Passeig Maritimo (Palma) – flower power

Passeig del Born – beauty lies in the simplest of things

Carrer de Colon – how the traffic stopped

[what you guys don’t know and that, to be honest, I'm a little embarrassed to say (surprisingly, I still have some shame left) is that I waited for 10 minutes (Ok… 15m) for Helena to leave the store where I saw her to take her picture. It’s not the 1st time that I do something like this and I doubt it will be my last]

Palma – the Sinbad effect

Five months, five gardens

A Londoner spends the double of his time in the parks of London than a Lisbonian does in Lisbon.

In the historical centre of Tallin alone there are more 23 outdoor cafés than in Lisbon and all its metropolitan area.

The percentage of Swedish executives that wear linen suits is the double of the Portuguese executives.

The Dubliners smile, on average, 2.43 times more a day than the Lisbonians.

On average, the wardrobe of a Madrilenian woman has more 4 mini-skirts than the wardrobe of a Lisbonian woman.

In December, there are 5,000 more cyclists in the streets of Riga than in our avenues.

On average, between December 21st and March 21st a Milanese gets together with his friends after work 7 times more times than a Lisbonian (that same ratio increases from 11 to 1 between March 22nd and June 20th).

The chances of a Lisbonian having, from 5PM onwards on a Sunday, the feeling of acute apathy or slight depression for not being able to get out of his head that Monday is quickly approaching is 9 times higher than the one of a Berliner.

There are 3 times more outdoor concerts per year in Bruxels than in Lisbon.

A teenager from Moscow is 3.5 times more courageous to approach the girl next door that he sees daily when they both walk their dogs than a Lisbonian teenager (knowing that the latter, with the odds on his side and a possibility 7 times lower of rain and 23 times of cold, prefers to find her on Facebook).

Taking into account all these statistical improbabilities that are hard to justify or even to understand, the odds of a festival like the Out Jazz being held in another European city with much less conditions than the ones in Lisbon would be extremely high. The point of publishing these data is not to make fun of ourselves (which is also a healthy exercise) but to promote the events that help enjoy the best of what each city has to offer. And that's the good news. Out Jazz is here. It's five months of continuous activity spread by five different gardens where Jazz (and not only) is(are) a good excuse to relax in the grass, or in one of the puffs just listening to the music. It’s an open invitation to enjoy a melodious afternoon in a green scenery. From May to September, the Out Jazz visits five gardens of Lisbon, with a different band and DJ each Sunday. This post would have made more sense in the last weekend of April than in the last weekend of August but, mea culpa, I only knew about the festival this year (in the middle of its 4th edition). But you still can enjoy one month of Jazz. Today was the last day in Torre de Belém. Next is Tapada das Necessidades and anyone who’s been there will tell you that it’s really worth it. And using the wise words of Cesária Évora that we listened last Sunday in a remix version, if you visit Tapada das Necessidades these next Sundays, from September this year, until May next year, you won’t be feeling “saudade”* just for the good weather. And I’m being serious.

* portuguese word, mean here

Seville in Madrid

Postcard from the Baltic

Hey man, how’s it going?

I’m not going to lie, Riga is filled with beautiful women, but you don’t catch glimpses such as this one in every corner. Thus the “postcard” title. Baiba has something really special in her and, deep down, she perfectly shows the cosmopolitan idea that the Baltic transmits. Here, most people carry their PCs and MACs around because you can easily find a place with internet access. As you can imagine, for a guy like me, that has to go to Terrugem’s public library when I need to visit a site that is not related with Banking, this is something that I take very personally. On another level, the thing that touched me the most was the natural way of how they look at a foreigner guy that suggests taking their photo. The spontaneity... the trust when they’re approached by a perfect stranger or the ease on how they invite him to a birthday party later that day. That was, no doubt, the thing that touched me the most.

Dinner next Saturday, don’t forget!

Zé

You'll wear the bow tie and I'll bring the flowers

The photographer that turns XXL shirts into mini dresses

And, like the title suggests, she also takes some pictures

Elegant cyclist

Kristine's superman

you can find (among many other things) acessories like this one...[more or less original, more or less bold...] here

Unbearable lightness

Riga

Rose Rouge

Tallinn Old Town - colourful friends

Tallinn Old Town - black and white

A singular boy

Tallinn

Shorts & jacket

Helsinki Cyclestyle

White Composition

Same set, same presence

Summer suits her so well

Après-soleil

Simple choices, beautiful effects

Serpa - Chapel of Our Lady of Guadaloupe

Feminine. Dressed in a manly fashion, but oozing femininity

Madrid is cold in the Winter and unbearably hot in the Summer. Climate governs what people wear and by this time of the year that is reflected in light clothes. Men are almost always demanded the strictness of a suit, but women enjoy a more free style. The result? Dresses and more dresses. Dresses after dresses. Light, delicate and fresh dresses. Maybe that was why I felt so much the splendor of the feminine presence in Madrid. Of all the cities, Madrid sounded eminently feminine to me. Just like Inés, that although dressed in a manly fashion, oozes femininity through her every pore

José Luis – Carmina, real shoemakers

We have almost everything in Lisbon. And even if we didn’t, I wouldn’t be missing most of the ultra premium brands that opened a store here in recent years. I always have a soft spot for handmade pieces, those pieces that are not caught by the globalization effects. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge supporter of globalization (and I love reminding those people that supposedly hate it how benefited they are by it), but while the probabilities of finding what I’m wearing being worn by other people remain low I’ll be thanking the destiny.

If there are areas where the technological advances provide us daily joys and push everything that was done before to the utmost obsoleteness, classic footwear is not necessarily one of them. At Carmina, besides having a highly professional and charming staff, you can find amazing shoes created using the most traditional methods and by the best craftsmen. With or without seams, with shoelaces, tongues, one color, two colors, for men or women. They're beautiful, but not exactly cheap. But now, with sales season full on, most of them are more accessible. With 6 stores, three in Madrid and one in Bilbao, Palma de Mallorca and Paris, those close encounters with faithful reproductions of what we're wearing won’t be very likely. As I was saying earlier, we have almost everything in Lisbon, but it wouldn’t do us any harm if we had a Carmina store

Formal black, casual black

Blue skirt, Spanish pose

Somewhere between streatwear and sportswear

School uniform

Desiree with a military touch

The jacket? Who cares about the jacket...

Lukewarm rain

Pin-up Alcalá

Madrid me mata!

Marcela, Marcela’s dress and Fabrico Infinito

I had gone through the place thousands of times, but I only just looked. No doubt it was nice and sophisticated but it had never raised enough curiosity for me to get in. You see, in my opinion, the best and most unusual is back there in the garden. It doesn’t even feel like Lisbon!! The air is different there. When I arrived in the garden I looked at the swing and the slide (both pieces worth being in a museum) and I realized that no matter the city in the world where you are, I would always be amazed by finding such a place. And when I tried to find an adjective for all that was before my eyes, someone finished my sentence and said “it’s magical”. I felt slightly bothered for showing my astonishment with the place so openly, so I reluctantly shrugged my shoulders and said:
- Yeah…it’s indeed magical…
And it really is. My luck that Marcela, the owner of Fabrico Infinito, rhymes with the place. As for me... well, I just got another beautiful vision on my blog

Shorts & bags (South African girls)

Hong Kong at Campo Grande