Here and Back Again in NYC - Day 10 (part 1) - Werther

Hey you all! Ah I just finished reading my Fifty Shades trilogy and I must say I really liked what I read! I'm feeling very book orphaned now that I finished and since the movie trailer (HOLY SHIT IT'S SO HOT, click here if you dare and watch it) came out today you won't be surprised if I start reading the series all over again soon. There are some parts that are over sweetened but the story is involving and the sex is real great! My AMAZING voice coach gave me a book called Fifty Shades of Mr. Darcy for my birthday which is a crossover of Fifty Shades of Gray and Pride and Prejudice, it’s a satire and I cannot wait to start reading it tonight! I also downloaded the first season of Mad Man which I’m excited to start watching!

Remember there was one day missing from my New York City adventures? Here it goes then!

It is always like this, when we near the end of a trip like this we start wanting to do a gazzilion things all at the same time. That is why mum and I were up extra early that morning and after our breakfast, we hit the streets. We went to several stores buying all in our way (Brazilians are very much like that, we have no sense of proportion). We went to this trendy sunglasses store, ah, the name escapes me, ah, I know! Sunglass Hut (or something) on Fifth Avenue. Don’t worry I wasn’t about to throw a couple of hundred dollars into sunglasses, I mean, I got mine at Forever 21 for like $10 and they are great! We were actually there because my cousin’s sunglasses broke and my uncle asked us to take them there to get them fixed. And I can say without a shadow of a doubt that that was the very worst service I ever got in a store. I would hop from attendant to attendant trying to get someone to help me and they would either ignore me or just try and shove to another attendant. My patience was coming to an end because I had a ticket to see Werther at 1 and the hour was nearing. Bottom line, we didn’t get anything solved and that store is the worst, I’m serious, the worst!

that's my mommy, ain't he the cutest? 

Well I got in a cab and rushed to the Met. Man, why am I ALWAYS rushing to that godforsaken place? Why can’t I just be early for once? I always arrive at the nick of time! Anyway, I did get there a good 15 minutes prior to curtain and I thought I might try my luck yet again with the student ticket thing since my seat pretty much sucked balls. And I think I’m starting to understand this whole thing, it depends ENTIRELY upon the good will of the person in the booth. Because as soon as I saw the sour face of the attendant I knew I wouldn’t be getting shit. Well, I had a ticket, a $30 Family Circle side ticket, but a ticket nonetheless, in a bit I was in!

As I headed towards my seat, which was oddly near to the stage but far too high I started regretting the decision of buying this ticket. It was the nearest seat to the stage up in the family circle so I actually had to lean forward a lot to see the stage. I also had to make a choice, to either read the surtitles or watch the opera, I could not do both. Anyway, I was just happy to be there so sod it! A very cool couple sat next to me and we chatted for a little bit before it began.

THE fabulous view!

Oh dude, Werther, it’s Massenet, only one of my favorite composers, my favorite French composer, I was in the clouds as soon as those first notes rang. Again, I loved the story telling in the beginning and the good thing about this seat was that I could actually see facial expressions! I could see them extremely well! The back of the stage was blocked to me but in the front part, not a single facial expression was missed. So it was really like watching a whole new thing, I already had a very good notion of how the production worked but now I could actually see all their faces twist and twitch!

Kudos yet again to those kids playing Charlotte’s siblings, they were simply incredible. Such sincere, playful and truthful acting you would think they were not acting at all! This makes me wish I could have seen my good friend Melanie perform in the children’s chorus. But anyway it was really great to be able to actually see with my own eyes the first time Werther sets his eyes on Charlotte. And we’re talking Jonas Kaufmann here so you people know that he absolutely rocked the singing and the acting part of Werther. I feel so lucky that I was able to actually see this amazing production live, twice! I’ll never tire of saying that because I’m truly humbled and extremely grateful that I was lucky enough to be there.

As the plot moves along I’m able to see the ball scene upclose which was such a lovely amazing surprise to me and quickly became one of my favorite scenes from this production. Even though it’s like 3 minutes long, it’s extremely romantic and gives me goose pups. Because when they arrive at the garden after the ball they are already smitten with each other. But to have that ball scene you get to see their firsts, like the first dance, the first time they look in each others eyes, their first conversation alone, it’s inspired. Gosh I’m getting way too overly excited about this. Sorry guys, you people have to remember I’m a hopeless romantic even though I put on the ice queen façade. 

You cannot help but fall for Jonas’ Werther, now I could see the amount of adoration his eyes carry for Charlotte. Although I felt again that Koch was a tad cold to MY taste. As everyone knows I’m a bit too fiery sometimes and expect characters to match that warmth. I did purchase the original Goethe “Die Leiden des jungen Werther” last Sunday. I was lucky enough to find it in a local bookstore here in my hometown and I was a sight to see squirming like an idiot because of my discovery and buying it regardless of the fact that I cannot read German. I find it it’s always good to have the origins and the originals of my favorite works (although my Pushin’s Eugene Onegin is in English but Russian is a step too far, right?). Anyhow back to Koch’s (Charlotte’s) coldness, maybe I found it frustrating because it contrasted SO much with Kaufmann’s (Werther’s) ardor.

The garden scene was so great and it was real wonderful to see the facial expressions! One day I’ll have enough money to get myself on a seat in which I can see the facial expressions, sit up straight, read the surtitles and have full view of the stage. Or at least be relevant enough to be given such a seat!

As act one finishes the couple next to me is cuddling and exchanging loving words and I’m surprised that I don’t feel the annoyance I normally do in this kind of situation. I felt actually really happy for them, they were very nice and looked very cute together. Maybe it was the opera. And in that little interval I find out that the lady is actually Brazilian, what are the freaking odds??

Act two of Werther, not my favorite part of the day. I started getting very irritated with Charlotte’s coldness and lack of compassion for this dude who was crawling at her feet! Sophie’s aria however was LOVELY. I’m so dead serious when I say that Lisette has one of the most beautiful voices I’ve ever heard! Geez, what a gift, and paired with such great acting as well as the fact that she is SUPER sweet she just totally wins me over.

I had such an amazing time at intermission. I was joined by my good, good opera buddies Harry and Kim and we talked about opera all the way and it was awesome. Gosh, I LOVE it that I have them and we can discuss stuff at the same level without me having to explain stuff. We can just talk and exchange so much in such a small period of time! Anyways, as per usual intermission flew by and we were back for DRAMA, DRAMA, DRAMA!

Act three of Werther, my favorite act! I must admit that Sophie Koch purred her soul out in this, she was INCREDIBLE. She has such a beautiful full, rich, velvety voice that fills the Met and melts your insides. It’s very contrasting with her portrayal of cold Charlotte. Although in this act she was much more emotional, kind of desperate because she thought Werther was going to kill himself. Her sister arrives and she finishes us off with “Va laisse couler me larmes” and I know that’s only the beginning of angst festival but the poor woman next to me does not as she weeps and weeps. The whole opera became even sadder because of her reaction to it, she cried most of the time. And I totally do not judge her, the first time I saw this I also cried the entire final acts. Sophie leaves and DAM, DAM, DAM, DAAAAM, Werther arrives.

I was so grateful that they remained mostly downstage for this act because then I could see the angst filled expressions of both of them. It was so FREAKING intense I was almost throwing myself off that seat in order to get a better view! At the end of that too impossibly good for words “Pourquoi me réveiller” that opera house almost came apart. I love this part because this aria prepares you for the passionate, desperate part when for brief moments Charlotte gives in. No need to say he’s all over her, and just a fun fact, they TOTALLY toned it down for the HD. They were so all over each other when I saw it, just like the kiss at the end of Eugene Onegin, they REALLY had it going ‘off camera’.

Then act four was the most frustrating thing that EVER happened to me. Why? Because I could see naught! That little square that was Werther’s room was far to upstage plus the structure blocked my view from above! Meaning I did not see anything really of this whole part. Very, very sad. I could hear it though and that was pretty awesome. And I could also see the lady who was sitting next to me fall apart. She was full on SOBBING, it was so sad, I felt really bad for her. But I also did shed a tear for our Werther.

bows from my crappy seat

At bows the audience was wild and the whole cast was just in awe of the whole response. I sat there talking to the lady for quite a while after the curtain fell and she was telling me how she knew opera could be sad but not SO sad. Then I met Kim and we headed down to the stage door so she could get her stuff signed.

Harry, Kim and me after the opera

DUDE, that stage door was PACKED! I’m talking about 60 people making loads of noise and pushing and pushing. I was really very shocked, I had never seen the stage door like this before. I made a silent prayer thanking my Scots friend Mike for making me wait for 2 hours in the freezing cold at opening night because there was no way I could have exchanged 3 words with Jonas Kaufmann in this crazy gathering.

When Jonas came out loads of people clapped and I just stayed behind waiting for Kim as she ventured to try and get a pic and autograph (she succeeded btw). I felt really bad for Jonas actually, he had to scream several times “I swear I will sign everything and take pictures but please STOP PUSHING!” that is really fucked up. Some people have no respect.

I got this pic from Lisette's twitter but it really does not do justice to what happened, here people are actually giving her room to breathe, something Jonas did not get

After the crowd cleared I was tempted to go talk to him but decided against it at the end.

I’m gonna stop here because I really wanna post this today and if I went on and told you about Fledermaus I wouldn’t be able to. I’ll post last day in NYC part 2 soon! Thanks for reading and cheers!

Exciting Concerts to Come!

Hello there world! Was that stadium turned into a slaughter house or what? But I don't really wanna talk about it because quite frankly I don't give a shit about football. I didn't even watch any of the games! I have no patience to watch those games, I feel I could be doing something much more productive with my time. 

Anyways this last Thursday was my birthday and I can safely say that I was able to do everything I love and be with all the people that I love. I had a fabulous voice lesson with my fabulous teacher. Sang Mozart who is one of my favorite composers. Went to the book store and bought the other 2 books from the Fifty Shades trilogy (holy shit it’s so good!). Had a great lunch with a complete stranger who turned out to be super nice. Then I went to the MAC store because I got a free makeup for my birthday. It was kinda terrifying during the process of the make up because at some point I did think I was gonna look ridiculous but once it was finished it looked AMAZING! I'll post a picture bellow.Then I went to a nearby Starbucks to start reading Fifty Shades Darker (I got the pretty hard cover one because they had run out of paperbacks). And can you actually believe that the guy who sat next to me all smiles and nice manners actually scolded at me when he saw the title of my book. Fucking jerk. Then I went to my aunt’s house where we had popcorn, salame, cheese and chips while we drank Lemoncello and then red wine and laughed and chatted and laughed some more. My friend Caio was to pick me up but he was late because Prince Harry was visiting the building he works in, how awesome is that, hun? When I got into his car I was extremely tipsy and holding a bag of popcorn which I handed to him, a gift from my aunt. I got to meet his new boyfriend who is really nice and very friendly and since traffic was chaotic we had a lot of time to chat. I arrived at the bar I had told my friends to meet me in 45 minutes late, they were all already there though. Then I drank several mojitos and had a blast of a good time! We even read bits of Fifty Shades Darker out loud for some laughs. Thankfully the book is in English so the amount of people who actually had the capacity of understanding what we were laughing at was small. Bottom line, GREAT BIRTHDAY.

that's me in the cool make up and with my happy drink!

I’m real excited because even though Brazil lost, what a humiliating game, I’ve started prepping today for the two most important concerts of my year in Brazil, so fuck football. First in the beginning of next month we will receive the lovely Natalie Dessay and her husband. And I know, I know I might have bad-mouthed her a little bit here for walking out of opera as if they were a worn out pair unwanted Louboutins. But that was over a year ago so sod it.

She’s doing this lovely, lovely, lovely chanson repertoire and I couldn’t help with cheer and giggle as I saw the great list of Faure chansons I adore listed out! The other ones I must admit I do not know but that’s the great thing about YouTube and that great little program I have in my pc that downloads audios from Youtube. I have over a month to become acquainted with these songs so I can fully appreciate them when Natalie sings them. 

I find that to most rewarding because, for instance, even though I loved Jonas’ concert I didn’t know any of the songs he sang, not even one. And even though it was Jonas Kaufmann and he’s like a God, I know I would have enjoyed myself much more had I known the music. Like I enjoyed myself watching Gerry Finley sing Schubert’s Winterreisse. Gosh I can remember like it was yeterday how Gute Nacht just pierced my heart and literally made me cry, he drew freaking tears from me. And I want that experience repeated because I ADORE chanson with an almost scary force, they just speak to me. I’m not a very lieder person but chansons just hit the right spot. It's taste I guess, but they get to me, and to have an actual French person (and not just any person, it’s freaking Natalie Dessay) sing them it’s really something, so I’m super excited. I’m probably going on both days, haven’t decided yet but probably going to both performances.

And then towards the end of next month one of the inspirations of my life nicest people I’ve ever met is coming back. Joyce, the coolest opera singer EVER! I got the news that she was scheduled to sing in São Paulo in August of this year a little bit before going to NYC in October of last year and actually meeting her in person. So I actually got to ask her about that engagement and she told me she was super excited about coming back to Brazil and that the audience was simply superb! But I must say I was expecting a repertoire of opera favorites for this concert and when I saw it I was a bit shocked. Because I’m one of those fans that knows basically everything she sings and then I felt at loss looking through the rep and recognizing very few pieces. 

Joyce being her awesome self!

But no worries, I have already downloaded every single one of the songs, including one by Villa Lobos that I simply loved from an opera called Magdalena “”. It’s quite cool, this version bellow is sung by a great Brazilian mezzo soprano called Luciana Bueno. I remember the first time I saw her live on stage I was extremely shocked at how good she was, that was because she was playing the first wife in the musical “The King and I” and all of a sudden there’s this huge gorgeous operatic voice amongst the much shier musical theater ones. She was DA BOMB in that musical. Funnily enough this same musical was conducted by my own voice teacher who is all kinds of awesome herself.

But anyways, back to the topic, Joyce’s concert which I’m super excited about plus I’m taking ton of friends to see it and we will fangirl and it will be awesome. From the stuff I do know she is doing only two Drama Queens arias, “Piangero la sorte mia” which I one of my personal favorites so there’s a big YAY for that and “Morte col fiero aspetto” which is also one of my favorites. But I would just DIIIIIE (and this is the seventeen year old ´die´) if he sang Madre Diletta, it’s my favorite track from the whole CD and it turns me into a puddle of feels. Stuff that I didn’t know includes Haydn’s Ariadne of Naxos (I downloaded a version with Vesselina Kasarova posted by my good friend Mike, thanks hon!) and some Santoliquido (had no idea of his existence until today) canzonettas. But I’m still hopeful for operatic encores, SEVERAL, pretty please!! If I can expeculate, what I would love to hear as encores. Some Rossini awesomeness like “Tanti Affetti”, “Una Voce Poco Fa” and “Non Piu Mesta”. Also some Baroque bliss she does so well, like “Ombra mai Fu” or “Lasciami piangere”. Or Mozart, what I wouldn’t give for “Ecco il Punto oooh Vitelia/ Non piu di fiori” or even a simple “Deh Viene non tardar”. If she sang in French I would quite possibly DIE (that seventeen year old DIE again), like “Je suis gris” or ANY aria from Cendrillon (like THAT’s gonna happen).

Anyhow I’m excited and since I’m SUPER UBER nice I’m posting here the repertoires both are doing followed by links of the pieces in my favorite versions for us all to get acquainted.  My computer i kind of fucked up right now so I'll post the links when I can.

Natalie's and Laurent's Repertoire

Gabriel Faure

Puisqu'Ici Bas Toute Ame (V. Hugo)

Clair de Lune (letra P. Verlaine)

Après un Rêve (R. Bussine)

Mandoline (P. Verlaine)

Les berceaux (S. Prudhomme)

Prison (P. Verlaine)

Fleur jetée (A. Silvestre)

Pleurs d'Or (A.V. Samain)

Henri Duparc

Invitation au Voyage (C. Baudelaire)

Au Pays où se Fait la Guerre (T. Gautier)

Soupir (S. Prudhomme)

La Vague et la Cloche (F. Coppée)

La Fuite (T. Gautier)           

Francis Poulenc

Colloque (P. Valéry)

Calligrammes (7 poèmes de G. Apollinaire)

L'espionne

Mutation

Vers le sud

Il pleut

La grâce exilée

Aussi bien que les cigales

Voyage: Adieu amour nuage qui fuit

Fiançailles pour Rire (6 poèmes de L. de Vilmorin)

Leo Delibes

Les Trois Oiseaux (F. Coppée)

Charles-Marie Widor

Nocturne (A. Dorchain)

Qu'un Songe au Ciel m'Enlève (V. Hugo)

Joyce’s Repertoire

HAYDN - Arianna a Naxos

SANTOLIQUIDO I canti della Sera

1. L’assiolo canta

2. Alba di luna sul bosco

3. Tristezza crepuscolare

4. L’incontro

ROSSINI Beltà crudele

La Danza

HASSE/HANDEL "Drama Queens”

Morte col fiero aspetto (Antonio e Cleopatra)

Piangerò (Giulio Cesare)

AMERICAN SONGS

Beautiful Dreamer (Canção de Stephen Foster / Arr. David Krane)

Lovely Jimmie (Jerome Kern)

Food for Thought (Heitor Villa-Lobos de “Magdalena”)

ROSSINI Riedi al soglio (Zelmira)

As my book addiction continues...

Hey there world! Aren’t we all loving all these updates? Ah, I have so many news so let’s get to them. I don’t know if I mentioned but I did get into the Vancouver Community College, YAY ME! Unfortunately I won’t be able to go this year because of many reasons. But on a happy note I did start having classes with my voice teacher again last week and so I feel very well looked after. Gosh I had no idea of how much I missed her, she’s so much more than a coach, she’s really one of the most precious friends I have, plus she has such a wonderful soul. Anyway my voice sounds like crap because I haven’t vocalized properly for the past months but it will heal in due time.

My birthday is this Thursday and I’m actually going to spend it in São Paulo because I have a voice lesson. I’m going to be 24 and wow, suddenly I feel kinda old, twenty freaking four.

This weekend I did an experiment and went on the famous ‘balada’, that’s the dance clubs here in Brazil. It was nice, I guess. The music kinda irritated me, you see you would have about 30 seconds of the tunes you know and love and sing along to followed by 5 minutes of electronic nonsense. Hey, I’m a very open minded person when it comes to music but that electronic crap is just fucking dumb. How am I supposed to dance to something that doesn’t touch me? Mind you that I did ingest alcohol so my senses were slightly off and still I could not get into the vibe everyone else seemed to be so hooked on. I guess I’m just picky, I know that there are some great (gay) ‘baladas’ which actually play normal music, those awesome 90’s songs and pop songs that I really like so that’s where I wanna go from now on. Plus I was a bit shocked at how the majority of the girls were dressed. Some of them seriously looked like hookers, real time prostitutes plus they were so young. I guess you are thinking I’m picky and old fashioned but I myself was wearing a rather short dress but nothing compared to the extremely high heels (which I find extremely stupid for one to wear at a dance club that has no place whatsoever for you to to sit), butt length mini dresses, shorts and skirts, with the occasional crop top, I seriously felt like a nun. I’m amazed that young women think that this is sexy, exposing SO much of their bodies, I find it extremely vulgar. But anyways, I’m not going to solve the problems of the world nonetheless the lack of self respect most young women in that club have with this post.

In other news I did overdo a little bit last week at the book store buying the grand total of 9 new books. I know I have a disease, I’m a shopaholic. So that’s what I want to dedicate this post of today for, to talk about the 9 books I bought that I haven’t read yet (I did start reading one and I’m already halfway through it, I’ll save the best for last)

As my Agatha Christie obsession continues I cannot seem to be able to walk into a place and not buy if not one of her books. When I went to the supermarket for groceries last week I bought two. The Pale Horse, I do believe they used this story for the series Marple (which is a TV series for Miss Marple the sweet old lady who solves mysteries better than any police detective) but the original one does not involve my mother’s favorite bird watching old lady. For this series (as well as Poirot) they do get some of the stories Christie wrote that don’t involve Poirot or Marple and adapt it inserting either of them. But as for the book it’s apparently set on a country side village in England (aren’t they all?) where the vicar has been assassinated and suddenly many people start getting sick. Intriguing hun? Plus it features one of my favorite sidekicks, Ariadne Oliver who is a detective stories novelist always in search of new inspiration.

Then I bought Towards Zero, mind you both of them are in Portuguese. I don’t really like reading translations because normally they are very badly done but I find that whoever translates Agatha Christie for Portuguese is a standing out exception. Just like Pale Horse they also used this story for the series Marple but the original does not feature her but a Scotland Yard detective named Battle.

When I went to Livraria Cultura last Thursday with far too much time in my hands I got another Christie book but this time in the original language. My collection actually varies from Harper editions bought in the US to 60’s and 70’s editions both in Portuguese and English that belonged to my mother to the L&PM Pocket ones in Portuguese. Ordeal by Innocence was something I had been wanting to read for a while. You see I had this friend who was crazy about Agatha Christie and after he passed away his mom gave away his books to several friends and I picked out a big hard covered one called Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks. This is the sort of book that you have to be a real big fan of Agatha Christie to read and it only makes sense if you are familiar with all her stories which are MANY. So I had read every single one of the books mentioned in the first chapter (before each chapter you have a list of the books you must have read to truly understand it) but one, Ordeal by Innocence so there you have it!

Christie aside let’s turn our attention to another lady author I adore. I don’t know if I ever mentioned here but I do LOVE to cook! Ah, it’s one of the utmost joys of my life, I love to go out to buy the ingredients, selecting them one by one, making the dish all by myself while singing opera and then eating it and most importantly feeding the ones I love. And one of my favorite modern novels is in fact Julie & Julia, it inspired the movie with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. So in this spending spree I was resolute in getting a recipe book. But the thing with recipe books is that I can only get them in Portuguese because of the ingredients, many ingredients in recipes from American books are simply not sold in Brazil so it becomes quite frustrating.

I actually had my mind set on buying Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking because it’s so iconic but the store did not have it. What they did have was a ‘sort of’ translation of those two books called A Arte Culinária de Julia Child (which I roughly translate to Julia Child’s Art of Cooking). I’ve decided that just like Julie I’ll be making every single recipe in that book, already got the ingredients for the first soup in the book.

And then I spotted something that I have a very strong feeling I only bought because it had a beautiful picture of Meryl Streep on the cover in a French market all smiley faced and ‘oh, it’s so good to live in France’. It’s called Minha Vida na França (My Life in France) and it’s a memoires book written by Julia Child about her life in France.

I also got a very thin looking edition of The Great Gatsby because I haven’t seen the movie and apparently everyone knows the story but me. I only bought the thin version because all the others had very ugly covers and I so did not want to own a book with Leonardo DiCaprio’s face on the cover. It’s bad enough that I have a book that has Kristen Steward’s face on it and you all know what I’m talking about.

Moving on toward the a more modern sort of literature but always sticking to female writers I bought the book that originated one of my favorite TV series, Sex and the City by Candace Bushnell. It’s so odd to think that when I was younger and first saw this show I was so sure I was just like Charlotte. But now I feel more inclined to agree with Samantha in most things, I wish I had her balls though, she is one self confident lady, but I do have her drive.

Then I got Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophia Kinsella because let’s face it, story of my life, right? And I love the movie, it’s so lovely! Although I do know that the original story is actually set in London other than New York City.

And last but most definitely not least book I got was Fifty Shades of Gray by E.L. James. I have been hearing so much buzz about this book for such a long time that curiosity finally won over after I read the first page. After I left the bookstore I went to a close by Starbucks and started reading it, well, more like devouring it. Very early on you can tell that the book is a page turner and as a matter of fact quite amusing!

For those of you who don’t know, Fifty Shades of Gray actually started out as an adult fanfiction about Twilight. The author then got inspired to write her own story based in both her fantasies and in the fantasies of many, many women around the world. The book was a sellout phenomenon, at one point it was selling one copy per second, per fucking second!

It tells this story about a girl named Anastasia (I find that name gorgeous) who is just graduating college. She’s rather insecure and is the romantic Austen book and a cup of tea kind of girl. I find it interesting how there is very little actual description of how she looks, she’s a burnet, fair skinned, average body, messy haircut but that’s about it. I do find that rather brilliant because that makes it SO easy for the reader to imagine herself living through Anastasia.

So she’s agreed to help out her flat mate who got sick and can’t make it to interview this big shot company owner so she goes in her place. Anastasia expects Christian Gray to be a 40 year old man but is socked when she comes face to face with a young twenty something year old Greek God. Handsome, graceful, hot as hell and completely full of himself. You would think she would act extremely meek and shy around him but she actually makes quite bold remarks like “You sound like a control freak” and “So you wanna possess things” You are a control freak.

He’s intrigued by her and starts pursuing her, he asks her out and she’s most of time like “Is this even real? What the hell can he possibly want with me?”. As they get to know each other more and more and liking each other more and more Christian decides to show Ana what he’s into and how all his ‘relationships work’. He’s into BDSM which stands for bondage/discipline, dominance/submission and sadism/masochism, so he likes to tie up his partners and have his wicked way with them. But don’t worry because it’s all consensual, that’s the fun for him to have the person want to be in this situation, to make the person want to be in this situation.

Needless to say that Ana is mortified because she fell for this guy and to make matters worse he wants her to sign this contract that dictates how she has to live her life basically while she is his ‘submissive’. But, the thing is, there is a catch, because Christian also starts falling for her so he bends every single rule in his book to please her. Plus Ana has her protestations in regards to many things in that contract and changes most of them so we are really left with the sexy part and none of that real heavy stuff.

I haven’t finished yet, have about 150 pages to go. Plus it’s a trilogy so I plan on finishing it by Thursday so I can buy the other two then when I go to São Paulo. I did not expect to like this book but I did, it’s fun, it’s funny, it’s very believable in a sense that the heroin is of flesh and blood and could be just anyone which I think is one of the main ingredients of the success of the book. Yes, it does have rather detailed descriptions of their sexual adventures but that doesn’t bother me not even a bit. I mean, I have been reading fanfiction for the past 10 years so I’m more than used to this kind of stuff. And something that delighted me was the fact that the author is really one of those everyday people who writes great stuff for fanfiction and all of the sudden she’s a published author selling millions of books! I did also see a lot of writers scold her work and say it’s garbage and it’s porn and I find that so silly and it's an extreme contradiction since everybody has sex, so what’s the harm in writing about it? We’re in the 21st century for crying out loud!

  

Well so far so good with 50 Shades of Gray, I love it that the name comes of a line Christian says to her about him being 50 shades of fucked up. As I said it’s a very funny book and very hot might I add, especially since now I know that the guy playing Christian is Jamie Dornan, aka the Huntsman from Once Upon a Time. 

there we have it, the collection! 

And so that's it! I think that for my next post I'll be retelling my last day in NYC from February that I haven't covered yet. Dang that was a fun day! Cheers all!