Kikas and Marmaduke!

I am back from my travels. Porto first, then Greece, where I spent a few lovely days down in Kalamata where Katerina and Fotis have a village house up in the mountains above the city. Just gorgeous!

And Porto also lived up to all expectations, a very nice city indeed. But who cares if the city is nice or not when you have friends living there who would make it worthwhile to travel to the armpit of the universe, much less a lovely old town like Porto. And I do! I did meet CapCat and Meilo - but then there was also a huge big surprise! I also met Kikas Babenco and Marmaduke Arado, the two stunning performance artists - really the best of the best - who are long time and very dear friends in SL!

I had absolutely no idea that they lived in Porto, for some weird reason I thought that they lived in Lisbon. Why I should have been so firmly convinced of this I have no idea, but in any case I left for Porto without even giving a thought to letting them know I was coming to Portugal. Which actually ended up providing for a few hilarious moments when I showed up on their doorstep and introduced myself as Alpha Auer. Marma was the one who actually opened the door and I will not forget his face in a hurry - quite a study it was! And then Kikas came running down the stairs and...

No one wears alpha.tribe stuff quite like Kikas - so I absolutely had to add some shots of her clad in my togs... :-)

So, we got together especially one evening - the last one I was there - and they took me to this lovely old fashioned restaurant where we sat and blabbed away for hours. This is what is quite amazing with SL friendships: It is like you've known each other forever when you meet in RL. And that is how it happened with us. We gossiped about common friends, talked about our countries, politics, world affairs (where I was very happy to see that we are all on the same page), this that, the other - and soon it was time for me to go to the airport to catch my flight to Athens.

I am so happy I went to Porto. Meeting Meilo and CapCat (who were the ones who took me to Kikas and Marma's house actually) and then Kikas and Marma! Such good friends, such warmth, such solidarity - and one that has been founded and cultivated in what is after all the most ephemeral of places - a virtual world.

We are blessed...