Day 1, February 2007 (arrival)

I slept a long, deep, dreamless sleep. Then I woke in a narrow, dark room. Outside, a constant rushing sound. I got up and opened the shades, opened the windows. Ten floors below, there was the constant rushing sound of traffic. Across, a solid wall of apartment buildings with its hundreds of windows looking back at me. A feeling of containment, of being surrounded from all sides. Boxed-in.

I ventured out into the hallway. Checked if Lilian was home. No, gone. I took a shower in her white, white bathroom. Dozens of perfume bottles, shampoo bottles, conditioner bottles, sunscreen bottles on her wide marble sink. Piles of sunglasses stacked on the shelf above. I dried off in my room, stared at my belongings on the desk. Toiletries bag, books, notebooks, wallet, passport pouch, camera. My whole life contained in these few things.

I walked to the kitchen barefoot, feeling the cool floor beneath. This was new. After months of London winter, a drafty apartment, and a dirty old carpet, my skin touched the elements -air, stone- in a completely different way. My feet on the hard, cool floor and no cold, no cold at all. Wearing a sleeveless shirt and shorts, I felt a fresh, new freedom. No layers, nothing swathing your body. Seeing your legs, seeing your pale, pale arms. Seeing your knees, and your ankles, and your toes. Even they looked new, different, almost detached from myself. And there was no cold at all.

The kitchen was large and white-tiled. A bright, bright kitchen, like the one at home in Caracas. Light pouring in. The cold tiled floor beneath my feet. I sat at the kitchen table. There was a newspaper on the table and a basket of bread and a big slab of moist, white cheese in a glass container. I put a pot of water on the stove to boil. No kettle here. I went back to the table, and started reading the newspaper with great hunger.

It was an enormous hunger; I swallowed words whole, gulped down long sentences. I read and read, turned the page and read. A hissing sound came from the stove. I rushed and saw that all the water had evaporated. Just a few drops on the metal surface, slithering back and forth, and the hissing sound. I poured more water in the pot, placed it on the stove again, and went back to the table to read the paper. Ardently, fervently galloping across the pages, savouring and swallowing the words whole. Chuva, alagamento, vôo... This last one a particularly tasty word. Like I was eating the call of a weird prehistoric bird.