I bought this limited edition Veiga Serantes Albariño (bottle no. 0457 — of one thousand?) in Marumba. And it was a nice bottle of wine. At 13%, it is a bit stronger than Oro Valei, although twice as expensive, so probably not the best value bottle of vino blanco. The search for truly great Spanish white wine continues...
Last night, I watched this film on Spanish telly, without any subtitles, either English or Spanish. I can’t say that I followed all the dialogue, but when you see the movie for the fourth time it’s not that important. What is important then? I don’t know. This time I paid more attention to the beautiful score by Alberto Iglesias. I was expecting the film being re-edited for television (as many features shown here are, and rather heavily), but it was shown in its entirety, except for the end credits.
Sex and Lucía is not exactly an erotic movie, but the love scenes between Lucía (Paz Vega) and Lorenzo (Tristán Ulloa) are both funny and touching and as erotic as could be.
Last night, or rather in the small hours of Sunday morning, I watched Zelig once again — this time, with Spanish subtitles (which amused me a lot). I find the protagonist of this “mockumentary” more touching and, well, more believable than other Allen’s characters.
The clip below contains one of my favourite scenes in the movie, viz. the escape of Zelig and Fletcher from Nazis on the airplane upside-down.
Zwei fanatische, idiotische, amerikanische Dummköpfe, kriminelle Schweinehunde, die Zelig und Fletcher heißen, ruinierten in einer wichtigen Rede unseres Führers Adolf Hitler den besten Witz...
Das ist fantastisch. Absolutely brilliant.
I bought this amazing piece of kit seven years ago and it is still alive! I even have a few gigabytes of its (40 GB) disk space left. Back in 2004, this was probably the best gizmo of its kind. Granted, even then it did not look as sexy as iPod, but it can do so much more. Most of my music there is in OGG format. It also is a surprisingly good-quality dictaphone. There is a (still unreleased) recording of a bass/drum/guitar trio (eventually becoming a duo as the drummer left the building) in the basement of my old workplace. (When I grow old and famous, I may want to release it to raise some cash.) Also, from time to time I used it just as a portable hard disk that it is.
And here’s a problem: where to get a replacement when (or, better, before) it crashes? iHP-140 is not available in shops any longer. According to Wikipedia, this player is discontinued and succeeded by iRiver H300 series, which is also unavailable. Most of affordable MP3 players for sale now have no more than 8 GB memory. In the meantime, I hope it does not die a sudden death just before my Zumba class.
Things are positively improving here. After finishing our kilo of Maragogipe and half-way through a kilo bag of Lavazza (bought via Amazon!), I was relieved to find that now we have the source of quality coffee beans in Corralejo. They could be found in the Marumba store in C.C. El Campanario. During our last visit there (yesterday, to be precise), I bought a bag of Costa Rican beans and a bottle of this delicious rosé from Catalonia. Try it if you can find it.
This beautifully told story is set on Bougainville, the Melanesian island of which very existence I was ignorant until now, during the 1990s civil war. I loved the book, but be warned. When the “redskin” soldiers appear in the village for the first time, you know it is not going to end well. Still, nothing prepares you to the horrors of their final visit.
My favourite chapters are the ones where Mr Watts, the only white person in the village, invites the parents of the children to come into his classroom and “share what they knew of the world”.
 | ‘There is a place called Egypt,’ she said. ‘I know nothing of that place. I wish I could tell you kids about Egypt. Forgive me for not knowing more. But, if you care to listen, I will tell you everything I know about the colour blue.’ ‘Some islands have beautiful names for different winds. My favourite is the wind that is known as “gentle as a woman”.’ Gilbert’s uncle, a big man, round as an oil drum, black as tar from toiling out at sea, came to speak to us about ‘broken dreams’. He said the best place to find a broken dream is on the wharf. ‘Look at all those dead fish with their eyes and mouths open. They can’t believe they are not in the sea and never will be again.’ ‘At night the blimmin’ dogs and roosters chase after dreams and break them in two. The one good thing about a broken dream is that you can pick up the threads of it again. By the way, fish go to heaven. Don’t believe any other shit you hear.’ |
I bought this DVD on the strength of the Amazon reviews — and was not disappointed.
Quenia starts with Welcome and, in just two minutes, introduces the samba reggae Basic Steps. These look easy; that’s encouraging.
To my fellow Zumber@s, Quenia’s Warm-Up may seem more like “cool-down”: a lot of stretching exercises, some of them rather impressive. At 12 minutes, it is a bit longer than your typical Zumba class warm-up/cool-down. But you can’t have too much of a good thing. You will be sweating by the end of it.
In Workout #1 (about 37 minutes) Quenia builds up, well, a “routine”: shows a step, repeats, adds a new step, repeats “from the top”, shows a new step and so on. Non-stop. (Speaking of stops: the great thing about the DVD is that you always can use the stop button to catch your breath. I had to do that a few times during Workout #1.) “Routine” may sound boring, but actually it is a good fun. OK, I found Quenia’s verbal cues rather redundant and did not exactly fell in love with her voice. So what, I know how to turn the volume down, so it really is not a problem. It would be perfect if there was a way to quick-jump to particular steps, because the only way to navigate within Workout #1 is the good old fast-forward (or fast-backward).
Workout #2 (about six minutes) is basically the same routine as we learn in Workout #1 but danced at the higher pace. As by now we should know it more or less by heart, it goes without any commentary.
I love how Ms Ribeiro introduces her band and dancers and explains the role of each instrument. Once again, quite unlike Zumba Fitness Anonymous.
One day, I hope to learn how to dance samba properly. I can start with making good use of Quenia’s moves.
