Bébé na barriga (Baby in the belly).

THE BLOG IS HERE (use your password) / A NOTÍCIA ESTÁ AQUI (use a sua palavra-chave)

Kelly and the Prince... a real Prince.

OUR WEDDING.

Here are some photos of our wedding. We will put a few more up in the next few days.

A NOTÍCIA ESTÁ AQUI (use a sua palavra-chave)/ THE BLOG IS HERE (use your password)

A NEW LIFE... A NEW BLOG.

Hi everyone. Olá a todos.

After a long... long... very long break, we are going to bring this blog to life. There have been quite a number of new and exciting events and we want to share them with all of you.

Por isso, depois desta longa ausência, vamos começar a colocar notícias, fotografias e videos mais frequentemente.

Don't forget to keep an eye on this blog for fresh new developments.

Uma mudança importante é que muitas das notícias futuras serão protegidas com uma palavra-chave. Afinal de contas, estes "posts" são só para a família e os amigos. Em breve enviar-vos-emos a palavra-chave para os vossos emails. Fiquem atentos. Se não se lembrarem, escrevam-nos e nós enviamo-la outra vez.

There is an importante change to the posts from now on. You will need to use a password to read them. We only want to share our episodes with family and friends. We will be sending it to your email boxes soon, so keep an eye out for it.

Kelly e Pedro

OK FINALLY... SOMETHING.

Hi people.
After a long, long, long time, here is some news.
It will be a collection of photos, loose lines and not much else.
So, where to begin.

First, some photos from my team in Cambridge. The first is from Students Regionals, which we won, to qualify first in our region for nationals. We then went on to finish 4th in the UK.
The second photo is from Mixed Tour, the main competition in the UK for mixed teams (university and clubs). We ended 9th in the country, the best place SB (i.e.Strange Blue) ever finished at.
Also, we went to Barcelona to play another beach tournament. And, as always, there are some great parties at these events. Our team (Diz-cu, from Lisbon) went dressed up as Zorros, as the theme was famous TV series. Cool, right?

Also, two of our recent trips: The first five photos are from Vienna and the last from Bratislava. Vienna was nice and we had some great weather. Well, I had it. Kelly went to a conference to present a paper on how the Ice Sheet on the northern continental margin (near the Arctic) retreated a few thousand years ago. Well... it's about ice... and that is pretty much all I know.
I walked around the city during my lunch breaks. I was working in the hotel room on my things. Seriously... well... at least for a bit. I even went to a local library to get the right setup.





Bratislava on the other hand was weird. I don't know. I felt a bit bored at times...
There was nothing much to do. So we drank a lot... mainly hot chocolate and tea.





But it was just next to Vienna and much cheaper to fly to.

So, I'll try to be better from now on and publish more regularly.
The next one will be on my work!

Over and out.

MY APOLOGIES...

I've been quite lazy over the past couple of months. No new posts, no news, not even a single photo. I promise to update my blog over the course of next week. I have a number of events to talk about. Kelly and I moved to a new place, went to Barcelona to play a tournament, I went to Portugal to present a paper at a conference...
I'll tell you all about it soon.
I promise.

O ESTILO!

Fica aqui um registo do incomparável estilo do macho latino (eheheh). Não dá para ver bem, mas eu estava a demostrar o orgulho nacional ao usar uma t-shirt de Portugal. Os ingleses que estavam neste torneio (Nacionais Universitários Indoor Mistos) já devem ter esquecido o Mundial.

ME IN ACTION... KIND OF.

Here goes a little something for you to see what ultimate frisbee looks like.
The video in the link below is the highlights of two games of the Cambridge College League. The college league is a competition between local colleges that takes place from October to March. Everybody plays against all the teams once and the team with the most victories wins. The level of play is not high but you can still have good moments. I am one of the guys in black trousers and long black sleeves.
Enjoy!!

HIGHLIGTHS OF THE MATCHES HERE!

Eu apareco logo em primeiro a fazer um lançamento muito pouco ortodoxo (eheheh)

AI, O VERÃO!

Pois é. Ontem acordei e pensei para comigo: hoje, se calhar, vou apanhar um solinho no parque. Saí da cama, e comecei à procura dos meus calções e daquela t-shirt que me realça os abdominais (isto é, o facto deles estarem a desaparecer... ou antes, a transformarem-se num grande e unido abdominal.
Mas a fome apertou e lá fui eu à cozinha.
Bom... esqueçam os calções.
Este foi o rico cenário que vi do meu quarto.

E o meu colégio estava todo coberto de neve, também (podia ter sido só perto da minha casa... sei lá. Vai a ver e às vezes pode ser isso do el niño ou lá o que é).



Portanto... Está fresquito para calções!

OK, OK, I HAVEN'T BEEN AROUND!

I haven't updated my blog in a while, so here it goes. This first post is just to let you know what I have been doing these past 5 days.
I designed, structured, and programmed my Ultimate Frisbee University/Club's website. Everything. It took me ages, because the programming bit was tricky, but I think it came out nice. So, check it out. That is my university team.
The address is:
http://www.strangeblue.org

Drop by!

NEW YEAR IN LONDON!

So this year I spent New Year's eve with my sweetheart (yes... you can make fun of me for using that term). Anyway, the two of us went down to London to see the fireworks at the city centre.
It was nice and cosy, just the two of us and 2 or 3 million other people more (well, they were not 3 million but they looked and felt like it - it was a sea of people).You can't tell that well, but that is the London eye in the photo. And the fireworks were amazing. I'll see if I can be rich enough, fast enough, to rent an apartment close to it next year to avoid the crowd.

A TAÇA É NOSSA!

Pois é. Depois de 3 anos sem ninguém bater a equipa de Trinity na liga ou na taça de colégios de Ultimate, e depois de termos perdido a final do ano passado da taça contra eles, na semana passada fez-se história! Ganhamos o jogo das meias-finais e a final, contra Caius, foi “limpar rabinhos a meninos”. E, para não variar, mascarámo-nos. Esperemos conseguir repetir a proeza na taça de verão.
For those of you who don’t quite get Portuguese, the gist is: we won the winter cuppers of College Frisbee after 3 years of consecutive wins by Trinity College. YEHHHH!

PARKING IN LONDON

That is it!
It is impossible to park in London. It is bad enough that the city is gigantic, with over 7 million people living in the centre and another 5 million in the outskirts (metro area), and that the Mayor Ken Livingston has been introducing a number of barriers to cars entering the city. But I bring my new car into the city and I am forced to park it on the sidewalk.
Plus, I have a bunch of people asking me to try it and taking photos. I know… it looks cool, the colour is nice and it has some great features against the traffic (e.g. some rocket launchers to free the road from those irritating Sunday drivers and all drivers above 70 years old. Still, it is no reason for people to harass me.
I have to admit that some of these people may actually mistake my car and me for the real James Bond.

KILLER HALLOWEEN

The graduate students from my college had their Halloween party this last Saturday. We had the usual pre-dinner drinks in the grad room and then dinner in the main hall followed by a bop (which is an English expression that means party). The image bellow is the main hall, during dinner, with the waiters serving, pumpkins on the tables and candles in Harry Potter fashion. The difference being that ours were hanging on a chadelier, and Harry Potter's are hovering.

Fancy dressing was a must! I went as... well... it is difficult to describe. It was some sort of Lord of Death. At least to start. It was quite funny, though. The mask I was using has a double layer, with fake blood in the middle. I had a little squeeze pump that allowed me to make the blood run down my face. Disgusting! Kelly went as a Vamp-ire. It is a very subtle trick. She dressed up as a vamp (all in dark, ragged clothes, net tights) and put some vampire teeth… hence, vamp-ire. Then because I couldn’t eat nor drink with the mask on (it had no mouth opening), I turned into Killer Joker. Kind of...
It was quite fun. Didn’t get to kill anybody, though. These are my previous house mates. Cool idea to go as the Incredibles. There is a fourth, somewhere in the room.

OH, MY RIBS!

A substantial part of turning 30 can be defined as a contact with the self. That round number, 30, makes you think about your life, and especially about your youth. Some move on, acknowledging that a new phase in their lives has begun. Me, I decided I am still young and did the right thing:
went back to playing rugby!
Yes, I have re-started playing rugby a couple of weeks ago. After having played for 11 years and having stopped for 5, I thought that it would be a smart thing to do to go back to playing with 20-year old Englishmen, slightly bigger and in better shape than me. Given that I have been away for the past two weeks, my first experience was this last Tuesday’s game against Girton (one of the top 3 teams in the Cambridge college league).
To make things short: I survived!!!
And survived the whole 80 minutes of bashing and clashing with those kids. Conclusions:
1 – They run fast.
2 – Maybe 1 is incorrect and it’s me who runs slowly.
3 – If you tackle a forward twice your size, your shoulder will pop (It is ok now).
4 – A knee against your ribs can make you go without sleep and make it difficult to sit or lay down for at least 2 days (I am still suffering). Yes. I got a knee on my ribs and couldn’t really move after the game. I am better now, but will still have to rest for another 2 days.
The only consolation is (and sorry for the lack of modesty), that I was the top scorer, with 2 tries and 4 conversions, totaling 18 points out of the 53-12 win over our opponents in home soil.
Now, my motto for the rest of the games will be:
“Playing is good, surviving is better, ribs are indispensable!”

BARCELONA.

So, this was the 6th country in under 2 months. This time, to play an ultimate tournament. The Porró open is one of the funniest beach hat tournaments in Europe. A hat tournament is a competition where players register individually and are assigned to random teams. So, you always play with different people. I was there last year and this was my second visit. The weather was great. Kelly went with me and we managed to go for a swim in the Mediterranean. So, this was my 5th day of swimming at the beach. We even went for a swim in the swimming pool in the hotel we stayed in.
This is a photo of the party. We were supposed to go dressed in a specific way: only six colors were allowed (yellow, red, green, blue, orange and white). Each item could only be of one color. That is why I am looking a bit… ummmm… weird.
Next year, hopefully, I’ll be there again.

COMO PROMETIDO (AS PROMISED)...

Seguem abaixo uma série de posts que descrevem um pouco do que tem sido a minha vida neste longo período de ausência. A partir de agora vou tentar ser um pouco mais regular nos meus posts, pelo que vale a pena dar uma vista de olhos, de vez em quando... claro está... naqueles momentos de tédio. Até porque os posts são excelentes... quer dizer, muito bons... vá, agradáveis... enfim, suportáveis... são maus, muito maus. Isso é o que eles são.

(Below are some posts that help to describe what my life has been like over this long period of absence. From now on, I'll try to do it on a more regular basis, so it is worth giving it a go once in a while... you know... when you have nothing else to do. Besides, the posts are excelent... I mean, very good... well, pleasant... kind of bearable... bad, they are just really bad. that's what they are.)

MONEY!

Just out of curiosity. I am now richer. Yes, I managed to extend my budget by becoming the new Cambridge University Ultimate Frisbee Club's treasurer. They were fool enough to put the bank account under my name. eheheh. I am now taking suggestions for potential vacations, preferably in other continents, that I will take with the club's money.

KELLY: MY OTHER HALF.

Finally, after having a number of my friends bugging me to “see” and know a bit more about Kelly, here it is a preliminary introduction. I thought it is appropriate to introduce her to you all, as I have been mentioning and will be mentioning her name quite a lot. She, like me, is crazy about traveling. This means that we will keep traveling quite a bit, and my posts will reflect that. You know… since we’re going to spend a lot of time together… you know… the two of us… see… mmmm… eheheh…
So, here she is. Disregard my dumb face in the photo… I’m dazzled…

6 COUNTRIES UNDER 2 MONTHS!

Some define globalization as the compression of space and time. Technological development allows humanity to increase the speed of movement of goods, capital, information and… yes… me!!!!
It is quite true! I have been to 6 different countries in less than 2 months. Let us do a quick recap:
1 - I left the UK (which counts as the first country) raining as usual.
2 – Went to Copenhagen (Denmark) for 3 days for my conference. Lovely weather. Went with Kelly who had returned from her research cruise to the Arctic (i.e. North Pole). You may have seen Kelly in the previous post… (eheheh)

3 – Went to Portugal for some deserved vacations after having worked for about two months straight (mid-July to mid-September) non-stop to finish my first-year report (which was successfully accomplished), make my research progress and prepare the conference paper. So, these dearly-wanted vacations amounted to about 4 full days. Yes, only. The good news is that I’ll be coming back soon. Top moment?.. easy… the afternoon at the beach, in Arrábida, with my mum. We swam, had some food while looking at the sea,…it was really a relaxed time. And that was my second day of beach in the year (yes, this was in September).

4 – Then, it was straight to Vannes (France) to enjoy a few days with friends from Cambridge and Kelly. The weather was not great, but I still managed to have day 3 and 4 in the year of beach. And the friend who invited us had a sailing boat, which we took out for a ride…well… sail (eheh). I controlled the boat for a while. Tried to flip the boat without any real success. All in all, it was good and fun. Food, games and rest was all we did!

5 – Now it was Kelly’s turn to present a paper at a conference. And given that she went to mine to be with me, I went to hers. Plus, the hotel was paid for by the organization. This time was in Bologna (Italy). Not bad. Not the greatest of cities. Some nice old buildings, but nothing distinctive about it. I managed to work a bit (I took my laptop with me) and sneaked in the conference to watch Kelly’s presentation without her knowing. She was great. Plus, I got some evidence of that on film. (eheheh).

6 – Finally, tomorrow, there I go, yet again, for another tournament, this time in Barcelona. Some more beach. Although, I suppose the summer weather is now gone. Anyway, I have a big cold and I just want to get better so that I can play. I’ll revisit a few good friends from Lisbon who are also playing this fun tournament. News about it in a future post…

So, this was it… 6 countries and a lot of traveling. Still, for those who are wondering… I am working on my research, yes. And it is progressing well, amazingly (eheh).