Music and Memories

Dreae put out a request for some mix tapes to help her write poetry and get "Dora the Explorer" out of her head. I wrote her, because I've got this tape from Joe's Bar in Porto kicking around on my desk. God only knows why I've hung on to it this long, because I don't have any way of playing it, save for the crappy player in the Jeep. But while I was writing a comment in her blog, describing the tape, memories kept flooding into my head, things I haven't thought of in a long while.
I remember one evening during the Tall Ships visit, when while being rowed ashore (we were anchored off the shipyard, cause the Sagres had taken our spot on the dock) some of the hideously polluted D'ouro river water splashed on my foot, which unbeknowest to me had a scratch on it. By the time that Elin and Ellen showed up about an hour later, my foot was swollen and weeping blood and pus. Elin went back across the bridge to the ship and brought back some antiseptic before the blood poisoning travelled up my leg. I've still got the scar.
But there are some happier memories as well, nights filled with music and conversation; putting on a record and ducking out to go to the cafe for one of my 20 nightly expressos; someone bringing back that weird latenight Portuguese pizza; going to Meia Cave after Joe's closed at 2, and then to Industria to dance until 6; making my way home for an hour or two of sleep before starting work.
This isn't from that summer, but from the following winter when Elin and I were sailing on the Eye of the Wind, but it reminds me of that time.