A closed kiosk with graffiti on the shutters. A person with gray hair, wearing a brown jacket, stands in front of it holding a black Seaside bag. The kiosk sign reads “MAHIN QUIOSQUE” with Portuguese flags on either side.

Fully in the city by now, but still trying to get up to speed. Past Halloween, on our way to Christmas. US election. And another week went by without an update. Sorry, again.

πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ FUCK! Fuck you, USA!

πŸ“· I had my first two assignments since we got back. Thankfully. It’s not east to get work these days, and even more so since I’m freelancing. Mostly waiting for people to call me, and then we go away for months at a time. I’m aware a few people even think we permanently live on the island! We’re also getting to the end of the year, and client’s budgets have been spent.. Anyway, I did get a small shoot, and a nicer, bigger, one. Done.

🍰 movieStar had a birthday. CONGRATULATIONS! We were at the in-laws, so went out to Santarém for lunch. Nice Italian place.

πŸ“¦ Picking up packages left and right. Clothes for tinyMovieStar mostly. They do grow up fast, yes, but feels like nothing fits her anymore, suddenly. It’s getting colder, and she had nothing to wear, poor thing. And shoes! All her sneakers, and boots, were small from one day to the other.

πŸšΆπŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Journalist and husband had a layover in town, before flying out to Principe. We joined them, and walked around. Showing them the city, and figuring out what’s new ourselves. Every week a new place pops up!

β˜•οΈ Coffee with Ernst. Will there be a show in honor of our departed friend? Next year we’ll have the 10th anniversary, and Ernst (a dutch photographer) tought it would be nice to have a show. We’re figuring out if it’s something we can set up, and how to go about it.

πŸ₯ We were invited to a concert, a couple of friends were playing close to home. Turns out a very old friend of mine was there as well, and I hadn’t seen him in ages!! He lived in Tokyo for a while, than came back but moved to the south of the country, and he’s back now. We’ve know each other since high school!

πŸ₯˜ Went out for lunch this week, to a new-ish place. A chef from another cool restaurant left, and opened his own spot. Not far from home, but in an area I don’t go often. I was invited by a friend, and what an experience it was. We had a chef with us as well, and that is always better! The place’s name is Cerqueira (Instagram link), and if you’d like to try a traditional Portuguese tasca, with a twist, I can’t recommend this enough. Food was all delicious.

πŸ“Ί Paolo fromTOKYO. Can’t stop loving the ones where he shows us how people work in Japan. Slow Horses, we finished the whole thing again. All four seasons. The Diplomat is waiting in line.

πŸ“° Trialing Reader, from Readwise. Again. I know I’m not going to pay for it, I just enjoy the experience once in a while. Like renting a nice car from time to time. Subscribed to Readwise’s Reader! Got a nice discount, and jumped in. It is an incredible piece of software, and I’m glad I can finally use it without worrying about the trial ending. I don’t need a lot of the features, but boy do I love software with so many things to play with.

πŸ”Ž Murmel. Here’s another piece of software that does something I can use, for a fair price. I signed up. But found a couple of red flags almost immediately: blog hasn’t been updated in a long time. Mastodon presence feels a bit spammy. Very odd. Also couldn’t find a way to subscribe, and that is even odder! The site shows me logged in, but I still get a link to log in again. Emailed them, no reply so far. Sill is an alternative, free for now, but I don’t seem to like it as much. We’ll see, still a few days left on the Murmel trial.

🌐 Panda Pixels is still going, as well as sticker spotter. Finding a lot of new ones, actually.