trying to come up with ways to describe how the two floor bus sounds different from the everyday car, and how the planes fly over my head …

Later that day I went to my bedroom and sat on my bed, that normally causes me to face a wall of pictures and memories, but it was raining and there were small drops on my window. I did not want to face a white wall, I wanted to look outside and see the naked branches dance unrithmically against each other. I wanted to see the tall pikes of the nearby church visible from my bedroom trying to touch the grey sky, and I wanted to see that black small bird that had already wandered too much from its tree.

The point is, I did not needed to follow that advice, I was already doing it. And yes, Beethoven’s Spring Sonata may have been playing in the background but that was because the rain was a simple pitter-patter.

Writers, just like artists, find beauty in the outmost ordinary things in life. My mum’s green eyes smudged with brown near its iris amazes me. The cold seaweed smell of the ocean soothes me. The way each note is played in a piano sends shivers down my spine and the drumming of a djembe feels me with energy. We just record everything in our minds and find beauty in what is simple.

A fellow writer once told me “writing is the only form of art that does not require sense”. People need their ears to listen to music, their eyes or touch to see and feel art, their mouths to sing and their bodies to dance. Writers just feel all of those senses intensely but do need none in order to perform their art, they just put one letter after the other and make people feel with their imagination… is imagination a sense? I do not recall learning that in school. 

Pick Up A Weirdo - My first day in London

The date is 6 of August of 2012, London is booming with excitement for the Olympics but that is not what has brought me and my brother here. I clutch to my pillow tight, I had refused to move countries and leave my bedroom behind without it. Part of me wants to scream to my brother how excited I am, how I am finally fulfilling that thing I set my mind to do when I was 11 or 12 years old and everyone just thought I was a foolish dreamer. I’m moving to London.

But another part of me is terrified. I am only 20 years old and living at home with my family is all I’ve known my entire life. It had been my life. The thing that had brought me an enormous pain but a tremendous happiness. Maybe my levels of happiness hadn’t been top of the chart on these last few months but my friends – even if scarce in numbers, were the people I held most truly at heart – they had been my safe haven in moments of need, and my family the people that gave me strength to get out of bed. How was I gonna manage without them? What the hell was I thinking?

My brother and I stand with one huge travel luggage and a hand luggage each, while my cousin – the person who went to pick me up from the airport and it will soon become one of my five house mates – recounts the newest episodes of moving houses and tells us how one of our dear mates had just fallen off what will be known in our house as possessed-by-a-ghost stairs. I listen with excitement while I forget to pay attention to my surroundings and keep bumping into people and forgetting that I should now start apologising in English instead of Portuguese.

When we get to the house, a poor Tânia climbs down the stairs with a painful look, she has not slept properly in regards of being in the hospital after falling down the ghost-possessed-stairs. A cheerful Vanessa greets me heatedly and tells me that she has baked a cake to congratulate my arrival. Later on, she discovers that I’d practised martial arts whilst in Portugal and asks me to teach her so she can beat up one of her friends. I half-heartedly promised, happy for her enthusiasm but feeling slightly nervous: I’m not used to that kind of energy.

We all climb up the stairs again to see the bedrooms and make a final decision of who gets what. The condition is: I either share a bedroom with Vanessa, and use the fourth tiny bedroom as storage or I will have to live in the tiny bedroom. The decision is not even hard: I will always choose isolation, a little piece of my own where I can run to whenever the world outsides starts becoming too loud. Besides I have already heard rumours about Vanessa’s tidiness and sleeping habits. Two years later we will sleep many nights together in her bedroom but this one is a decision I will never regret because although I have changed a lot, I still treasure that little piece of my own space.

Later in the day, when Tânia and Vanessa have fallen asleep while we were all talking in what was now Vanessa’s bedroom, Renato shows up. He is cordial and nice but does not possess the same enthusiasm the others have about me, to him I’m not the new pet in the zoo. He asks me about my pet peeves, if there is anything I absolutely go mental when someone else keeps on repeating. I can’t remember at the top of my head but my brother helps me out.

“Leaving the toilet seat up,” he says, to which I nod in agreement. Renato promises me I don’t have to worry.

By this time I should probably have mentioned that my brother went move in with me. He has come here with the sole purpose of helping me move in. “I came here to work,” he stated once, talking about the fact that he had come to London to help me carry bags, buy furniture, assemble it and paint my room.

This is a complete new chapter that I must start on my own.

He spends a week with me in London where we see the sights and do all he was supposed to, except paint my room; I will do that later with my cousin. On his last day the truth of it all starts gnawing on me like a razor blade and that is why I move the mattress that was in the bedroom next to mine into my own, by bed is already assembled but there is no way I’m gonna sleep alone tonight, I want to feel that the last piece of is still sleeping in the same room as me one last time.

The next day we wake up to take him to the airport, only to find out that the place is chaotic because the Olympics have just finished the day before and everyone is trying to get home. We, me and my cousin, end up leaving him there although he has no guarantees of getting a seat in the plane, but he will eventually get home I know. Back home I try everything to keep myself busy; I don’t want to face this reality just yet. I see Big Fish with my cousin for the very first time and when it finishes it’s time to go back to my empty room.

I’m 20 years old, in a more open and diverse country than my own but at that moment all I want is my mum to be next to me.