The Apartment

Thursday, which is the equivalent to a western friday, began pretty standard.
As I explained before they are finishing off a trailer (which is starting to look very good) and as I am not directly involved, there is not much to do, my role is becoming clearer though, I am a proud member of the lighting team, so now its just a matter of waiting for the scenes to begin pouring in, and deciding what techniques we'll use.
By talking around it seems that most people are committed to making a good job similarly to myself, they are just waiting for things to become clearer and to begin the working. There is a lot of positive energy in th air.
At lunchtime I get a call saying that my appartment has been found and I am to move by the end of the day. Wow!
The apartment is two minutes away from the hotel and from work. I first come to have a look, and the view... well... it probably could not be much better, the old city, mount Zion, the the Wailing wall, Jerusalem, the Al Aqsa Mosque are right in fornt of my window. Fantastic!!
I'm just humbled by my luck, or, if you will, this undeserved blessing. As all the above weren't suficient I can also see the Scottish flag which I have mentioned before. I just wonder wher the Brazilian flag is..
It's time to move.
The father of one of the most liked guys in the company has just died so most people will be attending the funeral, moving in the afternoon is not a problem.
Too close for a taxi ride but, on the other side, too much lugagge to carry down the street, the solution was to get a supermarket trolly, it must have had some comical value to see me with my guitar hanging on my back, a heavy suitcase being rolled by one hand and a trolly full of cases by the other. Funny or not, I made it in five minutes.
The apartment is pretty spacious, it has a biggish living room, an american style kitchen with no walls separating it form the living room, two nice bedrooms and even a little varanda in front of the bedrooms facing the back of the building which is pretty nice on it's own: a lush garden and a steep wall covered with vegetation with some nice old houses on top.
Nothing is perfect... unfrotunately.
I quickly discover without a big detective effort that the owner, who will be away from the country for a year or so, is a writer and the house is full of his stuff. There are very few two empty cupboards and wardrobes the rest is just filled up. It is almost just as if I am lending a friend's apartment for a weekend, cheeky...
There are some paintings and objects that really offend my aesthetics These are easy to deal with I just take them off the wall and put them in what will be Renata's bedroom. The guy from the company has already told me that they will provide me with boxes and a storage area to keep his unwanted stuff. Which is a huge relief for me who is not fussy. I can only imagine Libia's.
At first I think the guy could be an interesting scholar with heaps of interesting books, but no, he is what is known a Messianic Jew, which is a recently invented religion which attempts to mix two things which in my opinion are unmixable: Judaism and Christianism, and he must have collected all the literature on this written to this date. There is also a lot of pro-Israeli literature in the flat which is OK by me, but a bit too close to the Christian Zionism coming from the US to make it welcome reading.
The interest in his books quickly turns to aversion and I try to put all of them into the remaining empty storage areas in the flat, quite a job, when I look at the watch it is already 9:00 pm, clearly time for me to go out for a meal.
I notice that there is an SMS on my mobile, it is a work colleague telling me the guys are drinking somewhere, I reply asking if there is any food there, the answer is yes so that is where I head to.
When I get there some people are already leaving,
I am left with my british friend, an Israeli guy and the Production manager, a German lady with a very strong character. Portugal and Germany are playing, I see Portugal's defeat and Scolari's upset face in glimpses.
The coversation becomes quite amusing, and after eating I take one or two beers, to follow a Brazilian saying: I drink to make other people more interesting...
The bar closes and we are kicked out. Despite the apartment's excess of books and stuff, realizing that I know much less of the rendering software we will be using than most of my peers and missing my family, I am happy to be be here.