#best friend

How many best friends are we allowed to have? Or maybe we should start by asking, can you have one all-time best friend in your life? Some American movies seem to make us believe that’s possible. Some have a best friend for night clubbing, other’s for gossiping, or going shopping. Some even have a best friend for having occasional sex. There seems to be a best friend for every occasion. For tech gadget freaks it’s mostly their smartphone or tablet or even favourite app. And depending on the age, you might end up having a new best friend every week.

Each of us has their own criteria of what a best friend should consist of. Some are high and some low. As in very low. If I were to think who among my friends I could name best friend, I wouldn’t be able to come up with an obvious answer immediately. Is there one single person that was always there for me, come rain or come shine. A person I could confide in my most secret secrets. And someone I know for sure would not judge or hold things against me. Someone who is as crazy as me. Who would push me to the limits and outside my comfort zone. Who would continuously make sure I won’t let myself down. Who would accept me the way I am with all my faults and still manage to see the good things in me. Well, the answer to that question is not the most obvious one. But it’s the only one that makes sense – to me at least. I am my best friend. And it’s good this way. For many reasons. Most importantly that I like myself despite my flaws and faults, and despite all the small things that drive me crazy about myself. I still like being me and I don’t mind my flaws. They might as well be my trademark and also the reason why my friends are my friends.

But sometimes it is not enough to be your own best friend. Or having just the 1, 2 or 3 best friends. Sometimes you need to be open and allow people to enter your inner circle of friends. Into the top ten and maybe turn the list upside down. Sometimes it is just important to allow the thought of someone being able to take over the best friend role for (un)limited period of time. Because every now and then someone comes along that manages to fill a gap that we were unaware it existed. And that friendship is unlike others, which makes it difficult to give tags such as best friend, good friend, soul mate etc. And maybe that’s just fine. They don’t need a tag. They are special to me.

So this blog post is in the end about the people that manage to become good friends, best friends, irreplaceable friends. Simply FRIENDS. The friends that not only come and go, but who stay forever in our hearts, even after they have left, moved away or simply said good-bye.

And while I’m writing this post, a soundtrack is playing in my head: Never let me down (Depeche Mode), My Friends (Red Hot Chilli Peppers), Out of sight (Hooverphonic), My friend (Groove Armada), Best Friend (Foster the People). Each one reminds me of moments shared with a friend. It’s their song. Every time I hear the songs; each time I play them in my head, I think of them. My friends. The ones that stayed. The ones that moved away. The ones that said good-bye and the ones I left behind. And of course all the ones that are still to come.

This blog post is dedicated to someone special. Someone that came and filled a gap. A big one.

#lost in suburbia

Searching, being on the look-out is a common denominator for a lot of the things we do. Mostly searching for the best and most effective ways of getting our daily work done and managing our personal homospheres. And sometimes, searching for a way not to break down while trying to manage ‘everything’.

Doing backpacking in Asia, the big search concerned the best and most unspoilt beaches. As a student it was  all about searching for the most central but still cheapest flat, the most economic way to get as far away as possible in the breaks.  And of course a way of getting through the studies with flying colours and managing to have a lot of fun.

Searching for fun in our (early) forties needs a slightly different planning than back in those days. It’s no longer the cheapest and best, but the best value for money. And organising a girls trip can get complicated. It’s about finding the same free time-spot as well as the right time to let husbands enjoy time alone with kids without feeling guilty leaving them behind.

A short while back we decided to take such a trip. Three friends going on a girls’ trip! Setting out to enjoy a couple of days – we were planning to plan carefully so we would not miss anything – while at the same time making sure we would be impulsive and explore the surroundings of (O)Porto. And although we kind of kicked off the impulse-thingy from the start, we didn’t really manage either to plan ahead of the trip. The only thing we managed was to get enough material to make informed choices. We thought.

Obviously when you visit for the first time a place, you’re naturally a tourist: travelling for pleasure, sightseeing and staying in hotels. But what to do if at least one of us is unwilling to be seen as an ordinary tourist?* How to disguise as quasi-locals? So again – searching for something; for worthwhile places, insider tips and coolest bars that ordinary tourists wouldn’t discover even by chance. So our tactic was to ensure somehow that our experience would be real and genuine. Not do exactly the same things as every other tourist would do. We made sure not to stay in a hotel. Instead we booked an apartment in the old part of the City. We avoided typical sightseeing. No way to catch us alive on a double-decker tourist bus while in Porto.

Somewhat paradoxical according to our “travel-value-compass” we ended up the first night and for various reasons including low blood sugar and lack of stamina by some, in one of the most touristic restaurants by the magnificent Douro-river. The duo that was playing very loudly behind our backs well-known songs in their own way (took us at least one minute to realise they were playing/singing every breath you take by the Police) did not help with the mediocre food and the really bad wine that was exclusively reserved for tourists like us. The reason of course we ended up as tourists, was that the best hotspot restaurants were fully booked until late in the evening. First free table might have been available after 23:30. This is where the low blood sugar and the lack of stamina came in.

After this first experience, we were even more set on our search for the real local thing and tuning our radars towards places locals would go and things they would do.

These ambitions lead us to be literally lost in suburbia. So for those of you who thought this blog would be about the void of living in suburbia or something in the lines of that – think again. Ploughing through dedicated in-magazines and online resources we had found this restaurant outside of the centre, in the suburbs of Porto – recommended for its rice specialties with sea food. Sufficiently off the beaten track for our taste. So after having a very quick & hasty look at the magnificent Casa de Musica we headed off to the metro. Restaurant was supposed to be 10 minute walk from the last stop of the metro line. Easy, we thought. This was supposed to be the real experience. No way a tourist would have done the same. Leaving the great old city with the plethora of sights, to go and see how the real people of Porto live, in suburbia.

Around the last few stops we started to get an iffy feeling. The surroundings outside resembled wilderness more than a concrete suburb. We didn’t really print a map. 10 minute walk we assumed wasn’t going to be a problem. When we got out of the metro we didn’t have a clue which direction to take. This was suburbia.

After asking 3 times for directions we eventually managed to find a bistro instead of the restaurant. Turned out information on the magazine was not very exact. The bistro was the spin-off of the restaurant we were looking for. No exotic rice dishes on the menu, just sandwiches. But real people, real experience and we were visibly the only non-locals.

Have we learned something from this experience. A lot. Sometimes it doesn’t matter whether you manage or not to get things done, visit a place, get a table at that fancy restaurant. At the end of the day, what counts is the experience, and the good friends you shared it with.

*= don’t ask now why it is so important. The short and psychoanalytical explanation is most probably the need of belonging to the right group namely the locals or cool strangers, but most definitely not the group of ignorant tourists that don’t really care about the local culture and real cuisine.