You know, a traditional American hat...

So my co-worker "Jim" who is a bit of a typical young, outgoing, party hopping dude, informs me last week that he will be DJing at his local watering hole. Now, for most of you reading this, you have DJed, have a friend that is a DJ, or at the very least have been to a bar or club with a DJ and so I am going to assume that the term DJ conjures up a similar idea to both you and I. I am not sure it means quite the same thing to him. Jim is a young guy but his musical tastes lean more towards classic rock and cheesy blasts from the past. He is fairly certain that all things cheesy are ironic and therefore cool. Which lets be honest isn't a far stretch from the stereotypical ironic hipster we love to hate. The difference is that the hipster in Williamsburg, London, San Francisco or Baltimore or wherever actually has a point of reference for what is "hip". Jim over here - ehhh, not so much.
But that's ok. Jim is truly all about just having a good time, for good times sake. So he orders a few CD's and when they arrive he decides he is going to go through them to listen to what gems he has scored. The title of one collection of CD's is "Old School Hip Hop to Jog to" - or something like that. There are a few Sr. Mix A Lot songs along with House of Pain's "Jump Around", you get where this collection is headed right? The next compilation he has is "100 of BEST Disco Songs". I don't think I have to elaborate on the musical genius that is hiding within this collection of tunes.
Now I have been called a music snob on more than one occation, and the term pretentious has been hurled my way before, so I recognize that my making fun of this mix is pretty low, but...come on you know you feel the same way about this. And so, a good chunk of the afternoon is spent with Jim and Pam listening to these compilations, skipping happily through them to discover more and more one hit wonders and hopeful party rockers. It was like a VH1 Rock Doc: "Behind the Worst Music of our Times".
This whole DJ thing gets better when Jim informs me that it will be a theme party. The theme you ask...80's track suits, yes, in all their neon or velour glory. I expect it to be a killer night out on the town. I'll let you know how my rump shakin' get's on.
The icing to this DJ cake comes when Jim says "Oh, I got one of those traditional American style hats, so I can keep my hands free. You know those hats that you can put a drink on either side of." Ya, the good ole traditional American double beer helmet. His other thoughts on traditional Americana: the red plastic cup. Well, he has a fair point with that one.

The Office

My new Portuguese version of "The Office"

At moments it is a just a comedy of errors but it's my office, and there are good things, funny things and plain old weird things that go on over here. With this in mind I have chosen to name my co-workers after some of the characters from our American version (of course this is all very loosely based on those characters):

We have Stanley - who lets just say this is the "office manager", really this person is a combo of Stanley Hudson, Creed Bratton and Michael Scott, but for the purpose of the blog we're going to refer to him as Stanley.

Next up is Jim Halpert - the fun loving, young, kind-hearted, quirky guy next door type and friendly cohort.

Lastly we have Pam Beesly (not dating Jim) - fun, young, worker bee who, for most of her career, has been Michael Scott's assistant, and is the best possible person to manage Michael Scott.

Already I have had a few laugh out loud moments with my new cast of characters and I expect things to continue on this amusing path.

And so it begins...

So I have been here for 29 days...I have managed to maintain a bubble of English speaking people around me, with limited opportunity to speak Portuguese. Between the apartment where I am staying and my job, everyone around me speaks English! When I do venture out, Portuguese language book in hand, everyone decides it is a perfect time to practice their English on me! I am not sure I will learn anything other than "obrigada" and "te jau" at this rate (thank you and see you later), but I keep insisting that I will get a tutor once a week who will have conversational Portuguese lessons with me. Crossing fingers I manage that type of dedication in the near future.

Matt arrives tomorrow, and I haven't blogged at all through out these past 29 days; it is as if nothing has happened. But on the contrary, things have happened, observations have been made, bourbon has been found, a decent radio station was discovered, and a sushi place has been visited twice!

So since I haven't blogged, in the next few posts I will start a few things worthy of commentary just to give you all a taste of what is to come during Our Epic Adventures (please say that in you mind in a loud, slowly paced out, movie voice over kind of way) ready...

OUR EPIC ADVENTURES!!!

Here We Go!

It's here. We are finally moving to Europe. Nicole leaves for Portugal March 1st and I'll join her at the end of March! So here is the blog of it all...