Last Vacation Monday, time to reminisce?

Next week,  it will be my last vacation Monday. As I always do, I am already antecipating the end of my vacation. It seems that to be whining about how short vacations are makes me somehow believe that they are in fact  longer. How about giving up on whining for a change! Instead, how about putting my memory bank to work for me. Instead, I could reminisce about the best vacation memories ever. Let's start, then.

I was born in a small town called Presidente Venceslau, São Paulo State, Brazil. I lived there until I turned 16. Brazilian summer school vacation takes place during the months of December, January, and half of February. While American schools have Spring Breaks, in Brazil we have Winter Breaks; fifteen days off in late July. Until I turned 16, I used to spend both winter and sumer vacation in São Paulo, the capital, where my extended family lives. I would spend each vacation with my cousins, aunts, and uncles.

Staying in São Paulo, especially after my 12 years of age, I was given the chance to leave my uncle's apartment, and I started getting to know the neighbors' kids in the building. It was a 12-floor building that had some strong color on the outside, something called "terracota" color, in Brazil. I remember playing games in the basketball court located behind the building. I also remember climbing the tall walls which gated the whole community. After getting to the top, being able to see beyond the walls,  I would realize how bad* that neighborhood was.

Then, the shopping times marked their presences. My aunts and uncles loved taking me to Paulista, Iguatemi, Ibirapuera, and Morumbi Shopping Malls. Later on, Center Norte Shopping Mall was just opened. For being brand-new, it sorta became an obsession to me and to my peers. We used to go to that mall almost every day of our vacation. I had no swimming pools in São Paulo and this city has no beaches. It is near the ocean undoubtly, but it is not a coastal city. Shopping malls were the answer.

Here, at Galeria do Rock, I bought my very  first rock records by bands
such as Circle Jerks, The Cure, The Smiths, The Clash, Sepultura, Led
Zeppelin, and obviously the grunge Seatle bands in the 80's and 90's

Even after Roberto and I started dating, my vacation in São Paulo never ceased. We arranged to meet in São Paulo and the plans always worked. We used to have so much fun by exploring malls but also the underground scene of punk rockers' galleries and such, very  filthy, dark, and scary for regular people. It has escalators, and several shops door-to-door. There people could get tattoos, buy their favorite counterfeit band T-shirt or leave blank k7 tape to record a very rare album that you would never find at any other spot on Earth. This place is called Galeria do Rock. It has been years, probably since 1995 that I haven't been to this fantastic place for underground music aficionados.

*By bad, I mean that I could see only poor houses, filled with young women that could be working, but they stayed home taking care of kids, cooking and cleaning all day, and they seemed to have no other skills whatsoever. I remember them calling us names for no apparent reason, except for the fact that we were dressed better and lived better as well. I hate analysing things this way.