Once in a while we have to remember ourselves why we love our lives. Why we love the choices we make and the background we have. Today is one of those days.
As most of you know, I'm living in Riga for a while and the cultural shocks are endless. Many people would find them a challenge, I actually find them or extremely funny or extremely sad. But please don't think these differences are only between the “western” and the “eastern” Europe. It's not. The amusing part of living in Riga is that I can have breakfast with an Australian, lunch with an American and dinner with a Russian. Actually, that is pretty much my life right now since I'm enjoying the pleasure of vacations in a country where i'm not eager to spend all my free time in art galleries or museums.
So among many conversations I realized I'm proud of two main things: Being Portuguese and being born in 1981. That is synonymous of:
Not knowing the difference between a Glock G21 or a Smith & Wesson 357 but can tell the difference between a “blue” or a “pink” Picasso.
Having no idea what is the pleasure of having my mouthful of bacon fat or pork chops, but know all about italian homemade pasta or french cuisine.
Having read more books at age 12 than many of the people I meet now had read on their entire lifes.
Don't have the place in my heart to take someone's life but have all the space in the world to make things right no matter how painful it is.
Be wise enough to know that I no longer need to put all my knowledge in the bar table to prove how smart I am.
Be absolutelly sure that how much people love me it's not and will never be related to the size of my tip. (Sorry Kiwi girls for not tipping in the first months!)
Having no childhood friends that have been in war but that are making a difference in the World in Human rights.
Knowing that my english is not perfect and realizing that the only people that criticize it are the ones that are not able to speak any other language.
Keep trusting people in personnal and professional matters knowing that there are 80% chances I will be disapointed.
Having friends that offer me a return ticket to other country just to have lunch and there is no sex involved or any payback issue.
Having no idea how Justin Bieber looks like but my face shines when someone asks me if I know who is Scaramanga.
Lived Seinfeld the same way the new generation is living all this vampire and zombie crap. And don't take me wrong, I love “The walking death”, but some things are good, only a few are genious.
Have tickets on my wallet for public transportation in London, Paris or Amsterdam since I can remember, instead of the new playstation or the new mac or the what-so-ever-that-will -protect-me-from-reading-something-that-it's-not-online!
Being vegetarian for more than 11 years but still be able to respect all the others when they don't have half of the respect for me.
Knowing “Toda Mafalda” strip by strip and still being astonishing that the translators of the world found it more important to translate to all languages including mandarim but not to english.
Realizing that before 25 I didn't even knew the concept of one night stand but knew everything about dinners, cinema and kisses in the sunset.
But more than everything I said above, what I'm really proud of, is not to take in consideration stereotypes, even when, at the end of the day, they actually seem more accurate than ever, like right now.
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