El Perro del Mar – Please Stay

Lately, ‘Please Stay’ is one of the songs I listen the most… not only because it sounds great but also because we are in quarantine, as a result of more and more new covid-19 cases in Portugal. I am lucky because I just finished my post-graduation in Porto and, now that I’m taking the first steps to freelance, I can work from home. 

It’s been interesting to work from home. In general, as you may have noticed, I’m a very organized person, and I just realize how challenging it is for me to manage my time, either to work or to leisure. 

These last weeks I started to watch two series that I would like to share with you: ‘Chernobyl’ is a mix of documentary and fiction and narrates the story behind one of the greatest nuclear disasters of all the times, in Chernobyl [you can see my photo essay here], as you may know.

I found this series truly interesting, done in such a way I felt keen to follow every episode. However, I didn´t like the fact this series is spoken in english, specially when every character has an ukrainian or russian name… it doesn´t make any sense, trimming off veracity to the story.

Another thing I didn´t like about ‘Chernobyl’ are some imprecisions: after visiting Kiev [you can see my photo essay here], I know the city quite well and I could recognize local buildings that in the episodes are said to be in Moscow [you can see my photo essay here], for example.

‘My Brilliant Friend’ is the other series I am following at the moment. I have to start to say that I read Elena Ferrante’s tetralogy throughout 4 consecutive months last year. And I loved every book! In my opinion, Ferrante’s ability to write it’s manifested by the density of her characters.

I spent so much time with them that they became extremely real to me, to my days, to my thoughts. You can imagine my excitement when I heard about the series…

In general, every book is better than its audiovisual version: not only it is more complete but the reader creates his/her own image of the story. In my opinion, ‘My Brilliant Friend’ is no exception. After watching the first 2 series of the complete series, I´m glad I read every book because, even if the series is amazing, there are small details missing in every episode. 

Both ‘Chernobyl’ and ‘My Brilliant Friend’ are series I suggest you to watch. Even if they are not perfect, they are good enough to keep me motivated to work more and stay at home during this peculiar period. And, at the moment, that´s the most important! Be well, be safe and, just like El Perro del Mar plead, ‘Please Stay’… at home, just for the next few weeks ok?

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